After pocketing his earnings from selling the monster parts, Kaizen stepped into the room he had booked.
The place sat on the far edge of the city, close enough to civilization to call it home, far enough to bolt if evolution decided to throw a rave.
Naturally, he had made sure the room was soundproof.
What if evolution is painful? I'm planning to yell. No way I'm strangling my own vocal cords for dignity. A real man cries exactly when no one is around.
After checking everything, Kaizen laid back on the sofa and entered the mysterious space.
I should get the slit pupils first. It's cheaper than scale armor. So whatever happens, maybe it will be on a lower spectrum than the evolution of scale armor?
As he had that thought, Kaizen bought the draconic evolution of slit pupils.
15000 experience was instantly deducted, and he was successfully able to pluck the fruit representing slit pupils off the massive tree.
He opened his mouth inside the mysterious space and ate the fruit in one bite. It was the size of a literal cherry, so it did not require any heroic chewing.
As soon as the fruit entered his mouth, it dissolved into liquid and slid down his throat.
Abruptly, he was pushed out of the mysterious space, finding himself back into the room, laying on the bed.
Just when he thought that was all, intense pain assaulted his eyes.
Covering his eyes with his palms, he could only dig his fingers on the edges of his face and scream out loud.
Needles. Thousands of them. Tiny, sharp, merciless needles jabbing into his eyeballs like someone was determined to knit a very angry sweater directly onto his optic nerves.
Even amidst the pain though, he could sense that the Fragment of Heaven was shining brightly.
Streams of energy rolled off the aquamarine colored crystal nestled inside his heart and headed towards his eyes.
The suffering was wild. Legendary even. But if someone asked him to choose again? He would still take the deal.
A temporary suffering for permanent advantage was a good deal no matter what.
Smoky streams of energy were continuously emitted by the Fragment of Heaven, as if it was heating up.
As his eyes continuously absorbed the energy, they were slowly being transformed.
At first, his sclera transformed. The white faded. No, it was not clouding, but dying. Darkness seeped in like ink dropped into water, swallowing the sclera until it gleamed a pure obsidian black.
Then, the pupil changed. The soft human dot thinned, tearing itself upright into a single, crimson slit.
Finally, it was the iris. The black folded inward, contracting into a single dark ring that barely stood out against the sclera, until the crimson pupil flickered, pulsing the black ring momentarily red like a tiny flaring warning.
Contrary to what the name suggested, his entire eye evolved instead of just pupils turning into slits.
It took approximately ten minutes, but to Kaizen, it felt like an hour had passed.
As soon as the pain faded, the first thing he did was gulp in air like a fish out of water.
Indeed, he had decades of experience which certainly included being on the receiving end of worse agony, but it didn't mean he had become completely immune to it.
He could only chalk it up to the fact that the pain of evolution was one of the worst ones he had felt.
Heading towards the mirror in his room, he immediately exclaimed upon seeing his eyes.
"So cool!"
No complaints. But the branding was misleading. Everything evolved instead of only "slit pupils."
Worth it. Insanely worth it. But still misleading.
Of course, it wasn't his first time seeing a dragon's eyes, but to see them on his own face was still a different feeling.
The ring his iris had reorganized into signified his age. The more rings, the older the dragon. Naturally, there was only one in his eyes since he was young.
The room felt much clearer than before, which was an obvious improvement. After a moment of thought, he turned off the light in the room, and noticed that he could now see much clearer in the dark as well.
It wasn't to the point of seeing in the dark being equal to seeing in the light, but it was much better than being almost blind in the dark.
After testing these two parameters, he cracked open the window, peering outside from a safe distance.
He kept his face well back, several meters away. No reason to show dragon eyes to strangers
Hmm… long range sight seemed to have improved as well.
With his experience, he also noticed that he could track movements more efficiently now.
As a peak ranked cultivator, it was a pain to start from scratch with all his stats reduced, and the one which was the most difficult to adjust to was his ability to track movements. It was like switching from 144fps to 15fps.
With this, even if it didn't reach his peak, it was still much better than before.
He then went on to test dynamic range and focus speed.
The former was the transition tolerance between light extremes, which was dark to bright, and vice versa, without the eyes getting stunned or blurring the sight.
The latter was the lock on time when shifting targets. For example, from near to far, or moving to static.
Everything is better than before. But still a scam in terms of naming.
Finally, he went back to admiring the absurd, dangerous coolness staring back at him from the mirror.
A pity he could not walk around like this.
Humans acquiring traits of monsters wasn't rare, but Kaizen currently had no proof and source for his draconic traits.
It was best not to expose it unless he wanted others to think he had found a new way of acquiring monster characteristics, which was extremely valuable.
Betting your safety on the kindness of others was a foolish thing to do. He might have been chaotic, but he was not brain damaged enough for that level of optimism.
The system said all the evolutions are controllable and can be hidden, so how do I do it?
Turns out, it was always as simple as 'thinking' about it.
Once his draconic eyes were hidden, his eyesight enhancement naturally faded away with it.
His eye stats didn't completely revert to previous state, but dropped substantially.
Well, better than before still. A small portion of enhancement persisting after concealment was better than nothing.
Glancing at his limbs, then at his spare experience, he thought.
Time for draconic scale armor.