…

A group of humans were running through the forest. Their steps were decisive, without a hint of uncertainty, and full of determination.

Their clothes were ripped in multiple spots and their bodies were dirty, yet most of them looked in a very good physical condition. They either had larger than average muscles or toned muscles that did quick or precise movements.

Only Julien looked a bit underfed.

They all had some form of weapon in hand, be it wooden spears, clubs or even a bow. The tools were in fact not half-bad, since the use of precise craftsmanship could be seen from lines on the wood.

For the four last days Guillaume and Stephanie had been hard at work building these, but with their elegant hand movement and precision, it wasn’t impossible to turn a piece of wood into a true tool. Julien also helped in selecting the most appropriate pieces of wood, using his special perception.

As such, their spears were much more efficient than before, and they could make a basic bow through many tries.

They had already successfully hunted medium sided gain with these, so their construction techniques were obviously good.

Of course, their hypothesis on building tools weren’t enough to make good ones. As such, Jonathan’s “Survival Manual” played a huge role here.

Speaking of the manual, he had already memorized all of it.

‘Even through the pressure of survival, it is not possible to remember the sheer amount of information in the manual in such a short delay. I’m at least 70% sure that is because of another attribute. The information doesn’t come as pictures, so it can’t be related to eyesight perception. It must be something in relation to memory capacity and processing. With healing, strength, agility, control and perception, that makes six attributes…’

Still, he had chosen to keep this hidden from the group and continue using his phone. Of course, Jonathan welcomed the presence of this additional attribute, but it came with a price.

Throughout the usage of their attributes, the group had discovered that the energy usage of their body had skyrocketed. If a person with one attribute could feel the effect, it was an even bigger issue for someone like Steph, who had two. There was no need to talk about Jonathan’s situation either.

Yet, it became so much easier for them to hunt that the extra usage was considered extremely worth it. Even for Jonathan it was worth it since he didn’t have to use all his attributes at the same time and kept most of them hidden.

Concerning the attributes, the group became much more skilled in the usage of their abilities throughout the four days. The person with the most noticeable increase was Stephanie and Julien.

Stephanie now knew how to merge her two attributes, allowing her to attain astonishing speed. She could climb trees as if they were nothing and jump long distances effortlessly. A short spear was her main weapon as she could throw it accurately to kill a prey.

As for Julien, his sense was much more accurate. In addition to the augmentation of his senses, he could now find some relation between each other to better use them. A perfect example would be poison detection.

Through some basic poison test and the usage of his senses, he could cross-examine a plant and be at least 60% sure that it was not poisonous. Till now, it had only failed them once and the symptoms were just throat irritation.

Secretly, Jonathan had progress much more astonishing than them. He had secretly tested his strength and knew that it had augmented by a more than 50% then what it was the moment he found out about his attributes. The same could be said for his running and movement speed, which were faster or at least on par with Rana’s.

His healing also made it so that his muscles would recover quickly, making them stronger.

In addition to that, he could perfectly unite body and mind, allowing his perception to also be better than Julien’s, although not a massive but still significant margin. The usage of his senses and body made him register a ton of information from his environment, which made his ‘processing’ attribute better.

It was like a self-sufficient cycle, which made it so that all attributes fed on each other to grow stronger as time went by. Compared to the other that had to use practise or find other predators, which they hadn’t yet, Jonathan was much better off.

Of course, he didn’t slack on any type of training.

‘I sure would like to make a show and prove to everyone that I can do anything, but it is better to wait when the opportunity is ripe.’

As he was thinking, the voice of Guillaume interrupted his thoughts.

“Julien could this smell be…” He seemed to think of something, but he wasn’t sure.

“Yes. I can see the tracks of a horde of animals. Broken branches, uniform leaf thickness on the group, smell of feces and I can’t hear any wildlife near us. As such, I deduce that a pack of medium-large animals have passed by. Furthermore, it hasn’t been a long time since then! We can catch up!” A smile appeared on everyone faces. They had luckily found a few singled-out animals in these last few days, but nothing like what Julien described.

“You heard what he said. Pick up the pace because today, we are the wolves!” Guillaume screamed out and started running faster.

The whole group could follow that speed except for Julien. Thankfully, the strongest one, Alex, could carry him since he was quite small as a kid.

After following Julien’s instructions, they soon found themselves behind a huge pack of animals.

There were at least thirty beasts and they looked like moos. They walked at a jogging pace, which was quite quick compared to normal human’s considering their long legs.

“We already discussed this. Separate!” Quickly, the group split in three.

Julien and Stephanie flanked the group of animals from the left. Their long was long distance support. Using Julien, Stephanie would rush out and do one final, fatal strike to the group of animals. Julien couldn’t fight as well, so it was natural that he stayed in the sidelines.

Alex and Hugo flanked from the right. When the preys were selected, they would use their strength to do a surprise attack and apply heavy damage.

Jonathan, Guillaume and Rana ran straight on. They were all fast. Rana and Jonathan would go in the front to attack, while Guillaume would shoot with his makeshift bow and then join the fray with his spear.

Guillaume also knew that Jonathan had some trump cards, so he didn’t feel bad sending him to the frontlines.

Rana could easily flee, so it was also not an issue.

“Hahahahaha! Let’s go!” Surprisingly, it wasn’t Alex that screamed out like this, but Jonathan. It could be said that he was made for battle. He found a great joy from the adrenaline rush that came from placing his life on the line.

Jonathan held two spears as he rushed to the front. Rana was right in front of him with a smaller spear.

She threw it hard when she got close to the pack, and it hit a moose in the middle, making others behind it falls.

Jonathan quickly handed her battle spear and jumped at the fallen animals in the front.

He successfully pierced one with his spears, but another got back up and tries to rush at him. He slapped it with his spear, but despite his strength, it only slowed it only slowed it down.

Although it was rushing to him at full speed and he would surely be injured, he felt no stress.

Zoom!

A spear passed by him. Although it wasn’t that much faster than a throw from a normal girl, it accurately pierced the moose’s head.

Then, Alex came out of nowhere, and slammed the moose previously pieced by Jonathan with his club. After a few hits, it stopped moving.

Through the fighting, Jonathan’s senses heard a bad noise.

‘Shit!’ He knew that the moose that had fallen were starting to head towards him, trying to escape. He rushed to move out of the way, but he says a young man tries to get in the way of the whole horde of moose.

“No! Only attack from the side.” Julien screamed this from afar, but Hugo seemed to have heard nothing of it.

As if he was a heroic spirit, he stood tall in front of the incoming horde as he swung his club to shatter the skull of an incoming moose.

Although he successfully landed his swing, the outcome for him wasn’t so graceful, despite his strength.

Crack!

With the sound of bones breaking, Hugo’s body was sent flying at least ten metres. But that wasn’t all. Despite trying to dodge him, some moose stepped on him with their strong feet.

‘God damn.’ After the first wave of moos demolished Hugo, Jonathan headed over to help him.

He successfully pulled Hugo’s body over his shoulder and dodged one incoming moose. As he lost his balance a bit, he had to dodge another moose but fell on his knees.

Had it not been for his ‘control’ attribute, he would’ve gotten hit no matter how fast he was.

Unfortunately, another one was also in his way.

He had two choices.

Drop Hugo to jump away and not get injured, letting Hugo receive the brunt of the impact.

Or, hold Hugo tight to share the impact, making them both injured but less than if they were alone.

‘Sorry dude, but you brought this upon yourself, me being a saint ends here!’ Jonathan immediately opted for the first option, but before he could drop Hugo, someone came running at the moose charging at them.

Although Jonathan didn’t see the person, he knew that it was a man, probably past puberty, by the scream of fury he heard.

The moose suddenly got pierced on the side by a wooden spear, and fell to the ground again. The men let go of the spear, but other people came running and started beating down the moose. They also injured another one.

While the injured beast tried to run away, Alex grabbed Hugo’s club and whipped it at the animal. Even if it didn’t hit a critical spot, considering Alex’s strength, it was enough to finish it off, or make it unable to move.

Without looking at their peer that had fallen to the ground the other x ran away, leaving only a long and hard silence amongst the two groups of humans.

Jonathan got up from his crouching position and looked at the new arrival. A group of at least 15 humans had revealed itself. Although a lot looked a scared, the man that did the first charge opened the conversation.

“Eh … fancy meeting other people here.” He said while scratching his nose.

Nobody from Guillaume’s group answered, simply coldly staring at him. Of course, Hugo couldn’t do that since he was almost unconscious.

The man looked at the seven people coldly staring at him. He didn’t know how to respond, so he simply said what he would in this situation to any group.

“Want to join our group?” He scratched his nose again, looking a bit bashful.