[DING! Host killed an Arican Lion. Gene Points 150.]
---
A staggering 150 Gene Points. This was officially the largest single payout Jas had ever secured since arriving in this brutal era.
Unfortunately, this thod of hunting wasn't sothing he could easily mass-produce; it simply required too much ti, labor, and environntal luck. Otherwise, Jas could have just spent his days directing the beaver to dig holes and sat back waiting for prey to drop from the sky, completely avoiding the exhausting grind of active tracking.
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[DING! Detection of an organism suitable for gene replication nearby—Arican Lion.]
[DING! Arican Lion blood collection complete. Stored in the System gene bank. Gene replication requires 50 Gene Points. Please view the system gene bank for details.]
---
"Another lottery!"
Then again, it made perfect sense. The Arican Lion was the undisputed sovereign of the Pleistocene plains; its genetic code was bound to catch the System's attention. Jas imdiately opened his interface and scrolled to the newly added option.
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[Arican Lion Gene: Skeletal Reinforcent. Cost: 50 Gene Points.]
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Only a single upgrade path was listed this ti, but it made Jas's eyes light up.
Skeletal reinforcent ant a comprehensive, top-to-bottom structural overhaul of every single bone in his body—including his skull, ribcage, spine, and long limbs. This was a massive biological restructuring, nothing short of a complete physical rebirth.
Jas had no intention of triggering it right here in the open field. He needed to get back to a secure location before letting the System tear him apart and rebuild him.
When Jas and Zack finally dragged the blood-mottled carcass of the Arican Lion into the family den, it nearly scared the parents out of their skins.
Their eyes locked onto the two deep, unmistakable saber punctures tracking straight through the giant's cervical vertebrae. The mother and father knew instantly that their eldest son had delivered the killing blow.
But how a lone yearling had managed to drop a 350-kilogram nightmare was a question their primitive feline minds couldn't solve. Fortunately, they didn't care to press for details. The simple, undeniable reality was that the lion was dead, and the threat to their territory was gone. That was enough to let the tension drain from the cave.
Jas lingered in the den for only a short while longer before bidding his family farewell once more.
Reunions in the wild were always fleeting. He had grown past the stage of a dependent cub, and while a part of his human soul felt a lingering nostalgia for this warm family unit, his path lay elsewhere. Before the twilight could fade into absolute blackness, Jas led Aurora and the Giant Beaver back toward his own reservoir.
By nightfall, the beaver had retired to its tangled lodge, and Aurora had settled into a corner of the main cave to sleep.
Animals lacked the complex human concepts of boundaries; as a sub-adult female, Aurora felt no hesitation or discomfort sharing a den with a strong male of her own kind.
Jas didn't disturb her rest. He slipped out into the midnight air, finding a secluded, silent ledge overlooking the water before calling up the interface.
---
[Warning: This reinforcent will completely restructure the host's entire skeletal frawork. The process will induce extre physical trauma. Does the host wish to proceed imdiately?]
---
The System offered a final, warning.
"Yes."
Jas steeled himself, bracing for the worst, and gave the command.
---
[DING! Deducting 50 Gene Points. Beginning gene replication!]
---
The mont the notification chid, Jas felt his entire skeletal architecture slip out of alignnt and begin to vibrate violently. The sudden displacent dragged the attached skeletal muscles, tendons, ligants, and joints into a localized, agonizing spasm.
In that instant, it felt as though the fluid pumping through his vascular system was no longer blood, but boiling volcanic magma. Even with his ntal preparation, the sheer, intensity of the agony shattered his ability to process thought. His vision flipped, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed onto the stone, completely blacking out.
While he lay unconscious, Jas remained entirely unaware of the radical tamorphosis reshaping his anatomy.
The epiphyseal plates—the growth centers situated at the ends of his bones—were suddenly flooded with a massive, artificial surge of growth hormones derived from the lion's DNA. The chondrocytes inside the plates began to multiply at an exponential rate, laying down new layers of cartilage that rapidly calcified into dense, reinforced bone tissue.
Under normal circumstances, Jas's physical dinsions were already approaching the standard baseline for an adult Smilodon fatalis, aning his growth plates were beginning to fuse and close, signaling the end of his developnt.
But the foreign Arican Lion genes overrode his natural biological clock. The genetic stimulus delayed the closure of the epiphyseal lines, forces driving both linear extension and lateral bone thickness.
As his frawork expanded, Jas's muscle mass and hide stretched to accommodate the new scale, his body expanding like a sponge absorbing water.
It was well into the following morning before the structural overhaul finally stabilized and drawing to a close. Jas's eyes opened against the bright morning sun.
"God,It's finally over... that felt like being run over by a glacier again and again."
He forced himself to his feet, performing his standard morning cat stretch to test the new alignnt.
CRACK. SNAP.
A succession of deep, sharp pops echoed from within his fra as his joints settled into place. Jas looked down at his forelimbs, a look of genuine surprise crossing his features. He had grown visibly taller and wider.
His linear length had stretched by at least 20 centiters, pushing his total length close to 2 ters. His mass had surged dramatically, clearing 180 kilograms.
Through the interface, he reviewed the data of the upgrade.
The structural importance of a robust skeleton was absolute—it served as the primary armor for soft internal organs and provided the chanical leverage required for heavy locomotion. The integration of the lion's genetic code had forced his mature bones to reactivate their growth phase, not only increasing his overall mass in a matter of hours but fundantally altering the density and impact resistance of his entire skeleton.
Over the coming weeks, his frawork would continue to adjust, making it entirely possible for him to eventually bridge the size gap between his own species and the gargantuan proportions of an Ice Age lion.
"Real physical restructuring is where the true power lies,"Jas thought, his amber eyes flashing with satisfaction.
Upgrades like tooth regeneration or enhanced cellular immunity were useful utility traits, but they were rely decorations. True dominance ca from reinforcing the core physical attributes—the hide, the jaws, the claws, and the bones. That was how he would shatter the biological constraints of his species.
Beyond what he had already upgraded, his sensory organs, core muscle fibers, and internal visceral systems were still waiting for further developnt.
By late afternoon, Jas led Aurora out of the timber to begin a coordinated patrol for prey.
With a partner now sharing his territory, Jas could no longer afford the casual, low-energy lifestyle of a solitary hunter. Both cats were in their peak developntal stages, driven by high tabolic rates that required a constant, heavy intake of protein and fat.
This was their first official joint hunt. Their coordination and non-verbal communication would have to be forged through the reality of a live strike.
For their target, Jas chose an undisputed titan of the open grassland.
An **Arican Bison** (*Bison antiquus*).
Hunkered down inside a patch of low-lying brush near the reservoir's edge, the two cats watched a solitary, massive bull bison foraging through the scrub.
The fact that this bull was alone wasn't a sign of age, disease, or physical weakness. In fact, the reality was precisely the opposite. Many solitary bulls were in the absolute pri of their health and strength; they intentionally left the crowded main herds to seek out richer, undisturbed grazing patches to maximize their energy intake.
Moving with a herd of thousands ant constant competition for choice forage. For an ambitious bull looking to build maximum mass and contest the alpha position before the breeding season arrived, breaking away to feed alone was a calculated risk.
And looking at the colossal, humped shoulders of the bull ahead, that was exactly what this beast was doing.
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