[You were born in the Filthy Blood Tribe, a ratman tribe within the human sewer system]
[Living under human feet is both lucky and dangerous]
[Within the tribe, the Rat Mother is the highest leader. She constantly injects fresh blood into the tribe, allowing the Filthy Blood Tribe to thrive endlessly]
[And you are just one of the countless ratmen born from the Rat Mother]
[The pungent odor drills into your brain. Fortunately, you inherited the talent of Endurance, otherwise you might have passed out by now]
[You awakened the racial talents of ratmen: Disease Resistance (White), Filth Resistance (Gray)]
[Three external environmental resistance talents have been awakened]
[Disease Resistance (White), Filth Resistance (Gray), Endurance (Gray) have vanished]
[Awakened Talent: High Endurance Constitution (Green)]
[Regardless of the negative effects, they are no longer so unbearable for you. It’s as if sedatives and painkillers flow eternally through your body. Of course, you can still clearly feel where you are injured]
“No wonder… after all, it combines the abilities of two major pests.”
Lai En opened the safe and found his Poisoned Dagger inside.
Soon, the weight of this dagger would make itself known.
[Your Rat Mother is one of the three Rat Mothers in the Filthy Blood Family, named “Xue Ru Mu”]
[You and your several hundred rat brothers were born just to provide her with all kinds of help and to continue her rule]
[Of course, before you grow up, there won’t be too much pressure]
[Jumping and running around in the filthy sewers with your siblings—that’s the short childhood of ratmen]
As soon as Lai En gained freedom, he tried to use Assimilation, but unfortunately, he could only assimilate things he had eaten.
If he couldn’t completely devour the target, the Assimilation talent wouldn’t take effect.
[Acquired Moldy Unknown Food Mimicry]
A mimicry like this was completely useless.
‘Looks like I need that devouring body of a mimic to maximize this talent.’
Fortunately, the Forest Hunter talent was very powerful.
Not only could it attach a chitinous exoskeleton to his body, but it could also secrete poison.
So Lai En never starved to death because he couldn’t get food, nor was he eaten by crocodiles in the sewer.
After several months of steady life, Lai En successfully became an adult ratman and leveled up to Level 3.
“Children, these are your equipment. Now go rob the human caravan.”
Lai En stood in line and received an iron sword.
Then he and several hundred ratmen were driven out from the nearest exit to the human caravan.
The human caravan in front was armed to the teeth.
The people wore full armor, and the leader drew his iron sword, ready to protect the caravan.
Lai En looked down at the “sword” in his hand, which was more like a piece of iron, and thought this was simply suicide.
But his ratman brothers didn’t think so.
“Kill all these humans!”
“This is the first time I’ve smelled such sweet air. Why should only humans enjoy this?”
All the ratmen except Lai En had red eyes, staring at the caravan’s wagons behind the humans, their various weapons and equipment, and even… meat.
Due to food shortages, most of them had been hungry for a long time.
For them, as long as they could drink a mouthful of blood, even dying didn’t matter.
Countless ratmen pushed Lai En forward. The humans’ crossbows and magic couldn’t stop these fearless ratmen.
They used their broken weapons to pry open the humans’ armor.
Even though the casualty ratio was completely lopsided, the ratmen were still the absolute victors.
Many children and young girls in the caravan were brutally slaughtered. Ratmen aren’t goblins; they aren’t lustful.
Lai En wanted to stop the massacre, but unfortunately, he couldn’t do it alone.
He could only take the chance to stab a few ratmen with his Poisoned Dagger.
That’s when the advantage of the Poisoned Dagger showed.
If he used that iron piece, even a ratman with the smallest brain could tell he was backstabbing his own kind.
Of course, if he just muddled through and didn’t contribute, the other ratmen didn’t care at all, since they just had one less person to share the spoils.
[You killed a ratman. EXP +5]
[You killed a ratman. EXP +5]
…
Soon, the battle ended.
But this was only the beginning.
“Take your claws off! This is mine!”
“You can’t take my gold coins!”
“Mine, mine, that’s mine!!!”
“He’s a ratman from Hui Nv Wang! Don’t let him take our Xue Ru Mu’s loot!”
Everyone was fighting over the loot. Quickly, the situation turned into mutual slaughter.
And that was exactly what Lai En wanted.
[You killed a ratman. EXP +5]
[You killed a ratman. EXP +5]
The EXP increased even faster.
…
By using the Poisoned Dagger to kill the squealing ratmen, while the other ratmen couldn’t break through his chitinous exoskeleton at all.
In just a few minutes, Lai En actually reached Level 4.
The power of leveling up instantly made Lai En feel much stronger.
The surrounding ratmen didn’t dare provoke him anymore.
[Congratulations, host, on leveling up]
[Host has completed evolution]
[You are no longer an ordinary ratman]
[You have become a Ratman Elite!]
[Ratman Elite]
Level: LV.4
Life: 4 months
Talents: Assimilation (Blue), Forest Hunter (Green), High Endurance Constitution (Green)
[With just two extra words, the surrounding ratmen became completely wary of you]
[They all silently backed off, letting you take the loot they had been fighting over first]
At this point, killing his own kind would be senseless slaughter.
Even though ratmen were chaotic evil by nature, blindly killing kindred wasn’t acceptable.
Lai En had no choice but to stop.
…
[You returned to the nest with abundant spoils]
[Xue Ru Mu was very satisfied with you and decided to grant you the qualification to learn the crossbow]
[Hearing that you received such an honor, all your ratman brothers were envious of you]
[Crossbows are dangerous weapons. Due to the sloppy craftsmanship of the tribe’s ratmen, their shoddy crossbows can easily hurt the user]
[Fortunately, your teacher seems fine]
“I haven’t seen a ratman elite from Xue Ru Mu in a long time! What a rarity!”
“You should know that crossbow users either lose an eye or have holes all over their bodies. You should be ready for that.”
Lai En sized up the crossbow trainer before him. He looked perfectly fine.
“You don’t look injured. You must be a good teacher.”
“That’s natural. I only snapped a few fingers. They were all sewn back on.”
The ratman showed a smug grin.
“…”
[And so, you learned how to use the crossbow. Thanks to your chitinous exoskeleton, you never got hurt]
[After that, you kept participating in the ratmen’s endless raids, though you were only killing “your own people”]
“You guys look like top-quality EXP… uh… brothers!”
[Such ordinary yet dangerous days seemed like they would continue forever. But ratmen have short lifespans]
[For someone like you, this is already considered long-lived. There will always be unexpected changes]