Heaven's gate

After learning about all these things, Silas was quite excited as he was planning to immediately go back to the monster world and strengthen himself, but he decided to wait until tomorrow. He was well aware that spending more time in the body of such a monster would make him lose some of his humanity and possibly even lose himself.

So, he decided to take at least a day's break before going back in.

[Next day]

Silas opened his eyes and looked around, breathing a sigh of relief after confirming that he was safe he tried standing up.

BAM

A low thud echoed through the cave as Silas’s head bashed into the roof. He winced slightly and was quite shocked to discover that he had grown taller after waking up from sleep. He was quite sure he wasn’t this tall when he went to sleep. After giving it some thought, he came to the conclusion that after his evolution points crossed a certain threshold there would be changes that would happen to his body.

Since he had only acquired 0.9 points before, he did not notice any changes then, but after crossing that one point which he obtained from consuming the ironclad lizard meat, a qualitative change occurred in his body.

After some rough calculations, he realised he had grown about 10% compared to before.

Thinking about the huge monster he came across when he first entered this world Silas can understand why they were so huge..

After giving it some more thought, Silas realised he would be many times larger than the monsters he encountered. Silas was still unsure what species he belonged to, as there was no information about that in the status panel.

Another thing he noticed was that, in addition to his body size growing larger, fundamental changes were happening deep within him. Perhaps he was still in his juvenile form, and more distinctions would appear only after he completed his growth phase.

All he knew about himself was that he had four limbs and a huge tail, skin as dark as obsidian, canine teeth that were quite sharp, and claws that looked like they were forged from dark iron.

Silas put all these thoughts aside for now, as he had things he needed to do. Even though the time difference between both worlds was 1:1000, he knew that maxing out all the affinities he already had would not be an easy task. Moreover, Silas did not plan to stop with only the nine elements he had already started accumulating.

He knew opportunities like this were once in a lifetime, and if he missed this one, he didn’t know where he would go and bash his head with all the regrets that he would definitely face in the future. Even though obtaining the corresponding skills for all the elements would be a monumental task, he needed to at least be qualified to choose when the time comes.

With some difficulty, Silas managed to squeeze out of the entrance he had come through. Looking back at the narrow opening, Silas shook his head, knowing he should soon find a better, more permanent place.

Looking around in the darkness, Silas realised his ability to see during the night was pretty good.

Silas breathed a mouth full of fresh hair and looked ahead towards the forest.

Suddenly...

He started to shiver uncontrollably as his face became pale even forgetting to breath,

He shrank his neck as he saw a huge centipede, more than three hundred metres long, skittering away. Its cold, red carapace gleamed in the moonlight, its legs taller than the huge trees, and its two long antennae swayed left and right as its mandibles glowed like red-hot steel. Each of its body segments was over a dozen metres in length, and its compound eyes looked like two black holes, absorbing all the surrounding light.

Seeing the huge centipede, Silas held his breath as the aura of an apex predator hit him like a wave. But fortunately, the centipede didn’t notice Silas as it rushed off somewhere. In the dark knight it moved like an assassin, its steps fast and precise, but so quiet that no sound could be heard. Silas’s eyes continued to tremble violently as his back was drenched in cold sweat as his legs kept on shaking uncontrollably.

Reality sank in for Silas as he now had a better understanding of how weak he was. Such a huge monster warded off his perception completely. If the centipede had set its sights on him, he wouldn’t even know how he died. He still didn’t know if dying here would lead to his death in the other world as well, and Silas was not willing to find out.

After waiting for a few minutes and confirming there were no other dangers around, Silas exhaled. He felt like he would die of suffocation from the pressure caused by that huge centipede.

He soon started to move cautiously through the forest and soon reached the undergrowth. Silas decided to push the matter of the giant centipede to the back of his mind, knowing that worrying about things he had no power to deal with would only slow his progress.

As of now, the nine elements Silas had managed to gain one point of affinity in were some basic elements like fire, water, and wind, along with mixed elements like ice, sand, and wood. Moreover, he currently had one advanced element, lightning, which he obtained from the Storm Spark Berry.

Silas started navigating through the forest, wanting to improve his strength as quickly as possible.

After travelling for some time, Silas reached a narrow valley. He peered into the valley and spotted some berry plants similar to the ones he had come across previously. But unlike the berries he had seen before, these looked darker and gloomier, with black miasma spewing from the plants. Even the narrow valley was slowly filling with this black miasma.

Looking at this type of fruit, Silas had some guesses. Based on his previous understanding, he inferred that these likely contained elements related to dark affinity. After confirming there was no danger in the valley, a smile formed on Silas’s face.

The one advantage he currently had in this place was his size, as the beasts around were all pretty huge and none could fit easily here. Small fruits like these were most likely not favoured by the beasts that lived here, as he had noticed the trees had no ripe fruits on them. Perhaps they had already been eaten by the monsters.

After entering the valley, Silas breathed a sigh of relief as the black miasma didn’t affect him. He was a little worried upon seeing the dark and gloomy place.

Silas looked around, and after some calculations, a grin formed on his face as he figured there were at least a dozen such berry plants, and each plant was loaded with berries. "If I consume them all, I should be able to get a full point of elemental affinity," he thought.

Silas stopped hesitating. He remembered he could only get 0.1 evolution points, as it was capped at ten berries of the same type per day. He hoped elemental affinity wasn’t similarly limited. If it was also capped at ten berries, Silas didn’t know how many centuries it would take to reach 100 points of affinity for all the elements.

Praying in his heart, Silas started gobbling the berries, and familiar notifications started popping up one by one:

"Nightshade berry consumed, Evolution points = 0.01"

"Nightshade berry consumed, Evolution points = 0.01"

"Nightshade berry consumed, Evolution points = 0.01"

...

"Nightshade berry consumed, Evolution points = 0.01"

Silas opened up his status panel as the notifications about the evolution points stopped popping up.

Name: Silas

Race: ???

Affinity: ???

Evolution Level: Novice

Evolution Points: 2.0

Note: Nightshade Berry = 10/10 (Today's limit)

As soon as Silas’s evolution points reached two, his body started to swell up again, and strength began to overflow through his body. Silas grew another 10%. He found that, compared to before, his teeth were sharper and his skin had become smoother and started to gleam like black steel.

If he could continue growing at such a pace, Silas would be more than twice his original size when his evolution points reached 8.

After confirming with the system that he was still able to receive elemental affinity points after the first ten berries, Silas breathed a sigh of relief.