Chapter 116: The Hidden Effects of Abilities—Awakening Intelligence?

Under the gaze of those terrifying eyes, the poor little kitten immediately lost its nerve.

Its whole body drooped as if dejected, and it silently turned around to head back.

But at this moment Baichuan was also completely baffled—this tiger seemed far too clever, not like a wild beast, but more like a seven- or eight-year-old child with fully developed intelligence.

Clearly, when he had first encountered it during the day, it hadn't been this clever or human-like.

During that time he hadn't edited its panel or used any abilities on it either… wait! Abilities?

Baichuan suddenly recalled that today he had used the ability "Forced Transmission" on this tiger.

Could this ability have other special effects, such as awakening intelligence? Or was it because of some special chain reaction caused by the peculiarities of the Great Zhou region?

For the moment, Baichuan had no idea what had actually caused it, because since obtaining this ability from that blond man, he had never used it.

Because he had too many abilities, and by the time this one had evolved, he was already on his way back to Great Zhou, and hadn't had time to test it at all.

Lost in thought, he slowly lifted the two rabbits in his claws—wondering whether it was really this ability's doing, wouldn't another test settle it?

Thinking of this, a special invisible ripple swept out, instantly passing through the body of one of the rabbits, after which Baichuan began transmitting a stream of information to it.

At the same time, his mischievous streak suddenly flared up, and the information he transmitted became rather improper:

"From today on, your name is Tu Yihao—this is the name I bestow upon you…"

At this point, Baichuan paused for a moment, then continued transmitting:

"You are the first rabbit ever born with intelligence between heaven and earth. Remember—strength is everything. You need not bow your head to any other creature. All you must do is use absolute muscle to beat the crap out of every one of your enemies!"

After finishing the transmission, Baichuan paid no further attention to whether it understood or not, and simply carried it along with its uninformed kinsman, following behind the tiger as they all returned to the cave together.

……

Inside the cave, Baichuan fed each of the three animals a small piece of broken-off martial stone fragment, then with a light tap knocked all three of them unconscious.

As for why he knocked out even the rabbits that didn't need editing—of course it was to prevent them from running away while he edited the tiger.

Then he looked at the tiger, and as a black line flashed in his eyes, the tiger's ability model instantly appeared within his panel space.

The familiar scene once again met his eyes, and Baichuan no longer hesitated, directly opening his ability structure library.

Although he wanted to check the difference between the two cases after feeding them martial stone, since he was editing anyway, the abilities it should have still needed to be given.

He was still hoping this tiger could mutate a good ability for him—preferably something like that fire bat.

So then, the choice of abilities needed careful consideration. At the very least, he shouldn't pick too many, to avoid spending too long staying and waiting to check, but they also couldn't all be trash abilities—at the very least they had to be of some help to him.

Therefore, what he currently lacked most was a power belonging to the electric current domain, so needless to say, the power he would give this tiger this time was Electric Generation.

Thinking of this, Baichuan directly selected his LV3 Electric Generation (Banzhu), ready to place it on.

But pausing midway, he recalled the evolution times he had summarized—one LV3-level ability took at least five days, and if he wanted to evolve its Electric Discharge ability, then Electric Current Protection was also absolutely indispensable.

In that case, the time required would be far too long, whereas stacking two LV2s only took six days in total.

Considering this, he silently retracted the LV3-level Electric Discharge, and switched to LV2 Electric Generation Muscle and LV2 Electric Current Protection.

Thanks to the inspiration he had drawn from electric-generating creatures like electric catfish and electric bats, today's Electric Generation ability no longer had that special muscle that would drastically affect the creature's muscular structure, because it was all placed on the body's surface layer.

Looking at this tiger, Baichuan directly chose to cover the area between both sides of its entire torso and back, as well as those two thick forelimbs.

With the successful placement of the two abilities, the tiger's ability model also showed slight changes, but since they were all internal and covered by that thick fur, it wasn't very obvious.

After examining it once more and finding no problems, Baichuan decisively chose to begin paying for the evolution.

The cost wasn't much—just four points. For him now, it really was a drop in the bucket.

And so, in reality, near an unconscious rabbit, a viscous fluid slowly began to seep out from the body of a colorful tiger.

Needless to say, Baichuan was already more than familiar with this fluid.

He directly dragged the two rabbits a bit farther away, to avoid them being accidentally killed.

And with that, he began a wait of six long days.

……

Time once again began to flow, and Baichuan began the first experimental record of his snake life.

On the first morning, the two rabbits that had eaten the martial stone fragments woke up.

But he didn't discover any changes in them—they neither grew stronger nor died on the spot, just as if they had eaten ordinary stones.

On the second day, the rabbit that had received the transmission began to show a slight change in its eyes—it seemed to have become much more spirited. Compared to being afraid of him before, now every time he delivered food to it, it at least knew how to curry favor, while the other one still had that same dumb look.

Baichuan knew that perhaps his forced-series ability really did have a certain intelligence-awakening effect, but regarding the martial stone aspect, no changes had been observed.

On the third day, still no changes—exactly the same as the second day.

On the fourth day, there was no further major change in intelligence for the two rabbits, but their bodies suddenly began to show signs of mutation—a pair of hind limbs became inexplicably thick, and they started standing upright on their hind legs.

Yet that same afternoon, the rabbit that hadn't received the transmission died, dissolving into a blob of indistinct flesh and blood. Baichuan hadn't even had time to observe the cause.

Because he had merely dozed off for a moment, and the rabbit was already dead. The only thing he could know was the information scanned by the panel, which had become: Gene Collapse, Unable to Scan.

On the fifth day, the muscles on the remaining rabbit's body began to bulge strangely, and the skin on its back actually split open, revealing a bloody, mangled mass of flesh.

This time, Baichuan finally understood how the other one had died.

Because on the afternoon of the sixth day, that rabbit also died—yes, died.

The cause of death was uncontrolled bulging of muscles throughout the entire body, instantly turning it into a writhing mass of flesh and blood.

This sight left Baichuan stunned for a moment, and he began trying to check the situation.

But the information scanned by the panel was exactly the same as the first one, displaying only one message: Gene Collapse, Unable to Scan.

(End of Chapter)