Chapter 87: Laendryte

The creature's internal juices mixed with its blood, creating a putrid mixture that burned away at Lucius's skin. Even though the creature's internals had been torn to shreds, its body continued to swallow him, inching him further into its stomach.

Lucius didn't have it in him to cast another solar burst and have enough solar energy left to heal himself, so he tried to pull out the needle spear from his back, fighting against the creature's stomach muscles. He thrust his needle at the fleshy walls, before sticking both his hands through the hole and tearing it wide open.

The creature shrieked, trying its best to regurgitate him, but its throat muscles were in too much disarray to follow instructions, and Lucius continued to stab holes within it. All the while his skin was burning, he held on, making the creature regret every second of trying to devour him.

No one could claim that the creature did not have a strong will to live, it fought for nearly two minutes with a bloody throat, and holes appearing at random spots on its body. But still, it tried to wrestle Lucius out.

However, in the end, the one with the stronger will survived.

[+10 Agility.]

[+10 Stamina.]

[+1 Strength.]

Lucius stood atop the creature, his obsidian black eyes staring at his fallen opponent. His skin had melted, and his face was beyond recognition. Though it didn't hurt as much anymore, at some point he had become numb to the pain.

He quickly cast solar cleanse, and his skin slowly returned to its former state. The black goo that his body secreted -in response to the cleansing of the toxins that had entered his body- created a sort of protective layer that prevented him from getting burned further.

~There it is,~ he thought to himself, staring at his prize. He was so fatigued that walking felt like a chore, but he dragged himself towards the red fruit, inspecting it as he held it up in his hands.

It was more a thorn than a fruit, with spiky projections sticking out its entire circumference. Lucius crushed it with his hands, before tossing all the pieces into his mouth, and with that he was thrown into the 'white void.'

[Processing...]

[Warning, foreign matter is attempting to rewrite the user's genome...]

[Allowing foreign matter to rewrite the genome may result in the loss of system processes...]

[Allow foreign matter to rewrite genome or proceed with system recommendations?]

Lucius didn't even think twice before choosing 'proceed with system recommendations.' He didn't care what the fruit would give him, he wasn't going to risk losing any system processes.

[Processing...]

[Several genes possessed by foreign matter have been deleted. The system has selected genes suitable for use.]

[Proceed?]

~Proceed.~

[Rewriting users genome...]

[A System Event has begun.]

[All creatures linked to the user will receive select genes as well.]

[Processing...]

[Genome has been successfully rewritten.]

[Species has been updated: Leaf Being Guardian-> Laendryte Rojo [Guardian]]

[『Skill Tree』 has been updated.]

[『Quests』 has been updated.]

With that Lucius was thrown out into the physical plane.

~Huh?~ The sudden changes to his body made him feel dizzy, and he had to struggle just to remain standing.

He quickly called out his crux, to get some light to observe the changes in his body.

He was now the size of a boar, or perhaps a better definition would be the size of a dwarf. By all accounts, he could fit the description of 'human' of small stature if he were back on earth, but he looked the furthest from just 'human.'

Unbeknownst to him, most of his eye was now obsidian black, with only a forest green snake-like slit now acting as an iris.

His horns had branched out even further than before, now appearing like the antlers of a fully grown buck. They were now about 50 centimeters at the longest branch, with razor-sharp tips.

His skin was now completely brown, like the color of wood, with only the portion of skin covering his face being forest green. The white markings on his back now had an extra line, and were now dark red in color.

His tail had become thicker as well and was now 2 meters long. The flower at its tip had dried and its petals now had razor-sharp edges that could merge to form one large stinger.

His hind legs had also morphed, becoming like those of a wild cat, with elongated feet that made it easier to run in a quadrupedal stance.

~What the hell is this feeling?~ Lucius wondered to himself, his senses being overrun with a sudden urge, like a burning sensation emanating from his stomach.

He subconsciously licked his lips and razor-sharp teeth sliced at his tongue, drawing blood. As he lifted his hands to feel the wound, a set of claws emerged from his fingertips.

~Am I a-~ he didn't even need to finish the thought to realize it. The moment he caught a glimpse of the centipede's corpse, his body forced him to move towards it. Before he even knew it he was taking large bites out of the poisonous meat.

He tried to stop, but his body would not respond, the best he could do was repeatedly cast solar cleanse until it was full.

After finishing a good portion of the centipede's body, he felt satiated, and his stomach stopped burning.

[Catalyst absorbed.]

[Growth efficiency increased by 65%]

[Photosynthesis efficiency increased by 65%]

[Stats increased by 2%]

[Quest complete.]

[+200 exp]

[+5 points added to 『Poison Resistance』 in 『Skill Tree』.]

~This is some good quality meat,~ Lucius thought, savoring the taste of raw meat, while at the same time being disgusted at the thought of it.

~Huh? A new skill?~ he thought, reading the last line carefully.

He quickly opened his skill tree to confirm and it was indeed the case. A whole new branch had been added to the skill tree, and this one seemed to be poison based, as the first two skills were already unlocked. 『Poison Resistance』, and 『Poison Secretion』.

"This is nice and all but," Lucius stopped mid-sentence as he realized that the words that came out of his mouth were in a foreign language. He could understand them, but he was near certain that this was not the language he spoke before.

"This is going to be a problem," he realized, before sitting down to better inspect all the changes to his system.

A new item had been added to the system shop. As if an answer to his prayers, it was a "Language Encyclopedia," which he guessed would allow him to talk to the leaflings even with this new language barrier.

Next, he inspected his quests tab and found that on top of the catalyst absorption, and Evo points quests, he now had hunting, eating and poison consumption quests as well.

"I ate nearly half of this centipede. And if the system made changes to Pagan as well, I'm guessing he's a hunter now. Which means food will actually be an active issue," he thought to himself, already thinking about what the changes would mean for the future.