Chapter 466

Chapter 466: The New Young Lady Looks Like That Thing

Even though Trilobite had the capability to imagine things, his eyesight remained…

Let’s just say it was passable.

His calcite compound eyes hadn’t leveled up in a long time, and the resolution was still poor, making everything look like photos taken with an old Nokia phone, quite abstract in style.

However, the "imagination capability" helped Trilobite use his "memories" and "knowledge" to AI-repair the "pixelated images" captured by his compound eyes.

At least in Trilobite’s subjective view, the scenes he saw became very close to resembling what humans used to look like.

Trilobite had always held the standard that vision should be "good enough," as long as it seemed somewhat real; he was already accustomed to observing things in the moist, lush swamp using the Olfactory Membranes and Lorentz Jar inherited from the age of Carcharocles.

Thus, from a distance, Trilobite could spot large prey like Gangsaurus and Kenyichthyosaur; but for various meat worms and similar things…

He was lucky if he could clearly see it was a worm.

He couldn’t tell the types from far away.

But this was also average for humans, so there was nothing to regret.

“Hmm…”

“You are…”

Trilobite approached the brave worm facing off against the Dream Beach Crocodile and observed it up and down.

This creature indeed looked like a meat worm.

It had no legs, no fins, and no limbs, just like a bare, meaty sea cucumber.

Overall, it resembled that thing a bit.

However, at the front of its body, it dangled a large structure like a "flower stigma"; of course, real flower stigmas are bright and pretty, but this "flower stigma," made of meaty flesh and spines, somehow lowered the "SAN" value a little.

“Ugh—!”

Few things could hit Trilobite’s "SAN" value through his calcite compound eyes.

This was one of them.

But now, Trilobite could figure out this creature’s "true species."

"Branching animal!"

"But which specific one…”

"He couldn’t tell clearly."

"His specialty wasn’t quite fitting."

Different fields had their own expertise; Trilobite’s research in his "previous life" mainly focused on ancient arthropods and ancient vertebrates.

He primarily studied creatures from the Cambrian period onward, and occasionally dabbled with echinoderms.

However, the oddities from before the Cambrian period…

Truthfully, Trilobite wasn’t very familiar with them.

He could only roughly identify the groups based on shape.

“Hmm, this was one of the few ‘paleo creatures’ that had survived until now.”

Branching animals were a widely spread group of marine bottom-dwellers, found from the tide zones to ocean depths of 8,000 meters.

These creatures weren’t very big, split into a mouthpart, body, and stomach.

Their mouthpart could flip over to wrap up and swallow food; they were pretty basic predators.

Even though this group had lots of individuals, it had really fallen off in types, now only having eighteen species; they couldn’t stack up against vertebrates or arthropods.

“Generally, the Length of branching animals is just about ten centimeters.”

“But the one in front of me was probably big, around 40 centimeters long.”

“Something that can grow this long…”

Trilobite truly didn’t know of any that grew that big from fossil evidence, but in real life, some branching animals did reach that size.

“You must be a branching worm!”

“But I never heard branching worms could spit acid.”

“And your Mobility is so strong!”

“You seem able to drop your tail like a gecko to escape?”

Trilobite noticed this “branching worm” not only swam pretty fast by wiggling its soft body like a snake or sea bunny, but also shot a smelly liquid to fight off enemies when needed.

Those two things were new to him.

After all, living branching animals were all bottom-dwellers, digging through muddy sand and hunting by surprise.

Their defenses were just hiding in the mud; they didn’t even have hard shells like clams.

On the other hand, dropping a tail wasn’t that odd.

Since key organs were in the front and middle, even if the tail was lost, these simple animals could grow it back fast.

“Ah, so you only look like a branching worm but are really an ancient creature?”

“A kind of branching animal nobody’s found before?”

“Great! Great! Great!”

“It might look a bit rough, but at least it’s its own spawn.”

“Common cards are fine, and friendship pools are okay…”

Trilobite, thinking even a small gain is better than nothing, opened the System.

【You’ve picked the "Devoted One" that can be upgraded, do you want to make it a "spawn"!?】

“Sure… I guess…”

Trilobite looked at the branching worm again, paused, and finally nodded yes.

He shut his eyes, waiting unhappily for the card.

Actually, Trilobite always thought the looks of the "young ladies" for creatures tied closely to what they stood for.

For example, the first Figurine Young Lady for "Trilobite" seemed "proper," with just-right features and shape.

That matched how Trilobite creatures were "standard" and "steady."

"The second Figurine Young Lady represented sharks, so she had a wild look with a fiery mane of red hair."

"The third Figurine Young Lady represented jumping spiders; being cold-natured and light, she appeared as a cool and graceful girl."

…

Viewed this way, how attractive could a young lady representing such an ugly branching animal be?

Probably an artist-offending "Nightingale."

But the next moment…

"Oh!?"

"Oh oh oh oh oh!"

Trilobite burst out with a joyful howl!

If he’d expected to receive the "Nightingale" card illustration, what he actually got was Nightingale in "Halloween Costume."

Her delicate features and slender build,

though less full-figured than the first figurine, showed athletic vitality through her practical short blonde hair.

Especially those long legs!

A perfect bullseye hit!

"Not bad, not bad."

"This card art is excellent."

"And…"

Trilobite pondered carefully, recalling events from Earth’s Paleozoic Era.

Tiny, insignificant worms had unknowingly transformed the entire ocean’s ecosystem!

That marked an era’s end and a new age’s dawn.

"Excellent!"

"Whew—!"

He carefully nudged that etheric worm aside.

Then…

"Munch… munch…"

He started eating first.

The Dream Beach Crocodile corpse was sizable enough to take Trilobite from "slightly hungry" to "half-full"; nor could he waste those several hundred thousand Chaos Energy points waiting to be harvested.

But this time he wasn’t just eating mindlessly. Between bites, a thought struck him:

"Perhaps ancient branching worms could greatly assist my work!"