Assassin Crow Evolution

A few days ago, Jimmy browsed through the five tasks that the system had to offer.

So far, he only completed one of them, which was related to the Sentient Feather he merged with.

On account that Jimmy had a messy, and yet genius approach on how to handle the rest of the tasks, he did not bother to look at the new task that the system introduced, once he merged with the sentient feather.

He took this approach for the sake of preserving his sanity. He knew that if he chased every new task that popped up, he’d essentially throw his strategy against the wall, and end up overwhelmed.

A good example was that despite the fifty whole Beast Cores he got his hands on, he was still nowhere close to absorbing twenty-five Beast Cores in total, which would mark task eleven as complete.

These weren’t things that he could knock out in a couple of days, no.

The pattern behind his chase was seemingly patternless. First he completed task thirteen, related to the feather, then he failed to complete task eleven, related to the cores, and now, he wanted to move to the next task he had, which was task fourteen.

The logic behind it was that task fourteen appeared to be the least threatening right now, as well as the least complicated. This was the pattern behind his seemingly erratic chase. It was logical, and self-preserving.

’Investigate the disturbance on God’s Spine Mountain,’ He read the name of task fourteen quietly, ’I hope it’s not as menacing as it sounds. It doesn’t exactly pay well.’

It did not pay well, and according to the system, the God’s Spine Mountain itself was located a solid thousand kilometers away from their home, eastwards.

Nothing about this trip guaranteed anything beneficial, but there was one thing that made him curious.

The system didn’t know what the disturbance in that mountain was, if she knew, there wouldn’t be a task surrounding it, but she did speak of the mountain. Its placement was odd, and unnatural, as if a God reached its arm from the sky, and placed the mountain there.

It stuck out like a sore thumb, and almost everyone who was sentient or conscious noticed that it wasn’t supposed to be there.

’Surrounded by a flat-land of lakes...’ He thought, ’I don’t know why that sounds so interesting, but I have to look at it myself. A week’s worth of travel doesn’t sound so bad.’

Jimmy decided to start traveling the next morning. He felt that he was far over-due for a proper night’s rest, and there was no spot more comfortable than his own home.

In the morning, Virena got everyone a nice, heavy breakfast. Three fluffy rabbits. Cute, and equally delicious when cooked, and slightly charred.

After they ate, he introduced the idea of traveling eastwards, to look at a mountain.

In hind-sight, the team found the adventure under-whelming. They’d be less surprised if he asked them to go fight a giant dragon somewhere. Looking at a mountain wasn’t as interesting, and they figured there was an edge to his plan that he didn’t tell them about.

"How do you know there’s some big, interesting mountain out there?" Vorin asked, "Mountains didn’t treat us well."

"Let’s just say that I heard about it," He said, "We’ll probably find cool shit in this other one, but I don’t know how dangerous the mountain is. It’s called God’s Spine, so I figured there’s some weird shit going on there. I want to have a look."

"It doesn’t sound like a good plan... but I can’t afford missing another one of your trips." Vorin said, "I want to get stronger."

"There’s a good chance you will get stronger," He nodded, "If not, we’ll probably get to eat some delicious, heavy-duty fish meat. I have a good idea of where we can catch a couple of them."

The rest of the team weren’t as combative. Well, Zoey had one condition. She wanted to have her best friend, Julia, to tag along.

"She’s my girl," Zoey said, "I miss hanging out with her. You’re adorable, but you’re still too young to have any fun conversations with. I like being around crows my age."

It seemed as if Zoey was about to fish out ten more excuses as to why she wanted Julia to tag along, and Jimmy picked up on this, so he prevented what could’ve been a very one-sided roast.

He said, "She can come, Zoey, I don’t care. But if shit gets serious, I’m counting on you to protect her, if she can’t protect herself."

"She can pluck a feather out of you with her dagger, without damaging the feather." She argued, "Us women are better fighters, we just avoid stupid fights. Remember that."

"Where was this attitude when the squirrels attacked?" Vorin interrupted, "I don’t think I ever saw you and Julia fight."

"As I said, we avoid stupid fights." She doubled down, proudly, fully knowing that she had irritated Vorin to no end. "Give me a moment, I’ll go get Julia."

The team got ready in no time. Now there were five of them, chasing after a weird mountain.

Four Crows, and one very special Praying Mantis, Virena, who as always, hitched a ride on Jimmy’s back.

Traveling Eastwards, essentially meant that they had to fly above the city they knew well, and aim towards its other side. East was the complete opposite of West.

In the recent past, some members of the team had to travel for days to reach that mountain towards the west, where they discovered that colorful, seemingly alien fauna.

The God’s Spine Mountain was in the exact opposite of that direction, one thousand kilometers away from the bracketed corner of the team’s home meadows.

The one interesting thing they found as they flew was that the meadows they so loved, only stretched a mere five kilometers Eastwards from the city. The greater portions of the comfortable, arguably safe meadows were behind them.

Past the edge of the meadows, hills followed.

The hills were small, and lightly forested, and one would have a hard time telling this landscape from the meadows, but Jimmy noticed it.

The grounds were all he cared to see while he was a few hundred feet above the ground. Flight was only interesting because one could see the lands from high up.

The continuously changing landscape below him had too many hills for his comfort.

The hills, accompanied by three distinct rivers slipping between them, followed a gradual decline of elevation.

They were flying towards lower grounds.

Jimmy also noticed that there were more human settlements the further he flew away from home. Be it cities, towns, or villages, he saw far more of them than he expected to see.

There were no cities westwards, in the opposite direction, other than the home city that he had left behind.

He couldn’t help but think, "What are these humans up to? Why did they completely ignore the meadows? Are the meadows that dangerous to live in? These hills don’t look any better to me."

As they further flew Eastwards, he figured, "Ah, the rivers. They’re piling up close to the rivers. Water is very important, I guess. Well, it has to be important if you want to build a civilization and shit."

Comparison was a human trait, and being somewhat human in terms of thinking, at least, he couldn’t help comparing the home city he was used to, to everything else.

He said, "It makes me wonder why anyone bothered building an expensive, big city in the meadows to begin with. The river isn’t anywhere close to it. It can’t be safe to live there either. A random huge beast can swoop in there and kill hundreds of people."

Jimmy could see a lot of the terrain below him in great detail. His eyesight was heightened, upgraded, not to mention that he could see up to a kilometer ahead in absolute clarity, because he was a crow. Even at his grand flight speed, it was hard for him to miss anything.

With that said, he didn’t see any noteworthy beasts. There weren’t great threats roaming around the hills.

"Yup, safer than the meadows." He said, "Or maybe there’s some dangerous shit in the waters? I wouldn’t be surprised if Wyrms could breathe underwater."

The team heard him speak to himself. Well, the air resistance he pierced through muffled his words, so they couldn’t understand a thing he said, but they were aware that he was talking. They were used to it at this point, so they didn’t bother him.

There was a long trip ahead of them, and so the team mimicked him, and looked down, instead of forwards, trying to figure out what he found so enthralling. It didn’t take long for them to start appreciating the lands as well. There was a deep, natural beauty within them, a natural order of things that made sense the moment they looked at it.

"The lands are pretty," Zoey said to herself, "Too green for my taste, but still pretty."

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