James remained completely deaf to the Toxodon's low, gurgling screeches, keeping his snout low as he ate the delicious internal organs from the opened cavity.
In the wild, most massive herbivores were consumed alive by apex predators in precisely this fashion. Killing a beast with such stubborn, deep-rooted life force was a grueling process that required too much physical time and energy. Once the target's locomotive body was completely broken, beginning the harvest while it still breathed was simply the most practical course of action.
Minutes blurred into the dark before the titan's wet groans gradually lost their volume, tapering off into a heavy, absolute silence.
---
[DING! Host assisted in the harvest of a Toxodon. Gene Points +80.]
---
"Eighty points just for a assist?"
James raised his blood-slicked muzzle from the meat, a flash of surprise crossing his human mind. The risk equations in this era never lied—the greater the hazard, the steeper the dividend.
---
[DING! Detection of an organism suitable for gene replication nearby—Toxodon.]
[DING! Toxodon blood collection complete. Stored in the System gene bank. Gene replication requires 30 Gene Points. Please view the system gene bank for details.]
---
The system interface updated instantly, flashing the details of the newly recorded ungulate code.
---
[Toxodon Gene: Dermal Density and Hardness Reinforcement. Cost: 30 Gene Points.]
---
"Another hide modification? This should shift my baseline protection straight to Level 3."
James gave a silent huff of irony. The System seemed determined to turn him into a walking fortress.
Then again, the megafauna of the Ice Age were defined by their defensive plating. Badgers, sloths, bison, toxodons, glyptodonts, and mammoths—every single one of them relied on an immense, thick hide to navigate the environment.
Yet, there was a fatal flaw in that evolutionary strategy: those thick-skinned titans traded away their speed and agility to balance the weight of their biological armor. When an ambush predator closed the distance, their only choice was a static defense, leaving them vulnerable to a relentless war of attrition.
"Initiate the integration," James gave the mental command. Adding layers of armor carried far more advantages than deficits, and he wasn't about to pass up the passive defense.
The structural modification stabilized in seconds.
To his genuine surprise, the upgrade didn't add a single ounce of dead weight to his frame. Instead, his body felt lighter, more compact. It was as if he had stripped away a heavy, external suit of chainmail and replaced it with a thin, hyper-dense second skin that conformed perfectly to his muscles.
James raised a front paw, extended his long foreclaws, and dragged the sharp points down his own flank with a steady, high-pressure sweep.
SCREEECH——
A harsh, metallic sound—resembling a flint edge scraping against a limestone rock face—echoed through the clearing.
When James looked down at the skin, his claws had left nothing but a faint, superficial white line across his fur. The dense dermal layer underneath hadn't even broken.
The protective threshold was unbelievable.
"If a single skin modification at Level 3 yields this kind of qualitative leap, what happens when my skull, teeth, and limbs reach the same level?"
His mind drifted toward speculative, fictional scales—imagining an evolutionary line that broke through into the hundred-meter dimensions of a giant mutant kaiju.
"No, let's keep it grounded," James corrected himself, shaking his blocky head. "The system's biological editing operates strictly within the laws of natural physics. Every organism has a structural ceiling."
Fictional monsters belonged in modern comic books. His immediate objectives remained anchored to the historical titans of this landscape: the giant short-faced bears, the bone-crushing hyenas, and the massive lions. He needed to keep his feet firmly planted in the Pleistocene mud.
Once they had consumed their fill of the rich fat, James guided Aurora and the cheetah away from the river mud, selecting a dry shelf of limestone further up the basin slope to settle down for the night.
For the carnivores of this era, sleeping beneath the open canopy with the dirt as their bedding was a routine element of life.
By the following morning, before the summer sun could bake the basin, the three cats resumed their northern migration.
They spent the better part of the day maintaining a steady, fluid pace, clearing the final flats of the intermountain basin before ascending into a fresh, densely timbered mountain range.
The heavy canopy of the ancient forest blocked out the harsh afternoon glare, bringing a cool, refreshing reprieve from the oppressive heat of the open savanna.
Above them, a mountain bluebird broke from a high pine branch, its wings catching the light as it zipped northward across the pristine woodland. Below the brush, a mountain cottontail zipped along a well-worn game trail, pausing to nibble at the fresh petals of a newly bloomed orchid.
CREAK. RUMBLE.
Suddenly, a massive Douglas fir fifty meters out began to shake violently, its upper branches snapping to terrify the local squirrels into a frantic scramble.
James slowed his stride, his ears pinning forward as he tracked the disturbance. Standing at the base of the trunk was a colossal North American Grizzly Bear (Ursus arctos horribilis), its massive, fat-laden torso twisted as it leaned its spine against the rough bark, vigorously scratching an itch.
The physical power within that compact body was immense; with every heavy shrug of its shoulders, the entire tree rocked on its roots.
Once it had stripped a wide sheet of bark from the trunk, the grizzly desisted, its small eyes tracking toward a narrow fissure cut into a nearby limestone outcrop.
The split in the stone housed its absolute favorite resource—a wild beehive.
The bear had been monitoring the location for weeks. Its previous attempts to harvest the comb had ended in a chaotic retreat—yielding zero sugar and a muzzle covered in burning stings. Today, driven by the summer heat, it was determined to break the defensive line.
Approaching the narrow crevice, the grizzly lingered for a long moment, huffing nervously before gathering its resolve and driving its thick, clawed forelimb straight into the rock fissure.
BUZZZZZ——
Within seconds, a dense, black cloud of angry wild bees erupted from the stone channel. The swarm blanketed the clearing like a living, golden-brown net, descending directly over the bear's head.
The grizzly immediately raised its alternate paw, using the wide, furred palm to shield its sensitive eyes and nostrils from the assault, leaving the rest of its thick hide to absorb the punishment.
Desperate to protect their brood, the bees focused their venom entirely on the bear's exposed ears—the only area its paws couldn't completely cover.
The grizzly let out a series of pained, guttural grunts, but its right arm never stopped digging into the stone cavity.
CRACK
With a sharp snap of breaking wax, the bear extracted its paw, pulling a large, ragged section of the wild honeycomb into the daylight. The surface was packed with rich, golden honey and clusters of fat, white larvae.
Heavy drops of thick amber liquid dripped onto the gravel, causing the bear to salivate. It opened its massive jaws, ignoring the insects covering the comb as it eat the wax, honey, and larvae in a single, massive gulp.
The intense sweetness of the sugar hit its brain, completely erasing the burning pain of the stings.
Frenzied by the taste, the grizzly abandoned its defensive posture entirely. It drove both forepaws deep into the limestone crevice, brutally tearing the remaining core of the hive from the stone.
"GROWL~~"
The bear gave a low, victorious rumble, dropping the massive cluster onto the dirt. It used its long, curved claws to split the cells open, exposing the liquid sugar running through the hexagonal chambers.
It extended its wide, dark tongue, executing sweeping licks that slicked its muzzle in thick, sticky honey.
The total destruction of their home mobilized the remainder of the colony. The remaining thousands of bees swarmed its face, driving their stingers into its nostrils and eyelids.
A few minutes later, the grizzly had cleaned every scrap of wax and larvae from the soil. Its cranium was visibly swollen, covered in a dozen angry, raised bumps from the swarm's defense.
But to the massive omnivore, the transaction was entirely acceptable. The pain would fade by nightfall, but the high-calorie sweet reward would stay with its taste buds for days.
Shaking the last of the insects from its fur, the satisfied bear turned its heavy shoulders and ambled back into the deeper timber, leaving a ruined trail of wax behind it while the remaining bees buzzed aimlessly over the dirt and some still following him.