Chapter 2: Choice

【Zhongchang: A talent unique to serpents. So long as life persists, growth never ceases. Whenever a certain limit is reached, a shedding of the skin will occur, after which the serpent grows even larger. Additionally, shedding will also occur when the scales are damaged.】

【Sedu: Neurotoxin + hemato-circulatory toxin. The neurotoxin primarily acts by suppressing the medullary respiratory center and severing the nerves, causing respiration to halt and resulting in death; the hemato-circulatory toxin primarily acts by affecting the heart, blood vessels, and all components of the blood, inducing cardiovascular dysfunction.】

【Strong: As a reptile, one must possess a great number of powerful muscles in order to generate the tremendous force needed to propel the body through swimming.】

……

After satisfying his curiosity, Baichuan looked once more at the final two functions on the panel.

Ability Structure Library — easy enough to understand, just as the words suggest; it should be the repository of abilities he possessed. Currently stored within were ability templates of two creatures: the wild rabbit and the rat.

But why only these two?

Baichuan carefully recalled, then suddenly realized — weren't these the two kinds of food he had eaten today?

In other words, the abilities stored in this repository were related to the food he ate?

Staring at the panel, Baichuan speculated for a moment, but whether it was or wasn't wasn't the most important thing right now. In any case, he'd understand after trying a few more times in the days ahead.

After looking through all this, Baichuan turned his gaze to the very bottom of the panel — the final function.

There existed a button marked "Kedianji."

His consciousness reached toward that spot, and in the next instant, something unexpected happened—

In the span of a single moment, a force as deep as an abyss and as vast as the sea surged into Baichuan's body, and then his viewpoint began to soar, higher and higher!

When he came back to himself, he was already standing within a space of deep, inky blackness adorned with starlight.

That description isn't quite right, because he seemed to have lost the concept of a body — yet he felt not the slightest strangeness, as if it were meant to be. I am here, and I am there; I am everywhere.

And what drew his attention most in this space was a serpentine 3D model standing quietly within it.

The instant he saw that model, instinctively he understood what it represented — it was his current body.

The feeling was as if he had received a revelation; everything around him informed him of this.

Following his instinct at this moment, he extended an index finger and lightly touched the head of the model's serpentine body — if he had a finger, that is.

The next instant, the model was opened — yes, opened just like a file. Now he could cut or copy any abilities stored in the panel's Ability Structure Library that were compatible with his body and paste them in.

As long as it could be placed in without any particularly severe incompatibility, once this modification was complete, that ability would leap across that vast stretch of Time and evolve directly into existence.

It could be said that this ability alone had utterly shattered the common sense he had built up before — "for natural evolution in a creature to produce noticeable results requires at least around twenty thousand years."

Given Time, as long as he was granted a period, he would be able to stand at the very pinnacle of the entire world at an astonishingly exaggerated speed.

How exaggerated — simply like having a cheat code turned on!

When others' ancestors fought desperately for their current ecological niche, spending countless tens of thousands of years in frenzied evolution, battling to the death just to reach the top of the pyramid today—

Yet he could effortlessly freeload the fruits of others' labor.

Good lord, Baichuan couldn't help but marvel at this — what is the King of Freeloading?

This is it!

After learning of the panel's powerful aspects, Baichuan was somewhat impatient to try it out. He directly opened the panel's Ability Structure Library.

What met his eyes was a vivid wild rabbit and a sneaky little rat.

Seeing this, Baichuan sighed with some regret: "What a pity, I learned about this a bit too late. If I'd known earlier, I would have eaten more varieties today, otherwise I wouldn't be stuck with only two models to choose from now."

Once this panel's editing ability is activated, regardless of the final outcome, it will consume at least a little bit of points. These points can be seen as activating the panel's full operation — they won't vanish without being directly closed, and can also be seen as the energy required for an ability's evolution.

As for how he knew this? It could only be said to be like common sense — "when a person is thirsty, they drink water."

The only thing that gave him some relief was that even after the points were used up, the panel would not close again, because the first activation was the only time points reaching one were mandatory.

Pity as it was, editing still had to proceed. Baichuan refused to believe that the wild rabbit and rat — creatures near the bottom of the food chain that nonetheless hadn't gone extinct — didn't possess a single important ability.

Then he clicked open the model.

"Species: Wild Rabbit."

"Abilities: Minjie LV2, Fanzhi LV2, Tiaoyue LV1, Weixian Chajue LV1, Wadong LV1."

……

"Species: Rat."

"Abilities: Fanzhi LV2, Gong Sheng LV2, Xiuque LV2, Conghui LV1, Wadong LV1, Swimming LV1, Climbing LV1."

"Hiss, what a rich Ability Panel!" Looking at the rat's gorgeous Ability Panel above, especially after comparing it with the rabbit's, Baichuan sucked in a breath of cold air and clicked his tongue.

The number of abilities was almost comparable to his own.

No wonder — no wonder in his previous life, no matter how humans tried to exterminate rats, they could never wipe them out, and sometimes under special circumstances they could even cause great disasters. This Ability Panel truly commands respect!

But why were a bunch of abilities displayed in gray? And they were all LV2 level. Baichuan found this rather strange.

Unfortunately, this panel would not give him any answer.

He simply paid it no further mind. In any case, the answer — he would learn it someday.

He directly filtered out all the usable abilities.

"Abilities: Tiaoyue LV1, Weixian Chajue LV1, Wadong LV1, Conghui LV1, Swimming LV1, Climbing LV1."

Looking at these abilities, Baichuan fell into thought. He could only choose one ability now — so which one would be of the greatest help to him at present?

Tiaoyue? First one, pass. He truly couldn't imagine how a snake would jump. Setting aside compatibility issues, just picturing the image of a snake bouncing forward made his eyes sting.

Danger Perception? This one's useful. Although as a Yanjingwangshe he already stood near the top of the ecological niche, and aside from those few natural predators there was little to fear — but who would complain about having less sensitivity to danger? Tentatively keeping this one.

Wadong? This one seemed decent. At least, after learning it, he wouldn't have to seize others' dens for his own lair in the future.

Wherever he went would be home, and it offered a little help for safety too — especially since the environment he lived in had particularly frequent rainfall, and sometimes his den was easily flooded.

Conghui? If it were a boost to wisdom, that would be fine, but he looked at the description: 【Conghui: Develops the host's brain, granting the host the intelligence of a rat.】

The intelligence of a rat… Seeing this, Baichuan knew it wasn't suited for him. He'd have to be out of his mind to give up human intelligence in favor of a rat's.

One must know that the reason humanity became the master of the world was precisely that clever brain.

Swimming or climbing? These didn't even need thinking about — pass. Because he already possessed these abilities innately.

In the end, it came down to choosing between two?

Danger Perception or digging a hole?

Baichuan stared at these two abilities in thought for a moment, then finally decided—

(End of Chapter)