Chapter 89: Hunting together

The amount of experience needed to level up was now 560,000 points, but Sobek paid no attention to it. He could have reached that quantity quickly just by hunting mamenchisaurs or other sauropods, but his intent, as already mentioned, was no longer to level up. There was no longer any reason for him to become even bigger than he already was. Although he would have really liked to become the largest creature ever, beating even giants like the Argentinosaurus or Supersaurus in size, that goal could be postponed. After all, it was of no use to him at the moment: he was already huge and he literally didn't have to fear any opponents, so getting even bigger didn't do him any good. On the contrary, it could have been counterproductive: after all, the bigger an animal was, the more visible and louder it was. Even if he made constant use of [Ambush], sooner or later he would have to sleep or rest and then his ability would have deactivated; at that point basically every living being within a radius of a kilometer or more would have noticed him and would have chosen without any doubt to move away, forcing him to move continuously from one hunting ground to another. Moreover, he was no longer alone: if he wanted to hunt with Buck, he had to deactivate [Ambush] from time to time, otherwise they could not agree on any strategy and would have hindered each other. So it was much better to stay 'small' for now. After all, the advantage of his size was only that he wouldn't have to fear other animals. Now that that goal had been achieved and nothing could harm him, Sobek had no reason to grow even bigger. Over the next few days Sobek and Buck concentrated on hunting only carnivores. Buck was well acquainted with the various paths that other carnivorous dinosaurs in that stretch of forest followed, so he was able to track them easily. Of course, even if they hunted them together, just Sobek consumed them; skill points were valuable, much more so than experience points, and he didn't want to share them with anyone. And then at the end of the day they occasionally caught a triceratops or a hadrosaur that belonged to Buck. Obviously the tyrannosaurus didn't eat it all: even if a t-rex had to eat more than 150 kilos of meat every day, such prey weighed several tons. Normally, tyrannosaurs lived in large herds, and even so the carcass of one of their prey could last for days; but Buck was now alone, so he could only feed on a small portion of the prey each day. Thus, a single prey was enough to satisfy the t-rex for weeks. However, since the meat tended to compound rather quickly near the lake and Buck and Sobek moved constantly, the t-rex usually didn't eat from the same carcass for more than five days, leaving the leftovers for Sobek who gladly accepted them, and preferring to hunt another prey. After all, thanks to Sobek's skills, hunting had become much easier, so he had guaranteed food every night even without bothering of keep it. Buck liked that situation. Since Sobek had no other subordinates at the time, he had chosen to give him another gift and instead of [Linguistics] he had given him [Reinforced skin]. With it Buck felt invincible and his loyalty to Sobek had matured even more. Over the next few days the bond between them had grown stronger and Buck had grown accustomed to the oddities of his new pack leader. For him, Sobek was like a magician capable of turning the most absurd fantasies into reality, and he was therefore happy to be at his side and not a prey like all the others. Thanks to Buck that was able to track down numerous other carnivores, Sobek was able to quickly increase his skill points. In just two days (thanks to the fact that he already had 10 skill points left by Buck's brother) he had managed to upgrade [Linguistics] to level 2/5 and in a week he had reached level 3/5. Unfortunately, when most of the predators in the area were over, the hunt was once again lean. Sobek knew he could get all the skill points he needed by hunting down the pack of tyrannosaurs Buck came from, but he didn't want to attack them. Firstly because Buck, while being loyal to him, still remained fond of his old companions, and attacking them could have created cracks. Secondly, a whole pack of tyrannosaurs was not an easy thing to find: Sobek wanted to keep them for later recruiting. He would have done so already, but he had given up because of the enormous food needed by the tyrannosaurs: it was one thing to feed just one, one thing was a whole herd. Killing mamenchisaurs could have fed them, but the sauropods did not sprout like mushrooms: since they had to eat constantly, they always moved around. Even though they were giants, finding them wasn't easy. The only way Sobek could feed them regularly was by using one of the feeders in the [Food system], but before creating one he wanted to make sure he maximized his abilities; after all, having a manger would have meant establishing his army headquarters, so it was imperative to have [Linguistics] to the max before taking action. Besides, Sobek had no idea how pack leader was made. Buck was his experiment: he wanted to learn through him how to create very strong bonds of loyalty between ruler and ruler. Even if the dinosaurs only respected strength, a loyal army was always better than a discontent with its leadership. In any army, the leader had to be one who could be trusted and who inspired loyalty and courage in his soldiers. In their time together, Sobek had learned how to take on the facade of an absolute and inspirational pack leader. He already had the strength and intelligence on his side: he just had to learn to win over the public. Thanks to his time with Buck, he was rapidly improving. After all, even without a pack of tyrannosaurs, he would have reached the skill points he wanted in no time: only 40 more were needed to maximize [Linguistics]. Not only that: even his fame points, thanks to the documentary that was still circulating, were increasing dramatically: by now they had reached 96 million, not far from the 100 million that he needed for the third evolution. Perhaps he would have been able to evolve one last time before he started building his army. The problem was that Sobek still hadn't unlocked any of the [Weapon system] boxes. Since the only weapons he had seen were Neanderthal spears, which were just slightly pointed sticks, he still hadn't unlocked anything. This was a big problem: an army needs weapons to fight, even one made up of dinosaurs. The maximum power that a bullet could reach was about 2100 joules, which is equivalent to about 2078 newtons when switching in newtons. The [Reinforced skin] ability could withstand a pressure of 30 tons, equivalent to about 294,200 newtons. However, the most powerful machine guns could fire as many as 6,000 rounds per minute, equivalent to 100 rounds per second, bringing the power to at least 207,800 newtons every second. Under such pressure, [Reinforced skin] would also eventually give way, and [Regeneration] was sadly not eternal. And he had also to mention rockets, missiles and flamethrowers, or far more sophisticated weapons that would surely appear once the dinosaurs attacked... If he wanted to have any chance, he had to find a way to see weapons, so as to unlock some boxes of the [Weapon system] and then equip himself with sufficient strength to fight. However, seeing their weapons was no easy feat. It meant showing up again, and even then he would get nothing but rifles, tranquilizers, and at most a few rocket launchers. If he wanted to obtain a satisfactory result, he had not only to show himself to some poacher or scientist, but to go himself to an enemy military base, with all the inherent and connected risks. He needed an idea, and quickly too. Fortunately, fate (or perhaps that damned woman who was God) came to meet him again, providing him with the solution.