4 Chapter-4:Not carnivores

Liam's legs gave up and he was about to fall when Ryan grabbed one of his hands and made him stand up again.

"What the hell are these? These things are not simple carnivores".

The book indeed did not contain pictures of tigers, lions, or whatnots. What it contained were beasts different from the carnivores they knew. They looked like an evolved form of carnivores.

"Are they perhaps hybrid species?"Ryan inquired.

"No, not likely. Beasts like that, there is no way they could be hybrid. And the papers from 20 years ago have no note of these creatures or the research which are being conducted to produce them", Liam replied.

Liam was getting adapted to the many shocks he had been receiving from the time he entered this world. He quickly composed himself and removed his hand from Ryan's grasp.

"Maybe the research was conducted in secret like a covert operation", Ryan said while grinning. Liam could guess that Ryan's mind was being filled with ninjas in black cloth doing weird poses or whatnots.

As Liam picked up the book from the floor he replied to Ryan, "That cannot be the case".

Liam knew that for such a species which looked like an evolved form of carnivores-they have to research a very long time for the experiment to bear fruit. And it certainly was not easy to create hybrid species. His knowledge of books certainly told him so.

Liam took the book he had kept on the shelf earlier after flipping through only a few pages of it. It read 'normal animals'.He still did not like the name but started turning the pages towards the end and sat on the hard floor.

As Liam had thought, the book contained pictures of lions, tigers, bears, and all carnivores at the end.

"This book puts bears and lions in the normal category. Wow the author of this 'normal animal' is certainly not normal", Ryan chuckled. He had not believed in the intermediate book and thought that it was just a scam by a person who had a very creative imagination.

Liam started reading the contents of the "normal animals".He did not want to make any haste this time and proceeded to read it thoroughly. He was surprised to see that there was no change in the characteristics of the animals but there were levels listed in it and they ranged from 1 to 3.

The animals were indeed completely normal just like the title.

And as Liam was paying his full attention to the 'normal animal' book, Ryan began to take other animal books to check whether it was a scam or not. At this point, Ryan had forgotten all about the food he had prepared downstairs and started to see books of other authors on zoology.

The first book he took got his hopes up as it did not contain carnivores in them but the year it was published was in the year 2000. And that was not falling into Liam's 20 years of missing information. At this point, Ryan just wanted to not admit defeat to the author of 'normal animal' and took every book he could find and skimmed through them from the section of 'normal animals'.

"Liam, the author of 'normal book' was not lying", Ryan admitted.

"I.....know", Liam replied. There was a slight pause in his words. He was certainly shocked when he first saw the book, but his enthusiasm took over the bleak reality. However old he was, he was still a zoologist.

Liam was inwardly very excited about the stack of books in front of him and was certainly very happy to learn about the evolved forms of different animals which he would've had to wait centuries to learn about in his world.

Ryan took the pause to be Liam's disappointment.

"Well it is not like they can make their way inside the tower and most of them I am sure even in their evolved form can't live in water", Ryan assured Liam.

"Yeah", Liam said and continued engrossing himself into the book.

Ryan took an intermediate book, a paper fell out of it. Ryan swiftly caught it before it reached the floor and then proceeded to open it. It contained the list of normal animals and above were words,

"RED LIST",

Ryan read it out aloud.

Liam looked at Ryan.

"Liam why are most of the normal animals under the Red list?"Ryan said, pointing at the paper which he was holding. Even for Ryan who had no particular interest in Zoology, he knew what Red List meant.

"Because they are extinct", Liam replied nonchalantly. He took the paper and saw that most of the animals in wild had become extinct. The only ones fighting for their survival were bears, panthers, lions, tigers, and a few more. And certainly chicken, pigs, cows which are domesticated at homes were not extinct.

"Were these evolved creatures born in wild, Liam?"Ryan who was now extremely confused questioned Liam.

"Yeah. That had to be the case. Considering that no domesticated species had gone extinct, this must be exclusive to wild animals and most likely carnivores at that. "

Liam started reading out aloud from the 'intermediate animal' book he snatched from Ryan,

"Name-Griffin

Evolved species - Lion.

Size -same as that of Lion.

Claws and teeth-well developed and have steel-like color

Skin - hardened skin

Level of threat -5"

Ryan who was quietly listening to Liam remembered what his biology teacher had taught him,

"Charles Darwin's theory of evolution," Ryan said as he looked at Liam.

"That's right. When an animal does not use one of its body parts properly and disregards them their body will start to regard it as unnecessary and the next generation might have changes in their body and in the long run, the body part eventually disappears. And the body part which is continuously being used by that animal will evolve", Liam explained.

"Well that explains why Griffin has its claws and teeth evolved", Ryan replied.

"For attacking its prey much more efficiently" Liam mumbled to himself.

"There might be beasts whose levels are more than 5, Liam"

"Yeah. That is likely possible since the intermediate books here are still older and are not present year's published books. For all, we know there may not be even humans out in the land and all of them live in towers built in the water."

"So our best possible way of surviving in this world is by staying in the tower safely and then finding a way to our world without even leaving to the land", Ryan continued.

"But we still have not found anything which could help us to leave this place and the pusher guy definitely didn't send us here just for us to find something in this tower which can send us back. The only thing we can do now is finding out everything possible about this tower and this world ."

"Yeah. I was using too much time on stocking up food and other necessities that I didn't get up to search many parts of the tower yet"

Ryan after speaking about food remembered that their meal was still downstairs.

"Let's eat first and discuss this all in much more detail," Ryan said as he started to walk towards the spiral stairs.

"Okay," Liam said standing up to go down and have a nice meal and forget about all the problems for at least a few minutes.