Shan lurched his body to his left as the grey wolf bit into thin air. In the opening of his opponent, Shan didn’t forget to shoot condensed spirit projectiles from his mouth. It struck right below its neck, as the grey wolf howled.

The grey wolf was shown orange on his map, but it was far from reaching Iron Rank, but Shan was barely a hatchling so he had to stuck it up for some time. The Spirit projectile penetrated a couple of inches into its body, but that was far from stopping a grey wolf.

Shan withdrew again as the wolf chased after him. His snake body twisted and turned in the lush grass, shuffling between tall trees. Should he use his physical strength to end it or use poison? Both seemed feasible options, but Shan chose poison. Tackling with his head might hurt his head, but more importantly, it would stain his body with its filthy blood.

So what if he’s a snake, a reptile? He would be a clean and civil reptile.

‘Poison it is,’ he mused, creeping fast to charge at the trunk of a tree, condensing the projectile once again, but this time, he infused some amount of poison into it.

Shan lunged at the trunk of the tall tree, attempting to climb up as the grey wolf trailed behind. With an accurate lung at the tree, he could go up a couple of metres, and then coiling around the trunk, he went up another metre to twist his head towards the grey wolf below.

Grinning inwardly, Shan shot the poison infused Qi projectile at the beast, striking it right in the head.

The grey wolf howled again, but it didn’t rest easily. It took several seconds for the poison to take effect, and all that time, the wolf scratched the barks of the tree violently, groaning.

The beast limped easily as all strength left its body in about a minute. Shan came down as the wolf had its last struggle.

‘Easy, easy, boy,’ he mused, coming next to the wolf. The beast tried to lung at him one last time, before falling like a lifeless corpse.

[You have killed a Grey Wolf (Copper- 0.3).]

Shan used Loot on it as three more notifications came in.

[Beast core (Copper) has been added to your inventory.

[Purified grey wolf meat has been added to your inventory.]

[You have gained 57 evolution points.]

Other than the beast core and meat, which was not even half of the original content, what interested Shan was the evolution points. Supposedly, these evolution points will help him advance his abilities.

[Your evolution points had reached the 100 points mark. Would you like to exchange 100 evolution points for 1 Copper Evolution Point?]

‘Yes,’ Shan commanded. If he was not wrong, then this looting ability was taking the blood, essence, or anything useful from the corpse and turning it into evolutions points, while later he could turn the evolutions points into Copper evolution points, and so on.

[100 evolutions points have been consumed. You have gained 1 Copper Evolution point.]

Shan thought for a second and invested that single ability point into the Myth Transformation Ability. That's 10% job done for the ability which will let him take another form after it advanced to Iron.

[Ability: Myth Transformations: Copper (0.0) Progress: 1/10]

Shan shook his head. He should have guessed already that it wouldn’t be that easy. System or not, just killing a few low-level beasts can’t advance any abilities. So it was 100 evolutions points for 1 copper ability advancement point, while 10 copper skill advancement points to advance Copper abilities from 0.0 to 0.1. However, he was sure that the number would likely grow as his ability advanced. By how much, he was not sure.

[Congratulations! you have completed your first quest and also succeeded in the extra task]

[You have triggered an advancement Quest.]

[Quest: Advance to Iron Rank

From once a gold ranker to you being reborn with infinite potential. Take the first big step on your new journey advancing to Iron rank within 14 days.

Conditions of Clearance: Advance to Iron Rank.

Time limit: 14 Days.

Rewards: A ticket to Ancestral Beast Realm.

Penalty: Elimination of the system feature, Loot.]

Now Shan was sure, the system wouldn’t let him have any peacetime. The system gave him the Loot feature, so he couldn't badmouth it too much. He only got it for about a couple of hours, yet he was convinced it was super useful, especially since he had no arms. Besides where would he get evolution points if there was no Loot feature? He really wouldn’t like to lose it, or any of the abilities.

That was not all. This penalty told him he could lose these fancy abilities anytime he failed in these system quests.

And it seemed he could not advance that easily without advancing the two system abilities, the myth transformation and the Bonding. Well, he could advance forcefully if he tried, but that was not a feasible option in the beginning. It might leave some adverse side effects for days. He was already a snake. He didn’t want to worsen his situation even more.

Well, fourteen days, it’s a lot of time. He could do it easily if he had all the resources at hand, but that's not the case. So he had to hunt like crazy in these two weeks and accumulate all the evolution points as well as the kick he needed to advance. Yes, he advanced once. That makes it easier.

He needed to hunt down over a thousand copper-ranked beasts in seven days to get there. ‘Or I could go for some Iron ranked ones,’ he mused, 'after I figure out my strength.' In the couple hours after waking up, he had gathered 104 evolution points, hunting hamsters and other lower-ranked copper rank beasts. Looks like he had to change his game a little.

‘Looks like I would be using poison a little more than I imagined.'

As Shan finished musings, he felt some disturbance nearby. He didn't know if it was because of his reptile form, however, he could feel some spiritual disturbance going on a few hundred metres away. Tilting his head, Shan thought only for a second to advance in the direction of the disturbance.

After a few moments, the mapping system picked up something as it announced the threat level as Red. The first red markings.

Shan's eyes beamed as he continued down the path, albeit a little more stealthily.

Shan was right. What else could the red markings on the map be other than human?

The little white snake hid in a hedge, eavesdropping on the group of humans in front of him. By the time he reached here, all the fighting was done, however, he could guess a few things easily. It was nothing out of the ordinary. Six men together ganged up on youth to capture him.

Currently, they had cuffed his hands and legs, while the collar on his neck seemed to be Spirit suppression equipment. I wondered when those items got cheap to suppress an Iron ranker.

What interested Shan more was that the youth now reduced to a captive was only an Iron ranked practitioner, while the other six men were actually silver ranked. Looks like something very serious was going on for six silver rankers to gang up on a puny Iron ranker. Also, they didn't kill the youth outright, but captured him, maybe intending to use him as a hostage.

"They shouldn't have gone far," said one mousy-looking practitioner from the left side of the man, who appeared to be the leader.

"I've already sent Lashin to search for them," said the leader, a broad man, towering over all the others by a head or more. He had a huge bastard sword on his back, and an ugly-looking scar on his right cheek all the way through his hair. "It won't be long before we'll capture that elf and the bloody witch."

'Elf? Witch?' Shan thought from his hedge. Of course, he knew what an Elf is, but a Witch? He heard of witches, but never met any.

"Boss, would you mind if I had that elf?" the mousy-looking male said again with a lascivious grin. He had a mace in his hand as blood dripped from it slowly. "He looked pretty tough to me, you know how—"

"Haha, we all know of your fetish, Mouse," another man said, snickering.

"Shut up, Dock," snapped back Mouse, while eyeing his boss attentively.

"You'll have time to do whatever you want, but first we have to capture them," the boss said, shaking his head at his crew to look at the Iron ranker captive. "These three are dangerous lots. Have you seen any Iron ranker like him challenging us, head-on without fear?"

"He's a lunatic," Dock said, "maybe they all are."

The boss nodded approvingly. "The Witch will be tricky," he said. "We need to hurry before the poison wears off. Huh, looks like Lashin's here."

Shan thought Lashin would be another one of their men, but it appeared to be a bird. A golden-tailed Eagle to be exact. Lashin flew down to land on the shoulder of a towering male as the boss brushed its neck affectionately.

"Did he find them?" Mouse asked.

The leader shook his head. "Lashin did not," he said, "but he did find some of their tracks. Let's go."

The group hurried from there, carrying the captive, as Shan exhaled from his hedge. Looks like something fishy is going on. Sadly, it was a far higher level than he could handle. However, just as he was thinking of dropping anything related to these silver rankers. The transparent text appeared again in his consciousness with a new quest.

[Quest: Secret of the land.

You have encountered some fishy business in the wilderness, which may lead to a bigger secret. Find out the secret of the land.

Clearance Requirement: Unveil the secret of the land.

Don't die.

Reward: System feature: Analyse.

Penalty: None.]