Chapter 68: Ultimate skill

[Evolution complete: congratulations, you have evolved to Spinosaurus ingens!] As soon as he woke up, Sobek felt a slew of indefinite smells coming through his nose and a great deal of sounds coming to his ears. His sense of smell and hearing had amplified enormously. Even though he had still no way of trying it, it was as if he knew he could smell or hear something from a distance of tens of kilometers! He got up and stretched. The limbs were still stiff from all the time they had been standing still, but they soon recovered. Once on his feet, he came out of the cave and after making sure there were no troubles on the horizon he went to look at himself in the river. He had become much more threatening: his entire body had become more muscular and flexible, making him much more like a terrestrial carnivore. The hind legs gave the idea of being very strong and suitable for running. His tail had tapered, becoming snake-like, much better suited for running. The sail on the back then went from the shape of a trapezoid to that of a crescent, although it was very square and quite clumsy, and you could see the vertebrae inside. The neck was more muscular and the shoulders wider. The muzzle then became slightly longer and the skull seemed to have strengthened; the crest in the center of it had almost vanished and now he no longer had a blind spot in front of his eyes. Finally, its color had become a sort of dark gray, suitable for camouflaging itself in the darkness of the jungle. In a way, he now looked like the spinosaurus that appeared in the first episode of Primeval's fourth season. Sobek looked at himself well, satisfied with the result. He really liked his new shape at all: it was much better than the clumsy crocodile one he had at the beginning! More happy than ever, he opened the System. [Spinosaurus ingens] Level: 24 Length: 24 m Height: 7.8 m Weight: 12 tons Diet: carnivore, fishivore Strength: 45,760 Agility: 43,210 Defense: 42,130 Maximum speed: 25 km/h Experience points: 30,000/270,000 Skill points: 32 Fame points: 67,210,000/100,000,000 Bonus money: 326,812 [Caution! You obtained three new skills] [Caution! You unlocked the Weapon system] "What? Have my attributes increased that much? And what are these 67 million fame points!?" he exclaimed as soon as he saw the statistics. He already knew that he had 32 skill points and 30,000 experience points from his hunting while he was coming to the cave, but he remembered only having a little more than 30 million fame points! Then he remembered the 'close encounter' he had had with the researchers and the helicopter he had shot down. Apparently it had affected his reputation more than he thought. However, at the moment he couldn't care about it. The important matter now is that he finally had some new skills! He didn't hesitate to open the skill window to be able to see them. [Open window: skill interface] Swim speed: 5/5 Ambush: 5/5 Rapid digestion: 5/5 Deadly claws: 5/5 Regeneration: 5/5 Fast eating: 5/5 Reinforced skin: 0/5 Powerful bite: 0/5 Linguistics: 0/5 "[Powerful bite]? [Reinforced skin]? Let me see those right now!" Sobek thought anxiously as he opened the descriptions of the new abilities. [Reinforced skin]: increases the hardness of the leather making it more resistant and able to withstand ever higher pressures. At the maximum level, it can effortlessly withstand a pressure of 30 tons. Cost: 15 skill points. [Powerful bite]: by strengthening the muscles of the mandible and maxilla and improving the hardness of the teeth, it allows to increase the bite force. At the maximum level it guarantees to impart a pressure of 25 tons. Cost: 20 skill points. [Linguistics]: allows you to speak a universal language to be able to communicate with all dinosaurs. Attention, this skill has well-defined specifications: at level 1 it allows you to speak only with large carnivores, at level 2 it allows you to speak with medium-sized carnivores, at level 3 it allows you to speak with large herbivores, at level 4 allows you to talk to medium-sized herbivores, level 5 allows you to speak to all herbivores and small carnivores, effectively reaching all dinosaurs. Cost: 15 skill points. Sobek froze. Initially he had almost ignored [Linguistics], too interested in the two offensive skills, but after reading what it was... he quickly realized that this was the most important skill that he had obtained! No, more: it was the ultimate skill! The idea that animals couldn't speak was simply silly: all living creatures, even the most solitary, had their own ways of interacting with members of their species. Whether it was movements, body language, smells, verses or even color change as in the case of chameleons, they were all signals that identified the intentions of the individual. These languages were much more articulated when a species lived in herds, as in the case of most dinosaurs. This is because communication was the basis of cooperation, consequently animals living with their fellows had to be able to talk to each other in some way. And with [Linguistics], Sobek would have been able to communicate with them! This would allow him to bring many dinosaurs under his wing! Now, he would be able to start building his army! Sobek hadn't been able to do this until then because no one would follow a creature of another species. From an animal's point of view, a carnivore other than itself could only be dangerous. But if he could talk to the other dinosaurs and prove them he didn't have any bad intentions, everything would have changed. Sobek was beaming. Once he got the help of the other dinosaurs, who knows what he could have done! Finally, he could begin his real mission. He already imagined himself at the head of a huge army of dinosaurs, intent on marching against the territory of humans! However, he quickly descended from the dream world and returned to reality. Before updating [Linguistics] he had to focus on his other skills. To create an army he couldn't be just one random member of the herd: he needed to be the pack leader. But if there was an inviolable rule for all animals, it was that only the strongest was in charge. There were no such things as gab, talkativeness or electoral rallies: in the jungle was only valid literally the law of the jungle. If you were strong and mighty then you could lead the pack; otherwise you became a subordinate. If Sobek wanted to command other dinosaurs he had to become the strongest of them all first. He was already on a pretty high level, but there were still some adversaries against which he would have a hard time prevailing, such as the tyrannosaurus or other apex predators. If he really wanted to make sure he could become the undisputed leader of the pack, he had to first become the strongest creature that ever existed. If he maxed out both [Powerful bite] and [Reinforced skin], then not even a team of tyrannosaurs could bring him to his knees! The bite force of a tyrannosaurus was 7.9 tons, 8 if someone really wanted to be optimistic. But once he got [Reinforced skin] to its maximum level, he would have been able to handle 30 tons of pressure. Which meant that the t-rex bites would have left Sobek completely indifferent! Plus, with [Powerful bite], the strength of his jaws would have reached 25 tons, almost triple that ones of tyrannosaurus! A t-rex could shatter a car with one bite, but once maximized the skill Sobek would have been able to tear apart steel-reinforced concrete without any difficulty! Once both abilities were maxed out, he would have reach the rank of apex superpredator of the forest, devoid of any natural enemies. At that point, no one would ever be able to defeat him again, apart from the weapons of humans. It was then that he would begin to build his powerful army. Before that it would have made no sense to update [Linguistics]: if he wanted to maximize his other skills he had to hunt as much as possible, and being able to understand the words of his preys would risk giving him moral scruples. Consequently, it would have been the skill that he would have updated last. After all, that skill was useless if he tought about just survival. The first skill he should have maximized was undoubtedly [Reinforced skin]: by then he would have been much more self-confident and could have gone on the hunt without fear of becoming someone's prey. To maximize it, unfortunately, 75 skill points were needed, a rather high figure, but after the evolution Sobek had become much stronger than before, so he could afford to hunt even the largest carnivores. It was still better to remain far away from dominant predators until he maximized [Reinforced skin], but he could handle the medium and small ones with ease. Once he was no longer in danger of being devoured, he would focus on [Powerful bite]. After all, now that he was a terrestrial carnivorous dinosaur he felt himself incomplete without having a good bite. Only after maximizing that skill too he would think about [Linguistics]. "At the moment I already have 32 skill points... well, that's enough for a first investment!" Sobek thought as he updated [Reinforced skin] twice. His points dropped to 2 and the skill level went up to 2/5. Even though he hadn't maximized it yet, Sobek felt much safer now! He wanted to go hunting right away but still had some things to check. "Let's see the [Weapon system]!" A new box had been unlocked in the [Secondary systems] interface, namely that of the [Weapon system]. Next to it, another had become visible: the [Armor system], the next goal! Unfortunately, as in the case of the [Food system], the [Weapon system] had all boxes locked. Sobek needed to be able to look at a weapon to unlock them. That meant he had to get close to the humans again, but that was hardly a wise thing: he felt he had already been chased enough and was pretty sure it wasn't over yet. Consequently, he had no intention of approaching a human settlement for the moment. Also because he feared that the [Weapon system] would turn out to be another scam. What if only the dinosaurs he commanded could use the weapons created by the System, as happened with food? If he couldn't use them himself, there was no point in trying to unlock it before he had any subordinate. "Speaking of weapons made me think about humans..." he reflected. "Why did my fame points go up so much while I was sleeping?"