Turi arrived and found the area… devastated. Blood and feathers covered the intersection, and a thin mist lingered in the area. He wasn’t sure if there weren’t any living crows there because they were dead, or because it was day, but he doubted that they would be returning to this place in the night.

The mist made Turi uncomfortable. It was a much thinner version of the mist to the south, and it only reinforced Turi’s decision to stay away from there.

Turi hoped that Four-wings was alright, but he didn’t really care about any of the other crows. There was nothing he could do by sitting around in the ominous mist, and so he left and headed back for his stone hut, which might not be temporary anymore.

When Turi arrived, he couldn’t sit still. His essence core wasn’t full yet, so he couldn’t go hunting, but he didn’t like being idle after so long.

Turi made the spontaneous decision to return to the human camp, Anoptera. Once there, he was pleased to finally meet Jeremiah. Unfortunately, the eyeball crafter refused to tell Turi his secrets, even when Turi subtly threatened him and even when he promised to bring him the core of a powerful second-realm creature.

Turi had briefly considered following through on his subtle threats, but quickly tossed the idea aside. Upholding his reputation with the humans was important if he wanted to further his pursuit for knowledge.

Instead, Turi had learned to play chess. Turi wasn’t sure if it counted as cheating, but, after demanding that there be a ten-second limit on decision-making, Turi had certainly abused his ability to hasten his thoughts.

He wished he hadn’t, though. Not only had it been against the spirit of the game, but it had also wasted valuable essence. Worse than either of the prior two, the humans definitely seemed to believe that he was cheating somehow, and he hoped that they didn’t start to think of him as a cheater.

Turi had left shortly after winning his fourth game of cheated chess in a row, and now sat within his stone hut.

He was feeling a bit hungry now, but his essence core was still only three quarters full. Turi chose to spend the next half-hour practicing chess, since he had nothing better to do.

Turi gazed at the sun, finding that it was midday. His essence core full, Turi was finally ready to go hunting once more.

As always, he ignored the beasts that looked dangerous and the beasts that were too weak for him to bother killing, as well as the beasts that were neither dangerous to him or too weak for him to bother killing, but were too much of a hassle.

With this picky set of criteria, it took Turi a while to find a suitable beast- or, rather, beasts.

It was a pair of stone-clad squirrels, one male and one female. He was pretty certain that squirrels didn’t mate for life, but creatures changed as they ascended.

Heedless of the squirrel’s love, Turi dove towards the male, who was slightly smaller. His essence-infused wings made him whistle through the air, and Turi struck the Chihuahua-sized squirrel in its flank with his balled-up talons.

A web of cracks spread through its stone armor, but before Turi could take advantage of them, his thoughts accelerated. He was in danger.

Turi’s eyes flashed, and the six stones that had been soaring for his throat exploded into dust, having been struck by six other stones simultaneously.

The brief distraction had allowed the male squirrel to get away, though, and its stone carapace was already almost remade. There were not only two of the squirrels, but they were also significantly stronger than the last stone-clad squirrel that he had hunted.

Turi’s eyes flared as he willed a stone spike to impale the male squirrel from below, but nothing happened. The squirrel was specialized in controlling the stone, so he supposed it made sense that he couldn’t control the concrete that the squirrel was actively using to remake its carapace.

Turi’s thoughts accelerated again, and Turi decided that he would definitely be ascending his senses. As it was, his thoughts accelerating without his deliberate input told him that he was in danger, but it didn’t tell him where from.

Turi sent essence into his feathers and, immediately afterwards, a fist-sized stone struck him in the back.

Pain shot through him, but it didn’t stop him. Turi flapped his wings, and appeared in front of the female squirrel in an instant. He struck the squirrel’s neck with his beak, and a narrow hole was made in its carapace. Just as his beak left the hole, his eyes glowed and the water in the air turned to ice, piercing its neck fully.

Turi’s thoughts accelerated and he flapped his wings, soaring twenty feet into the air in an instant. Where his throat had been a mere moment ago, a very, very sharp stone spike protruded from the ground.

With the male squirrel’s teammate dead, it fell soon after, and, while Turi felt a little bad, he also felt quite triumphant. It had seemed a bit easy, but if he had been even a moment slower, that stone spike would have killed him.

Once Turi had consumed both of their cores and filled his stomach, Turi started heading back to his stone hut. As he did, he idly wondered how he would ascend to the third realm.

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He was in the second realm now only because of the crystal of condensed second-realm essence that Four-wings had given him. The Earth wasn’t even of the second realm yet, and was still in a transition phase; so how would he get his hands on essence of the third realm, or, if that was infeasible, how did he ascend there on his own?

Turi wasn’t even sure if it was possible.

‘If it’s impossible, I’ll have to wait centuries until Earth ascends to the third realm, unless something insane happens.’ Turi idly mused. He wondered what it would be like to live for hundreds of years. As his tome said, he was only a year old right now; the idea of living a hundred times longer than he already had was… absurd.

He landed on the roof of the twenty-story tall building and hopped inside his stone hut, and settled in as he simply… thought. How large would he be in a year? Would Earth have finished its ascension by then? How smart would he be in a year? Would he be able to fulfill his first step and host entire libraries of knowledge in his head while only in the second realm?

How would ascending his Aspects of Ascension work? Wouldn’t he inevitably reach the power level of a third realm creature just by consuming cores? Was that how he could ascend to the third realm?

He doubted it. If it was that simple, couldn’t a second realm planet have third, fourth or even fifth realm inhabitants, simply by consuming every other creature on the planet?

Turi wondered what he would want from his third realm variant species. Would he grow larger? Would he gain the ability to shape shift, so he could take a more human form?

Turi knew that he would want some sort of sixth sense, like the raccoon had. It would synergize incredibly with his ability to quicken his thoughts.

‘Now that I can talk, I could try to gather a following of crows, sort of like Four-wings- although crows only followed him because he was big and intimidating; they only wanted to leach from his strength. Probably; I wasn’t there.’

Turi sighed, feeling awfully bored. He had no reliable source of information other than Anoptera, and they refused to give in until he helped out, and they only intended on going on a hunt in six- or was it five?- days. Turi wasn’t the best with time; it was why he wanted a clock, but the humans had refused to give him one to put in his stone hut.

He couldn’t get a hold of any new knowledge, and he couldn’t hunt until he recovered his essence. Worst of all, by the time his essence core was full, the sun would be setting. Turi idly practiced chess, using crude stone pieces he had sculpted earlier that day.

‘Maybe I’ll hunt even in the night, but that sounds dangerous.’ Turi thought. With that thought, he realized that he wasn’t all that safe up here, in his stone hut. It had tens of gaps for him to fly out of, and the door to the twenty-story building’s roof was torn off its hinges.

‘At least it gives me something to do,’ Turi thought, letting out a sigh.

***

Turi did his best impression of a scowl as he stared at the pigeon that had taken up occupation in the brief time that he had been asleep. It was so small and dumb looking, Turi couldn’t even begin to comprehend how it was still alive; especially if it was suicidal enough to try and steal his home.

“Get out.” Turi told the bird, but it didn’t show any sign of having heard him. It stared aimlessly at the floor, and, based on its eyes, Turi was pretty sure there wasn’t a single thought running through the sorry excuse for a bird’s mind.

Turi sighed and decided to leave it be. It wasn’t harming anything, and it wasn’t like his stone hut had anything to steal.

The sun rising, the weather fine and his essence core full, Turi made the decision to go hunting. First, though, he manifested his tome and it flipped to the second page.

The essence core of both stone-clad squirrels had provided him with three opportunities to ascend his Aspects of Ascension. Before he used them, he moved back to the first page and looked over it.

By now, Turi hardly even looked at the fourth Aspect of Ascension, intelligence. He had made peace with the fact that it would be abnormal forever. The other three, though, were constantly in fluctuation. His strength had fallen to above-average, although it was very close to prodigal. His senses were somewhere in the middle of prodigal, and his durability was at the upper echelons of average. He decided to ascend all three, and, after a solid ten seconds, the changes were finished.

His strength was once more prodigal, and his durability was above average once more. His senses were on the upper end of prodigal, and, if he had one more opportunity to ascend, he knew that it would improve. Of course, the word itself had no meaning; his senses being ‘incredible’ or whatever came after prodigal meant nothing. It was merely a comparison to the rest of the crows on Earth.

Turi glanced at the stupid pigeon as his tome slammed shut and disappeared. Before he could hop out of his stone hut, though, his thoughts tripled in speed and a sense of impending doom filled him. Every gap in Turi’s stone hut closed almost immediately, and Turi encased himself in a stone cocoon, but the feeling didn’t go away.

The world felt like it was changing, and it took Turi a few seconds to realize that its ascension to the second realm was completing.

Just as Turi realized this, the world rumbled. Turi’s eyes widened as he remembered how the increased gravity at the start of Earth’s ascension had brought down almost every one of the human’s megastructures, and that his stone hut was built upon one.

His stone cocoon fell apart, and an enormous hole reappeared in his stone hut. With a single, essence-infused flap of his wings, Turi shot out of the stone hut, and could feel the pull towards the earth getting stronger with each passing second.

As the twenty-story tall building collapsed, Turi didn’t even think of the pigeon that was trapped inside until it, too, darted out of the stone hut- and immediately plummeted towards the ground, the increased gravity being too much for it to handle. Hell, it was becoming harder and harder for Turi to handle, let alone that sorry excuse for a bird.

The pressure grew greater and greater, and Turi gave in, slowly descending back to the ground as the city fell apart a second time. He was pretty certain that, when Earth’s changes finished, none of the city would be left standing.

As he slowly descended, Turi fell into thought.

‘This isn’t good. Flying is going to be significantly more difficult, and I won’t have nearly as many places to perch anymore. Moreover, second realm beasts will become more common than first realm beasts, and it seems likely that many of them will have some form of ranged attack, worsening my ability to pick and choose my battles.’

Things were about to become a lot harder for not only Turi, but the humans and every other bird on Earth. Well, maybe not Four-wings and other similarly-built birds, as their ability to fly would probably only be slightly impeded, but whatever.

Turi stayed about ten stories high in the air, where the falling buildings couldn’t hurt him, but he was feeling the strain. Luckily, the pull of the Earth’s gravity slowed, and the changes to the world seemed to finalize. Turi was not looking forward to the coming days.