Chapter 9: Entering the forest

The next day Sobek went hunting as soon as he woke up, without even waiting for his siblings to wake up. He headed for the forest and, as usual, placed the eggshell in plain sight. As on the previous day, the first to show up were the compsognathus. After all, such small animals couldn't go too far, so the little pack was still near and they could smell the egg's yolk. Sobek promptly killed one and left its carcass on the sand as he had done the day before. His hopes were not disappointed: after an hour, another thylacinus came out from the bush to eat. Sobek killed it exactly as he did with its predecessor and devoured it. With the thylacinus and the compsognathus he had gained another 1,600 experience, enough to level up again. He didn't hesitate and immediately agreed. After the usual ten seconds of pain he opened the main interface. [Spinosaurus aegyptiacus] Level: 4 Length: 4 m Height: 1.8 m Weight: 2 tons Diet: carnivore, fishivore Strength: 510 Agility: 470 Defense: 142 Maximum speed: 5 km/h Experience points: 1,180/4,000 Skill points: 2.1 Fame points: 0/1,000,000 Bonus money: 660 He could be pleased with himself. In less than a week since he was born he had already reached a considerable size. He was bigger than any carnivore on modern Earth, except for the aquatic ones. Armed with this new power, he decided to take a risk: enter the forest. It was crazy, but he wanted to know what the trees were hiding. He took a path full of tall ferns for hide himself; his sail actually made him look like a bunch of plants. His intent was to get an idea of what actually was hiding in the forest, so that he could better understand how to move in the future. As he went deeper and deeper into it, an infinity of new smells hit him; he couldn't recognize most of them, but one thing was certain: the forest was teeming with life. Sobek chose to follow one of those smells at random, a very strong one; this is because generally strong smells were typical of herbivores. Animals such as cows or bisons emitted very noticeable flatulence; herbivorous dinosaurs probably did the same. As proof of his theory, when he finally found the source of the smell, he found himself next to a herd of huge quadrupedal dinosaurs with giant plaques on their backs. [Prey identified: Stegosaurus stenops, stegosauridae. Experience: 50,000 points] Sobek remained hidden in the vegetation. He knew a lot about stegosaurs and he was aware they were herbivores, but they were also extremely dangerous. With a single flick of their tail they could take down any carnivore. Such tail was in fact covered with four bone thorns sufficient to break through the trunk of a tree as if it was paper. Sobek had noticed some cubs among the pack: apparently also the other animals besides the spinosaurs were breeding, another sign that this season was probably summer. However, he had no intention of trying to catch one: he was certainly not a suicidal. He had a long way to go before he felt confident facing such giants. Sobek decided it was best to go back. The presence of large herbivores was always accompanied by large carnivores: where there were preys, there were always predators. It was better for him to go away. But while he was walking away he found other dinosaurs. This time they were small bipedal theropods covered with colorful feathers. [Prey identified: Ornitholestes hermanni, ornitholestidae. Experience: 6,000 points] Ornitholestes was a small dinosaur of the Jurassic period. On Earth, it had shared its habitat with the stegosaurus and with other herbivores such as diplodocus and brachiosaurus, but also with dangerous carnivores such as allosaurus. For its size it couldn't be considered a high-rank predator: it was more a scavengers and it preyed just small dinosaurs or cubs. Even if they weren't so dangerous, Sobek didn't dare to attack the ornitholestes. They were almost a dozen of them; they were too much for him to handle. After that he decided that the forest was still too dangerous for him. Even a small dinosaur could be dangerous and many of this animals moved in packs. For now it was far better for him to return to the protection of the herd. However, when he was about to leave the forest, something caught his attention. A pile of fallen leaves seemed to have moved. Sobek stepped forward to check, but when he was about to touch the leaves, they moved and a giant millipede emerged from them! [Prey identified: Arthropleura armata, arthropleuridae. Experience: 4,000 points] Sobek felt his blood boil. He couldn't miss such an opportunity! 4,000 experience points all at once? When would have he find such a gold mine again? He certainly wasn't afraid of arthropleura. Despite its menacing appearance it was just a vegetarian animal. Its pincers, which looked imposing, were actually harmless. From what Sobek remembered from the knowledge of his past life, the arthropleura was a giant millipede that lived during the Carboniferous period and could reach up to 3 meters in length. It had no predators at the time, so it hadn't developed any defense mechanisms. While modern millipedes and centipedes could rely on weapons such as poison, the arthropleura only had its thick armor to protect itself. Sobek showed no sign of fear and ran at his prey; the arthropleura flattened to the ground to protect the vulnerable belly. Sobek would never be able to penetrate the armor on its back, but he didn't need to do that: with his big spinosaurus arms he simply grabbed the millipede and turned it over. The arthropleura squirmed trying to return on its feet, but Sobek killed it by ripping open its soft belly. Before eating the millipede, however, he took it out of the forest: he didn't want to run the risk of staying there too long. Also, when he ate it was his most vulnerable time: he was much more distracted and more exposed, and that means he was much more in danger. With the points provided by the arthropleura, Sobek leveled up once again! He was now 5 meters long and 2.1 meters tall, more than a human being! He was already celebrating, but a message interrupted his joy. [Congratulations! You have reached the level of medium-ranking predator. Small creatures can no longer do anything against you; you are officially entered among the medium-size predators! As a result, your Inventory slots have increased to 2 and the amount of extra experience needed to level up with each advancement will go from 1,000 to 2,000] "Uh? Medium-ranking predator? What does that mean? Wait, I have an [Inventory]!?" Sobek exclaimed in his mind. "Why isn't it listed in the basic applications or in the [Guide]? The System assumed I should have known I had it? Ah, fuck it! System, open the [Inventory]!" A new window appeared before his eyes. It consisted of only two boxes, both empty. Next to it was the title of 'medium-ranking predator'. Sobek started fiddling with it a bit and eventually figured out how it worked. Apparently, the [Inventory] was exactly what the name said: a place to keep things. It wasn't included in the basic applications of the System because it was practically useless at the beginning, and Sobek himself could only agree: he didn't know how to use it. He used no weapons and he didn't need to store anything. However, he knew that if there was an [Inventory] it meant it would have served some purpose in the future, so he didn't complain. The [Inventory] could contain anything in an infinite quantity, provided that this quantity belonged all to the same kind of things. For example, now the [Inventory] could contain infinite lizard tails and frog legs, but it couldn't add fish tails to it because it only had two slots; also, he couldn't store both red frog legs and green frog legs, because they didn't belong to the same kind of things. The things stored in the [Inventory] never deteriorated, but they lost the ability to provide experience points, so Sobek couldn't even use it to store preys. Slots in [Inventory] increased as Sobek's title increased. There were eight titles in total: 'low-ranking predator', 'medium-ranking predator', 'high-ranking predator', 'superpredator', 'apex superpredator', 'beast lord', 'beast king', 'beast emperor'. Each title corresponded to one more slot. For the first five, to reach a new title he had to become so strong that other animals with the same title could no longer threaten him: Sobek had in fact become too big for creatures like bambiraptor or thylacinus to do anything against him in a one-on-one fight, consequently he had advanced to 'medium-ranking predator'. However, this didn't mean that he could fight against other medium-ranking predators: for example, a tiger was also a medium-ranking predator, but it could have killed him easily. The only title that would guarantee him absolute security was 'apex superpredator': the description stated that there could only be one, so if he became that one he could be considered invincible. In fact, all the other apex predators (tyrannosaurus, giganotosaurus, sarchosuchus, titanoboa, megalodon, etc.) were considered just in the 'superpredator' rank; that means that if Sobek was able to reach the rank of 'apex superpredator, he could considered himself invulnerable against every natural enemy. This was the meaning of top of food chain, his prime goal! The next three titles, instead, they were based on how many animals were in his army. 'Beast lord' means that he controls all the dinosaurs of a continent, 'beast king' that he controls half of the world animal biosfere, and 'beast emperor' means that he has fully controll on every animals on the planet. Once he understood everything, Sobek shut down the System. In a way, the new title had given him more disadvantages than advantages: currently the [Inventory] was useless and now the experience points needed to level up would be increased by 2,000 points each time. In fact, checking the main interface he noticed that the amount of experience points needed to reach level 6 was not 5,000, but 6,000. He returned to the nest a little disappointed. For a moment he remembers that he had increased in size again and feared that his parents would not have recognized him, but they did not flinch. By now they understood that his sudden growth was normal and they weren't surprised to see him come back almost twice as big as when he left. After all, to animals it mattered little how quickly their child grows: as long as they can make sure they were their cub, they were not surprised at all even if they grew too much. For example, the cuckoo was a bird that laid its eggs in the nests of other birds: although the chick was much bigger than its 'siblings', the mother still continued to care for it, since the fact that it was in the nest meant that it was its child. The same was true of the spinosaurs: they had established that Sobek was their son, he simply grew faster, so they had no reason to worry. Sobek lay down beside them. He was now about a third of his parents' length, but they still seemed far more bigger and powerful than him.