Earth's Alpha Prime

I looted the 3 dead Mad Hounds before heading towards my tree hideout.

I obtained 20 Looted Stats from the 3 dead Mad Hounds.

They had common grade skills such as <Bite>, <Auditory Sense>, <Olfactory Sense> but all of them were low levelled ones.

I didn't choose them as I had the same Skills and they were even high levelled ones.

There was one Skill that I didn't see before in any monster I encountered, and it was Lv.3<Madness> (Common).

According to the Skill description, it just causes the user to become mad to a point where they would attack any living being without even considering the opponent's strength, and the pain received will be reduced.

The immediate thought I had was, "It would be stupid even to choose such a Skill."

The primary reason for that was those 3 Mad Hounds. If they didn't have the <Madness> Skill, they would have run away instead of attacking me when I was several times more powerful than them.

If I have such a skill, I would have attacked any monster irrespective of their Tier, and when I met a Tier-3 or Tier-4, that would be my end if I fight them head-on.

Not having the ability to distinguish the chances of winning in a fight was the first step to losing it.

I had to fight with the Grey Wolves because then; I didn't have much of a choice since my Stamina reached less than one one-quarter of my overall Stamina.

Back then, the speed at which I moved was slow. I had to use <Hydraulic Leap> not to get caught by the Grey wolves, and as they kept following me, I had to fight them before my Stamina went depleted. If I had enough stamina, I would have tried to escape.

So, I didn't choose <Madness>. With that, the notification that shows me the options to select disappeared when I didn't even pick a skill, but I still obtained 10% of their Stats.

Then, I learned that if I didn't want to loot any Skill, I could only loot its stats.

It's good to know that since I might even encounter a situation where I had to choose a Skill from my target, and the one I choose would even cause a negative effect in a similar way to the Skill, <Madness>.

The 20* Looted Stats got added uniformly to all the 5 main Attributes in my <LOOTED STATUS> and 4* Stats added in each of the Attributes and with that, all the 5 main Attributes in <LOOTED STATUS> reached 62* Stats.

In an instant, my body adjusted to the improved stats with the help of <Harmony>, and after a few seconds, I reached my tree hideout.

By then, I ate the whole <High Vitality fruit> that was the size of an apple. There was a change in my <STATUS> as the Vitality Attribute got a permanent increase of 10 Stats.

[Vitality: 35 ➝ 45]

Even with the increased Vitality Attribute, I didn't feel any change. I was still in my <INVERSE> mode, where my Vitality Attribute in <LOOTED STATUS> has 62* Stats.

And as there were only 9 minutes left, I entered the tree hideout and closed the entrance with some bushes.

Then, I accepted to proceed for Tier-2 Evolution and another notification popped up.

[The Overall Stats of a standard Lv.10 Tier-1 life form is 100, without including Luck Attribute.]

[The estimated time of Tier-2 Evolution for a standard Lv.10 Tier-1 life form is 12 hours]

[But with your Overall Stats being at 310*, it equals the Overall stats of a standard Lv.25 Tier-2 life form. So, the duration of your Tier-2 Evolution process is reduced by 99%, and it was estimated to be completed in 7 minutes, 12 seconds.]

[Warning! Evolution is a painful process]

Once the three-second countdown finished, a Shiny Crystal Orb formed around me, and I started to hover within it.

My surroundings changed to that of a Pitch Black Space that was filled with innumerable stars of various colours.

[Time left for completion of Tier-2 Evolution: 00:07:12 (hr:min:sec)]

As the timer for Tier-2 Evolution started, the stars within the pitch-black space began to fuse with my body, and I felt major internal changes within my body.

All my internal organs improved in quality, and the pain was intense, even with the 50% physical pain reduction.

But still, it cannot be compared to the tremendous amount of pain that I experienced while entering <INVERSE> mode.

As the pain continued, the pores of my skin oozed out impurities in the form of a dark substance, and all the inadvertent scars that I got through the course of my life, began to fade away from my skin.

During the evolution process, I opened my status to observe the changes, and there was no change in the <LOOTED STATUS> tab, but the 5 main Attributes in the <STATUS> tab increased every few seconds.

When I was halfway through the Tier-2 Evolution process, a notification resounded within my mind, and it was similar to the gigantic announcement notification that appeared in the sky a few minutes back.

Even though I couldn't see the notification that appeared in the sky, the information within it got transmitted to my mind.

[# Trial World Announcement #]

[# 'Drogor', the Alpha Chosen of the Planet 'Mogret,' underwent Tier-2 Evolution and reached Tier-2 within the first day of the Milky Way Galaxy Trial Program. #]

[# Congratulate Drogor for being the 2nd Alpha Chosen among the Alpha Chosen from 1,000,000 Life Planets that the System selected for the Milky Way Galaxy's Trial Program. #]

In just a few minutes, another Alpha Chosen reached Tier-2.

When I thought about the estimated time that was required for a standard Lv.10 Tier-1 person to complete the Tier-2 Evolution process, it made me realize that both of the Alpha Chosen, Regaz and Drogor should have started their Tier-2 Evolution 12 hours ago for them to reach Tier-2 now.

Since I was in <INVERSE> mode, the System mistook my overall stats in <LOOTED STATUS> with the overall stats in <STATUS>, and because of that, there was a substantial decrease in the time taken for my Tier-2 Evolution process.

If not for that, it would have taken 12 hours like any other Alpha Chosen to complete Tier-2 Evolution.

I turned my attention to the continuous changes that kept on occurring in my body.

My muscles which became bulkier from Strength Attribute that increased in <INVERSE> mode began to shrink and my body size scaled-down and after a minute, the size of my muscles returned to when I first got teleported to the Trial Zone.

After that, the minuscule irregularities in my skin started to fade away, and after another minute, my skin turned flawless, and there was not even a single mole (birthmark) remaining on my body.

Just like that, my Tier-2 Evolution ended as the Shiny Crystal Orb dissolved and I landed on the ground from the levitating position and looked at the time in the transparent notification.

[Alpha Program, Day-1, 23:58:37 ]

With still a minute before the end of Day-1, I heard a familiar sound resounded within my mind.

Then, I stepped outside of the Tree hideout and looked at the new gigantic notification in the sky.

[# Trial World Announcement #]

[# 'Jay', the Alpha Chosen of the Planet 'Earth,' underwent Tier-2 Evolution and reached Tier-2 within the first day of the Milky Way Galaxy Trial Program. #]

[# Congratulate Jay for being the 3rd Alpha Chosen among the Alpha Chosen from 1,000,000 Life Planets that the System selected for the Milky Way Galaxy's Trial Program. #]

[# Due to the appearance of the top three Tier-2 Alpha Chosen, a new function <Trial World Alpha Leaderboard> was unlocked for all the Alpha Chosen in the Milky Way Trial Program. #]