Turi could hardly contain his excitement when he woke up. Immediately, Turi manifested his tome, and it flipped to the second page. On it, he saw that he had an entire fifteen opportunities to ascend his Aspects of Ascension, and, without hesitation, Turi chose to ascend his intelligence- not once, not twice, but seven times, all at once.

When it was done, Turi tried once more to comprehend morals, but, despite having consciously wanted it as he ascended his intelligence, he found the concept just as senseless as before.

Turi used the rest of his opportunities all at once, and ascended his intelligence once more, and Turi almost cried a tear of relief when he could vaguely feel something he decided to attribute to morality, although he might have been blinded by his want for it to be.

Unfortunately, that was all it was; a small, vague feeling in the corner of his mind, that told him right from wrong. Turi prayed to the god-creature that it was what he had wanted, but he worried that it would operate on the wrong opinions of right and wrong.

Regardless, Turi was relieved; so relieved that he almost wanted to do a dance, but he had a reputation to maintain. The humans thought he was scary and strong, after all, and he’d like for them to maintain that image of him.

The temporary camp became more active as everybody woke up and got ready to go hunt ants, but Turi almost wanted to ask to be left out of it. His essence core was only half full, and he wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, despite- or maybe because- his mind having just ascended fifteen times.

He was so tired that, rather than hop with the group or fly above them, Turi just perched on Jeremiah’s shoulder. There was more to it than simple exhaustion, though. Something was… off. His mind felt weird.

In the small corner of his mind, where he could vaguely feel the concept of morality coming from, Turi felt like there was a… something. Turi didn’t know a good enough word for it, but it was like his mind was its own little world in that small section of his mind.

Turi tried to tap into that section of his brain, but he simply… couldn’t. Turi tried to grasp for the moral feeling that came from it, but he couldn’t do that, either.

Turi didn’t stop in his attempts, though. He kept trying to get access into the restricted section of his own mind, and refused to accept that it was off-limits. He pushed, as though trying to break through a barrier that was in his way, and felt a slight bit of give. Almost immediately afterwards, a wave of exhaustion struck him. Turi swayed from atop Jeremiah’s shoulder, and he only barely stabilized himself, thereby saving himself from humiliation.

Turi was in no condition to fight, though. He had already told the humans, vaguely, of what he had done the previous night, mostly because he needed to tell them about the mist tendril, but they had no clue of just how tired he was.

And so, Turi gave in to his desire for sleep, and, after telling them that there was something very, very important that he needed to do, Turi hopped inside of his miniature tent and practically threw himself down on the small cushion that was his ‘bed’.

***

When Turi reawoke, it was midday. An illusory eye was all that had watched him and the camp in his moment of weakness, and Turi cursed his past self for his negligence.

Regardless, Turi felt much better now. His mind was better, but still had that odd section, and Turi left it alone for right now. His essence core was full now, though, and Turi was more than ready to go find the humans as they hunted ants.

After briefly eating the three cores that he had left near his cushion, within his tiny tent. Finally, Turi took to the air, and climbed as high as he could. With Earth’s ascension to the second realm finished, Turi was still unable to reach twenty stories into the air, which hadn’t even been the limits of his abilities before it finished.

Regardless, fifteen or so stories into the air was more than enough, and with Turi’s keen senses, he spotted the humans almost instantly. They were walking along the edge of the ant’s battleground, slaughtering the ants at the edge. Their hunting speed was slowed down significantly by Turi’s absence, as it had been his job to gather the essence cores, as well as to kill ants, of course, and they now had to manually harvest them.

Turi darted toward them, and arrived in a dramatic fashion, deliberately, of course. He slammed through a knight ant’s head- Turi would have sworn from how much it hurt if he had vocal chords- and landed right in front of them.

“I have returned.” Turi told them, and he was distinctly displeased with how unhappy they looked. It wasn’t his fault that he hadn’t been here; he was well and truly on the verge of passing out from exhaustion. Besides, the reason he was so exhausted was because he had done the right thing and, rather than steal, Turi went and hunted his own.

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Turi ignored the mild annoyance that was visible on the human’s expressions and gathered all of the ants’ cores that they had missed using his eyes. Of course, he would manually retrieve them after this; using his eyes for every ant they killed would drain him of essence absurdly fast. It was his job to collect them because of how small he was, and how easily he could dig through their tough ant flesh.

The next hour or so was spent hunting, and Turi took a much more primary role than he had the day before; for no reason other than, while the humans were exhausted from having hunted ants all day, Turi was fresh from his nap.

Suddenly, a scream pierced the air, and Turi looked over. He had been on the other side of the group.

It was an older man, forty or so years old, most likely. Their variant species wasn’t very special; it dedicated everything towards the physical aspect of combat. As a result, he was stronger, faster and more durable than every other person in the group, but he had no other abilities. He could not summon fire, nor could he create illusory constructs or anything of that nature.

The older man, in a stroke of horrible luck, was tripped by the root of an enormous tree that suddenly shot out and pierced an ant.

Before anybody could even react, a knight ant brought its mandibles down on the man’s arm, and tore it off. Turi’s eyes flared, and a stone spike pierced the ant’s brain a moment later, and Leo, who was closest to the man, pulled him away from the ants.

They had a healer in the form of fun-fact lady, who insisted upon being called Catherine, but she hadn’t dedicated to the role. It was annoying; the humans had a severe lack of supporting roles because they all had delusions of grandeur; of being strong and fighting off twelve monsters at once.

Jeremiah was the only second realm human that Turi had seen fully dedicate themselves to the support role, and he was possibly the most important person amongst Anoptera for it.

It was annoying, but Catherine wouldn’t be able to do much more than stem his bleeding.

Leo demanded a retreat, and the ants didn’t cause any problems with their disengagement. They were more preoccupied with slaughtering their brethren.

Once they were ten yards away, the ants didn’t even spare their group glances anymore. Turi wasn’t one to question their strategy, but it was stupid. Over the course of their hunt, they had killed at least a hundred ants, but they never did more than ward them off when they were nearby. If they had put even a little bit of effort into killing them, they’d be significantly better off.

“We’re heading back for a while; use the time to take a break and recover your essence. Catherine, you’re hauling him back.”

“My essence core is still fine. I will stay, and the essence cores I hunt will belong to me.” Turi said, and Leo glanced at him with visible annoyance.

“Do what you want,” He said after a while, and they started heading back to camp.

***

Turi looked at his assessment. After the older man, Henry, had lost his arm, the humans hadn’t returned at all today, and that meant that Turi had had free reign to hunt all on his own until he became too exhausted to continue.

The sun was setting now, and Turi had long since digested all of the fruits of his labor. Now, he had seven opportunities to ascend his Aspects of Ascension. Turi had a hard time deciding what to do with them.

His assessment told him that his strength, durability and senses were all becoming increasingly average. Of course, his senses were still ascended and his strength was still prodigal, but both were at the verge of becoming prodigal and above average respectively. His durability was still above average, at least.

Turi didn’t want the other crows to outdo him, but Turi also really wanted to increase his intelligence. He wanted to figure out what was going on with his mind, but Turi was also mildly afraid of what might be happening.

He came to a decision pretty quickly, and ascended his strength, durability and senses once, and used the remaining opportunities to ascend his intelligence. After that, Turi was already about to go to sleep, and so he decided to work at figuring out what was going on in the weird corner of his mind, which had grown larger since ascending his intelligence.

Turi pushed at it, and it felt more fragile than last time, too. Turi gathered his will and pushed at it once more, and could feel the strange part of his mind struggling to stop him from gaining access to it. Feeling how close he was, Turi pushed harder, and…

Something snapped inside his mind, and Turi found himself standing in an endless void, just like he had when ascending to the second realm.

‘Did I just ascend to the third realm?’ Turi thought, but no; Turi knew that wasn’t it. He could still feel his body, right where it had been when he had snapped the barrier; the dirt beneath his talons, the grass waving around his legs, and he could still hear the bickering of the humans. Turi felt like he could return to his body in a heartbeat if he wanted to, but he was curious.

Turi looked around the void, and unlike when he had ascended to the second realm, Turi could see something in the distance. Turi flapped his wings, and was surprised to find that he could move in here. Even as he flew towards the object in the distance, Turi examined it.

It was a simple scale, but despite that, as Turi gazed at it, he knew what it was for.

It reminded him of something that Catherine had talked about in her long tirade of fun facts.

One of the human’s ancient civilizations had believed that, when they died, their heart would be weighed on a scale against a feather. However, the scale did not weigh their heart itself, but the sins it commuted. If the feather was heavier than the heart, the heart would be fed to a crocodile.

At least, that’s what Catherine had said, but Turi didn’t know how much of it was accurate. Regardless, it functioned similarly.

It was the origin of the feeling of right and wrong that he had felt, and it weighed his actions. The longer Turi gazed at it, though, the more certain he became that he had made a mistake.

This wasn’t what he had wanted. He had wanted to gain morality, but this wasn’t that. The scale would inflict devastating pain whenever he did something wrong, and Turi knew that this didn’t make him a good person.

More than anything, it reminded Turi of training an animal, and that thought terrified him. He… was he an animal?