Assassin Crow Evolution

The experimental phase had inherently been unpredictable. One wouldn’t know what to expect out of seemingly randomly colored cores.

Jimmy certainly didn’t know what to expect, and he has grown more and more hesitant over the past few weeks when it came to absorbing Beast Cores.

Unlike Mana Cores who promised massively invasive pain, and death too, if over-consumed, the Beast Cores made no solid promise.

Absorbing them was not a high-risk / high reward event, but rather, the rewards were usually mild, while the risks were beyond high. They were great.

At this point, Jimmy felt burdened by the treasure he had brought home, but he took comfort in the fact that twenty-seven out of the thirty-seven remaining cores were now accounted for.

They were finally predictable, and the experimental phase helped with that.

"The blue ones make you jumpy, the red ones grow your claws, and the black ones make you smarter." He recalled, "There’s no fucking correlation between their color and skills, we know that much now."

The team of three made their way to Jimmy’s little home in no time. They remained anxious, and yet calculative.

Virena was still here, guarding the steel chest. The fact remained that she could not be corrupted.

As soon as Jimmy saw her, he asked, "What would you say if I told you that you can jump really high, today, if you wanted to?"

"I can jump really high already," She reminded, "I’m a Praying Mantis."

"Well, the blue cores will help you jump even higher." He insisted, "You can grab a couple of them if you’d like. I mean, we tested one out on crows, but I think that the core would cooperate even better with you, since you’re already used to jumping high."

"Beast Cores disgust me," She admitted, "I was supposed to be a bigger mantis, remember? But then that crow melted. I don’t think we’re supposed to absorb everything, even if it sounds right."

Jimmy did not want to argue with her on the matter. He didn’t want to force anyone to absorb Beast Cores, and as the situation had it, he knew that his brother, at the very least, would step on any of the well-established cores within his reach. The weak were power-hungry more often than one would assume.

Frustrated as to what his brother and Virena talked about, Vorin spun in place. He was jittery, he was excited, and he had already formed a rough goal in his mind.

Therefore, he interrupted them, and said, "Can you tell your friend to step down from the chest?"

Shortly after, they cracked the steel chest open.

Vorin reached over, slipped his dagger in the chest, and slowly lifted one of the cores out. Caution was still necessary, as ten of the cores were still not accounted for.

He eyeballed a blue core, which was to say that he put himself first.

Vorin didn’t even let the core hit the ground afterwards, as he let go of his dagger, and grabbed the core mid-air.

It broke apart instantly, and then he absorbed its mist.

To practice safety, he rushed towards the exit, and a second later, he made the longest leap he had ever made. He burst thirty feet forward.

The sudden shift of velocity almost broke his neck. His head suffered through a great deal of air-resistance, along with the rest of his body, of course, but his neck got the worst of it.

If he had tried to move his neck, he would’ve been dead before he finished the forward leap.

Vorin spread his wings wide, and circled back to the tree long before he could’ve hit the ground.

"Feel better?" Jimmy asked.

"No," Vorin sighed, "Sorry that I didn’t give you guys any cores first, but I think it was a good idea. I can now tell you that the blue ones are too strong. I almost broke my neck."

"That greedy bastard didn’t mention any neck pain." He shook his head, "Thanks, this is helpful, but now I don’t know if we’re supposed to absorb more than one core."

"I don’t think we should," Vorin added.

Nevertheless, Jimmy had the system to help him make a more thorough analysis, so he insisted on absorbing a blue core. The system was to decide if getting his claws on a second one was worthwhile.

Vorin was told to fish out a blue core, and a black one. This time he was told that he couldn’t touch any of the cores, and this made him more jittery, but he obliged.

Jimmy absorbed the blue one, and Zoey got her claws on the black one.

The results were somewhat predictable.

[Gravity Rupture Leap skill absorbed]

[This skill can be upgraded up to level 7]

As Jimmy asked the system more about the new skill, heavily intrigued by its name alone, Zoey experienced the effects of the core she absorbed, and this was where the results became a bit less predictable.

She felt as if a galaxy exploded in her head. She did hear a loud, disorienting pop. It made her ears ring, and she looked around, frustrated, as if anyone could help her.

"Are you alright?" Vorin asked.

Zoey looked at him, and she tried to speak, but she felt as if her beak was sealed shut.

The insides of her head gurgled as if she threw her brain in a vat of acid. It might as well be spinning, at this point, because it was that disorienting.

Seconds later, as she tried to answer to Vorin, she accidentally unleashed her very unique skill-set on him.

Vorin started swinging his dagger around like a spooked mad-man, fighting ghosts, in a sense, but not quite.

The thing he fought was a massive, non-venemous Caspian Whipsnake.

They were common in the meadows. Their red-ish bellies, paired with their nearly black scales across its spine were horrifying to look at, and so crows usually avoided them, like all snakes, but Vorin didn’t have that advantage.

The pressure he felt as the snake tried to squeeze the life out of him, was real.

Zoey was the source behind the illusion he suffered through, and Vorin was none the wiser, because to him, the appearance of the large snake was very natural. He believed that it had slithered up the tree, and squeezed its head into the hole in the tree.

There were no flashy, exaggerated graphics that would’ve given him a hint that this was an illusion.

"They’re not supposed to grow this big!" Vorin exclaimed, as he swung.

In the meantime, Zoey spun in place, as she believed that if she matched the ’spin’ of her brain, everything would go back to normal. She was mostly unaware of what she was doing to Vorin.

Jimmy, on the other hand, was very entertained. He wasn’t worried, as he was sure that the cores weren’t strong enough to kill them, and he already knew what the problem was.

"She’s having a really bad trip," He said.

Dancing within the snug surroundings, he dodged Vorin’s swings, and in the meantime, Virena swung her chained sickle around. She either slapped Vorin’s dagger with it, or slapped the steel chest back up-right, whenever it was hit by accident.

For safety’s sake, they closed the chest, because they couldn’t afford to have thirty-four cores spill all over them.

"He’s braver than I thought," Jimmy said, "His first response to a large snake is to start swinging."

"Help me, brother!" Vorin shouted.

"You got this, bud," He said, "Aim for its throat."

Two tripping crows were hard to deal with. He knew that much, so he didn’t interrupt them.

Instead, as he danced around the isolated battlefield, he had the system re-describe the details of his new skill.

[The Gravity Rupture Leap skill is unique, because as the name suggests it, it helps you ignore gravity for a short moment.]

[This, in turn, helps you achieve unnaturally powerful jumps, because gravity does not hold you down.]

[The risks of the jump don’t come from the skill itself, but from the other things that your skill can’t help you ignore, such as the surrounding gas, including oxygen, that guarantee wind resistance.]

"Vorin wasn’t kidding, then?" He said, "This shit’s a true neck-breacker."

Jimmy kept dancing his way out of trouble. He waited out the battle the group had with themselves, and in ten minutes time, the situation slipped back to normal.

Zoey stopped freaking out, basically, and when she became aware that she was torturing Vorin for no reason, she stopped.

"Where did the snake go!" Vorin shouted, "I almost killed it, I was winning!"

"There was no snake," Zoey said, "I accidentally made you see some... horrifying illusions. Sorry about that."

"Oh," Vorin took a deep breath, "It’s okay. It was good practice. At least now I know that I can kill a red-chinned snake, even if its fucking head grew bigger than my body."

Jimmy chuckled, and said, "You cut me six times, so yeah, I think you can kill a snake if you tried really hard."

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