After swallowing the electric eel, Bai Chuan had accomplished the purpose of his trip. He raised his head and looked at the thick fog, which was already beginning to dissipate, realizing that dawn was close.
After thinking it over, he decided to head straight back. He had been away from the cave for several days and was ready to begin evolving again.
So the Great Serpent left the shore and slithered into the forest.
He raced along.
Before long, Bai Chuan suddenly stopped.
He turned around and slithered back. It wasn't long before he stopped in front of a large tree and climbed up its trunk.
At last, he paused beside a stretch of bare trunk.
"What's this?"
His eyes told him there was nothing there, just an ordinary branch. But his Heat Sensing Vision showed a source of heat.
It was long and narrow, with one end long and pointed. Beside its thicker end were four small spots of heat.
He stared at it, thinking carefully. Suddenly, a realization dawned on him. Could it be...
"Thump!"
A moment later, a soft tapping sound rang out: his claw striking the tree trunk.
A cry of pain followed. Bai Chuan felt something thrashing violently in his claws—the prey he had caught was struggling.
"Just as I thought."
Bai Chuan looked at the little creature slowly taking shape in his claws and spoke inwardly.
If he weren't a snake, he would have thrown his head back and laughed. What did a surprise look like?
This was a surprise!
He had long wanted to find this incredible animal, but had never come across one.
He had already given up hope, only to stumble upon one now.
What was this animal called?
A chameleon!
If there was one thing that determined how well the abilities of all living creatures in nature worked together, it was compatibility.
So which abilities were the most compatible? Given the abilities you already had, what would you most want to pair them with?
If Bai Chuan had to answer that question, he would say: a chameleon's Invisibility!
Venom plus Invisibility.
What a match made in heaven!
It was practically one of the most troublesome abilities in all of nature, one that made animals tremble at the mere mention of it.
Imagine it: a creature with lethal venom, always invisible, lurking like a forest wraith and weaving through the woods.
Which creature would dare act wild? Which could sleep soundly?
You want to act wild? You want to make a racket?
Fine. Tonight, he would sneak invisibly into your den and give you a nasty surprise.
Add human intelligence to the mix, and who could escape—from mighty tigers to tiny white rabbits?
As the saying went, "You can't touch a tiger's backside."
If Bai Chuan had possessed Invisibility back then, even in his original, weakest state, he would have dared say that he could touch a tiger's backside whenever he pleased.
Who knew? Perhaps he would have evolved and grown stronger even faster than he had now.
"Truly, just when you start feeling sleepy, a pillow appears. Looks like I'll have another trump card." Bai Chuan smiled and sighed as he watched the chameleon struggle in his claws.
Then, without another word, he crushed it and swallowed it.
With two pieces of good fortune in one day, Bai Chuan cheerfully set off for home.
After a day's journey, Bai Chuan returned to his familiar, luxurious cave.
He opened the Panel and selected the electric eel and chameleon models in turn. Their abilities popped up.
'Species: Electric Eel.'
'Abilities: Muscle Electricity LV2, Current Protection LV1, Diving LV1, Strength LV1, Current Detection LV1, Endurance LV1...'
'Species: Chameleon.'
'Abilities: Environmental Mimicry LV2, Aura Concealment LV1, Climbing LV1, Organ Mutation (Tongue)...'
"There are so few abilities. Apart from a few that are either exceptionally useful or especially powerful, they're mostly unremarkable. But the chameleon's scientific name is Chamaeleonidae? Learn something new every day."
Bai Chuan looked at the sparse list of abilities and couldn't help muttering to himself.
Still, the electric eel could rely on so few abilities to become a creature with almost no natural predators. Some abilities really were beyond the ordinary.
After muttering to himself for a while, Bai Chuan checked the points he had left: 'Points: 23 (3%).'
Only then did he start preparing to strengthen himself.
The familiar interface appeared again. After thinking it over, he decided that the electric eel's Muscle Electricity was a must-have.
As soon as the thought crossed his mind, the eel's electricity-generating ability shot up and entered Bai Chuan's model.
A prompt appeared.
"Select the location for ability evolution."
Along with the Panel's prompt, Bai Chuan saw two Light Particles appear on his model, connected by a line.
"What's this?" Bai Chuan was taken aback. After tinkering and experimenting for a while, he understood that it was asking him to choose where the ability would evolve.
Since the electric eel's electricity-generating ability was LV2, Bai Chuan discovered that he could evolve special electricity-generating muscles up to two meters long on his body.
But if he chose to evolve too many of these special muscles, they would even affect his Strength ability level.
If he chose the full two-meter Limit, his Strength LV2 would drop to LV1.
The abilities were clashing with each other.
Once he understood that, he zoomed in on his model and looked at the part of his body where the electricity-generating ability was located. There, he saw a dense array of neatly arranged, thin, plate-like muscles,
with a strange kind of tissue connecting each plate to the next.
The normal muscles that had been there before had already disappeared.
Looking at the plate-like muscles, Bai Chuan suddenly thought of something: a battery!
That was it. Seeing them reminded him of what he had learned about electric eels in his previous life.
Electric eels could generate electricity because their bodies contained special electricity-generating cells called Electric Plates.
These cells formed thin sheets of muscle in the eel's body, each one like a small battery. The sheets were arranged in an orderly pattern, as though following some kind of rule.
Individually, they didn't generate much electricity. But when combined, they produced a powerful voltage and current.
At last, Bai Chuan understood why the abilities clashed.
The electricity-generating muscles had mutated, leaving them with only one function: generating electricity.
These specialized muscles took up space in his body and interfered with the ordinary muscles that provided his strength. That triggered a chain reaction, weakening him.
So the question was, should he choose electricity generation, like a superpower, or powerful physical strength?
Bai Chuan thought it over carefully. He decided to choose electricity generation, but not to evolve it to a full two meters long.
He would evolve the rear part of his body over a length of just one and a half meters. Given that he was already more than five meters long, devoting one and a half meters to electricity generation was a pretty good deal.
The tail's transformation wouldn't affect him much. After all, snakes mostly used their tails to help maintain balance and assist with crawling.
So specializing those muscles wouldn't cause any harm.
Before you continue