The two-month-old hatchling moved slowly, tracking a small lizard on the ground. He had wandered a little away from the camp, but not far enough to anger the queen.

  The hatchling had experienced an incident about a week earlier. When he first saw this small creature, he immediately wanted to eat it for a bit of biomass and had swung his claw at it, but the creature was fast, and the hatchling’s claw managed to catch only its tail.

  Then the tail suddenly detached, yet the tiny lizard kept running.

  Since that moment, Alexander, pondering the potential of this evolution, had been following the little animal with keen interest.

  He had already eaten the severed tail and initiated the analysis process, but the sample was too small, and with such a tiny specimen he would most likely gain no meaningful results from the analysis.

  The pursuit continued for hours. Alexander had grown used to tracking over the past few days, but it was truly a tedious task. Finally, the lizard slipped into a small hollow at the base of an old tree. But the truly important event happened afterward, another lizard was descending from the large trunk of the tree.

  Alexander smiled inwardly.

  “So our Eros is here as well,” he thought.

  Alexander moved a little farther away so the lizards would not sense any threat and began secretly watching the hollow from within the grass.

  Time passed slowly as he remained motionless, locked onto the hollow at the base of the tree. From time to time, he gave in to his instincts, tearing and eating the grass he was hiding in to suppress his hunger.

  It helped a little, but the fibrous plants made digestion difficult, and before long an uncomfortable heaviness formed in his stomach, making him feel slightly unwell. Still, he endured it, after all, they did help dull the hunger. Patience mattered more than comfort.

  The waiting stretched on. The sounds of the forest faded into the background, only the faint rustling of leaves and the quiet movements of insects could be heard. Alexander did not move. He did not rush. Predators who survived were those who knew when to wait.

  Finally, there was movement.

  The male lizard cautiously emerged from the hollow, its body tense as it scanned its surroundings. For a brief moment, it remained in the open air, unaware of the danger that had been watching it for so long.

  Alexander’s muscles tightened.

  In the next instant, he burst from the grass.

  He lunged forward with sudden speed, closing the distance before the lizard could even react. The lizard tried to flee, its claws scraping helplessly against the ground, but Alexander had already pounced on it. His jaws snapped shut in a single motion, ending the struggle.

  He swallowed the lizard whole.

  As fresh biomass was absorbed, warmth spread through his body, and the discomfort in his stomach slowly faded. His body had accelerated the analysis process once again. Alexander retreated back into the grass, patient, the pain in his belly eased, and one step closer to the evolution he sought.

  After that, the process once again turned into a long session of waiting. For nearly two weeks, he spent all his time watching the hollow, aside from eating his share of the prey brought back to the camp.

  But in the end, it was worth the wait. The female lizard eventually emerged from the hollow as well, and he managed to catch her without difficulty and swallow her in a single bite.

  What followed was the easy part.

  With some effort, he pushed his head into the hollow and began carefully and slowly digging through the soil on the ground. Before long, he uncovered eight eggs.

  Alexander felt an overwhelming sense of joy. For the first time, he had hunted on his own, and he had done so with planning and meticulous care. He had even increased his gains by tracking the lizards for more than a week, allowing him to reach freshly laid eggs.

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  He pulled his head out of the hollow and roared at the magnificent pale green sky, streaked with spreading violet halos. That roar proclaimed all his joy and pride to the entire world.

  After savoring his triumph, Alexander lowered his head back into the hollow, carefully took all the eggs into his mouth, and, taking care not to break them, slowly returned to the camp.

  After returning to the camp, he found a tree where no one else was around and quietly placed the eggs shallowly at the base of the tree.

  Then he opened the Analysis progress tab and checked the status.

  [PROGRESS] – 18.7/100

  “Damn it, this shit is progressing way too slowly. The lizards were too small, If I ate hundreds of them, only then could I speed up the analysis.”

  Alexander had known from the very beginning that if he wanted, he could gain immediate benefits by eating the eggs right away. They lay there quietly, fragile, defenseless, filled with raw biomass. A single decision would be enough. A few bites, and the system would record the intake. It was safe. Efficient. Simple.

  But it was precisely this simplicity that bothered him.

  The eggs were nothing more than hidden potential. They carried the plan of life, not its execution. The genes were there, yes, but they were dormant. Silent.

  If Alexander truly wanted to understand, how regeneration manifested, how instincts guided growth, how a living body responded to damage and adapted, passive material would not be enough.

  There needed to be movement. Reaction. Struggle.

  The data needed to be alive.

  This would help him grasp how the genes actually functioned.

  So he resisted the temptation and made his decision.

  He would wait until the eggs hatched.

  The waiting that followed was long. Longer than he had expected.

  Days blended together as Alexander stayed near the shallow nest he had prepared, barely straying from it. The eggs lay quietly at the base of the tree, half-buried in loose soil.

  Most of the time, nothing happened.

  Alexander realized that waiting was far more exhausting than hunting.

  Hunting required focus and short bursts of action. Waiting demanded patience, discipline, and the strength to endure boredom without breaking. Still, he endured. He had chosen this path, abandoning it halfway would render all his efforts meaningless.

  During this long vigil, his attention often drifted toward the queen.

  Always keeping his distance, he observed her movements. One day, he saw her approach the pit she herself had dug, the one that held the Nuxali eggs.

  The queen had produced yet another drone and gently placed the egg into the pit, then returned to lie down in the shade of a nearby tree.

  The eggs had been there for weeks, and the queen did not allow anyone to approach that hollow.

  Any creature that came close was driven away without hesitation. The queen’s presence alone was absolute authority. The pit was protected not by walls, but by sheer dominance.

  Alexander did not challenge her, but he was bored, and there was nothing else for him to do.

  He waited for the right moment, and when the queen shifted her position, he managed to briefly glimpse the inside of the hollow. He counted slowly and carefully.

  “Four eggs…” he thought. “The queen’s mind is already managing twelve drones, three of which are queen-class.”

  “Queen-class units place a far heavier mental burden than normal. Even if I assume all four of the queen’s eggs are male, this is still an immense cognitive load.”

  “Either her mind is truly powerful,” he thought, “or her desire for a larger swarm has blinded her.”

  “Either way, it makes no difference to me. If she is strong, I’m satisfied staying under the protection of her swarm for now. But if ambition has blinded her, then leaving the swarm in the future will be easier.”

  Before long, he noticed another development.

  The adult ast queen had also dug a smaller pit near the main pit.

  Inside it were only two eggs.

  Alexander watched silently as she moved away from the pit.

  “So they’re reproducing now as well,” he thought. “At this rate, the swarm really is growing fast.”

  The realization echoed heavily in his mind. Growth was accelerating. He needed to focus on his own development as well.

  Time continued its relentless march.

  And then, one day, as Alexander returned from wrestling with his sibling and lay down in the shade of the tree, exhausted, it finally happened.

  A faint cracking sound reached Alexander’s senses.

  He immediately brushed aside the thin layer of soil covering the eggs.

  One of the eggs was shaking violently. A thin crack appeared on its surface, spreading like veins. The shell split open piece by piece, and a small hatchling pushed itself out.

  The newborn creature was tiny. Weak. Its movements were clumsy as it tried to adapt to the world for the first time.

  Alexander did not hesitate.

  He swallowed it whole.

  The reaction was instant.

  A slight warmth spread through his body. Its taste was like an intensely spiced, delicious meal to Alexander, but the amount was very small.

  His body responded, data streams intensified, signals flared to life.

  Alexander now knew that the hatchlings inside the eggs were sufficiently developed, and he did not hesitate to consume all of the remaining eggs.

  This was the real data.

  This was what he had waited for.

  As his body processed the information, Alexander remained motionless, absorbing the results. “The long three month wait since he began the analysis the, discipline, the restraint, had all been worth it.”

  

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