Days as a Spiritual Mentor in American Comics Chapter 6133 - 5146: Soul Machine Utopia (Part 3)

The group surrounded the bird carcass, unsure of how to start. In truth, when outside, Peter and the others first bit the bird’s leg, waited for the bird to crouch in pain, and then jumped onto its back to bite open its throat. At that moment, anxious to save their teammates, neither Peter nor Constantine paid attention to the taste of the bird’s blood. Now, smacking their lips, they couldn’t taste anything strange.

It might be the carnivore’s palate that instinctively made them ignore the bloody scent, or perhaps this bird simply tasted good without any other strange flavors. The few cats hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided to gnaw from the belly.

The disadvantage of not being able to grasp things was evident here. There was no way to clean feathers thoroughly; they could only dig a hole in the stomach to eat the entrails. Places like the wings couldn’t be eaten at all due to too many feathers.

Fortunately, this bird was large, and the four cats’ body types were small with little appetite. After gnawing away laboriously, they were considered full.

Shiller worriedly glanced at the blood on Peter and Constantine, which wasn’t from dining but from killing the bird earlier. Since it was their first time being cats, they weren’t familiar with hunting, ended up covered in blood, which was dangerous in the jungle. The scent of blood could lure predators.

However, Peter was concerned about another matter. When they dragged the bird out, he noticed the bird’s metallic beak. Being more professional than Shiller, he immediately saw that it wasn’t artificially replaced, at least not a civilization at human level; it was too natural for that.

The junction showed no traces of artificial fixation; the transition with the bone was perfect, as if some substance within the bone had mutated rather than being attached later. This explained that it wasn’t a modified creature, at least not that kind of crude spliced one.

"Is it theoretically possible?" Shiller asked on the way to the large tree Peter found, "For instance, on some planet, life naturally evolving to have metallic elements..."

Peter slowly shook his head, saying, "It’s difficult. Carbon-based life forms are naturally incompatible with metal elements. But the world is vast and unpredictable; perhaps within some mutant human-like groups, an individual’s mutation might occur, specifics need further observation."

Reflecting on the creatures he had seen since arriving, Shiller noted only the bird and the fighting crocodile. That Big Crocodile was huge; even in this place, it was formidable, capable of swallowing all four of them whole. Despite the urgency while running, Shiller noticed that the Big Crocodile’s claws seemed metallic.

He didn’t rush to speak, fearing his poor eyesight might have made a mistake, and he didn’t want to interfere with Peter’s judgment, preferring to wait until seeing more creatures.

"What’s the situation?" Constantine spoke as he walked forward, "Weren’t we supposed to go to the Outer God’s home? Where are they?"

"Morpheus once reminded me, within dreams, it isn’t solely chaos and disorder; perhaps Land of Order exists too."

Constantine glanced around, "Does this count as Land of Order?"

"Considering those Outer Gods, this is really not bad," Shiller sighed. Although it was a bit perilous at first, compared to falling directly into the arms of Outer Gods, the Big Crocodile and giant-beaked bird weren’t as terrifying.

After walking a little while, they saw before them a giant tree that required several people to encircle. Even with human bodies, the tree was massive; now as cats, it appeared even more magnificent.

Moreover, just as Peter mentioned, there were some fungal growths on the trunk, resembling natural steps. As long as they took care, they could probably climb up.

For cats, though, the tree was too large and tall; even if they started climbing now, dusk might arrive before reaching the top, necessitating consideration of passing predators or inherent risks.

"I don’t think we need to live at the tree top," Shiller said, "In such an environment, surely predators exist overhead; flying creatures likely have good vision. If they spot us, we’ll be snatched away."

Peter pondered then nodded; they were house cats, not leopards or tigers. Even modern Earth eagles could easily pick them up, let alone predators in this ancient Forest.

"Let’s find a branch to live on," Constantine proposed, "Circle around the tree once to see which branch is suitable. If needed, bring some grass up to build a house."

His words were rather poignant, Shiller sighed again; it proved how wise ancestors were in choosing bipedalism for freeing their hands. If they could grasp things now, they could consider building a tree house, but currently, they could only carry things with their mouths.

Frankly, if they were horror bipedal apes now, they might not fear Dinosaurs; with so much Metal here, they could skip the Stone Age. With a metal spear, considering human throwing capabilities, small Dinosaurs could be killed easily, the larger ones tackled strategically.

The previously encountered crocodile clearly lacked climbing ability; a few metal spears from the tree would kill it, or at least injure it so it couldn’t run far, allowing them to enjoy roasted crocodile meat overnight.

Bipedalism sacrificed some speed, but freed hands for using tools. Combined with communal traits, they acquired far more food compared to the past, enough to develop brains, leading humans down a vastly different evolutionary path.

Dinosaurs, far preceding humans and breadth of evolutionary spectrum far surpassing humans, however, had low depth, unable to use tools, preventing deep world modification; thus, civilization couldn’t be established.

Feline animals are not even as good as dinosaurs. At least dinosaurs have some attributes, but the strengths and weaknesses of feline animals are equally obvious. In such an environment, the strengths may not be long enough, but the weaknesses are definitely short. They have no combat power in fights and cannot use tools for building, so the coming days will certainly be tough.

But after all, this isn’t playing some crappy side mission. When Shiller wants to do something, his subjective initiative is quite strong. There really isn’t a way to enhance the body of a house cat, and the physical structure can’t be changed either, so he can only find other ways to break the situation. He faintly feels that this jungle isn’t so simple and that they might be able to find something useful here.

After circling around the big tree, they indeed found a surprise. On the shaded side, there was a tree hole, and it looked large enough to accommodate four house cats without any problem. However, because there were many mushrooms on the shaded side, it wasn’t very easy to get up, and Peter volunteered to scout the area.

He used to be Spider Man, best at climbing after all. But Shiller still reminded him, if there’s no way, just come down, never bite the mushrooms, as no one knows if these things are poisonous.

After Peter went up, Shiller started checking the situation of Little Superman’s tail. Little Superman tends to become very silent when injured or upset, looking completely lethargic, so Shiller could only comfort him by saying, "An animal’s recovery ability is still very strong. After eating and sleeping for a while, it shouldn’t hurt too soon."

Though he said it like that, he also knew that actually, the pain sensation in cats isn’t as strong as in humans, and being in so much pain indicated that this stinging was not light.

"I’m just a little angry." Little Superman said, "I couldn’t help at all and just held everyone back. I wasn’t like this before..."

As he spoke, Little Superman started shedding tears again. He belonged to the type of person with very rich emotions, always crying and laughing, and purely from the perspective of emotional control, he was just like a child. However, he was very loyal to his friends, and Shiller could see that he was crying this time because he couldn’t help his friends.

"Don’t worry." Shiller said in a very calm voice, "Since I brought you to do such an important thing, I must believe you can play your part, or else why wouldn’t I bring someone else? Just take good care of your injury and don’t overthink it."

Though Little Superman stopped crying, he still lay dispiritedly on the ground. Not long after, Peter came back, wagging his tail excitedly saying, "No problem, we can climb. Come with me."

He didn’t specify the situation inside the tree hole, but it seemed to be good. Constantine, before going up, asked, "Should we bring some grass or something? It might be more comfortable to sleep on."

"No need, there’s some inside." Peter said, "It looks like an abandoned nest, it might have been a bird’s nest before. There is some grass laid inside, along with some sticks."

Shiller paused in his actions and said, "How do you know it’s abandoned?"

"Because there’s already no animal smell left." Peter said, "If there had been animals living there recently, there would definitely be some scent left, but there’s none, which means no one’s lived there for a while."

"Then why did the original owners move out?" Shiller remained suspicious, "Could it be that those mushrooms have a problem? Like they might release spores or be poisonous if touched."

"But if the spores of the mushrooms had issues, then there wouldn’t be any mammals around here." Peter said, "The range of spore spread is much larger than imagined, especially in such an environment, yet none of the surrounding animals showed anything unusual, which suggests this might not be the reason."

"I walked around inside the tree hole and found some strange marks outside the tree hole. I suspect this was originally a bird’s nest, but the eggs were stolen by something. Since there were no more eggs, the bird dad and bird mom left. However, they might come back next breeding season; we’re just renting the place temporarily."

"Not necessarily." Shiller said, "This is a natural tree hole. To whoever finds it, this is theirs, and if they come back, they are the latecomers. It’s good enough if I don’t charge them rent."

Peter laughed, and Constantine added, "Then you should charge them more, this is clearly a prime location, comparable to Diamond Street."

"Don’t worry, I’ll leave them with skin and meat, can’t you trust me on this?"

The cats climbed all the way up. Although the surface of the mushrooms was too smooth, making the climb a bit difficult, they eventually reached the entrance of the large tree hole. Only when they got here did they realize this was no cramped little apartment; for small-bodied house cats, this place could be called a big villa.

The tree itself was very sturdy, the tree hole was not only wide but also deep, and there was a long branch extending outside the entrance, which was simply perfect.

"It’s really nice." Peter was obviously very happy. He circled the inside of the tree hole twice and then said, "I’ve never had a cat, but I’ve heard that when cats are happy, they purr. How does this sound come out?"

Shiller didn’t know either, he tried but couldn’t make that traсtor-like sound. With no results from their research, they didn’t keep trying. Instead, they considered how to renovate this house as their first foothold here.

At the entrance of the giant tree hole, the cats busily moved in and out until it was completely dark, and then they all gathered into the tree hole, checking the day’s spoils. The sunset outside turned the huge broadleaf forest crimson, and the light from the distant giant objects faded, immersing the whole world in darkness. But for nocturnal animals, the day was just beginning.