Shan’s narrow-body convulsed as his stomach churned in an unpleasant taste. He jerked his head from the hole that he dug to hide himself before throwing up.

Slimy white goo found a way out of his stomach, and that too in quite the quantity. He coughed up for several seconds to throw up whatever was left of the cobweb. Looks like Spirit Devour was not that safe of an ability.

Well, he did swallow the cobweb of an Iron-ranked Empathic Spider half a dozen times. What could he expect from a mere hatchling body? Well, his snake body was far more resistant than a normal human body, or even most beasts or monster bodies.

Shan remembered eating an Infernal Dragon Fruit once when he was barely Iron ranked. That fruit almost killed him at that time. He only managed to keep his life, staying in an icy cave for a couple of days and also receiving assistance from his master. Well, that was a long time ago. He was barely fourteen or fifteen at the time. That was the first time he feared death.

After that, he came across a near-death situation once or twice and finally died in the ruins of the Ancient Dragon Temple. However, with all the struggle he was put under against the Golden-tailed eagle or the Empathic spider, he didn’t feel the fear all that much.

He didn’t know if it was because he died once, or just that he was that confident in himself. Other than that, he felt a cold pleasure in the hunt. Before his reincarnation, he had felt like that on occasions, but now it was just too outrageous. For all that mattered, he could've run away from the Iron ranked spider after injuring its legs, but he stayed put and used his everything to kill it.

Sadly, from the way things went, it seemed he would come across situations like that occasionally inside this cave. So, he was deciding the best course of action for now. So, first, he opened the status window, checking all of his specs.

__________________

Name: Shan

Rank: Copper (0.2)

Spark: Hunger.

Title: Inheritor of Ancestral Dragon Temple. Bearer of the Golden Eyes.

Form: Snake of Infinity.

Attributes:

Spiritual Strength: 16

Mental Strength: 10

Physical Strength: 13

Recovery: 12

Free attribute Points: 2

Evolution Points: 67 (Copper Evolution Points: 18)

Abilities:

- Golden Eyes (Mystic)

- Myth Transformation (Unique, Inherited System Ability): Copper 0.0

- Bond (Unique, Inherited System Ability): Copper 0.0

- Spirit Devour (Inherited Hunger Spark Ability): Copper 0.1

Skills:

- Spirit Manipulations: Copper 0.3

(Sub Skills: Spirit Sense, Spirit Discharge, Spirit Coating.)

System features available: Mapping, Inventory, Lingual Mastery, Looting.

__________________

His status window seems fine. Linear growth so far. Now let’s find some way to grow some power.

The first thing Shan noticed for that were the two free attribute points and 18 Copper Evolution points. Without a second thought, Shan invested the 2 free points to Spiritual Strength.

Warm energy surged through him the instant, more subtle than when the level-up boast took effect, but he could still feel the substantial effect. His spiritual energy pool just increased about 20% as he felt the energy.

‘20%,’ Shan thought, ‘that’s quite a lot for just 2 points.’ Grimacing inwardly, he tried to question the system, hoping to get an answer. ‘How does this point system work?’ he asked. ‘Does it work uniformly?’

Luckily, Shan got some clarification this time around.

[A single attribute point augments an attribute by 10% of that attribute’s previous number.]

So, that means the stronger I am, the more boost these points could give me. Crap! that was a mistake. I should have stored the points.

If he stored all the points from Copper, Iron, Silver, and even Gold rank and invested, then when he was Diamond rank, he would be scarily overpowered. If it's 10% of the previous number, then--

however, the next notification from the system proved that he was just daydreaming.

[Free attribute earned in the advancements of Copper Sub-rank cannot augment the attributes if the host is above copper rank. The same is true in the other ranks.]

[If the host doesn’t spend free attribute points before advancing to a new rank, all the free attribute points will be invested in the lowest attribute.]

Looks like my plan to become a super overpowered Adventurer went to the gutter, Shan thought. But he was not depressed. If he really could store the points until higher ranks, that would be scary, considering there should be others with privilege like this. I’m the ninth inheritor, after all.

Well, from now on, he decided to store all the free points till the advancement of the next Rank. At least he would make the most of it.

Coming back to the topic of gaining strength. 18 copper evolution points.

[Abilities:

Myth Transformation: Copper 0.0 Progress: 1/10

Bond: Copper 0.0 Progress: 0/10

Spirit Devour: Copper 0.1 Progress: 0/20]

So it seemed Shan could only advance Myth Transformation or Bond—any one of the two legacy inherited ability once, however, it didn’t seem they would give him any power boost in the short term. The same was not true for Spirit Devour, but it was already on Copper 0.1, and to advance from there, he would need 20 copper evolution points.

Even though Spirit Devour made him throw up, it was a useful ability during the fight. Directly absorbing foreign spirit energy—that could come in handy on many occasions. The cobweb he swallowed was not direct spirit energy, but a transformed form innate to spiders like those—probably that's why it made him puke.

Thinking about that, Shan kept the 18 copper evolution points.

Now, there was nothing left currently on the Status screen to check. So, it's time to brainstorm ways from his past knowledge.

The first thing that came into his mind was Spirit Spell, but that was a no-go, even though he was quite proficient in it. As far as he was concerned, most Spirit Spells require the user to be at least on the Silver rank. However, there were some exceptions, like having an awakened extrinsic Spirit body.

One without an awakened Spirit body cannot reach the gold rank, however, the process of awakening the spirit body was so excruciating that he might die, just trying in Copper rank. Besides, he didn’t have anything or anyone to help him in this regard. So that was another pipe dream.

Shan grunted. If he had some freaking hands, he could use some sword skills or other weapons. With this form, he could only practise his movement. It hadn’t been a day yet, and so far he was getting used to crawling around, but still, it felt like he could do better there. Maybe some practice with the tails to leap up.

Other than that, he could practise the Spirit Manipulation, which was fundamental to all skills and abilities. If it progressed higher, everything would get easier. Well, now he could make bigger projectiles after it reached copper 0.3. However, bigger was not always the solution. He needed to thoroughly practise this so much that the condensed spikes would be sharper, denser, and faster.

Also, Poison. He needs to use that too, since it is a viable option.

Well, he did kill an Iron-ranked spider, being only at the beginning level of Copper. He just needs to advance half a dozen more sub-ranks before it gets easy. Lastly, he needed to figure out the whole deal with these Empathic Spiders. They were savage, suicidal, and hungry. The Iron ranked one was okay, but the copper-ranked spiders showed up with evolution points for him on a silver platter.

He had two theories on that. The first was more whimsical. Perhaps Shan was just too much of a delicacy for the spiders to handle. He was serious about this. He was, after all, a form of mythical beast and a hatchling at that. Even some drops of his blood could make a spider awaken spark of Hunger or who knows what kind of evolution they will have.

While the other one was simpler, not so self-centric, but it was more problematic. The simple theory was that these Spiders are corrupted and went crazy. Basically, they lost their minds and knew nothing, but to fight to the death for no reason.

Looks like I have a busy week ahead of me.

‘Now let’s start with meditation,’ Shan thought. He imagined the flow of energy inside his body, like water streaming down from a waterfall. It calmed him a lot, but he couldn’t get the peace. The warm power swirled inside him, giving him a drunken, woozy feeling.