Legendary Crystal (1)

Iona slowly poked his head out of his shell, he looked left and right, and when he saw nothing unusual outside, his head and limbs came completely out of his shell.

Unbeknownst to him, there was a sneakily monkey on top of a tree branch behind him, planning to do a surprise attack.

Iona didn't know what happened, but he has a bad feeling about it. He heard those ear piercing cries and the roar of the lion king, if anything happened, then it could only be "that".

Those cries and screams were very familiar, even if many years had passed, Iona could still remember that shrill shriek of that bird, it haunted Iona in his nightmare countless times before, except that it didn't have those traces of fear and desperate pleas to survive.

The moment he came out of his shell, he saw that very huge bird at first sight. His eyesight wasn't very good, he didn't know what kind of bird it was, but it was a bird that ate turtles alright, so Iona was sure that it was a very fierce bird.

But for some reason, it didn't eat him. He felt very fortunate, of course, but at the same time, he felt as if he saw the bird's disdain as it saw him, making him feel a bit embarrassed that he didn't look very tasty. But perhaps it was just his imagination.

Anyway, Iona didn't know why, and he didn't really want to know what that bird was thinking, but he was certain that it was dead now.

Iona didn't know whether to feel relieved about it or not, but he didn't feel any sympathy for it.

Well, it's the law of the jungle.

While Iona was contemplating about life, behind him, the baby monkey finally found the opportunity to take action.

She smirked, then suddenly jumped up and fell directly on top of Iona's shell.

The baby monkey stepped on Iona's shell, and the impact of her fall shocked Iona so much that he almost had a heart attack.

Iona was deeply immersed in his mind when something fell on his shell.

His shell was hard and tough, but it was still part of his body, he felt pain from the impact, as if his ribs were punched.

Iona was so shocked, he cried out loudly.

His mind blanked out, and he froze for a moment.

Seeing his frightened appearance, the baby monkey was so satisfied with her masterpiece that she couldn't help laughing hard.

Hearing a familiar laugh, Iona regained his senses, and realized that he was being pranked by the monkey again.

He calmed down his nerves, then went to turn his head to look at the baby monkey on top of his shell.

"Hey!" The baby monkey crouched down, and looked at Iona with her head upside down, with a big smile on her face, she greeted.

After the surprise and shock, Iona looked at the baby monkey with dead fish eyes, and thought to himself: My peaceful and quiet time is over!

Iona then remembered the commotion earlier, and coupled with the disappearance of the monkey king and the baby monkey, at the same time, he thought of their prying hobbies, Iona believed that she knew what happened clearly, perhaps she even saw it live.

Therefore, Iona tilted his head and looked at the baby monkey with eyes filled with questions.

The baby monkey grew up with him, and because he can't speak for some reason, she learned how to read his expressions with just the movement of his head, and the emotions of his eyes, which is incredible, thinking about it.

The baby monkey saw his eyes, and knew what he wanted to express, so she grinned at Iona and did a somersault, landing in front of Iona with a perfect spin.

"Take a look at this!" She said excitedly, as she proudly presented the things entangled with her long tail.

The baby monkey directly held the things in her tail in front of Iona for him to see clearly.

This consideration made Iona want to shed a tear.

She may be a bully, but in this world, this monkey was the only one who knew Iona best. Even in his previous life, Iona never had someone as close as the baby monkey by his side. This made Iona feel incredible, and at the same time, lamented his past life.

Iona's attention was captured by the things held by her tai, which were two luminous crystals. He thought this baby monkey found another rare stone, and just wanted to show it to Iona, but to his surprise, the baby monkey finally did something Iona was grateful for.

"You know about that big bird, it came earlier!" She said accompanied by her hands and feet, gesturing something big.

"The monkey king brought me to watch the show just now, and it was so cool and awesome! The lion king suddenly became a giant and he grew wings on his back, then he roared at the big bird flying above the forest."

"Then the lion king jumped up and flew towards the big bird. The big bird shrieked angrily and rose to the sky, wanting to hook the lion king with its claws!"

"But the lion king was so powerful, so majestic, and cool! He quickly raised his claws and scratched the big bird hard, and made it fall down!"

The baby monkey told Iona what happened, her childish voice rang in Iona's ears like bells ringing in his ears. The baby monkey made monkey sounds in between her sentences, but her words were precise and direct, completely explaining the whole scenario with full emotions.

Iona looked at the baby monkey in awe, both because of the awesome fight between the lion king and the sea eagle, and also because of how wide her vocabulary is.

She improved again, he thought. He wondered where these awakened animals learned these words.

The language system of awakened animals was like human language, it was quite complete with a wide variety of terms and expressions.

Except for the occasional animal sounds as they speak, the awakened animals Iona knew all talk like a normal person, making Iona wonder how their language was formed.

Thinking about how he learned this language with difficulty, Iona felt stupid.

These awakened animals talked as soon as they were awakened, unlike him, it took Iona, what, a year or two to fully understand what they're talking about.

Without subtitles, or dictionary, Iona was like watching pantomimes doing charades, and Iona was guessing at the side what they were talking about.

The animals in this island were isolated, with few visitors coming in long intervals.

Iona guessed that it was something to do with inherited memories, just like what he dreamed about before. And Iona, who was stuffed into a turtle egg, didn't belong to this world to begin with.

He thought, maybe the reason why he couldn't speak until now was because he kept insisting that he was from another world.

Excuses, excuses, maybe turtles don't have much capacity to speak…or perhaps the problem was he's too stupid...

Just as Iona was about to make more excuses about himself, he suddenly realized something, and black question marks appeared above Iona's head.

Wait a minute…did he hear it correctly? The lion king became bigger? What wings?

Although Iona knew they're animals that could talk, with bodies much larger and stronger than their species, he didn't expect them to be some kind of magical creatures.

They could grow bigger and grow wings, what the hell…

Iona suddenly had bad premonitions. Talking about suddenly becoming bigger, he remembered the dream he had…

The baby monkey read the curious questioning gaze of Iona, and explained excitedly: "You don't know, I don't know either! The monkey king just told it to me when the lion king 'whoosh' and wings appeared on his back."

"The monkey king said that awakened animals are different from animals because of those wings.

Then the baby monkey shook her head, saying: "Not the wings, well, it's the wings, but there are also others."

She took the two luminous crystals from her tail, then brought them closer to Iona: "See these. The monkey king told me that eating this will make me grow wings!" Then she hesitated again, and spoke with uncertainty, "Maybe not wings. The monkey king told me that not all awakened animals grew wings."

"The monkey king said that he has four arms, and his body will become like a mountain, with feet that could trample the entire forest. He said that I can't see it now, but if he has the opportunity, he'll let me see his four arms perform."

"The monkey king also said that the snake king has a horn on her head and arms and feet on her body. He said that I could grow wings like the lion king, or grow another pair of arms like him, or maybe grow horns like the snake king."

Hearing her words, Iona was stunned―― that's evolution!

So not only did they gain intelligence and ability to speak the moment they opened their consciousness, they can also evolve.

Iona looked at the luminous crystals in the baby monkey's hands, and had a guess in his heart.

"The monkey king said that every time an outsider comes, unless it's an awakened animal like us, they won't kill them, because they don't have these stones inside them yet."

Iona showed a 'wow' expression, then he snickered feeling proud inside. He guessed right. They hunted and harvested the awakened animals that stumbled upon this island. They treated the awakened ones who were born on the island as their own, but treated the outsiders as food.

This was like the animal version of the horror movie Wrong Turn.

Anyway, it was none of his business. Fortunately, he was born on the island.