Leo wasn't passed out for long and as soon as his body recovered enough he was able to wake up. Still, that short time was enough for his abductor to reach her dwelling. Thus, when he woke up, he once again found himself in a foreign place. 

'That snake did quite the number on me.' Leo muttered as he glanced at his that was a little sore. Once he made sure that he was alright, he started checking the room where he was. He was in a little wooden room. The room was lit by the sun rays that were coming through a casement on the right wall. The room wasn't too big and apart from the plain bed he was currently lying on, there was only a little cabinet and a chair inside of the room. 

'Hum, it's quite minimalist. And from the furniture, it looks like I wasn't picked up by a beast, maybe a human. But I don't really want to interact with humans right now.' Leo muttered as he looked at the door and the window. He was sure that he could destroy them and easily exit. However he decided against it, first, he had no idea what the situation was like behind the door and he was also a little curious about the intention of his abductor. 

'Still, I shouldn't stay in the open like this.' Leo thought as he hopped from the bed and went under the bed.

'Ha, I can't believe I am hiding under a bed. But I don't have another option.' Leo muttered as he laid under the bed and started to look through the numerous notifications, starting with the one he already read.

[Ding……… you have killed a severely weakened rank D Armored bear King. You have received 800 Exp and 500 SC]

[Ding………you have killed a rank D beast for the first time. You have received 3000 Exp and 2000 SP]

[Ding………you have leveled up. Congratulations you have achieved level 7. You have received 5 AP and 2 SP] 

[Ding…….You have reached level 10. You have received 5 AP and 2 SP.] 

[Congratulations...You have received a new skill. You have received Shadow ball.]

[Ding……. Evolution tab unlocked. Expand/Collapse]

[Ding…… Armored bear King bloodline detected. Do you wish to absorb it? Yes/No]

[Ding…… you have successfully absorbed the Armored Bear King bloodline.]

[You have received 15 CONS, 13 STR, 7 AGI, 6 INT, 2 SPI, 1 CHA.]

[You have acquired the Earth elemental affinity.]

[You have acquired the following skill:

-Earth armor

You have acquired the following talent:

-Sturdy]

[Ding……… you have killed a weakened rank D Fire snake king. You have received 1100 Exp and 650 SC]

[You have reached the level max. You need to proceed with the evolution before gaining a new level.]

[Ding…… Fire snake king bloodline detected. Do you wish to absorb it? Yes/No]

[Shadow cloak has leveled up. Shadow cloak is now level 3.]

[Dash has leveled up. Dash is now level 5.]

[Shadow spike has leveled up. Shadow spike is now level 2.]

[Shadow ball has leveled up. Shadow ball is now level 2.]

[Ding... Congratulations, you have completed your mission. 

Do you wish to claim your reward?]

'Uhm, good. So I’m Lvl max and can evolve uh. Let’s take care of things in order. First things, Luxia what’s this bloodline absorption about.” Leo asked. He was very curious about it as the boost he received after absorbing the bear bloodline wasn't something he could ignore. 

[Each time you’ll find a good enough bloodline the system will be able to extract it and you can absorb it to strengthen your bloodline and gain some of the bloodline characteristics making you more powerful. The system only absorbs the bloodlines which are better than your own. Since you never encountered a beast with such a bloodline till then, the function was never activated.]

“Oh, so there is another way to become more powerful that doesn't involve level. The system is really too good for me. And what if I don’t want to absorb a bloodline?”

[You can exchange it for credits or you can choose to give it to someone else. But I advise you to absorb all the bloodlines you will find. The more bloodline you will absorb, the better the evolution choice you will receive will be.]

“Ok, so can you tell me what’s the bloodline ranking?”

[Yes. For mortal beast, you have 6 ranks.

Common, Advanced, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythical.

Each can be further divided into Low, Intermediate, and high.]

“Oh, this world is surely filled with some scary beast. And I'm a mere Common beast. " Leo was filled with bitterness as he thought of the immense chasm that was between him and a legendary beast. Just thinking about the power a Mythical rank S had was enough to make him shudder.

[Don't worry, your chances of meeting a legendary beast are very low, and even if you were to encounter one, they wouldn't bother with trash like you.] Luxia said coldly. 

'........' Leo wasn't sure how he should feel when he heard Luxia's words. 

'Anyway, it's me, the trash that is your host, not some useless legendary beast.' Leo retorted as he regained his bearing. 

[Yes, become the ultimate beast and show them who is the boss.] Luxia said, but this time, her tone was different, it wasn't as cold as before and almost sounded like she was cheering him up.  

'Oh! Look who has learned some tricks.' Leo happily said as he understood Luxia's intention and felt the emotion in her voice. It was good to know that she was slowly growing too. 

[What tricks.] Lucia asked as if she was clueless about what Leo was talking about.

'Haha, forget it. Proceed with the bloodline absorption please.' Leo said.

[Ok.]

[Ding…… you have successfully absorbed the Fire Snake King bloodline.]

[You have received 12 CONS, 11 STR, 9 AGI, 13 INT, 8 SPI]

[You have acquired the Poison elemental affinity.]

[You have acquired the following skill:

-Poison cloud

-Toxic ball       ]

'Mewhaha, the bonuses he granted are really good, much better than the one I received from the bear bloodline. And more importantly, I received its poison element.' Leo grinned as he relished in his newfound power. Now that poison was added to the list of his abilities, Leo couldn't help but feel like he was the villain of the story. First shadow now poison. 

'Ha, who cares? If someone has something to say I will just poison them to death. Hehe.' 

[You have received: Level +2, 15 AP, 10 SP, 30000 SC, LUK +1, Skill upgrade card ×1, Sphinx feather ×1, A title: Forest King, Shop function unlocked.]

'Oh yeah, baby. Finally!' Leo grinned as he ignored all his rewards and paid attention to the last one. His eyes shining like a lantern as he looked at it. The shop was finally unlocked. 

'I can finally put those credits that were collecting dust in the system to use.' Leo thought and immediately tried to open the shop system.

With a simple thought, Leo was able to open the system shop. When he opened it, he was shown a new window. On top of this window, there was the amount of the various currencies he was currently in possession of. Following after was a list of the various shop sections. Put together it looked like this

 [ SC: 44280    SP: 31        Gold: 0

•    Items

•    Skills manuals 

•    Skills 

•    Knowledge

•    Miscellaneous 

•    Scrapping]

Leo started by opening the items section. It had a great variety of items. Starting with potions of all kinds, various pieces of equipment, powerful-looking treasures, crafting and brewing materials, and ending with utility crystals like the teleportation one. Despite the variety of items, there wasn’t a single one above rank D. Also it seemed like the shop had a limited stock for each item. 

[You don’t need to be confused. All the items currently in the shop are Rank E-D. Each time you increase your rank the shop will add items of the following rank. Also, the shop content will be refreshed every week. ]

“I see” Between all the items Leo was currently seeing, he was mainly interested in the attributes boosting potions, buff potions, some of the utility crystal, and the storage treasure. The others were also good but for him right now they were useless. For example, he wouldn’t be able to use equipment unless he got a human form. It was the same for the crafting and brewing materials. Not only did he need a human form but he also needed the specific profession to make anything out of them. As for the item he was interested in, they were:

[Random attribute boosting potion: 

Rare

Grade: Low

Randomly adds 5-10 points to any of your attributes. Only work for being of Rank D or lower.

Cost:6000 SC ] ×1

[Strength boosting potion: Rare 

Grade: Low 

Randomly adds 5-10 points to your STR attribute. Only work for being of Rank D or lower.

Use: 5/5

Cost: 2000 SC ] ×2

[Intelligence boosting potion: Rare

Grade: Intermediate 

Randomly adds 10-20 points to your INT attribute. Only work for being of Rank D or lower.

Use: 5/5

Cost: 7000 SC] ×1

[Brew of misfortune: Rare

Grade: Low

When consumed, reduce luck by 50% for 1 minute.

Cost: 2000 SC] ×1

[Pretty: Common

Grade: High

Decrease your charisma by 50% for 3 minutes.

Cost: 1500]

[Potion of haste: Common

Grade: Intermediate

Increase your speed by 10% for 3 minutes.

Cost: 1000 SC] ×5

The crystals were items adapted to various situations like,

[Barrier crystal: Common

Set up a barrier able to withstand up to 3 full-powered attacks of rank D.

Cost: 2500 SC ]

[Teleportation crystal: Rare

Teleport you to a random safe location 10miles from your current one.

Cost:10000 SC]

[Concealing crystal: Common

Perfectly conceal everything in a 5 meters radius of you at most for 30 minutes from everything of Rank D or less. 

Cost: 2000 SC]

As for the storage items they did exactly what their name suggests.

[Storage ring: Rare

Contain a 5 cubic meter storage space.

Cost: 25000 SC]

'Oh my... I can't believe I wasted so much money.' Leo's heart ached as he remembered the teleportation crystal he used to escape from the shaman.

'No, it was for a good cause. Only by staying alive can one enjoy his wealth. Still, if I catch that fucker I will rip his head and turn it into a money pot.' Leo swore as he remembered the ugly face of the shaman.

'Sigh, even then, I, myself, am too poor.'  Leo's eyes shone as he saw all of these items. There was no need to explain the utility of any of them once again. But after seeing the price of each of them he felt very bitter and also understood one thing. He was truly, very much poor right now. The almost 50000 SC he owned right now would never be able to last a round of shopping. Heck, even the basic potion like the health and mana potion he received as a gift were worth at least a hundred SC each. 

'No matter where you are, wealth will always be important.' Leo sighed as he closed the items windows and opened the skills section.

Since seeing the shop sheet, Leo was trying to guess why there were two skills sections and now was finally time to understand. Opening the two skills sections together, he started looking around carefully.

The first difference standing out was the fact that the skills in the skills manuals sections cost SC (system credit) while those in the skills sections cost SP(skill points). The second and last difference was the fact that the skills section has all the skills of the skill manuals section while the opposite didn’t stand true.

“Luxia, can you tell me what’s up here?”

[What you get by spending Credit will be skills you’ll have to learn yourself before being able to use them and having the system recognize them. Meanwhile, what you get by spending Skill points are skills that you’ll receive all the knowledge about and will be able to use directly. The skills that are only accessible with skill points are passive skills or molding abilities you won’t be able to learn even if you want to or that are too difficult to acquire by normal way.]

'Skill points again.' Leo felt a little distressed as he looked at the price of the skills with some being worth up to 20 SP.

 

'Wait a minute, Luxia. My talent. I mean the quick learner one. It couldn't possibly work with the skills shop, right? '

[ I was wondering how long you’ll take before thinking about it. Yes, as long as you are spending skill points, the price will be halved.]

'Oh yea..' Leo mewed in delight and jumped up. In his excitement, he forgot that he was under a bed.

Bonk

'Fuck..' Leo cursed as he massaged his head. 

[Be careful.]

'Don't worry. I am more surprised by the fact that I didn't blast the bed apart.'

'Anyway, what you mean is the price will be halved every time I use SP. Even if I am leveling or upgrading my skills.' Leo asked with excitement in his voice.

[Yes. But the minimum price is 1.]

'Yeah.' 'Victory dance in my head.' Leo chuckled as he opened the knowledge section.

The knowledge section only contained books treating various subjects going from the most basic to truly advanced knowledge, from weird ones to serious ones. Currently, Leo only had access to basics book all between 500 and 1000 SC

[Basics of alchemy]

[Rank E Bestiary]

[Magic; Book 1]

[Guide to become a brawling master 1]

[How to fight like a beast.]

[How to steal a dragon egg without dying]

[How to make her scream in 7 easy steps]

The last two were particularly funny. When he read their titles, Leo chuckled and muttered. ' Hehe, me too I know a way to make her scream, and in one step at that. Give her a good slap on the butt and that is it.'  

The miscellaneous section only had everyday items like clothes, home furniture, cooking ware, and the like. It was also the only section where he could use gold as a currency.

As for the scrapping section, it allowed Leo to exchange items he didn’t need against credit or some of the materials they were made of.

'That was very instructive. I guess I will buy a thing or two once I'm done with my evolution.' Leo said as he closed the shop windows. 

Just at that moment, he heard the sound of a door opening…Creeaak. 

'Here they are.' Leo muttered as he prepared to cast shadow spike at any time.