Chapter 38: Possibilities

(Elder Carn POV)

I hadn't originally planned to invite Shelton to join our group, let alone even meet him during our patrol.

Glancing back at the dark red colored crab behind us, I took a good look at him before comparing him to other orange ranked crabs who had originally come alone with us.

There were three main differences between them. Most of the young crabs had orange to yellow colored shells with only a few different ones such as a blue colored shell due to a mutation as compared to Shelton's dark red shell

The other crabs also were noticeable smaller than Shelton, probably only around 2/3rds of his size. Of course Shelton was a physical based crab who didn't dabble in any special arts nor have any unique organs, but even compared to his fellow warriors, he was bigger.

Finally the last difference was his pincers.

Even with size difference between them, it was easy to to tell that Shelton's pincers were larger in proportion to his body size as compared to his smaller brothers.

The large pincers were a lighter colors compared to the rest of his body, but that did nothing to distract any creature from recognizing the threat they offered.

I didn't originally notice it when I talked to him and Oliver before.

'He must've gotten another mutation for them when we got to the orange rank.' Elder Carn mulled to himself as he turned back around only to see elder Hugo giving him a claws (thumbs) up.

"This is rather good isn't it?" Hugo whispered to Carn as then walked alongside one another.

"I'm sure you're also rather surprised that we met him here, but having our clan's only tide candidate grow faster would be rather beneficial for the clan yes?"

Smack!

All the creatures looked up ahead at us as Hugo rubbed the top of his head after I whacked him.

"Sorry, Hugo made a comment about my wife." I said making up a lie on the spot only to look see Hugo looking wronged out of he corner of my vision.

A couple of the creatures chuckled as the flirtatious rumors about Hugo became more cemented in their minds. That and the fact that the much larger crab was looking so sour after being hit by the smaller crab.

After the rest of the group went back to chatting with one another and scanning the environment, Hugo spoke up to me again.

"Why did you hit me and then lie!" He whispered angrily.

"You know better than to mention the tide candidate of our tribe." I shot back as Hugo closed his mouth realizing his error.

I didn't mind Hugo as a creature, he was rather friendly with basically all creatures of all ages, even if he was doing it to find potential mates.

But that doesn't change the fact that he is kind of a blockhead when it comes to important matters.

This doesn't apply to all physical fighters in the sea, but I know for a fact that Hugo is realistically only a elder in name, and has no real major duties nor handles any important matters due to his naivety.

Shelton had always been seen as a promising young crab ever since the day he had hatched in the nursery. It was unknown who his father was, as all young crab eggs are simply left in the nursery to hatch, while being watched and taken care of by all of the tenders and nurses.

However, especially in the recent times, there have been rumors about Shelton maybe being a child of the current Carak tribe leader.

With his insane growth rate that is easily at the top of the clan, omitting Oliver of course, and his lucky evolutions which have gifted him with extremely useful mutations, he's seen as one of the crab's who is guaranteed to get an elder spot in the near future.

Being an elder doesn't necessarily mean that one is old, but rather that one represents a powerful aspect of the tribe.

The minimum requirement was to get to the yellow rank, and then a decision would be made by the council before ultimately being approved by the leader.

Yet this was all before the flood. With the changes that has been brought about by it, obviously the daily norms and rituals of our tribe are going to have to change as well.

As evident by the currently evolving octopus, Oliver, who mind you isn't even four months old yet, the speed of growth is already showing massive changes.

Speaking of Oliver, to be honest? Both what he is, and what he represents terrifies me.

The way I see it there are two possible scenarios which can explain that pale octopus.

First, Oliver is special somehow. I still don't know if he's a tide candidate or not, but we still have no concrete evidence on this or not other than the fact that he is growing at a fast rate.

If this is the true scenario, then it would mean that the development of creatures all around the sea aren't actually as fast as we thought they were, which to be fair would be good for our clan because our enemies wouldn't necessarily be growing faster than us.

On the other hand, it would also mean that Oliver is maturing and increasing his state of existence at an absolutely mind boggling rate compared to current creatures.

In other words, we may be raising a monster.

However I truly don't think that this theory is right, at least not in it's entirety.

I do think that something is off about Oliver, with his golden eyes, pale barbed body, and strange abilities, however I don't think that he will grow up to be some horrible creature who will kill everyone and everything including us.

Rather I'm more inclined to believe that the flood is the main cause behind this.

That leads me to my second theory. That this flood is abnormal.

Of course I can't say with my own first hand experience that something about this flood is off, it's been hundreds of years since the last one and I wasn't alive for that.

However, compared to the words and experiences of those longer lived, and truly powerful creatures in the kingdoms and empires?

It almost seems like they were lying to us.

I also know for a fact that the growth rates of all creatures are off the charts as well.

Hell, I've managed to increase my existence more in the past month than I have in the past year!

I'm still not very close to evolving to the green rank, and with run-in's with the Synok tribe lately, I fear that our clan may see a true war soon, but I would like to remain optimistic.

Clamp!

I grabbed a passing by fly fish which apparently thought that I wouldn't attack it.

As the fish was bisected in two I glanced down and looked at my claws in amusement.

Ever since I had learned for my affinity in plant magic, I seldom used my pincers for anything other than eating or reading.

So being able to kill a creature, even if it was probably a white or even unranked creature with them was still rather comedic.

Tossing the two parts of the fish inside of my mouth I redirect my thoughts back towards Shelton.

The less creatures who know that we have a tide candidate in our tribe, let alone who that tide candidate actually is, the better.

While it is considered that just about every rung of the sea from the smallest tribes, to the largest empires, will all have tide candidates in them, it's not actually guaranteed.

The larger of a population that a society has, the greater chance that they have obtaining a tide candidate. However in a tribe with only 20 members, it is still fairly likely that at least 1 will be a tide candidate.

On the other side of the spectrum, for empires with populations in the billions, they don't nearly have the same proportion of tide candidates for their population, although they will 100% have more candidates than any family smaller than them.

Our own tribe is just shy of 1000 creatures, ah, scratch that, with our current birth rates we may have actually surpassed that within the past few days, or at least we will very soon.

However the point is, for unknown reasons, tide candidates are spread out.

Some think that whatever gods or beings out there in the depths of the sea or in the sea above want every creature to have a chance, but frankly our progenitor Karkinos never believed in that.

With the potential and power that tide candidates can have, especially for us smaller clans, raising them is one of the most important things we can do.

Throughout history, this was often the story for many of the clans which eventually turned into empires, and while I can't picture our clan as an empire, I still want to see it survive and thrive.

Our own ancestor Karkinos was also said to be a tide candidate during his own era.

Coming out of my thoughts I only speak to elder Hugo.

"It is of the upmost importance that, others don't find out about Shelton, most notably, the Synok Tribe." I say as I pat him on the back comforting the disheartened big crab.

As he nods in understanding both of us pause for a second as a smell reaches us.

Blood.