Grand Ambitions and Starting the Collection of Data

Now that he was done thoroughly examining the Barb-Tongued Boa, Torus began cutting the creature up, taking any materials from the body he thought might be worth something before placing them within his chest. 

After doing so, Torus' attention once more turned to the forest, a hungry light shining within his gaze.

Now that he had completed his first study, Torus needed to examine another Ferocious Beast to compare the results of his study between the two. 

Then, he would continue to do this for a multitude of beasts throughout the forest. His ultimate goal was to eventually collect enough information for him to tell what was standard among Ferocious Beasts, and what was unique to each individual species.

However, this information would only encapsulate Fifth-Grade beasts, as no higher one's should exist within the forest. After he was done with this study, his next goal would be to expand this to outside the forest and into an entirely different region such as aquatic beasts or desert dwelling animals. 

This would be used to tell him the difference in evolution caused by differing environments.

Before finally, Torus would move on to studying the differences between beasts of differing grades. 

With the collection of all this data, Torus could then start to hone his study in, focusing on one specific species of Ferocious Beasts. Once he had collected the sufficient data on this species, he could then begin attempting his greatest goal - to artificially induce evolution!

With this thought in mind, Torus eagerly headed deeper into the woods, hungry for more subjects to study.

It took no time at all for him to capture another Ferocious Beast, this one proving even weaker than the previous. 

It was only a Fifth-Grade Ferocious Beasts, and one of the weaker ones at that. It was a Boar-Tusked Rabbit, a creature that had evolved large tusks used to bluff predators. However, that was it's only use - the tusks were very ineffective at any other task aside from bluffs.

As such, Torus had very little trouble capturing the timid little creature, knocking it unconscious rather easily. Returning to the clearing he had used previously once more, Torus placed the knocked out creature on the ground, his hand flashing out unceremoniously. 

As he extended his hand, Torus simply sharpened his fingernails into claws, flexing his fingers as he dug them deeply into the body of the Boar-Tusked Rabbit, digging around before eventually pulling Its Beast Core out.

Once he had extracted the Beast Core, Torus closed his eyes, using his 'energy sense' to enter it. Once studying it from the inside, Torus began to view how it worked, finding it to have the capacity to hold energy. 

Then, he viewed how it connected to the Boar-Tusked Rabbit, looking for where the conversion system within it was.

What was truly surprising for him, was finding out that the conversion worked to sharpen and strengthen Its tusks. After all, if they were just used for bluffing predators, what was the need for them to be sharp enough to be a real weapon? 

What he didn't take into account however, was that the sharper and more menacing the tusks looked, the better they would be at rebuffing predators.

What he focused on however, wasn't actually the sharpening aspect of the conversion. Instead, his efforts focused on the strengthening portion, trying to examine the differences between it and the hardening conversion of the Barb-Tongued Boa. 

Examining this difference could show him whether the difference was actually in the way the energy was converted, or if it was related to what part of the body was being affected by it.

As he examined the energy and compared it to the energy let off by the Barb-Tongued Boa, Torus slightly raised his brow. As he continued his examination, Torus muttered to himself, "So, the actual conversion of energy is about the same. 

There are only very minor differences between the two energy sources; instead, it seems the differences stem from what areas are affected by the energy. 

What's interesting about this is that it lends credence to the idea that energy either is directly influenced by, or influences evolution!" As he muttered to himself, Torus began to get more and more excited at what his findings suggested.

Soon, he finished his examination of this beast, wherein he examined the beast itself, before once more harvesting it for resources and moving on to his next test subject.

~~~~

Taking in a deep breath, Torus looked up to the sky, letting out a barely audible grumble, "Finally done!" he exclaimed, a glint of tiredness in his eyes. It was no surprise he was so tired, he had just spent the entire day going through the forest and kidn-ahem* studying the species within. 

He had managed to study at least one of every species, sometimes more if they were more abundant. One thing he specifically looked for however, was a multitude of Fifth-Grade Barb-Tongued Boa to compare to the Fourth-Grade one.

Typically, even with how great his memory was, Torus would still not take the risk and record his results down. However, he had no need to do so, as his studies would exist in a much more visible form within his mindscape, where he could directly interact with a metaphysical version of the beasts he had studied. 

Instead, this allowed him to focus his full attention on his studies, where he had found a lot of very useful information.

For one, the Beast Core's of different species seemed to have certain traits to them that were universal. 

Such as the fact that there was a rate of conversion for a beast, they couldn't simply use whatever energy they naturally absorbed. Instead, this energy needed to be converted into a form they could use, something that occurred at a set speed related directly to their grade.

This seemed to be the only thing directly related to their Beast Core, everything else seemed more related to their evolution. Things such as the type of energy it was converted into, as well as the way they used this energy, were all determined directly by the way the species evolved. However, Torus could still tell that energy played a part in this evolution. 

Clearly, this energy appeared on Earth some time in the distant past, as that was the only reason he could think of for the sudden evolution of species.

That was one thing he had noticed - the energy seemed somehow inclined to the evolution of species. That was the only explanation for the new and strange ways that species evolved, such as Dragons gaining an entirely new gland to breathe flames. 

Somehow, this energy attuned itself to the evolution of species, allowing them to perform feats that were previously impossible.

However, Torus didn't believe that this energy on its own was strong enough to literally bring about entirely new species over such a short period of time. 

While it had been thousands of years by this point, that was nothing in the face of evolution. A process that should've taken literal billions of years had somehow been condensed down to a fraction of the time.

This was the main thing that supported his theory of something with a similar power to his own impacting this. It would explain why the evolution of these species seemed to follow a specific design, and even used the resources naturally provided by the world.

Another thing he found as slightly strange was the fact that gargantuan species didn't require a large quantity of food to survive. The only possible way for such a thing to come about, in Torus' mind at least, is if the energy was being consumed by the body in replacement for food. 

This was something that popped into his head as even his own food consumption was very large to maintain his body, so some species that were literal island-size should require an equal supply of food.

As he thought of this, Torus couldn't help but to feel a wave of excitement wash over him - there was still so much for him to learn!