A cub was lying under the shade of a tree in Nuxali’s savanna camp, looking quite content, but its peace was disturbed when another cub jumped on top of it and bit the back of its neck.

  Alexander began wrestling with his energetic sibling in annoyance. After a long struggle, Alexander had pinned the cub to the ground and claimed victory. With the relief of ending the game, he finally retreated to his corner.

  “This kid is starting to get on my nerves more and more! I’m not a babysitter…” Alexander thought with mild irritation.

  After lying down for a while, he opened the progress tab and checked the status of the analysis.

  Progress – 97.3 / 100

  “Finally… it took more than a month. I don’t even want to think about how long it would have taken if my mother hadn’t hunted deer two more times.”

  “Still, for now everything is progressing smoothly. If my estimate is correct, the analysis will be finished by tomorrow morning, and I’ll be able to move on to the template creation stage. Another piece of good news is that my stats have increased.”

  Alexander opened the stat window.

  CON: 3.3

  STR: 2.9

  AGI: 4.4

  DEX: 3.9

  INT: 9.7

  Biomass: 4.1 / 6

  “A protein-heavy, regular diet seems to have worked. I’m developing at a reasonable pace. Most importantly, my brain. My brain has nearly reached the level of an average adult human. That’s incredible, even for a Nuxali queen.”

  “I suppose retaining my memories allowed my brain to develop faster. Good… this early-stage advantage will be extremely useful when I start producing drones.”

  After checking his stats, Alexander grew bored again and spent the rest of the day either wandering around the camp or wrestling with his sibling. When night finally fell, he lay down early and fell asleep.

  The yellow sun had not yet risen. The sky was still a dark purple color, and a purple star in the sky was rhythmically glowing and fading.

  Alexander felt something different within himself and woke up because of it. When he focused inward, he immediately understood the difference. His body felt calmer. The analysis process had finished, and the energy consumption and faint fatigue caused by it had disappeared.

  He felt instinctive knowledge circulating in his mind about the newly analyzed DNA fragments.

  “Finally… it’s time for development,” he said excitedly.

  He straightened up and sat in place, then began creating a new template in his mind.

  As the main template, he used his current body that already existed in his mind, then began applying the information of the newly acquired DNA to the main framework.

  This process took quite a long time. Because the deer’s DNA was structurally different from his own and because its cells bonded in different ways, adapting the traits of the foreign DNA to his own body was very time-consuming.

  However, by late afternoon, he had finished creating his new template. Now came the main part: the evolution process. But Alexander had his hesitations.

  Normally, he would produce new drones and test the new template on them. That way, he could safely determine whether it caused any cancer or health issues and redesign the template if necessary.

  Unfortunately, he could not produce drones at the moment… his body was still not developed enough.

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  Still, Alexander chose to trust the template he had created. After all, he had carefully designed only a small, low-risk enhancement that he believed would significantly increase his ability to survive.

  He checked his biomass reserves. They had dropped to 3.8 since last night, but Alexander decided that this would be enough for evolution.

  Alexander instinctively activated the evolutionary mechanism within himself, then lay back down and avoided wasting unnecessary energy.

  He felt a restless sensation inside him, while at the same time a heavy lethargy settled over his body. Then he slowly realized that his eyes were closing. He was extremely sleepy and could not resist it.

  When Alexander opened his eyes, the first thing he felt was hunger, but he tried to ignore it as much as possible.

  He did not know how long he had slept, but he was certain that at least eight or nine hours had passed. He looked up at the sky; it was dark.

  An intense, burning hunger, so strong that it almost prevented him from thinking, kept him from focusing on anything else.

  His stomach, if it was still correct to use that word, contracted violently. Strange, muffled sounds coming from his abdomen filled his ears. It was as if his body was screaming that something was missing. He slowly stood up; his movements were heavy, but yesterday’s weakness was gone. The evolution was complete. He could feel it.

  “It’s normal for me to be this hungry…” he thought. “My body changed. A price had to be paid.”

  When he opened the biomass page, what he saw confirmed it. It was zero. The evolution had consumed everything.

  He looked around. The camp was still calm. A few Nuxali were lying in the shade, while some were watching him. When Alexander realized that he could no longer suppress the hunger, he moved toward the edge of the camp. Unfamiliar smells filled his nose, but they strangely felt “edible.”

  Tall yellow grass. Thick-stemmed bushes. Tough, fibrous plants.

  He stopped.

  He hesitated for a moment.

  Then he bent down and brought the leaves he tore from one of the bushes to his mouth.

  He chewed.

  At first, the taste was terrible. Bitter, dry, and fibrous. But after a few seconds, he felt a faint warmth in his stomach. Digestion had begun. Slow and difficult, but real. The cramping in his abdomen eased; the hunger retreated slightly.

  Alexander’s eyes widened slightly.

  “It works…”

  He continued to fill his stomach with large amounts of grass and leaves. He tried to tear up roots with his teeth; he failed with some of them, but he was able to digest the softer ones. The efficiency was low, very low. It wasn’t even a tenth of the biomass he would gain from animal meat.

  But it wasn’t zero.

  Alexander laughed inwardly.

  “This is exactly what I expected,” he thought. “Not a revolution, but a beginning. For emergencies. For scarcity. For survival.”

  He noticed the gazes around him.

  Adult Nuxali were watching him. Silent, motionless, with looks trying to understand. A Nuxali eating plants, that wasn’t something ordinary. Some tilted their heads slightly. One let out a low growl, it was unclear whether it was surprise or discomfort.

  Alexander didn’t care.

  As he swallowed the fibrous taste in his mouth, satisfaction grew inside him. The efficiency was low, yes. But this meant he wouldn’t die of starvation. It meant he could remain standing even when hunting failed.

  And most importantly,

  This was proof that evolution worked.

  Alexander lifted his head, swallowed the last bite in his mouth, and looked around. There was no longer only hunger in his eyes.

  There was calculation. There was patience.

  And a growing confidence.

  Thanks to the abundance of samples during the analysis, he had been able to decipher several traits from the deer’s DNA. One of them was the diversity and structure of its stomach chemicals.

  Among the other traits he learned were the deer’s sturdy bone structure and, although he hadn’t fully deciphered it, the structure of its lungs that allowed it to supply sufficient oxygen even during long runs.

  But Alexander had chosen this trait because its benefit to survival was incredible. In addition, compared to the others, its cancer risk and required biomass cost were lower.

  He had not fully deciphered the deer’s entire digestive system, but even if he had, he would not have dared to attempt such a large change at this stage.

  As a result, he could now feed as an herbivore, even if inefficiently.

  After Alexander finished eating, he retreated under the shade. His hunger was suppressed; not completely satisfied, but under control. That was enough for now.

  The pack slowly lost interest. His strange behavior was not something to question unless it caused mental pressure. For the Nuxali, the rule was simple: if the Queen allowed it, there was no problem.

  Alexander closed his eyes.

  This small development might have been insignificant for the pack. But for him, it was a turning point. He was no longer completely at the mercy of the hunt. He could now buy time.

  And time,

  Was the most valuable thing for a queen.

  As his instincts calmed, his mind had already begun looking ahead. More analysis. More adaptation. More control.

  This world was not slowly shaping him.

  He was learning how to shape this world.

  And this was only the beginning.

  

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