Assassin Crow Evolution

Thirty-four Beast Cores remained. Ten of them were still not accounted for, Jimmy didn’t know what they did, but he wasn’t as frantic to figure them out right now.

There was a deep well of knowledge waiting for him, and that well, was otherwise known as the black cores.

They increased intelligence, and he figured that if he popped a couple of those, he’d figure out a lot of his problems, without throwing thousands of system points at them with IQ upgrades, for example.

"I feel like I can fly," Zoey expressed, adding her two cents to the matter.

"You can fly. You’re a bird." He said, "Are you still tripping?"

"No, I mean I can fly!" She insisted.

Zoey stood true to the claim she made, and stopped standing.

She started flying, but her wings didn’t move. She simply levitated. Spinning mid-air like a glitch in the matrix.

"Interesting..." Jimmy said, "You didn’t touch any blue cores, so this is even more interesting."

Jimmy thought of many different ways of how intelligence could encourage such flightless flight, but he couldn’t figure out one unifying theory.

His enthusiasm was drained out of him, as he then asked, "Can you move shit with your mind? Other than yourself, I mean."

A second later, Vorin started levitating as well, quite against his will.

"Fuck!" Jimmy exclaimed, "Why does everything lead to telekinesis? I don’t like that it’s the default."

"Telekinesis?" Zoey asked, and then she and Vorin stopped levitating, "What’s that?"

"You can move things with your mind," He answered, "Though, I never saw anyone lifting themselves up. That’s creative."

The black cores turned out to be the most interesting, there was no doubt about it. Jimmy didn’t like the fact that he’d gain telekinetic abilities at some point, free of charge, as he didn’t want to get a skill that every smart-ish creature had.

When he remembered that those giant mantises possessed telekinetic abilities, he hated the idea even more so. His ego didn’t let him embrace the same skill-set that creatures who bested him had.

The giant mantises did spare him back then, yes, but he was still sour about the matter.

"I guess I can’t avoid it," He muttered, "Telekinesis is a side-effect of intelligence."

"What do we do next, brother?" Vorin interrupted what could’ve been a very lengthy contemplation episode. "I feel ready to absorb another core."

"You’re not ready," He said, "You tired yourself out fighting an imaginary snake. Other than that, these cores are making you too nervous, so I need you to calm down. Take a moment to take some deep breaths."

Vorin did not agree at all, but then again, he knew enough not to force himself into his brother’s treasure. It never worked out for the community before, and it wasn’t going to start working now just because he wanted it to.

For that matter, he nodded, and said, "Which cores am I supposed to get for you?"

"The black ones," He said, "I’m sure you can tell them apart by now. Get two of them out, we’ll give another one to Zoey."

"Are you sure that’s a good idea?" Vorin asked.

"Yes," He nodded, "What, are you getting greedy, brother?"

"As you said, I just fought an imaginary snake," Vorin countered, "Zoey made me fight one. You can do what you want with your cores, you earned them, but is it a good idea to put all of us at risk?"

"Don’t worry," He chuckled, "I think the second one will mellow her out."

Vorin did not agree, of course, but he didn’t fight his brother on the matter. As careful as ever so as to not touch a core or two by accident, he slipped his dagger in the steel chest, and lifted out a black core with the tip of his dagger.

After he placed the core on the ground, he then went for the second.

"I think there’s six black ones left," Vorin said.

"Don’t worry, you’ll get one or two for yourself," He added, unknowingly teasing his brother.

Zoey was still a bit disoriented. She was still spinning in place once in a while, so as to test out her new skills, and it was quite distracting. She hadn’t even noticed that Vorin had fished out another core for her.

Jimmy had to drag her back to reality.

He poked her with the tail of his hammer, and said, "Are you ready for another one?"

"Not at all," She shook her head, "I don’t think I will ever be ready for a second one, Jimmy, but I can’t let that stop me. Where’s the second one? I’m crushing it."

"There you go," He said, and pushed the black core with the tail of his hammer.

Zoey didn’t think about it twice, or once, for that matter, because she knew that if she thought the matter over, she’d be too intimidated to crush the core. She just took a single step forward, and crushed the core.

Jimmy took a step back, and crushed his own.

The entirety of this process felt lengthy, and unnatural, because he was used to forcing Beast Cores out of various monsters, but he tried not to feel bad about it. He worked hard to get this treasure, and it would be insane not to make the best of it.

The cores exploded into thousands of pieces as soon as they were stepped on, and the following process was quite predictable. The process itself failed to intimidate anyone, because they’ve seen it several times before.

As soon as the core’s properties dissipated in their chest, the ’reward’, so to say, hit them like a truck.

Zoey was knocked back. The core didn’t push her, to be exact, but its effects were so strong that she saw no point in standing on her own two feet anymore. Within the dimly-lit tree, she thoroughly believed that it was night-time, and that she was watching the infinite beauty of the stars!

Jimmy was overwhelmed as well, but he wasn’t experiencing any euphoria.

Instead, he was consumed by a sudden burst of anger, confusion, and irritation. He was more focused than anyone else around here, and it was primarily because the effects of the core were not as overwhelming as he expected it to be.

[IQ: 144 points >>> 154 points]

[Fluid Intelligence: Level 3 >>> Level 7]

[Fluid Intelligence has no leveling cap, or limit. You have the chance to upgrade it to infinity, but it’s a risky aspect of intelligence. I’d recommend being careful with it, because higher levels don’t always mean better results.]

"What the..." He grumbled, and then silently asked, ’I feel like I’ve been scammed here, system, and your very vague explanation doesn’t help. Where did this fluid shit come from? What happened to level one and two? I never got a notification before.’

[Fluid Intelligence was locked away in a sub-branch, within the fourth branch, regarding intelligence, in the Evolution Tree. You were born with your Fluid Intelligence at level 3 as a baseline, which is why you never received a notification about it.]

’Oh... wait, I think I remember seeing it in the Evolution Tree before. It looked too expensive to get to back then.’ He followed along, ’Is it any good?’

[You skipped past the expensive process required to upgrade it, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing for you, but in hindsight, it is a useful part of your brain, yes. When it’s allowed to grow naturally, or organically through the Evolution Tree, Fluid Intelligence can be your best friend.]

[It basically helps you learn things faster, or adapt to confusing situations faster, by rapidly cross-referencing knowledge that you’re already aware of. It cooperates with crystalized intelligence, otherwise known as your working memory, to make those useful cross-references.]

’Sounds like my brain will just be throwing more puzzles at me than usual, puzzles that I guarantee I won’t be able to solve.’ He sighed, ’But I know how to prevent that, I think?’

This upgrade was indefinitely confusing, and as Jimmy got ready to tackle this problem, he remembered what else made him angry in the first place.

"I still can’t move shit with my mind," He said, "Now I really feel scammed. I didn’t even want that shit, and now you tell me that I can’t get it?"

"Who are you talking to, brother?" Vorin asked, visibly concerned.

"Myself," He answered, "Don’t worry, I’m fine. I think I’m either too smart, or too stupid to consider these black cores worthwhile. I hope it’s the former, because otherwise I’d have to admit that Zoey was smarter than me."

"Of course I was, and am smarter than you," Zoey snapped out of her trance-like state, at that very moment, and continued, "If I can make you think that you’re melting in deep forest fires, then can you really call yourself smarter?"

"I’m not sure," He admitted, "But maybe we should put it to the test. Are you ready for another black core?"

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