Logan awoke mid-morning. Sunlight finally pierced the dense canopy in scattered shafts, gilding the perpetual twilight of the forest floor.
He crawled from his tree hollow, arched his back in a deep stretch, and listened to the satisfying series of pops running down his spine.
His new tail slid forward with a mind of its own. He ran a claw along the sleek, black spike. The texture was smooth and unnervingly hard, like polished volcanic glass. It was a fine weapon already, but incomplete. It needs venom. Then it'll be a true killer.
His evolutionary path was becoming clear. Nature's hierarchy wasn't a straight line but a complex web of overlapping circles—different food chains for different scales and environments. A tiger ruled the deep woods; a desert lynx ruled the dunes.
His goal was simple yet demanding: grow in size, but never let his other attributes lag. He must remain a peak predator for his weight class. To be large but slow, strong but dull-witted, was to become nothing but a walking buffet.
…
The tail's evolution had been costly. Despite his recent feast, hunger gnawed at him again.
He moved through the arboreal highway of branches and vines, senses alert. The Ancient Forest, nourished by potent geothermic energy and the lingering residue of fallen Elder Dragons, was explosively fertile. Prey was never scarce.
In the shaded lee of a mossy boulder, he spotted two Forest Geckos. They resembled their smaller cousins from Earth, clad in grey scales with brown stripes, but each stretched over half a meter long. Their most distinctive feature was their tails—thick, fatty storage organs.
Logan fancied himself a practitioner of sustainable harvesting. He pounced.
His paw pinned the first gecko's tail. On instinct, the creature performed its signature escape: a sharp muscular contraction severed the tail at a pre-formed break point. The disembodied appendage twitched on the ground as the gecko itself scrambled to safety.
Before the second could react, Logan was already upon it, pinning its tail in the same way.
A clean, efficient trade. Two juicy prizes for the price of none. The severed tails were plump, the cross-section a tender pink, quivering like savory gelatin around a slender central bone.
I get food. They keep their lives. A win-win.
He devoured the tails with gusto. A blue notification confirmed the meal's value: Consumed Forest Gecko. Evolution Points +1.
Sated, he turned his path toward the forest's edge. The deep woods had begun to wear on him. The eternal dimness beneath the megaflora, the inability to see the sky—it felt oppressive. He craved open sky, warm sunlight on his scales, the feel of clear water and a breeze carrying the scent of flowers.
That meant the coast, where thin, sandy soil and constant sea winds kept the giant trees at bay, allowing smaller shrubs, ferns, and meadows to thrive.
Traveling as a small creature had its advantages. He was beneath the notice of the true giants, a mere insect scurrying across their domain. He moved unremarked upon, even passing directly over the heads of dozing behemoths.
Days passed in a rhythm of travel and opportunistic hunting. He slept in hollows, ate whatever small game he could catch—rodents, more geckos, large insects. He even sampled the forest's many fungi, a risky but potentially rewarding menu.
This last venture was only possible because of his latest investments. He'd spent the past few days' points on two key traits: Toxin Resistance and Toxin Production.
The now-familiar warmth had refined his liver and kidneys. Specialized filters in his kidneys now scrubbed harmful substances from his blood, expelling them through urine. His liver evolved potent enzymes to neutralize anything that slipped through, with his accelerated metabolism flushing the remnants via bile into his intestines.
More dramatically, twin sacs had formed at the base of his tail, nestled against his hips. Rich with capillaries, they drew proteins and amino acids from his blood to synthesize two distinct venoms: a neurotoxin and a hemotoxin. A fine duct from each sac ran the length of his tail, terminating at a minuscule pore in the tip of his black spike.
Armed with this biological defense and offense, he could cautiously explore the fungal buffet, tasting unknown varieties in tiny amounts to gauge their effects.
After over a week of travel, the forest began to thin. The trees shrank to sizes he recognized from his old world. Thick humus gave way to rocky outcrops and sandy soil. Threads of clear water converged into cheerful, babbling streams.
The flora changed. Horsetails, ancient plants like segmented green bamboo, grew in the shallows. Strange cycads and towering tree ferns lined the banks, species unchanged for hundreds of millions of years.
Then, the canopy opened completely.
Unfiltered sunlight bathed the land in warmth and brilliance. Logan felt an immediate, visceral lift in his spirits. He settled at the base of an ancient, sun-bleached araucaria tree, surrounded by prehistoric-looking cycads.
The stream before him glittered, a school of tiny, azure-scaled fish darting in the current. A massive, golden horned beetle gleamed on a nearby trunk. From the tall grass, the fluffy, curious face of a Mosswine peeked out.
For the first time since hatching, Logan felt a sense of peace. This wasn't just survival.
This felt like living.
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