Assassin Crow Evolution

Chapter 10: The Evolution Tree

The system tab in front of him came like a jumble of words. It took him a couple of minutes to read through every statistic, and it took him a lot longer than that to understand everything that was supposed to be new about him.

"How this growth equals 40% is beyond me, but I’ll take your word for it." He said, "I didn’t think crows could get headaches, but I got one. The IQ boost isn’t helping me much."

[Your current IQ of 104 is based on the bell-curve of average crow intelligence. You may not be a genius compared to humans, or even crows, but at last, your IQ is average. As for the statistics, you’ll understand them eventually, don’t worry.]

"At last?" He pulled his head back in shock, ignoring everything else the system said, "Did you just call me stupid?"

[You were indefinitely stupid, yes, but the evolution path you chose helped you catch up.]

The system doubled down, but her voice was as sweet and cheery as always. She was more direct as of recently.

"That doesn’t sound any better if you say it with a sweet voice, system," he said, "Anyway, I evolved... so now what? Am I supposed to hunt more?"

[Very much so. If you wish to purchase skills and tinker your evolutionary path further.]

"Slow down there," He said, "Aren’t those the same thing?"

[Not at all, but they can be connected.]

[You can acquire skills on your own, yes, but that requires time, precision.]

[Secondly, you can gain skills as a free tag-along based on which branch of your evolution tree you improve the most.]

[Third, you can also buy skills separately. Most of them are expensive, and they are not part of the Assassin Crow evolution tree, but they are available to you. I find that they’re useful in creative problem solving, though, not practical for everyday hunts.]

[Regardless, apart from the skills you could attain by yourself, you need system points to get everything else I just mentioned.]

Jimmy listened to the system as attentively as he could, and eventually he understood most of what she just said. Despite her perplexing descriptions, the conclusion he came to was simple.

"So evolution is just one endless task, eh?" he sighed, "That’s worse than a job."

[It can be.]

"Hmm... at least it’s not boring." He said, "Tell me more about the evolution tree."

The system switched her text-based tabs with a detailed, perplexing, and reactive evolution tree. Reactive in a sense that the universal symbol for DNA sprung out every time he looked at, and explored the details of any point, or choice of the evolutionary tree.

The tree itself was more of a red blood vein. Awfully complex, and horrifying to look at, but it did look like a tree.

Jimmy spent three hours studying it. The bag of rice he sat on proved to be his most useful asset today, as it kept him comfortable through his nearly motionless, high-calibre mental work.

In the end, he could categorize the evolutionary branches, and put them under five categories.

The first, and currently the cheapest branch to evolve with, was entirely based on his physique. He could choose to become stronger, bigger, smaller, faster, etc. Each point of this branch supported his base aim to become a better assassin. However, it was very easy to be counter-productive in this branch, because for example, if he needed to be smaller at some point of his life, all the effort and points he spent to become bigger, would be chewed away.

The second branch was entirely based on his promising role as an assassin. He could improve his striking speed, move more quietly, grow different types of claws, confuse enemies under certain situations, wield various weapons, etc. This branch was the biggest, and it included a seemingly endless perplexion of micro-evolutions that he could buy to become a better assassin.

The third branch was intelligence based. Apart from IQ, there were four other Qs which he was yet to understand.

The fourth branch revolved around the Arts of the Arcane. Around magic, mana, types of mana, and a brain-wracking mystery of what skills certain combinations of this branch would give him.

The fifth branch was almost random, and unnecessary. For two-thousand system points, he could fluently communicate with elephants. The environment around him wasn’t nearly appropriate to house elephants, and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever see an elephant in his journeys, but the option was there. Completely avoidable, but it was there.

The option to communicate with humans costs a thousand points to buy.

Jimmy was exhausted after the three-hour session of exploring the evolution tree, but at last, he was dead-set on three options he wanted to buy.

The first one was what interested him the most, and he wanted to buy it as soon as possible. It was a purchase that did not look bizarre to him, and could decorate his path of becoming a feared assassin.

It was the Swordsmanship Comprehension evolution, which in its essence was more of a skill, but he did need to evolve his body in order to properly wield swords. Otherwise, he’d just be lugging random daggers around.

"I need points," he sighed.

Slowly, he stood up from the sack of rice, and arched his back, as if to stretch. All that motionless thinking made him sore.

Afterwards, he dropped down into the guts of the city, flapping from alleyway to alleyway, looking for something to hunt.

"Where are those damn rats when you need them?" he grumbled.

In his case, killing rats was the easiest way for him to find points, and yet, even though he assumed that the city was infested with them, he had a hard time finding them. It was as if they all hid to take a collective nap. He grew more and more impatient.

An hour into his search, his stomach started rumbling too.

"All that thinking made me hungry," he said, "Why did I give all those rats to my family? I could’ve snatched a couple."

As Jimmy spoke to himself, he spotted some movement at the corner of his eye.

Hungry, and yet alert, he immediately turned his head to the right, and spotted something that perhaps every bird dreamt of.

"That’s not a snake... or is it?" He stretched his head forward, to have a better look.

Shortly after, he flew a bit closer to inspect the suspected snake.

"It’s a worm?" He pulled his head back in shock, "It’s bigger than I am!"