Chapter 28: Evolution and Sparring

As the both of us returned, we're met with quite a sight once we pass through the gates.

This time, instead of being stared at, me and Shelton are both warmly welcomed and talked to by other crabs. A lot of which I had never seen before and looked very different from one another.

While I assumed that I hadn't seen a whole lot of this tribe, I can certainly see a bunch more crabs mulling about through the enclave, did something happen?

Jayce and Ponto appear behind us as he slaps me on my spine, errr, head.

"It's cause you were inducted while we we're gone." He explains.

"But why are there so many crabs here then." I ask still confused.

"Cause they wanted to see you Oliver, you're considered to be the first, high tiered predator to ever join our clan." Shelton spoke up, as the four of us walked over to the hunting section.

On the way, many different shaped and sized crabs spoke with us, many of which also asking to shake my tentacle (why?) leaving me extrodinarily confused by the time we stepped foot into the structure.

"Hello Jayce! I take it your hunting went well?" The front crab asks this time with an burly man voice instead of the higher pitched ones that I've gotten so used to for most of the front desk crabs.

"Yep yep! You should see Shelton and Oliver's haul compared to our though. Feels almost like they kind of just stumbled upon dead predators everywhere."

Yeah, Jayce and Ponto were both reeeeeeally surprised by our bags when we got back to them. Largely by the fact that a lot of the meat in our bag was from predators and not prey.

The front desk crab turned to look at me as it held out it's pincer, "You must be the new octopus, It's nice to meet you, my name is Shane and if you're gonna be hunting often, you'll probably also see me often."

I grabbed the pincer and shook it up and down, 'What's up with crabs and handshakes? I thought that they didn't even know what they were when I met Shelton because of his initial reaction but maybe it was just because of the scenario?' I thought to myself before Shelton put both of our bags on the stone slab in front of Shane.

"Ooooo, I see you've got some tiger eels, blackfins, and even a couple mudfish. I'll tally these up for you and start a new account for you Oliver since this is technically your first trip."

"Thank you." I replied as Shelton began pulling me out as Jayce and Ponto stayed, to turn in their own spoils and talk with Shane.

They didn't need to follow me around anymore after the induction ceremony earlier, so that meant that I was finally actually allowed to be by myself when in the enclave.

"I want to go and evolve so, let's head back to the nursery. It's considered the safe space for our enclave, and also where most creatures in our tribe go to evolve." He said as we began our familiar descent deeper and deeper.

Arriving back at the familiar shaft in front of us, littered with dug out cavities, we were met again with the sight of Teri, looking through some seaweed papers on her makeshift desk in front of her.

"Whoa, hi Shelton, hi Oliver. I can see that someone happened to go through a little change in less than a day. What brings you two back today?" Teri asks, a little too innocently while point out my evolution.

Not going to lie, she still kind of scares me, ever since the first encounter, even if she changed her opinion of me, I probably won't forget it for a while.

"Hi Teri! I'm here to evolve today!" Shelton exclaims which brings my thoughts to another crossroad.

How do creatures normally evolve in Asarania? Clearly they don't just evolve on the spot, but at the same time I doubt they they would be able to "control" it unlike what I do with my system.

I also kind of can't really ask Shelton this, otherwise he would get suspicious of how I evolve myself. as a creature who has supposedly evolved three times already surely I would know better than him, yeah?

"Congratulations Shelton! Since it looks like Oliver also evolved then it looks like you should both be on the same level again!" Teri exclaimed as she they both tapped their legs in excitement, "You can use Evolution room, and I'll assign a guard for it while you're in there."

"Huh? What about me then?" I ask dumbly.

"Hmm, Oliver you can go to the sparring section of the nursery for the rest of the day if you want and Shelton will be evolved by morning." She said.

"You have a sparring section in your nursery?" I ask. astounded as I picture little baby crab fight clubs going on in the cavities around me.

"Of course, if creatures spar here, we can get them healing and food quicker than any other place in the enclave!" Teri proudly says, as I try to reel in my thought's from what is most definitely child abuse.

"Don't worry Oliver, I'll be done my tomorrow morning!" Shelton said as he inwardly thought, 'and you'll finally be the small one again!' as he trudged up a section of the wall disappearing into a cavity leaving Teri and Oliver alone.

"Follow me Oliver!" Teri said as she began to walk farther down the cave.

I hurriedly followed after her and we walked with her asking me questions on how I liked the tribe so far.

Of course, not wanting to get on her bad side, I practically sang praises about the tribe from my beak despite only having really seen a small portion of it over the past 2 days, and being with Shelton for nearly all of it.

She looked at me, slightly surprised about my so called opinion so far, but eventually we arrived at what I believed would be the end of the nursery shaft only to see dozens of crabs scuttling about, with what appeared to be 6 large arena's where crabs were duking it out with one another.

These arenas seemed to be lined with sand that they must have brought from outside to try and mimic what most battles will look like on the seafloor.

I say duking it out, however it looked like for most of the arena's, it was simply 2 crabs, pinching and smacking each other with their claws.

Only 2 arenas truly seemed like battles as I assumed they were currently being fought by yellow ranked creatures or above.

In fact, one of those battles between a large crab, and a equally large turtle, had literal shockwaves bouncing back from each of their physical attacks.

As I looked on in amazement, I suddenly hear the crowd yell, "OOOOOOOOOO" and I looked in the direction that most crabs were facing.

In it, I saw what I can only assume to be 2 orange ranked crabs fighting. Not as serious as the predetermined yellow ranked battle, but still pretty lethal.

It was easy to spot the reason for the shouts of the crowd, as floating in the water above one of the crabs, was a now separated pincer, as the foe who removed it dashed up the now helpless victim.

"Simon wins!" I saw a smaller crab also in the ring shout which I would have immediately thought of as the crab equivalent of a referee for these matches.

"Get some help for Rudy over here!" One of the crabs shouted as a couple of extra crabs went to the guy with a now missing limb and a few new scratches and cuts in his shell.

Surprisingly, the crab didn't seem all that nervous about his missing limb, however he did appear to be somewhat sour about his loss. I guess he can always grow another limb, but can't ever remove this from his record.

"Any other orange ranked creature who wants to hop in?" The crustacean named Simon asked as he looked around the crowd before his landed on me.

"The octopus is here?" He wondered aloud as the crowd turned to look at me and Teri standing there watching with them.

"Everyone, I'm sure you've already heard, but this is Oliver, the new octopus in our tribe." Teri spoke, quickly driving away the awkwardness on my part.

She then turned around and left as most of the crabs greeted me or at least said some form of greeting before turning away to look or participate in other matches, a few of the braver and what I assume, mostly younger crabs step forward to speak with me.

"Wow! You look so weird! Do you even have a mouth?" Those were some of the nicest questions asked at me, but I don't take it to heart. Most of these crabs aren't even considered to be adults yet, as they weren't even 1 month in age.

'Wait doesn't this mean that these guys are around my age? Are these the kinds of creatures that I'm supposedly the same age as?' The thoughts flood my mind as I'm disturbed by yet another, but this time actual question from one of the crabs.

"Mister Oliver, what rank are you?" A small yellow shelled crab asks.

Ignoring the pain of already feeling old from being called mister despite the fact that I was just comparing how I was of similar age to the crabs in front of me, I reply to the crab, "I'm an orange ranked creature, I evolved this morning in fact." I chuckle as the crabs widen their eyes as they look at me in admiration.

'What's so cool about being an orange rank?' I think to myself. Assuming that these crabs are all only either unranked or white ranked at best, aren't I actually only a single rank ahead of them since I'm actually a red ranked octopus?

Considering that it took me around a month to reach this level and Shelton is only around 4 months of age and is literally evolving as we speak. Isn't making it to the orange rank basically guaranteed for all of these guys?

Unfortunately, my conversations with the young crabs are stopped as a certain crab happens to hear me mention my rank to the small one's.

Out of the corner of my vision I can see Simon, the crab who one the match from before approaching me from behind.

As I turn to face him, he opens his mouth and speaks, "I heard you were an orange ranked creature and was wondering if you wanted to spar?" He asks politely.

Huh. I thought that this guy would be somewhat cocky considering he just won a match by ripping his opponents arm off, however he is surprisingly polite.

Thinking about it for a moment, I eventually decide to concede to his request and join him in the arena.

The same small referee crab from before approaches me and asks if we want to fight to which both of us nod at.

"Are you aware of the rules?" The crab asks me, as he taps his legs on the sand beneath him.

I shake my head in denial.

"First off, no killing. It should be obvious but this is a grounds to fight, not kill. So if you think that you're opponent may not survive a blow, don't throw it."

"Second, injuries are allowed. Like you saw in the previous match we have medical attention present at all times in case of injuries which are basically guaranteed to occur during these matches."

"Finally, you are allowed to use any means at your disposal to win. Any advantage you have, artifacts, or strategies are allowed to be used."

The small crab lectured to me as I nodded in understanding. "Very well." The crab backed off to the side of the arena.

"Begin!" He shouted as Simon who was a few meters away from me dashed towards me closing the distance nearly immediately.

Caught off guard by both the abrupt start of the match and Simon's instant attack. I was unable to dodge the pincer rushing towards me.

Raising two of my tentacles in front of me, I managed to protect my face but in the next moment...

SPLURT!

[You have received -27 damage!]

Both of my tentacles which I used to block were instantly snipped off by Simon's powerful pincers, as I used the time frame of them being cut off to gain some distance from him.

"Woahhhhhhh!" The crowd shouted seeing my limbs floating in the water.

'Argh! What is with them and admiring floating limbs!' I groaned internally not wanting to make such an embarrassing sound in front of the crowd, and I looked at my opponent in a new light.

While Simon certainly was respectful when asking me for a spar, he certainly didn't pull any punches when it came to the actual thing.

I realized that I had severely underestimating the lethality of these fights as everyone had been calling them spars.

'This is a death battle for f*cks sake!* I yelled once again in my head, as Simon dashed towards me once again, leaving a cloud a sand behind him as he jumped towards me.

'I'm allowed to injure, just not to kill!' I thought as I activated my most powerful ability to the max.

[You have activated Density Manipulation!]

This time instead of being unable to react towards Simon's movements and needing to resort to blocking with my soft and squishy tentacles, I used 4 tentacles, or two for both of his pincers and activated by ability to its highest mass.

While this did indeed cause a huge drain on my mana, which I also found out was drained even faster than before because of my increased evolution, 'I guess it's because I'm bigger and have to change the density of more of my mass?'.

Coiling my now 4 extremely dense tentacles behind me, I shot myself towards Simon going even faster than he was.

His eye's opened wide to see me approaching him at quick speeds, and he raises his pincers in front of his face ready to grab ahold of me once I get close enough.

'But that's what I wanted!' I though to myself as once I arrived in front of him I performed a similar act to what I did to the Tiger Eel.

Bringing my tentacles above my head and using my momentum, I slammed down all 4 of my arms at both of Simon's pincers instead of his head.

BOOM!

A splash of red, followed by a crater of sand shot out from the ground beneath us as the disturbed sound blocked both the sight, and sound everything else around us.

The crowd watched on in silence, as they still weren't so sure what had just happened.

As the second passed by, eventually the sand settled down somewhat allowing them to see 2 figures.

The first was a large currently 6 tentacled having octopus, who while he did lose two of his limbs, looked none the worse for wear.

On the other hand the crowd gasped as it saw Simon who also lost two limbs, however these two limbs were his front pincers and he had many large gashes along the top of his carapace.

"Oliver wins!" The referee shouted upon seeing the state which Simon was in, being shivering a little bit as he realizes he was just lecturing the octopus which did this to the orange ranked 1.3 meter tall crab. Of course he was only telling him the rules, but it didn't change the fact that he was conversing with such a creature.

Upon the matching being called over, Simon looked over at Oliver, "It's my loss's but I promise I'll try harder next time."

"I look forward to it" I said while inwardly thinking, 'I really hope we don't fight again, because if we can then it means I'm not growing fast enough."

The rest of my time in the sparring pit, was spent mostly watching matches, and included another short fight or two for myself.

After my initial display of power, many of the orange ranked crabs didn't want to fight me in fear of being put out of commission for a short while, and red rank crabs didn't even thinking about it. For the yellow ranked creatures such as the crab and turtle from before, it looked like they had left at some point.

Apparently anything higher than orange isn't guaranteed to show up here everyday. I personally know that I wouldn't come here daily, I would rather be out and hunting leveling myself up, but it was still cool to come and see this place.

I eventually left to go to the feeding cavern and went back to Shelton's cave, while eventually falling asleep waiting for him to be finished with his evolution.

...

Clack Clack!

I blinked awake as I heard the snaping of pincers near me.

As I sluggishly looked around me I noticed an absolutely massive pair of pincers right in front of my face.

"Huh?" I mumbled.

"Surprise!" Shelton yelled, as he moved away the pincers revealing himself to me.

I stared at him, my face complete deadpan for a few seconds before closing my eyes and attempting to drift off to sleep.

"Hey hey! You can't just ignore me! Wake up and face the truth!" He says as he began to shake me with his now much larger pincers.

"Shush dream Shelton, a good dream is one that is believable, not this." I say grouse.

"Nope! Get up and deal with it!" Picking me up Shelton dumps be atop his head before we begin going who knows where.

Finally fully opening my eyes I get a good look at the new and improved Shelton.

He's got his previous size advantage over me, now towering around 1.5 meters tall if I had to guess.

With that I look at his status yet again.

<Name: Shelton>

<Level: 15>

<Health: 555/555>

<Mana: 0/0>

<Titles: Newborn Tide Candidate>

<Age: Adult>

<Vitality: 111>

<Strength: 113>

<Speed: 32>

<Endurance: 102>

<Intelligence: 35>

<Magic: 0>

<Luck: 41>

<Mutations: Crimson Stone Shell (Level 1) (Tier 2), Bone Pincers (Level 1) (Tier 1)>

<Tier: 3 (Orange Rank)>

<Species: Hardened Bullet Crab>

<Relationship: 85/100>

<Remarks: Is happy that he is bigger than you again.>

'Damn!' I say to myself as I see his new stats.

While he didn't manage to double his stats like I have for my past 2 evolutions, they did increase by a hefty amount.

Of course, I have no idea if this is because it was the orange rank evolution or if I'm just special. But I do know that Shelton also got a major power up.

In fact with his current stats, couldn't he absolutely crush me in a fight?

I know that I have my [Density Manipulation] as a trump card that no one quite knows about yet, but in terms of base power? Shelton now, wayyy outranks me. Plus compared to the other orange ranked creatures I've seen, despite the current Shelton having just evolved, I think he could probably beat most of them in a fight already.

If I had to put him on a spectrum I would probably but him around late to peak orange rank despite just getting there.

Snapping out of my inner monologue I finally speak to Shelton again as he carries me on his shell.

"Where are we going?"

"Where do you think, hmm? Obviously to hunt!"

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