Chapter 70: Pachyrhinosaurus

For the following days the hunt was unfortunately lean; Sobek managed to eat quite a lot, but not as much as he wanted. Unfortunately, the big dinosaurs didn't all stick together: while fish often swam in schools and smaller animals were found in larger herds, the bigger ones tended to be rarer; after all, being bigger also meant having a greater need for food, and consequently the selective laws of evolution limited their numbers, which otherwise would have been too big for the available resources. His only preys had been solitary creatures and even so it had been difficult to catch them. Even with using [Ambush] and [Deadly claws], he had a hard time winning. First, he had collided with a large, solitary male of kentrosaurus. With its four meters, it was nearly five times smaller than Sobek, yet the spinosaurus had to work hard to get past its spiny tail. Once again [Regeneration] had saved his life: if he hadn't been for that ability, he would surely have died from all the wounds the kentrosaurus had inflicted on his legs. Despite the difference in size, the kentrosaurus' tail had in fact severed his tendons and muscles several times, and under normal circumstances he would have been at the very least crippled. His second prey had been a rather old olorotitan who had almost certainly been left behind by its pack. This time it was a little easier, but like the parasaurolophus, the olorotitan could emit powerful acoustic frequencies that were very painful to Sobek's sensitive hearing. To kill him he had to make his ears bleed and cause himself a lot of nausea. Lastly, he had faced a male triceratops with a broken horn, probably hunted from his pack after losing a territorial dispute. After the ankylosaurus, the triceratops had been one of the toughest adversaries he had ever faced. The huge horn had repeatedly pierced Sobek's belly, causing him to vomit blood and inflicting wounds that would have proved fatal if it weren't for [Regeneration]. Only with great effort and commitment had he managed to get the better of that deadly beast. Sobek couldn't believe that despite having [Reinforced skin] at level 2/5, the dinosaurs still managed to hurt him so badly. Those animals were really built differently. The problem was that the herbivorous dinosaurs all had their strengths and weapons. Even seemingly helpless ones like hadrosaurs were often able to put him in trouble; an example was the parasaurolophus and the olorotitan with their sound attack. Against armored beasts like triceratops, stegosauruses, and ankylosauruses, Sobek would have been doomed if it weren't for his skills. Dinosaurs were literally war machines created by millions of years of evolution. Hoping that some of them were defenseless was crazy. Sobek had considered whether to return to the mammal-filled area, but had put that idea aside: he didn't want to get too close to humans again. And then, a new problem had arrived: the rain. It had started with a quick downpour, then day after day the rains became more and more frequent, until they turned into storms that lasted whole days. Sobek was forced to stop every time a new storm started: he couldn't follow the smells under the rain, because the water covered them. Also, he didn't want to stay outside while there was a storm: in fact the more the storm had increased in size, the more they had became chaotic and full of lightnings. Sobek had no choice to take shelter in a cave or under other natural refuges until the storm passed. That routine continued for weeks. In the end, Sobek had to admit that something had changed. And after a rapid reflection, he understand what: the seasons. From the moment he was born, the climate had been calm and the rains were rapid and very few; probably that was the summer. And now, the summer had ended. The autumn took its place. "Strange... how long have I been in this world?" Sobek asked to himself. He took one of his cellphone and he controlled the data. The number made his eyes open wide. "I'm in this world from more than eight months!?" Sobek knew that he didn't take much attention to the time, but he didn't expected that he lost it so much! Eight months... it seemed to him just one month! Well, if he thought to it better... just the evolutions needed a month, and he had stayed in the mammal area for more than a month, and in the Permian creatures area for another month... The calculations didn't seem so wrong after all. "But wait... why the summer was so long? Maybe this world has a longer year?" he asked to himself, and he quickly used the cell phone to make a research. The results surprised him. Apparently the seasons were actually due to the tilt axis of the planet, just like on Earth. But the year was much longer: it was four times the Earth's years! "Wait... does this mean that that little girl I saved, viewed from the perspective of this world, was three years old and not twelve?" Sobek reflected. "Or do humans of this world calculate time differently?" He searched the Internet again and found that this was indeed the case: the humans of that world associated a season with a year. Since a single season lasted one Earth's year, the method of calculating the years of the humans of the world of Eden was identical to that of the humans of Earth. However, they had an additional unit of measurement: four years were equivalent to a 'super-year', a complete cycle of all four seasons. Sobek put his cell phone away. He didn't understand the usefulness of a 'super-year', but he was happy that at least humans calculated the years in a way he knew: he would have avoided making too many calculations. He also had the answer to his questions: summer was ending and autumn would soon arrive. That could make things very complicated for him: if all that storms would continued he would had a very bad time in hunting. But fortunately, after a few days a herd of seemingly easy preys came on his way. [Prey identified: Pachyrhinosaurus perotorum, ceratopsidae. Experience: 25,000 points] The pachyrhinosaurus was a distant cousin of the triceratops, but unlike its relative its only defense was the collar. It had no horns, so it was a much safer prey than its belligerent cousin. The pachyrhinosaurs relied above all on the number to defend themselves, in fact the herd that Sobek had found himself in front of had at least two hundred specimens. It was literally a walking feast, but it could be even more: Sobek hoped that the herd would attract some predator that he could then prey on. In the following hours he killed several pachyrhinosaurs. The poor herbivores couldn't escape: Sobek hid too well and attacked when he was close enough to leave them no way out. Initially they had almost ignored him, just running away and letting what he was aiming for ended up in his jaws; in short, they were literally leaving him a sacrificial victim, hoping that once he got a prey he would let the rest of the pack go. A single pachyrhinosaurus would have fed a carnivore for days, but Sobek had [Fast eating] and [Fast digestion] which allowed him to eat it in less than an hour. When they realized that he wouldn't leave them alone, the pachyrhinosaurs changed tactics: as soon as they saw him they flattened against each other, forming a wall of dinosaurs that if he had charged would have caused serious injuries even to Sobek. However, Sobek had the [Ambush] ability, so he was able to sneak up on them and catch one of them far before he was discovered. By evening, Sobek had eaten five pachyrinosaurs, earning a total of 125,000 experience points. Added to those he had already accumulated in the previous days, he had a total of 238,000 experience points. He wasn't too far from the next level up. By continuing to follow the pack of pachyrhinosaurs, Sobek was sure he could advance at least three more times! The only thing that bothered him was the fact that no carnivorous dinosaurs had shown up yet. The next day he was satisfied. As he sneaked up to the herd of pachyrinosaurs to unleash a new attack, Sobek noticed a movement in the trees not far from him out of the corner of his eye. He sharpened his eyes and saw a massive carnivore's head half hidden among the foliage. Initially he feared he had found a tyrannosaurus, but the System corrected him. [Prey identified: Gorgosaurus libratus, tyrannosauridae. Experience: 80,000 points] The gorgosaurus was a cousin of the t-rex, in fact the two were very similar. On the evolutionary scale they weren't too far from each other. The spinosaurus frowned: like his dangerous relative, probably the gorgosaurs hunted in groups. Sobek looked around and in fact noticed another gorgosaurus' head in the trees. At first he thought about leaving: facing two giant carnivores together was still a very great danger for him. However, an idea flashed through his head: perhaps he could use the pack of pachyrhinosaurs to his advantage. While a plan was forming in his mind, he couldn't help but grin.