Skills Increased
Claw: 2->5
Peck: 2->4
Congratulations, you are now level 3.
Attributes Updated
Strength: (26->28)
Dexterity: (22->24)
Durability: (21->23)
Special: (36->38)
Species Skill Added
Hover: 1
Special Ability Choice Available
Congratulations, you have earned the achievement (Not Outgunned). You have defeated three or more opponents with similar or higher attributes. Attributes are ten percent more effective.
Congratulations, you have earned the achievement (Early Bloomer). You have gained multiple levels within a short window of system activation. Attributes are five percent more effective.
Special Ability Choice no longer deferrable, please select one ability from the following:
Iron Feathers: Your feathers protect you from minor injury while retaining all other features. Requires an iron-rich diet to maintain and replace plumage.
Enhanced Metabolism: Spoiled food you eat is less likely to cause ill effects, while nutritious food provides a small boost to health and stamina recovery. Your body requires twenty-five percent more calories to maintain your new metabolic rate.
Sharp spurs: Your spurs are but the vestiges of the battle-ready claws of your ancestors. Unlock more of their potential.
***NOTICE***
Atavism detected: Patron Grimfalk Notified
Patron Grimfalk has designated you as his Champion. Attributes are twenty-five percent more effective.
Patron Grimfalk Has Elected to Upgrade Your Special Ability Choices
Patron Grimfalk Has Chosen a Special Ability.
Special Ability Gained: Power of Progeny. Growing your brood now means growing your personal power. You gain a small amount of power every time you successfully procreate. This Special Ability may be upgraded. Power is only gained for direct offspring with approximately half of your DNA. Offspring does not include plants. Multicellular entities only.
Charlemagne felt rather than read the message of the mighty squiggles. He had no idea his achievements were providing a much larger boost to his attributes than the two flat points he was getting per level, but he could feel the ways that his body had grown stronger, faster, and more durable. He could sense that his pecks would penetrate deeper and that his claws would slice more easily, while his wings would better support his weight for a brief time in the air. Finally, he understood that the godly being he had seen in his dream had given him a mission to fill the Earth and subdue it: he and his children and his children's children. To help him achieve that goal, his benefactor would empower him the more chicks he made.
But for Charlemagne to obey he needed mates, lots of mates. His dull chicken mind cast around with his sharp chicken eyes, searching for hens. He was certain that he had recently seen a couple of them around. It took longer than it should have for him to spot them. They were still attached to the motorcycle's handlebars, alive but rather disoriented from their harrowing experience. Ever the gentleman, Charlemagne pecked away their bonds before mating with both. Satisfied with his work, the young rooster wandered off, looking for something else to eat, fight, or mate with.
In Grimfalk's demi-plane, two theropods were watching the chicken's exploits on an enormous screen, bickering with all the complacency of an old married couple. Grimfalk had his hind legs propped up and was popping candied squirrels with gusto, while Longclaw tapped away on what was essentially a magical smartphone whenever there was a lull in the action.
"I don't like this part," she complained. "I wish you'd let me censor the mating at least."
Grimfalk popped another snack in his mouth and gulped.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
"There's nothing wrong about it. It's natural. Besides, this is how our kind will be revived right here!"
"By making more chickens? I fail to see how that will help get you more followers. You already had to pay Flockheart for snagging Charlemagne. It wasn't cheap."
"Ah, but that's the beauty of genetics," Grimfalk rebutted. "As my Champion grows in power, I'll be able to give him even more of our DNA. Then he can breed with successive generations of his own offspring, rapidly increasing their percentage of therapod DNA. I'll get so many new followers this way!"
Longclaw looked up from her phone to see if the mating was over before averting her eyes again, choosing instead to glare at Grimfalk.
"All right that makes sense but explain to me why you gave him that silly power. There are other abilities that would have helped your rooster out a lot more, why didn't you give him one of those?"
"Yes, I could have afforded him a power that would have given him a bigger short-term boost. But my plan is much more sophisticated than just getting my Champion as strong as I can as fast as I can," Grimfalk gloated. "I did it because I am more interested in his long-term growth. Do you know how many potential mates he has? Once his offspring start to hatch, he’ll be getting consistent power boosts. I also wanted to encourage the rooster to produce more offspring in general, since it will benefit me, too."
Longclaw snorted.
"That's why? You do realize he's a rooster, right? A male animal? He'll mate with anything that has a cloaca and moves. And sometimes not even those are necessary."
"Well, I did do it for a few other reasons too," the dinosaur deity admitted.
"It's highly unlikely that Charlemagne will make allies anytime soon since it will take some time before his mental development picks up. So I figured I’d give him something easy that gave him a passive boost for something he was already interested in doing. Plus, since he’s already my Champion, I can choose the best of his children to make Champions out of at a reduced cost. Like I said, I’m thinking of the future here."
"Well that was nice of you to pick him a nice passive boost that will get stronger with time," Longclaw said, noting with relief that the mating was over and the rooster had found something to eat. "So what level do you think he'll make it to before the worldwide System rollout? He's already level three and it's been all of fifteen minutes. You think he'll make it to class selection?"
Grimfalk put his feet down and raised a claw to his chin.
"If he survives the next two days, I think he might," he said after a moment's thought. "I've talked to a lot of other deities, and many believe that there will be three time periods where a weak creature with early access to the System will struggle. The obvious one is of course when integration happens, and strong individuals gain levels rapidly. The second one is when they run across another Champion that has the means to directly oppose them, whether it’s on the physical or metaphysical level. The final one, though, that one might just be the worst. And Charlemagne is about to enter it."
Longclaw sighed.
"Don't be so dramatic...just tell me already!"
"All right, all right!" Grimfalk relented. "This particular dangerous phase is when the creature attracts the attention of humans with weapons. The three that Charlemagne fought were armed only with simple tools, but the humans have access to far greater power than I ever dreamed. The most common one is referred to as a 'gun' and can kill even large animals at a very long distance."
"Yes, I'm well aware of the existence of firearms," Longclaw said with a hint of exasperation. "I thought that's one of the reasons you decided against sponsoring that Ayam Cemani in Texas. So what's your plan here?"
Grimfalk put his feet back up and tossed another squirrel into his mouth.
"Plan? Well, I guess we'll have to wait until Charlemagne either levels up enough to be resistant to bullets, levels up a stealth skill to the point it’s useful, or gets a strong regeneration ability. I'm pretty sure one of those three things will happen."
"Well, one of those things better happen quickly," Longclaw warned.
"Relax, he's fine," the dinosaur deity rebutted. "Look, he's all done with his mating and eating. He's probably ready to fight again."
"I'm sure he is, but there's a pair of police officers arriving to investigate."
"So?"
"Well, the police in Benin carry guns."
Charlemagne was feeling good. The attributes bonuses from the System allowed him to recover from minor injuries quickly so long as he had access to sufficient food. His injured wing no longer hurt unless he flapped it, which wasn't a big deal. Even better, eating from the body of his last opponent had caused the squiggles to re-appear.
Congratulations, you have earned the achievement (To Serve Man). You have gained a significant amount of nourishment by helping yourself to Earth's dominant species. Attributes are ten percent more effective.
Warning: Consumption of sapient beings significantly below your level will result in a penalty to experience point gains. Current penalty: 0%.
Charlemagne still didn't know exactly what the squiggles meant, just that eating a human had made him stronger. And there were almost always a lot of humans around. He just needed to find another small group of them and fight them so that the wonderful squiggles would come back. He heard the rumble of an approaching pair of motorcycles and decided to try something new. Humans never were able to smell him, and their hearing was not nearly as good as that of other animals, so maybe he could hide out of sight and rush them when they weren't paying attention.
Charlemagne ducked behind a small bolder and froze, trusting in his small stature to keep him from being noticed. It wasn't really that great of a hiding spot, but the young rooster was not accustomed to sticking around dangerous situations. Despite this, the two police officers never thought to look his way as they arrived. They rode up and dismounted right next to the corpse of one of the men who had been killed outside: a corpse that was missing quite a bit of flesh.
One of the men had pulled out a small black box and was yelling at it, while the other had a weapon in his hands, pointing it at the hut. Neither of the two men was looking in Charlemagne's direction, which meant that he was free to attack them from behind. Charlemagne was not an ambush predator by nature, so he did not bother with any sort of fancy stalking behavior. Instead, the intrepid young rooster dashed in, aiming for the shouting man first. His beak flashed out, disabling one of the police officer’s legs and interrupting his frenzied shouting into the black box. The man screamed as he fell to the dirt, granting Charlemagne access to his vulnerable neck and face. He moved to quickly finish off the downed man, but the second police officer had not been idle as his comrade fell. With blazing speed hardly befitting a man who has never fired a weapon due to budget constraints, the officer had pulled back to a more optimal firing position and brought his dilapidated AK-47 to bear on his attacker.
A deafening crack stopped Charlemagne short. As a prey animal, the rooster’s original instincts were telling him to run away from the noise. They warred against his thirst for combat before losing out to the call of battle. The internal struggle lasted for a fraction of a second, but in a gunfight, a fraction of a second can be the difference between life and death. While Charlemagne hesitated, three more shots rang out.