It’s so hot...
The first time I acquired the talent [Rapid Digestion], it didn’t seem so intense.
However, during this talent loading, Gauss was clearly in the cold winter wind, yet he felt as if he were in a furnace room, his entire body unbearably hot.
He could clearly perceive a surge of energy rushing in his body, transforming his physique.
The skin structure was the first to undergo subtle changes, an uncontrollable itching sensation swept through, and after it passed, the skin seemed to become more resilient and dense, as if an invisible protective net was woven beneath the skin.
Then, the hot stream began to penetrate internally, the five organs, muscles, and bones... all withstood the scouring and remodeling of this scorching energy.
From the inside out, then from the outside in, the cycle repeated.
"Hmm..."
Gauss muffled a groan.
He exhaled a breath.
In the cold air, the breath instantly condensed into white mist.
Although the transformation covered a wide range, the effect speed was quite rapid.
In fact, it only lasted for the span of a dozen breaths.
Aaliyah, far away, did not notice the anomaly, only thinking he was observing the effect of the spell of his Burning Hand flame.
As the raging heat flow gradually calmed down and finally turned into a gentler warmth flowing throughout his body, Gauss was finally relieved.
He opened his eyes.
An unprecedented sense of novelty filled his senses.
The world seemed different somehow.
The most immediate change was—the sensation of coldness had significantly diminished.
Previously, he had been enduring the cold with 8 Constitution points, but now, without any environmental change or additional clothing, the chill had suddenly decreased significantly.
The cold air breathed into his lungs surprisingly felt refreshing and invigorating.
His resistance to extreme cold weather significantly increased!
It was as if his body’s internal parameters had been refreshed, even his internal magic power had become unusually active.
Gauss subconsciously looked down at the back of his hand.
At first glance, the skin showed no obvious change.
But when he gently traced his fingernail across the back of his hand, he felt an unusual resistance. Slightly lifting his finger, changing to rub with his fingertip, the resistance disappeared, and the texture became smoother and more delicate.
Is this the enhancement of skin defense?
Honestly, though, he probably wouldn’t need this effect most of the time.
After all, outside the skin, there’s another layer of protection: the Gauss Force Field, and sometimes even a layer of leather armor.
But one can never predict, perhaps there’s an enemy with a special method that can break through the Gauss Force Field...
In any case, stronger self-defense is certainly a good thing.
Moreover, the improvements brought by this talent are not limited to that.
The body’s sense of coordination has also been enhanced.
Just now, when he briefly moved his fingers, he felt the joints were more fluid than usual, and even the fine control at his fingertips had improved.
There’s also that temporarily inconvenient to test, the recovery ability.
According to the description, it actively consumes energy to accelerate the healing of wounds and regeneration of tissues.
This effect pairs well with the [Energy Storage Glands] talent, which can restore energy and magic power through eating.
And energy can be converted into healing energy.
This means, just by consuming food, he can repair external injuries and even internal organ tissue damage?
Of course, this also means the importance of food has leveled up once more.
In the adventurer’s world, there’s always the saying "supply is the lifeline," but now it seems food is even more crucial for Gauss than for ordinary people.
Besides these changes, he can actually feel more positive fine-tuning inside his body, but he temporarily can’t articulate the specific differences.
Having examined the changes in his body,
Gauss turned his attention to the Racial Talent [Crawler].
There are two ways to enhance it.
The first is to increase its level by killing goblins.
For instance, enhancing it from the initial level to the elite level.
If it’s similar to the first racial talent, it might take killing two hundred to reach elite level?
By then, the [Crawler] talent might evolve to unlock further development capabilities.
The second way is to upgrade its quality.
Elevating it from white quality to blue quality.
In Gauss’s understanding, both routes can strengthen the talent, just in different ways.
To use an analogy, the first way is like a mage professional leveling from 1 to 5, in this process, as the profession level increases, vertically comparing, there will definitely be a significant improvement in strength, this can be viewed as the talent’s [Development Degree].
And the quality enhancement of the second way is akin to upgrading an ordinary level 5 mage template to Gauss’s level 5 Magic Envoy template, which can be seen as the talent’s [Template Advancement].
Even at the same level, the strength of an ordinary caster can’t be mentioned in the same breath with his.
Similarly, the crawler corresponds to the abilities of crawling creatures, and if it is advanced to a higher blue quality template, purple, gold...
It means it will upgrade to a more powerful creature template, thereby bringing him stronger talent boosts.
So, to fully develop a talent.
Both routes should progress hand in hand.
However, how to advance the quality is something he hasn’t yet gathered further intel on, perhaps needing to advance the previously unlocked [Path of Elites] to the later stages to learn more?
For now, if he wants to enhance [Crawler], he can only keep killing goblins.
Goblins have multiple significances for Gauss.
First, they can increase the title level.
Second, they can enhance the levels of talents [Energy Storage Glands] and [Crawler].
Third, the number of goblins is plenty, as abundant as wild dogs on the roadside, making them very apt for accumulating total monster kill counts.
Fourth, goblins themselves have adventurer’s guild request rewards.
Truly, a fourfold gain.
To be honest, you can’t really blame him.
Even though he admits that his impression of goblins has always been terribly bad, the situation (goblin kills accounting for roughly 50% of total monster kills) is also somewhat fueled by the Monster Atlas.
A behavior that aligns with his values can continuously bring rich returns, who could possibly refuse?
"Let’s go, find a place sheltered from the wind, we’ll grab a bite and head back," Gauss called Aaliyah, in high spirits.
He felt his future was frighteningly powerful.
Since it was just a small group of about ten monsters, Gauss didn’t raise the signal smoke. Instead, he and Aaliyah quickly cleared the battlefield, retrieving some valuable Crowman claws, beaks, and a few particularly resilient feathers from the charred, carbonized bodies burned by the Burning Hand.
After collecting the spoils, they found a wind-sheltered spot by a massive rock.