Chapter 30: New hunt, new problems

After calming down, Sobek returned to the evolution interface to give a better look at it. Now a new System had become visible: the [Weapons system] icon appeared next to the [Food system]. Even though he couldn't open it, he already knew what it was. Now that he knew that those [Secondary systems] were used to prepare his army, it wasn't hard to figure out what that was given its name. Once he got it, he could create weapons of war! Sure, this meant seeing them first though... He shook his head. There was no point in mulling it over now: he had to wait for the next evolution to get it. He would have thought about it later, now he had other things to think about. He had unlocked five interface slots in the [Food system], but three were still missing. It was annoying, but he was patient: when the time came he would have asked the dinosaurs to tell him what they ate, and they would have shown it to him and allowed him to unlock the necessary slot. However, at the moment the [Food system] was completely useless. If he couldn't get experience from it and was still devoid of servants, he couldn't do anything about it. The only solution would have been to use it as a bait, but that would have been stupid. Herbivores had thousands of plants that they could eat, they would hardly have been attracted to his trap. He could have put in a carnivore manger full of meat to lure them, but it would have been a literal suicide: he could have attracted the attention not only of small carnivores like rugops, but also of mighty beasts like a giganotosaurus or, even worse, a tyrannosaurus. So it was still a full stop. His only solution at the moment was to keep hunting to level up, earn skill points to bolster his defenses, and ultimately make himself known to humans to secure another evolution. This last point would have been incredibly simpler: unlike before where he was just a simple large-sized common spinosaurus, he was now an entirely new species. If he showed up, the entire scientific community would have exploded and his fame points would have reached the required amount in an instant. Even though it was now 10 million, it wasn't so much given the number of humans in the world. In fact, there was a great chance that he would have got many excess fame points. However, he wanted to wait before showing himself. He wanted to at least learn how to hunt on land and raise his new skills before evolving again. He already had update [Deadly claws], so he already had a weapon. The next goal was to update [Regeneration]: healing very fast could save his life. Many animals died because of injuries, so if he had a skill that could permit to him to healing he would have become much more self-confident. Of course even if he had [Regeneration] at maximum level he wouldn't have dared facing an apex predator like a tyrannosaurus, but at least he could have fought against less dangerous predatory dinosaurs. Even with [Deadly claws], [Ambush] and [Regeneration] at maximum he couldn't call himself an apex superpredator, but he was pretty sure that he would have raise at least to the rank of 'superpredator'. With this thought in his head he plunged back into the river. Even though he was now perfectly capable of walking on land, water was still a too good guarantee for him: it hid his scent and gave him cover. Also, thanks to the water he could distance even large carnivores like the tyrannosaurus: even if the t-rex was good at swimming, it didn't have [Swim speed] like him. Consequently, it was best for him to not stray too far from the river. The plan was simple: he would have gone up the river to the west, where there was a city of humans. He would have taken his time, eating everything in his way, going very slowly. Without [Swim speed] and moving often on land he would have taken a long time to get there, which would have allowed him to improve his skills. And eventually, he would have shown up, and then he would have immediately came back. He would then just have had to wait for his fame points to skyrocket, and he could have started his second evolution. As he thought about it, suddenly a 'ding' rang in his brain. [Prey identified: Parasaurolophus cyrtocristatus, hadrosauridae. Experience: 12,000 points] Sobek shuddered with excitement: his first prey after evolution! He was so concentrate on his thougths that he didn't notice it. If it wasn't for the System notification, he would have missed that opportunity! The prey was a big dinosaur that was drinking the water from the river's bank. It was at least nine meters long, not too big but neither too small. It was clearly an adrosaurid, because it had a duck beak. Its most iconic characteristic, however, was the enormous tube-shaped crest protruding from behind his neck. Sobek knew which dinosaur it was: one of the most famous dinosaurs even amongs the Earth's humans, the parasaurolophus! Although for some people its name was unpronounceable, the parasaurolophus was one of the most famous and most recognizable herbivorous dinosaurs to the public on Earth; the level of fame of that animal is comparable to the triceratops or the stegosaurus, and in fact it appeared very frequently in many cinematic media, children's toys and illustrated books. It was so famous that it even appeared many times in the iconic Jurassic Park movie saga. Since it was busy to drink, Sobek could have easily caught the parasaurolophus by attacking from the river, but he didn't want to. No, in his first hunt after the evolution he wanted to be on land. He was a terrestrial predator now. He could act as such. Quietly he came out of the water at a safe distance, then he hid among the vegetation. Incredibly, despite he was over 18 meters long and he wasn't using [Ambush], his paws hardly made any noise. It was as if the methods of stalking and hunting were inscribed in his DNA. Even though Sobek had never hunted on land before, he felt like he had been doing it all his life. When he was close enough, he leapt out and unsheathed his claws. The parasaurolophus screamed in fear, but it was too late: the claws pointed to his right hind leg and left deep wounds. Even if [Deadly claws] were just at level 1/5, they were already extremely powerful. The parasaurolophus yelled, a deep throaty sound. Taking advantage of the pain, Sobek bit its neck. However, he had overestimated his abilities. Even though his claws had become capable of hunting and killing, his muzzle was still the one of a spinosaurus: it wasn't very strong in biting things. He could grab a prey by the paws and drag it underwater, but he had no chance of fatally injuring the parasaurolophus' muscular neck. The dinosaur squirmed and kicked him in the shin. Despite his excellent defense, Sobek felt some pain, which made him let it go. The parasaurolophus immediately tried to escape, but the leg hit by the sharp claws of the spinosaurus was now lame; it couldn't get very far. As soon as he recovered, Sobek set off in pursuit. But the parasaurolophus still had one last card to play: it turned and emitted a sound, so low that Sobek couldn't hear it, but it completely upset his brain: he almost fell to the ground with nausea. Parasaurolophs, like all the dinosaurs of their family, had a crest on their head that allowed them to generate infrasound from the nasal cavities and amplify them thousands of times. They basically had a natural built-in sound wave cannon! It certainly couldn't hurt carnivores, but it was enough to cause a lot of problems for their sharp hearing. Predatory dinosaurs had a excellent sense of hearing, and that was very useful for a hunt, but in this case the extremely loud sound of the parasaurolophus was absolutely painful for them. Sobek began to feel limp on his paws and feared he would have stumbled. Determined not to prolong that situation, he threw himself on the parasaurolophus and bluntly slashed his throat with his claws. The dinosaur fell to the ground in spasms and after a few seconds stopped moving. Sobek finally allowed himself the privilege of sitting down. His head was spinning and he was nauseous. He didn't dare to bite the carcass even oncee, because he was sure just inserting a piece of meat into its stomach would have caused him to throw up. [Caution! You have been hit by a sound attack. The effects of malaise will wear off within 5 minutes] "What can I say, the land is really more complicated than the river..." he could barely think in his disoriented mind. Hunting dinosaurs was certainly not the same as hunting fishes. Even what seemed the most defenseless creature could prove to be a dangerous challenge. Sobek couldn't image how difficult it would have been to deal with armored dinosaurs like triceratops, ankylosaurs, synoceratops, or with absolute giants like sauropods... "I suspect that a really hard life awaits me..."