When Can I Use That?

Matthew looked at the 4 boar that was surrounded by 6 wolves from all sides. After the boars transformed their tusks and a white aura started covering their bodies, the 5 wolves backed off a little, except for the one wolf who looked straight into the boars' eyes and snarled at them. The wolf who seemed to be the leader, growled a few times before the 5 wolves regained their courage and started eyeing the boars closely again to find an opening in their tight circle defense.

The wolves started to run around, circling the 4 boars, and in an interval, they tried to pounce in and attack the boar's side, but every time, with its giant tusk, the boars could deflect the wolves attacks easily without even being pushed back at all.

While the wolves are trying hard to break the boar's formation, the boars are patient and calmly stay inside and hold their defense formation, only blocking the wolves' attack and not striking back. The strategy seemed to have worked and the wolves appeared to be tired after doing it for some time.

The alpha wolf who is annoyed looking at his pack being toyed by the boars, signaled the other wolves to back up before he howled loudly to the sky and soon a white aura of his own started to appear from his body and started spreading slowly to the other 5 wolves around him.

While the boar's tusk grew and expanded after the white aura appeared, the wolves didn't have any noticeable difference visually, but after they started moving again, their speed was twice as fast as before. Although Matthew could still follow their movements using his excellent eyes, Matthew is sure that his current body won't be able to react properly if he has to fight against them.

And speed seems to be not the only thing that is improving, if the boars are able to easily block their attacks earlier, this time, the boars need to be extra cautious when following and anticipating the wolves attacks, and when the attack comes, the boars' bodies are actually slightly pushed back from deflecting the wolves attack.

The cycle then repeats until one of the boars starts to get tired and loses focus and one of the wolves' attack hits him quite hard making him pushed out of the formation causing even more gaps to open that the wolves use to slip in and scatter the boars away from each other.

Realizing that their defense formation didn't work anymore, the boars decided to rush out using all of their powers to break through the wolves' encirclement. Using their empowered tusks and body, they pushed the wolves out of their way and tried as hard as they could. In the end, two of the boars succeeded in throwing the wolves that were in their path and ran away leaving two of their brethren behind.

The two boars that were left alone, soon find themselves unable to deal with six wolves at the same time and their life ends with a wolf biting through their necks and the white aura covering them starts to dissipate into the surroundings. After the fight is over the white aura surrounding the wolves also disappeared. And it looks like using the white aura takes a lot of energy since the wolves seem to be tired and not eating the boar straight after. Instead, they dragged the boars' bodies away back into the deeper parts of the forest.

Matthew, who just watched the whole fight as if watching an action movie, shouted loudly in his mind,

'IS THAT SUPERPOWERS? OR IS THAT MAGIC? SYSTEM! PLEASE GIVE ME AN ANSWER!'

Being a reliable system, the machine-like voice sounded again in his mind,

'That is an aura ability that each animal got when they evolved for a certain amount of time depending on their species. And each animal got their own different kinds of ability from it. And further evolution can get the aura ability to change and/or upgrade the ability.'

'What kind of upgrade?'

'Some animals can develop an elemental aura depending on their environment, habits, and their experience prior to evolution.

'Can I also have it then?'

'Yes, Since Host's species is a veiled chameleon, Host is able to get his first aura ability after Host's second evolution.'

'How can I get my first evolution?'

'Host needs to be at level 5 to undergo the first evolution.'

'Alright then, thanks system!'

And once again the voice just disappeared without goodbyes.

Matthew then thinks about what he should do right now. Seeing the fight from earlier makes him think of two things. One is that aura ability is cool and he wanted to get them as soon as possible, and the second is that, if he ever messes up and fights an opponent that he can't win, he will surely die. There is no mercy in the forest, friends can be seen leaving each other to save their own lives and the weak will be eaten by the strong. If Matthew wanted to live his second life freely and succeed in reaching his current goal to find the true meaning of happiness in life, he needed to become strong.

Matthew wanted to just go out of his nest, defeat other animals, level up, and evolve as soon as he can right now, but he knows that rushing things without any plans or preparations won't give a good result and since the forest is an unforgiving place, he needed to do this step by step properly. So for now, he decided to just rest his tired body and sleep for the night.

The first thing that Matthew did when waking up was to finish off the half-eaten spider body from yesterday because he was afraid that the body would rot and be inedible for him. Matthew decided to not eat and leave one of the spider legs just in case he needed extra protection in his home. If any big animals tried to dig his nest again, he would use the spider leg to poke and drive them away.

After Matthew finishes eating all the other parts except for the one leg, his monster data on the wandering spider has reached 87% from completion. Matthew guessed that he needed to eat all the legs and the head part if he wanted to reach 100% completion, so his agenda for today is to hunt another wandering spider. But today, instead of getting jumped by the spider, he wanted to be the one who does the surprise attack instead.

Matthew realized that his new body has a huge potential to become an assassin-type creature that can take out enemies covertly using his natural ability to change his skin color and good visual awareness using his 360 degrees and sharp eyesight. But to reach that goal, he still lacked some things.

One of the things he still needed to practice and could work on right now is to learn how to control and change his skin color according to his will rather than because he was surprised or any other accidental moment. While the second thing is to have a type of attack that is able to kill or incapacitate his enemy in one move, but he knew that he is incapable of doing that right now with his current body, but with god's given ability to him, he may be able to reach that goal of becoming an ultimate assassin.

Since he can't do anything about the second problem, Matthew decided today, before hunting the wandering spider, he wanted to be able to change his skin color as he wished.

Matthew then slowly walked outside of his nest. Before going out, he peeked outside, left and right to inspect his surroundings. And the crowded, lively, and loud forest from last night disappeared. The forest completely turned back to the quiet and lifeless forest just like when Matthew first arrived at the world.

Matthew walked to the lakeside to see his reflection to learn how to change his skin color better. Matthew then tried to remember the feeling when his skin color accidentally changed when he was surprised, the first time he saw himself on the lake.

He remembered which of his muscles accidentally moved when he was startled and tried to replicate moving the exact same muscle. There were no changes at first, but after focusing just on a part of his body, he tried to change only that certain part. And although not perfect, he succeeded in changing the skin color of his head to a lighter shade of green than the rest of his body. From dark green into a yellowish-green. And after playing around for another hour, Matthew finally was able to get the hang of how to manage his skin color into a darker or lighter shade of color. Although still not instantly, he is still able to do it step by step starting from his face onto the tip of his tail.

After deciding that it is enough skin color training for today, Matthew then ventures deeper into the forest and starts his hunt for today.

'Here I come, my lovely crunchy spiders!'