Barnobo was currently pacing back and forth around their hunting group's camp, as he stared back at the entrance to the hole they were located in.
'Please be alright' Barnobo thought to himself as he turned away from the entrance to look at the 6 remaining crabs.
This hunting trip was supposed to be a simple food run to refill their stocks for the baby crabs and tribe as a hole, yet now his mind completely derailed from the topic off food as he was currently more concerned with the safety of a certain young crab.
Out of the original 8 crabs who came out here, 5 of them were orange ranked creatures, while the remaining 3 were red ranked.
As the leading orange ranked crap for this hunt as well, all of their merits for this trip would be focused on Barnobo's shell, however at the same time all of the drawbacks or mistakes that were made would also be placed upon him.
After 2 days of relatively well hunting, he had decided to give his group 3 days in order to recuperate because of some of the injuries that the crabs had received.
As one of the ones who didn't receive any injuries thanks to his shell mutation, Shelton was naturally exempt from needing to strictly rest, so when Barnobo discovered that Shelton had disappeared in the morning he wasn't too worried.
However for the next 2 days straight there was absolutely no sign of Shelton anywhere. He and some of the other uninjured crabs attempted to go out and search for him. But they always came back with nothing.
Barnobo initially planned to spend the next day hunting after they finished resting so that they could immediately go back to their tribe, but in this scenario they may have to ditch that idea and search for Shelton instead.
He really didn't want to not hunt on the last day, however he was even more against the idea of leaving the potentially still alive Shelton.
"Barnobo!" One of the sentries who was watching from outside the cave rushed, "We've spotted tracks from Shelton!"
"Everyone up! We're leaving immediately!" Barnobo commanded, as all the crabs around him began to raise from their positions.
At this point, everyone had already recovered, and Barnobo decided to act immediately not wanting to potentially lose Shelton's trail.
"Let's head out!"
...
Initially once the group got ready, they had planned to track Shelton based on some of the food which he was the most likely been the culprit for killing.
However little did they expect that said crab would be approaching the cave himself! Along with an... octopus?
As Barnobo looked at the octopus as his initial thought was that they were fighting but it appeared as though... it was simply sitting on a Shelton's head?
The octopus itself was slightly smaller than Shelton, and had a pale grey color to it with black and golden eyes. It appeared ot be a red ranked creature however one should always be careful of predators.
In fact, this octopus gave off an eerie feeling and it definitely felt off so maybe its already an orange rank? Barnobo guessed but he decided to ask for intentions first.
"Shelton! You had us thinking you were eaten you soft shelled crab!" Barnobo yelled out before asking the more obvious question.
"And who might this be?" He said, still keeping his distance from the mysterious octopus.
"Ahem", Shelton cleared his throat.
"This is Oliver he's a red ranked octopus friend I made while I'm was out and he's here to accompany us back to the tribe!" Shelton, declared, stunning all of the crabs alike.
"An octopus? Wants to join our tribe?" Barnobo questioned, "Shelton, I know that you're young and all, but finding such a young high tiered predator like this outside of its own family is either exceedingly rare or it means that it did something to its own family."
The only reason Barnobo dared to speak like this in front of the creature he was talking about, was because he was confident that even if this octopus was an orange tier creature, it still shouldn't be able to take on the 8 of them.
That being said he also believed that this octopus wasn't even a orange rank creature yet as, its aura wasn't oppressive.
"Oh sorry! I forgot to mention but he was a wild octopus!" Shelton announced yet again.
'A wild octopus?'
'It should be fine in that scenario then... but still, how did these two meet?' he thought to himself while he spoke aloud, "I see"
Oliver finally spoke, his voice surprisingly not as high pitched as what his body seemed to suggest, "It's nice to finally meet all of you, I've heard a lot about your tribe from Shelton."
All the crabs present glanced at the crab in question as he squirmed uncomfortably with Oliver still sitting atop his head like their attention on Shelton wasn't his fault.
"We can talk about this later, Shelton, for now however, we should get in one last hunt before we head back to the tribe." Barnobo commanded, followed with the nodding of shells from the other crabs.
Even with this unexpected variable, Barnobo was dedicated to making sure that they can fill up their rucksacks with food before returning. Plus, this would also be a good chance to see both the capabilities and disposition of this mysterious octopus.
"We also need to head back before the flood begins to get worse, otherwise we'll be dead shell out here." He added on as he and the rest of the crabs filed out of the cave 1 by 1 with Shelton eventually being the last crab with Oliver on his head as he sighed and followed along.
...
[You have activated Density Manipulation!]
BAM!
[You have killed a level 13 Jagged Pincer Crab!]
[You have gained experience!]
[You have leveled up to Level 10!]
[You have gained 10 stat points!]
[You have gained 1 skill point!]
[Evolution is now available!]
Huh?
Oliver looked down at his status as he ignored the crushed body of the crab beneath him.
'I levelled up again' he thought as he looked down at his tentacles seeing the scratches he got from some of the lower leveled white ranked crabs.
'I'll evolve later then... now's not the time.' He decided before the he put the 10 new stat points equally split into strength, speed, and magic, with the final point going into endurance. He then turned to observe the rest of the crabs around him, both friendly and wild.
Shelton, his hunting group and Oliver had gone out for one last hunt and managed to find a group of 15 crabs with 9 of them being red ranked.
Naturally this didn't pose much of a problem for any of the crabs nor Oliver as not only were they much smarter, but also simply stronger than said crabs.
'I wasn't sure If I was actually going to be able to evolve at level 10 but it looks like I can, do I evolve every time I double my current level then?' He pondered before he began to use his barbs to crack and peel the shell off of the now dead wild crab.
As he filled his temporary crabpack (It's totally what they looked like to Oliver), he watched as the other members of the hunting team both finished off their own prey, and as they dismantled and packed the remains as well.
He wasn't exactly sure why they were hunting like this, but he did know that they need to hunt for the younger ones in their tribe especially if they had hundreds of crabs overall in the tribe.
One thing that really confused Oliver however, was their urgency in such a task.
He also had no idea what the hell a flood was, or at least he didn't think the crabs were talking about the underwater ACTUALLY flooding, but he wasn't given a chance to ask Shelton before they left to go hunting.
As all of the crabs gradually finished up with their disassembly and stuffing their bags with as much crabs as they could, those who were finished walked over to others and helped them quicken the pace.
Before he knew it they were back to marching, however soon enough he finally crossed that border that he had never crossed before as he finally left what he would later turn out to find to be called the "Guppy Kelp Forest", his first home.
...
"Hey Shelton?" Oliver asked amidst the silence of their journey.
"Hm? What's up?" Shelton responded to the octopus sitting atop his head yet again.
All the other crabs continued to march in silence as they listened into their conversation, not that either of them were trying to hide it in the first place.
"What's a flood?" Oliver asked, as one of the fellow crabs next to them nearly tripped upon hearing his question.
All of the other crabs looked at Oliver and then amusedly stared at the squirming Shelton as he realized he had forgot to mention the reason why they were even out here in the first place.
"A-Ahem" Shelton cleared his throat, "A flood is a time in which ambient mana levels as well as the birth rates and growth rates of creatures shoot through the roof."
"This not only causes the growth of newly born creatures to increase to an insane degree, but also creatures who were already alive before the flood began."
"With the increased amounts of creatures around, and the increased amounts of the increasing one's state of existence, this can create uncontestable monsters who can rule over entire sea's all by themselves!"
"In fact, all current 14 rulers of the sea's were actually born or have experienced at least one flood before!" Shelton continued as his excitement began to get the better of him.
"Increasing one's state of existence?" Shelton asked, unable to understand the phrase.
"I'm sure you've felt this before seeing as you have already evolved twice, but increasing one's state of existence happens when you kill a certain amount of foes in battle. The theory is that the more enemies you kill, the more the world acknowledges your existence which then in return makes you stronger."
'Ah, he must be talking about leveling up' Oliver thought to himself as Shelton kept up with his explanation.
"The other important thing about floods, are the birth of Tide candidates."
"Tide candidates are basically special monsters born during a flood who not only experience even faster growth than creatures not born in a flood, but they are also simply faster, stronger, smarter, and overall simply more dangerous."
"The more tide candidates a flood creates, the more of a pronounced effect the flood has upon all creatures, as things get more and more hectic providing more resources for the candidates to grow off of."
"That brings me to my next point. Floods also have different stages which affects the severity of the effect of the flood."
"The first stage is the beginning stage, it is said that this stage actually starts around 6 months before any noticeable changes happen, which opens up the time frame for different tide candidates to unknowingly be born into certain families."
"The next stage is the middle stage, where the birth and growth rate also gradually begin to ramp up."
"The next stage is the peak stage, where growth rate is at an all time high and the chances of creatures receiving mutations during evolution also grows."
"And the final stage is called the rebound stage. This is basically where either the flood will cease to occur anymore, OR, the flood will restart from the beginning stage, however all of its effects will become more pronounced."
"Each of these stages usually lasts for about a year, and from what's been seen throughout history, a flood will on average rebound at least twice." Shelton stated.
Oliver paused yet again as he comprehended what Shelton was saying.
'So basically everything in the world slowly just begins getting more and more hectic as more and more creatures are born which causes the strongest ones to survive and grow? This just sounds like sped up natural selection and evolution' Oliver concluded before he asked another question.
"In that case, is there any way to tell if a creature is a tide candidate?" He wondered, curious to know if he was a tide candidate.
He assumed he was, because, you know, he has a system and everything. However no one could ever truly prove or know that he had it, so if there was another way to tell if a creature was a tide candidate or not externally then it would be better to know.
"If you think that a creature is a tide candidate, then the best way to find out is to look for some sort of symbol on their body."
"It can be anywhere, their skin, claws, teeth, tongue, or any special body part they may have due to their species."
"In fact the current ruler of the sea of gravity, Compriate, is Hendontia the Pressurer, who is known for here irises to be where her tide mark is. Her pupils apparently have a number of different sized and colored rings around them!"
Cutting off Shelton from his infatuation, Oliver once again spoke, "And it can be any kind of symbol?"
Shelton upon stumbling from not paying attention to his path, nodded, "Yeah, it can be a mark, symbol, picture, or any kind of visual character on a creature which shows if they are a tide candidate or not."
Oliver nodded his head in understanding.
'I don't think I have something like that anywhere on my body, so... maybe I'm not a tide candidate? I guess there is the chance that I'm something else entirely...' as he once again opened his beak.
"Does that mean that tide candidates are discriminated against? Like do other creatures really want to kill them?"
Shelton's eye stalks turned a little bit looking at Oliver (which freaked Oliver out a little bit to be honest), as he chuckled at his question, "Some do yes, like humans who see the flood as an absolute calamity for them, since they aren't positively affected by the flood at all."
"Most creature societies however, much rather prefer to recruit them. For wild tide candidates, giving them a chance to join a certain society is something they will absolutely do once they become intelligent enough to realize the benefits of doing so."
"For tide candidates who are already born into these societies however, they are seen as priceless treasures."
"Not only because they are already controlled by those societies since they are a member of them, but also because typically societies are formed by naturally powerful creatures, so having a creature born within them who has much better potential, is seen as a sign of good luck and can become even more powerful than wild untrained creatures."
Oliver spoke yet again as a big seamount gradually began to fade into existence in front of them,
"In that case how common are these tide candidates? Like, does your tribe have any?"
This time however, instead of Shelton speaking again, Barnobo cut in,
"For wild creatures it is seen that there is about a 1 in 1,000,000 chance of being born as a tide candidate. On the other hand for tribes, kingdoms, or even empires this can be much higher or much lower. Its unknown the mechanism behind it however most of these different societies will experience at least 1 candidate. This means that smaller tribes such as ourselves have a much higher chance of birthing a tide candidate relative to our population, compared to massive empires who have a much lower chance relative to their own population."
"However despite these odds, empires just about always have candidates whereas smaller groups like our tribe only occasionally have them due to the population difference."
"For a tribe of our size, we have about a 50% chance of birthing a tide candidate. In fact that reminds me, Leader Korul should have told all crabs 6 months of age of younger that you'll need to go to the nursing grounds to be checked for a tide mark."
"That includes you three as well." Barnobo pointed at Shelton and the 2 other red ranked crabs walking along who, dipped their heads with acknowledgement.
"Oliver, while I personally don't think of you as any danger, I hope you understand that other crabs of our tribe may not think the same, especially for a predator as high as you in the chain, thus for your initial time in the tribe I think that it would be appropriate for you to have some guards assigned to you."
Shelton was about to open his mouth before Oliver cut him off, "It's okay, I understand." He said without any nervousness in his voice.
Barnobo looked at Oliver gratefully before turning and pointing towards two of the orange rank crabs walking with them, "Jayce, Ponto, you two will go with Oliver."
"Yes sir." They both clacked their claws as they responded.
"I'll report your progress to the hunting grounds, so don't worry about your merits and just go to the nursing grounds once we get back. You should also go as well Oliver, just to get checked for the mark."
The group of crabs gradually walked down an incline until they came to the base of the seamount on the north side where a massive hole was located, as they walked in, at first it got darker and darker, until the opposite began to occur through the use of what would appear to be bioluminescent moss placed around the cave.
As they kept on walking further down eventually they spotted a makeshift wooden gate, with two absolutely massive crabs both holding... spears? in one pincer as they stood guard next to it.
"Barnobo!" One of them waved at the crab leader as he waved back, "It's good to see you again, Haha!" the crab laughed jovially as he grabbed a handle on the gate and opened it up to reveal a massive menagerie of different looking crabs, plants, and even tools and makeshift buildings located all over the enclave.
"I'm also hoping you realize that there is an octopus with you?" The guard asked, gesturing to Oliver.
"Yes he's with us." Barnobo replied as the rest of the group walked through the gate.
"Alright, but just remember to seek an audience with an elder." The guard said again as he pattened Barnobo's back who watching his group go in.
"I will, thanks Monty." Barnobo replied before following the rest of them in.
The crab named Monty chuckled, as he closed the gate behind them, but not before getting one last look at the octopus.