Chapter 8: If Only I Have A Poison...

When night comes, the forest starts to come alive and many different kinds of creatures come out of their hiding place and start their activity, some animals were eating grass and leaves and others hunted other creatures to be their food. Matthew, who only wanted to scout around and observe, and did not want to get involved in anything, stayed low between the grasses and walked cautiously on the ground.

This is Matthew's second night living in the forest and it is still weird for him to see such contrast in the forest between daytime and nighttime.

'Are they following a rule of some sort? Or the animals in this forest are all naturally nocturnal?'

Such questions appeared on Matthew's mind, but since he didn't have any clues or information about the phenomenon, and the system only answered questions regarding himself and his ability, he couldn't get any answers to those questions. Since he can't do anything about it, he only needed to get used to it, which he is doing right now.

The same as yesterday, Matthew met the creature that looked like a large praying mantis once again fighting against a large beetle.

'Are their daily routines include fighting each other every night?'

Now that Matthew is fully aware of the conditions around him, he is bold enough to stay close enough and observe the two of them for some time.

After observing them for some time, Matthew realized that the mantis-like creature only hit the beetle on the same spot and at an angle where its attack would be slipping to the side, and the beetle seemed doesn't mind since there is no wound or scar mark on its hard exoskeleton. 5 or so minutes have passed and the two finally break off from each other and seem to be proceeding on their day just like that.

'What? They are done? They just brush each other's bodies against each other and call it a day?"

The beetle then continued to fly up to one of the trees and eat the leaves while the mantis seemed to be going somewhere, and out of curiosity, Matthew decided to follow the mantis.

Matthew followed the mantis for a while, the mantis went on a different path from where Matthew explored this morning and the mantis finally stopped at a place where the grass is still tall, even taller than Matthew which helped him to blend in with the environment with his camouflage even more.

'This forest is surely big and there are a lot of places for me to explore, but what is it trying to do here?'

Soon, Matthew found his answer. The mantis looked like he was eyeing something at the tall grass, it moved slowly and subtly without making any sudden movements. The mantis then stopped at his track, and without Matthew being able to follow its movement, the mantis already swung its scythe-like hand to a patch of grass in front of it causing the patch of grass to be cleanly cut in two horizontally.

As Matthew wondered why would it cut a random grass just like that, after looking closely at one of the grass, he could see green blood splattered around the area and a creature that looked like a large grasshopper was currently on the ground, with its body cleanly divided in two horizontally.

Matthew then slightly backed away while thinking, 'Damn, I can't even see that with my eyes. I better not be messing around with that mantis.'

Matthew was thinking that it would be nice for him to have a weapon-like hand like the mantis for his body, but considering the risk that his own body may be cut in two just like the grasshopper if he messes with the mantis without proper preparations and after really thinking about it, the mantis had 4 other legs to support his scythe hand, while Matthew only had 4 legs as his limbs and he doesn't have a dedicated limb to only be his hand if he changed 2 of his legs with the mantis' scythe, he wasn't sure that he will still be able to walk with only 2 chameleon legs supporting his whole body. And with that, he decided to go back to the lake and search for other creatures on the other side of the forest.

Back at the lake, Matthew could see other varieties of creatures, the turtles and deers from yesterday can be seen near the lakeside eating leaves and berries from the trees, but today, Matthew couldn't find the boars from yesterday.

Matthew looked at each creature and then sighed in his mind 'Is there nothing else that I can add to my body? Having a deer leg or antler added to my body would be weird, the same as me having a turtle shell at the top of my body. But having the wolves' aura ability to boost my strength and speed would be good to have, I wonder if I can also get another creature's aura ability.'

Matthew then decided to stay for a while to see if there was anything else interesting happening, but nothing else happened. No wolves howl like yesterday or anything else worth watching, so he decided to go back to his nest to finish his half-eaten spider then sleep for the day. But then he noticed a shade of black appeared at the surface of the water.

The thing, whatever it is, moves at a steady pace and it seems to be heading in the direction of the group of deers who are currently eating berries near the lake.

The black shade moved closer and closer to the group of deers, and in a blink of an eye, something came out of the black shade and jumped straight heading into one of the deer that was closest to the lake. After the thing came out of the water, Matthew could finally see what the black shade was.

A large greyish-green crocodile with a size even bigger than the deer itself is currently holding a deer down at the deer's neck. The deer tried to fight his way out by kicking and struggling, but the bite didn't budge at all and instead became stronger. Soon, the deer's neck is broken with a loud crack sound and its whole body becomes limp before it is swallowed whole by the crocodile.

Matthew who just watched the whole event from start to finish, have one sentence in mind,

'I want that!!'

Now with a goal in mind, Matthew is thinking about how he could kill the crocodile and get the crocodile monster data so that he can also have a powerful biting force that can kill in one bite.

'But how do I defeat that thing?'

Seeing how powerful the crocodile was earlier, Matthew thought that there's no way that he could defeat it, even if with his handy sharp spider legs, he isn't sure that it can even put a scratch on the crocodile's back.

'What am I supposed to do then? My small body can't do any damage to it! If I'm fighting the wolves then at least I can poke them a thousand times to death, but those hard crocodile scales are just cheating!'

'Maybe if I evolve and become as large as an elephant I can crush the crocodile to death.' But without any knowledge of how the evolution process works, Matthew doesn't know how long it will take him to have a body as big as an elephant or if it is even possible to do that in the first place.

'System, can I evolve like that?' Matthew tried asking the system

'Host haven't reached the sufficient levels for the information asked, please reach level 5 to undergo the first evolution.' The machine-like voice said.

'Ah, Thank you for nothing then, system.' Even with sarcastic remarks, the system still didn't respond to Matthew's thanks.

'Now then, how do I kill it? If only I got something that can kill the crocodile. Since brute force is out of the question if only I have a potent poison that can kill it from the inside…'

'Sadly my tongue is only sticky, not poisonous and my body doesn't have any natural poison or something similar to it.'

Matthew then decided to go back to his nest and finish the half-eaten spider from this morning.

'If I couldn't get that crocodile muscle strength yet, I will climb my way from killing these spiders to killing the wolves, and finally that crocodile, just wait for me, crocodile!' Matthew thought as he voraciously ate the spider's body.

In the middle of eating, he realized that he forgot to wash away the spider's head that is full of dangerous venom.

'I mean, I'm already at 97% completion rate and there's still some legs and body left, I don't think I need to eat the spider head too, it is quite troublesome to wash away the venom, and I'm not sure if washing it away in the water will fully clean the head from all those dangerous venoms.'

'Wait…'

'Head full of what…?'

Then, something clicked inside his head…

'THAT'S IT!'