Assassin Crow Evolution

The Monk’s Screech revelation sounded serious. It even sounded deadly.

Within the description, Jimmy caught something about reality, and God, along with a thirty page list of numbers and symbols that he could not understand. He read through the description twice, but he was nowhere closer to decoding it.

The revelation seemed like something he wasn’t supposed to have.

At first, he wanted to give The Monk’s Screech a shot right away, as he got this great urge to figure out what it was, but the Think Ahead evolution didn’t let him.

’If this shit goes wrong, I could hurt, or even kill my brother. Probably the ladies too.’ He thought, ’For a revelation that’s supposedly divine, there is a lot of talk about death, and murder in its description.’

His second idea was to fly away from the Walnut tree, and test this thing out at least a hundred feet away, but that didn’t sound right to him.

Jimmy still feared that the odd creature he fought last night was still following somehow. Paranoia was at an all-time high.

This almost convinced him to abandon the idea of experimenting with The Monk’s Screech, and leave it for another day, or even later on, when everyone was awake and could defend themselves, but he simply couldn’t leave it. He had to know what it was.

So he settled with testing it out ten meters, or a bit over thirty feet away.

’If that evil thing is still chasing us, I’d be able to see it coming from here.’ He thought.

Once he landed on the lush, green ground, he tried to summon the revelation.

Like most of what was within his arsenal, he expected to summon it in a blink, with a mere thought.

That didn’t work.

When that didn’t work, he yelled out, with intent, "The Monk’s Screech!"

Nothing happened. That didn’t work either.

Almost immediately, he felt like he was scammed. There wasn’t really a way for him to get scammed in this equation, but he still felt that it was the case, because he went through an emotional rollercoaster in less than ten minutes!

He expected to bend the planet to his will, because he believed that the divines backed him up now. He didn’t know for sure if the latter was true, but he chose to believe it.

’Fuckass monk,’ He grunted, ’I’m not a monk. What the hell can I even do with this revelation? Am I supposed to find a temple first, and pledge my allegiance to some god?’

[No, you do not have to do that.]

[Revelations are based on SQ, they’re spiritual more than they are magical. With that said, if you wish to wield a revelation that is considered Light, divine, instead of Dark, you must first calm your mind.]

"Calm my mind?" He parroted, "So by that logic, if I wield dark revelations, they’d work best if I was a dick?"

[Yes.]

[I recommend that you meditate. You don’t have to be a good, honorable crow to wield divine revelations, but since your SQ is technically considered low, I recommend that you clear your mind of all distractions, and then picture The Monk’s Screech.]

"Sounds boring," He said, "Also, it’s kind of hard to meditate right now. Everything is bugging me. Thinking nine steps ahead doesn’t exactly help me clear my mind."

The system didn’t bother to argue with him. She said what she had to say.

Jimmy muttered on for a while, but he did eventually take her advice. He closed his eyes, and a minute later, the Think Ahead evolution wasn’t as violent towards his mental health as it was supposed to be.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

In terms of simple math, as long as he didn’t look at things that made him anxious, the fact that he could think nine steps ahead, began revolving around meditation, therefore becoming helpful for once.

The process was simpler once he closed his eyes. He basically started optimizing the best way to meditate, following a nine-step plan.

’Step one... breathe.’

’Step two, breathe better.’

’Step three, think of my mama. From back on Earth. I always feel better when I think about her.’

’Step four, stop thinking... that’s gonna be a tough one.’

The plan was a bit sloppy, but it was better than everything else he was dealing with a minute ago.

Eventually, every breath he took felt fresh, and accelerating. He could enjoy nature again.

The soft breeze that rustled his feathers felt refreshing once more. The melody of the chirping insects had a calming effect on him.

It was nice to have a break from the storm in his head. It felt nice to do nothing. He missed the few weeks, past the drama within his home city, which he had spent doing nothing. They were boring, unnerving, but behind that silhouette, there was some inner peace.

Throughout his meditation, little by little, spirituality felt like a branch that was easier to tackle.

As per the system’s instructions, he was supposed to try and picture The Monk’s Screech in order to summon it, but he didn’t really know how to get started on that.

The actual revelation’s description, the one that the system didn’t directly simplify, was absolutely useless. Gibberish.

He didn’t have a point of reference to base his meditative concentration on, but he tried nonetheless.

He pictured a bald monk wearing a cliche, orange robe. Then, he pictured the monk screeching.

Certainly counter-intuitive, as he considered monks to be peaceful, pacifists, rather than people who screeched like a dry door hinge. It didn’t feel right, but he followed that path anyway.

At some point, against his will, the monk he pictured transformed into a screeching crow, and then it was stuck like that.

The more he tried to change it, the more violently it resisted, and after about his sixth try, it started to scream. The crow ’monk’ in his head got a mind of its own!

Jimmy opened his eyes, and started screaming too.

The image of the screaming crow in his head did not go away. When he tried to shift it back into a human monk for the seventh time, the crow reacted even more violently!

It manifested itself physically!

Well, almost!

A transparent crow popped up, and started screeching, instead of screaming. When it began to screech, Jimmy lost the previously untamable desire to scream, so slowly, he stopped. He ran out of breath.

"This is interesting," He heaved out.

Reee!