Reincarnated As A Chameleon And Eating Everything To Evolve

Right after Matthew said the usual words to the system, he fell asleep and quickly slipped into his consciousness. When Matthew opened his eyes again, he was in the usual black room that he had visited for the fourth time already.

Matthew still had some uncertainties about the details with his fourth evolution, but he knew that no matter how much he spent his time trying to imagine it in his head and ponder about which body parts that he wanted to add to his body and if he missed anything in particular, the best choice to do was to see it for himself.

Why should he think hard and try to imagine his fourth evolution in his head and run a very bad simulation with his mind if he can see it for himself and even see a list of all the animal body parts that he could add to his body?

Of course, Matthew didn't just go in blindly and just hoped for the best either. He had done all the preparations he could do. All those poorly made simulations in his mind were one of the examples of his mental preparations.

He imagined himself adding the deer's antlers to his head and fighting with it, he found that it will probably be quite useful to ward off his enemies' attacks, but after remembering that most of his enemies now could either use aura abilities or they are naturally strong, Matthew was afraid that the long antlers would be targeted by his opponents and be broken easily without protecting it with his aura.

Besides, he already has crocodile scutes and the solid aura gauntlets, why would he need another body part for defense? And if he really does still add the large and long antlers to his forehead, then there's a chance they will be stuck when he's traversing through the thick and lush forest trees. 

He had also imagined changing his monkey legs with the wolves' or the deer's to make him able to run faster since the current monkey legs were not specialized for sprinting. However, he also shelved the idea for now since he didn't even run that often. His main method of moving his jumping from one tree to another tree, and his monkey limbs were a great compliment that boosted his ability to swing around the trees and jump 10 meters distance easily. 

He tried imagining himself using a few other animal body parts and while some of them worked brilliantly in his head and made him want to evolve as soon as possible, most of them just didn't feel compatible with his current fighting style.

Matthew had done his best and if there were still some things that he missed, it was purely not because he didn't plan to prepare enough, instead, it would be because of his lack of foresight and inability to predict what would happen down the road of his life.

Matthew was aware of that fact and he couldn't blame anybody for it as nobody knows how to see the future.

'Maybe except for that bearded god…'

But he was no god, Matthew was aware of this and didn't try to reach for perfection. Matthew only hoped that each time he made a mistake, he would recognize it and prevent himself from making the same one in the future.

Making mistakes might be fatal in some cases, but Matthew was sure that whatever doesn't send him to meet the bearded god, he will be able to come back even stronger and better than before.

Matthew then firmed his resolve once again and put aside all the distracting thoughts, before focusing back on his fourth evolution.

'System, please bring up the initial evolution 3D model.'

The 3D Hologram that showed what Matthew's whole body would look like after he finished the fourth evolution from head to toe appeared right in front of him right in the middle of the dark room. 

Different from the last evolutions where Matthew saw a stark difference between his 3D hologram model and his current body, this time, Matthew could only spot a few things that might look slightly different from on his body. And if he didn't pay much attention to finding the difference, he might not even have realized them.

First, his body got a few inches taller, making him stand about 170cm tall.

'It looks like the evolution process took account of my now bipedal body structure and made me taller from my head to my legs instead of making my body longer from my head to my tail.'

'It's awesomely versatile and adaptable to new changes…'

And besides getting a boost on his height, Matthew also noticed that his muscles looked more refined than before. Although it didn't look like he got a large mass of muscle that made him look similar to the bodybuilder's back on earth with their muscles so big that they look like they were about to pop off, Matthew could see that he has more lines and details on his body and that his muscle appear to and should be firmer and stronger compared to before.

The claws on his limbs had also received the boost from the fourth evolution as they looked considerably bigger and denser than before. Even Matthew himself would be worried if he had to fight someone with claws as tough looking as what he got in the 3D hologram.

Just from looking at how he would probably look after finishing his fourth evolution without using the special evolution feature and adding more animal body parts to his body, Matthew felt that his change seems to be a little underwhelming.

However, he knew better than anyone that not every change and upgrade to his body could be seen by the nȧkėd eyes. Without hesitating, Matthew called out to the system to see what exactly the upgrades and changes he will get in his fourth evolution.

'System, please open up the evolution catalog.' He said calmly.

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Evolution Catalog

+Unlocked Venom Option Glands

+Increase in teeth, claws, scales, and scutes toughness

+Massive Increase in tongue's muscle strength and length

+Increase in body size

+Increase in muscle mass

+Increase in heat sensor range

+Massive increase in scanner range

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Since Matthew read the list starting from the top and scrolled down to the bottom of the list, Matthew, of course, noticed that there were two lines saying he had unlocked something.

But he didn't read the two lines immediately and skipped down until he saw the familiar increase and massive increase notification about the general parts of his body.

He decided to do this since he remembered that the last time he saw a notification telling him he unlocked something, it was at his second evolution and it was the first time he unlocked the aura pathway in his body and unlocked the chameleon's aura ability. He didn't know what he unlocked this time, but he was guessing that it would be something new and exciting for him, so he kept it for the last after he finished analyzing the other 'increases' that he got.

The first three increases were still the same increases that he got after each of his evolution, basically telling him that he got physically stronger overall. The only addition was that his scutes were also getting an upgrade. Becoming even tougher than before, which is only fair since the deeper he went into the forest, his opponents' body parts also became tougher compared to their weaker counterparts on the outer side of the forest.

And another surprising fact for him is that his tongue that was already long and strong enough to completely tie Ethan up back when he was still a kobold kid was still getting another upgrade, making its strength and length increase even more.

With all the different things he has right now, Matthew rarely uses his tongue in a real fight. It was too dangerous to risk extending his long tongue forward and exposing it to any kind of danger.

It might be bitten by a snake, smashed by a bear, or stabbed by a boar's tusk if Matthew had recklessly used his tongue in his fights. 

Matthew didn't know how the other chameleons fight and how they usually use their tongue, but seeing that it still got a massive upgrade even at level 20, made Matthew thought that the tongue was probably one of the main defining traits of the chameleons and it was also should be one of their main methods of fighting and surviving in the forest.

'I've already traveled quite far into the forest, but I've never seen any other chameleons beside myself, where are they? Can they even talk and understand me if we meet? Wait, since now I look so different from them, will they attack me if I try to approach them?'

'Well, maybe they will recognize that I can also chameleon's aura ability and cease their attacks. I'll just think about it later when I do really meet them.'

Matthew also noticed the range increase of the heat sensor and the scanner function. It usually had never been written in the evolution catalog, but this time, it was not only included, but it even said the scanner had a massive increase. Matthew then asked the system about it, and it replied,

[The heat sensor will have its range increased to 25 meters while the scanner function range will increase to 100 meters.] The system shortly replied.

'100 meters?? Isn't that 10 times the amount of my current scanner range…? But this means the scanner function could finally work better than my eyesight in finding enemies or prey to eat.'

Now that Matthew had understood all the 'increases' that he got, he finally went back to the top of the evolution catalog list and read the two unlocks carefully.

'Unlocked Venom Option Glands and

Unlocked Chameleon Inherent Aura Element…' He muttered.

He didn't know a single thing about the two things that he had just unlocked. But just from their names, Matthew could guess that they will be anything other than ordinary.

Out of the two, Matthew decided to ask the system about the thing that he was interested in the most,

'System, what is the inherent aura element?'

[The inherent aura element is the element that a certain species has for their aura. An example of this is the Horribilis Brown Bear's wind element aura. The yellow color that the bears had when activating their aura is due to the bear's inherent aura was belonging to the wind element.]

[While another example is the Boa Dendroaspis' purplish dark aura belongs to the poison element.]

Matthew had always wondered why their aura had a different color compared to his white hazy aura, but he had never found the answer to why they were different. So Matthew just guessed that it's due to their aura ability making their aura a different color since his chameleon aura ability makes his aura invisible instead of emitting the hazy white aura.

But the system's explanation finally gave him the real, true answer to this.

'It was apparently because of their inherent aura element… Now that I think of it, the snake and the bear that had these different colored aurae were all above level 20.'

'That actually makes sense because the inherent aura element was only unlocked at level 20…'

But of course, after hearing this, Matthew hadn't yet finished asking his questions about the inherent aura element. On the contrary, he was about to ask the most important question so far,

'System, what is my inherent aura element?'