Chapter 28: Starting the evolution

The university published the article the next day. Many people, thanks to the power of social networks, already knew of the existence of the spinosaurus, but when the news ended up in the scientific gazettes even the 'old school' part of the scientific world became aware of it. The discovery of that spinosaurus that had broken all previous records inflamed scientists and biologists around the world. It has been known for some time that spinosaurs could reach 17 meters, but it had never been imagined that this record could be broken and that this animal even could appear in nature. Yet, after careful analysis of the photos taken and the videos shot, the experts could only agree with Jamie's measurements: the spinosaurus measured at least 18 meters. In a flash, infinite hypotheses were speculated on the enormous dimensions reached by the animal. Some thought of some form of gigantism, others hypothesized bone diseases that accelerated its growth. However, the most agreed with Jamie's idea: the spinosaurus had probably been lucky enough to escape any predator to a ripe old age, which had allowed it to grow so large. Within a few days the discovery was announced in all relevant universities and the Internet sites were corrected; within a month at the most, the books would all be reprinted as a reminder of the new record. Sobek found that he had miscalculated. It didn't take a week to reach a million fame points: it took three days. [You have met the requirements for evolution. Do you want to evolve to Spinosaurus superior?] He was finally ready to become a new species! Sobek was already at the rank of 'high-ranking predator'. Once he evolved, he was certain that he would have rised to the level of 'superpredator'. He would have still been far from the very pinnacle of the food chain, but at least he wouldn't have had to fear anything with teeth anymore. "System, open the interface!" he ordered. [Spinosaurus aegyptiacus] Level: 18 Length: 18 m Height: 6 m Weight: 9 tons Diet: carnivore, fishivore Strength: 2,150 Agility: 1,960 Defense: 1,340 Maximum speed: 19 km/h Experience points: 8,000/120,000 Skill points: 17 Fame points: 1,030,000/1,000,000 Bonus Money: 46,580 He looked proudly his fame points. He felt like he had just passed an impossible exam! However, suddenly something caught his attention. "Wait a moment! Didn't I only have 33,000 bonus money a few days ago? Why are there now over 46,000?" His experience points weren't raise very much, because in that three days he had rested a bit; after all, he didn't need to become larger anymore. He had just eat the bare minimum to survive and he had concentrated mainly on freshwater sharks and small amphibians, which couldn't offer him many experience points but in return they had guaranteed him other 4 skill points. But the bonus money? He still didn't understand how he could obtain them. "I obtained many of them after I encountered the humans..." he thought trying to find a sense. "First with the poachers, now with the scientists... that means that they rise every time I had contact with humans? But I obtained them even before, even if not so much... aaaah, damn it! Why the [Guide] doesn't explain nothing about them? God, with all respect, you are very bad as a game designer!" For an istant he thought he heard a crystalline laugh behind him, the same one that he remembered well belonging to that evil woman. "What? Oh, good, I start to have auditory hallucinations. I really need to find someone with I can talk..:" And the bonus money wasn't the only problem. For some reason, he felt like he had already seen that humans. He had the same sensation when he had devour the poachers' boss. He didn't remember why, but he was pretty sure. But that was impossible: he hadn't met any human being since he was born, and surely he couldn't meet someone from his previous world! He shook his head. Those were useless thoughts. Now he had to think about the evolution. However, although he was eager to become a 'Spinosaurus superior', he knew he couldn't evolve immediately. He had to find a safe place first. Thanks to the [Guide] he knew that, unlike the level up, the evolution took two weeks to complete. It was normal: while the level up was limited to improving his size and attributes, the evolution would have had to modify his genetic code and therefore his entire body to create a new species, so it could not be a quick process. For the past three days Sobek had been backtracking away from human territory. Now that he was known he had no reason to stay there: he was just taking more risks. He was back in the swamp, but he soon realized that this was not the area where he wanted to stop. Even though it was relatively safe, the swamp was too exposed. Sobek wanted a more secluded place: he was looking for a cave. If a boat had passed, or if some orbital satellite had caught him evolving, then he would have been hunted for life. The last thing he wanted was to have a target pointed between his eyes, at least until he was powerful enough to resist to the firearms. The swamp wasn't a good place to find caves, but Sobek remembered that where the swamp water flowed into the actual river there was a rocky area: he had seen it through the trees. Last time he hadn't stopped to check, since his goal was to reach the humans, but now he was determined to return. He was sure he could find a cave among the rocks. With [Swim speed] it wasn't hard to get there. While he went he devoured any fish and small amphibian along the way; with his speed it was as easy as drinking a glass of water. Thanks to this, his skill points rose to 20: it was a great investment for the future. When evolution ended, they would have been very useful to him. Once he got to the right spot, he got out of the water and ventured into the forest. It was the first time he had actually entered the forest: until then he had always kept along the river, away from the trees. Even when he entered in the forest when he was young he didn't go too far from the river, so he didn't see the actual internal part of the forest. He found that even if he was a beast six meters tall he could still move effortlessly among the trees: the plants of the internal forest were very tall, so much so that their foliage began at least ten meters high. Getting around on land was definitely more tiring than in water. Besides, Sobek felt restless there. In the water he could escape any danger thanks to his abilities, but there he was completely defenseless. If a large predator showed up, he would have been an easy prey. Clearly, this was not what he wanted. Fortunately he didn't encounter any dangers up to the rocky valley. There the forest gave way to a large expanse of stones each at least four meters high. As Sobek had foreseen, many of them were arranged to form natural shelters. It took him a while to find a suitable cave where he could sleep: having a very large body was unfortunately a disadvantage in those cases. In the end, however, he got what he was looking for: a cavern at least twenty meters wide and eight meters high, not very humid, with few openings and only one entrance, suitable for sleeping peacefully for a couple of weeks. Too bad it turned out to be busy already. As Sobek was preparing to enter a bipedal figure appeared in the shadows and ran out with a growl. The figure turned out to be a large theropod with a peculiar crest on the muzzle. [Prey identified: Ceratosaurus nasicornis, ceratosauridae. Experience: 20,000 points] The ceratosaurus was a carnivorous dinosaur that lived during the Upper Jurassic period. Although it vaguely resembled a tyrannosaurus, it didn't have a tenth of its lethality. And it was also much smaller and clearly more fragile. Even so Sobek surely would have rather avoided facing it, but he wasn't afraid to fight with it: he was bigger, stronger and more robust. The ceratosaurus itself seemed to have realized this: after a couple of minutes in which the two carnivores squared up, it turned away and fled as quickly as possible into the forest. The ceratosaurus was certainly not a suicide: Sobek was still more than double its height and at least three times as long, it was clear that there was no match. Although size did not always count in the struggle, they nevertheless represented a considerable variable. However, for safety once Sobek enters in the cave he closed the entrance with a massive rock. Although he could not be called completely sealed, the stone was large enough to prevent the passage of large animals. At that point Sobek lay down and opened the System's interface. [Do you wish to evolve to Spinosaurus superior?] "Yes! And immediately!" was Sobek's thought as he agreed. Suddenly he felt emptied of all strength; he thanked that he was already lying down because otherwise he would have fallen to the ground. His muscles froze and his senses muffled. Sobek could barely notice a small glimmer of sunlight filtering through the rock before his eyelids closed, his brain shut down, and he plunged into the dream world. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS Bye! Time for some other little clarification: 1) Of course, we don't know the behavior of dinosaurs. It is almost impossible to trace an animal's habits based on bones alone. However, paleontologists often exploit the behavior of today's animals to avoid this problem; for example, even apex predators like lions spend most of their lives playing and cuddling and sleeping, so why would dinosaurs have been any different? When we first found the remains of a t-rex we pictured ourselves as a stupid and cruel beast; but recent technology has shown that by contrast the t-rex was an animal with an extremely complex brain and certainly not stupid, so perhaps the t-rex also spent most of its life playing with its companions. Of course, we will never be sure how dinosaurs really behaved; but we know how modern dinosaurs, birds, behave, and we can therefore draw some conclusions. For example, 90% of birds are monogamous (in contrast to mammals which are for the most part polygamous), so it is likely that dinosaurs, or at least theropods, were too. Furthermore, birds have a high social capacity which allows them to live in large flocks and coexist close to each other, so why would dinosaurs have been different? It is very likely that most dinosaurs, even the apex predators, lived in packs. I have exploited these characteristics to give a general connotation to the various species that inhabit Eden; of course I mostly made it up, but I tried to be as truthful as possible. Of course, even within the same family behavior could change from species to species (just think of tigers and lions), but... well, I couldn't describe the behavior of every single species of dinosaur in existence, so please be lenient. 2) Since we are on the subject, let's talk about the society of tyrannosaurs. Although initially the t-rex was believed to be a solitary animal, given its nature as an alpha predator, footprints have been found that testify to the passage of multiple tyrannosaurs. Today the most accepted theory is that the t-rex actually lived in groups, but that they didn't hunt all together with very few exceptions. However, there is the chance that they hunted in couple if they were mates or siblings. I have decided to stick to this line. 3) We don't know how long the spinosaurs lived. Unfortunately, we have too few fossils to correctly establish an average age, and this is true for most dinosaurs. Since it is currently thought that the tyrannosaurus could live up to 30 years, I decided to put the average age of the spinosaurus at 30-33 years, so a 40-year-old specimen can already be considered very old. 4) And now let's move on to our protagonists. Obviously, Kenji, Brooklynn, Sammy, Yasmina, Darius and Ben are the protagonists of the animated series Camp Cretaceous. Jamie Campbell, on the other hand, is one of the protagonists of the TV series Zoo. "Zoo" is a series that sees animals rebel against humans, so... we can say it was in theme with the story.