…

This morning wasn’t sunny. There were large grey clouds draping over the whole forests. While they dropped heavy raindrops on the group of humans, they also all blocked the rays of sun from attaining them.

Although rain wasn’t a good thing for them since whatever was already abundant, no one in the group of humans was gloomy.

“Amazing…” Yves moved his shoulder which was sore yesterday. Now, it was perfectly fine. He also felt some extra strength in his body. Although it wasn’t marginal, it was still present.

Yesterday, everyone had eaten some moose meat and to their surprise, they had woken up with a lot more vitality than the day before. Although this wasn’t shocking for Jonathan’s group, it was for the other one, who had never felt attributes.

“Could this be the attributes you have talked about?” Yves asked the bald man next to him.

The rain made his shaved head shine and his blue eyes pop out

“It is not entirely the case, but it is.” Guillaume looked at the group he had formed an alliance with and examined everyone’s reaction, understanding what kind of gains they made.

“That’s right. When we ate the wolves, we felt some huge increase. Although I feel some increase now, it isn’t nearly as impactful, and it is more spread out throughout other attributes.” Julien said. “My muscle mass has increased by a tiny bit, but nothing near Hugo, let alone Jonathan.”

Yves turned a bit gloomy. If it was like eating wolves, the whole group would have gotten much, much stronger. Imagine 16 attribute human hunting! That would be amazing.

“I guess that although the moose are not predators, they are still in the category of ‘advanced’ mammals. As such, they probably have a bit of the substance in their meat. No, they probably have another substance, which is much less potent and has a more general effect. As such, everyone has a slight boost in agility, control, perception and strength. It is probably equal to a month or two of training.” Guillaume gave out another very plausible hypothesis

“Although it’s only equivalent to a few months of progress, it’s still better than nothing. In fact, this is already considered an amazing effect on Earth. If we could hunt a lot more meat, we should be able to become like you guys.” Yves kept a good attitude as always.

“Huh. Good luck with that. We don’t know when we’ll meet the next predators, so hoping to hunt over ten meals is a bit too much.” Guillaume put out his opinion, secretly laughing at Yves claims.

They had only been able to kill the predators because of a few elements of luck. First, the wolves were separated because of an ambush on his group. Two, not all the wolves were adults. Three, he had met Jonathan, a very decisive and fearless young man who was efficient in battle.

Were it not for any of these factors, he wouldn’t normally have gotten the meat of the wolves.

Furthermore, that victory came at a cost. First, a member had been killed. Second, Jonathan would’ve died for sure had not had a gun in his position. And even then, Jonathan was severely injured.

He wasn’t too bothered by the last fact since he was the only one who noticed the presence and rapid healing of Jonathan’s injuries.

“It’s still worth trying. Without a goal, we’re just stuck here like poles.” Yves understood what Guillaume meant, but he didn’t give up.

Guillaume didn’t answer the enthusiastic man next to him as he continued to observe the young people here. His arms were crossed, and his eyes blue eyes looked like a bottomless lake.

…

Jonathan was standing under a tree that sheltered him from the rain, hold a wet piece of wood.

With a contraction of his hand he completely crushed it. The piece of wood became almost totally flat, with finger imprints on it.

“What the hell! Why did you get so much stronger?” Stephanie angrily complained. She had gotten faster from their food, but her progress was not nearly as good as Jonathan’s.

“I don’t know either, but I’m not complaining.”

Obviously, that was a lie.

He had come to the same conclusion as Guillaume. This substance augmented your main attribute and helped the other a bit.

Furthermore, he could use his perception in conjunction of his control on his body and process attribute to come to a logical conclusion.

From his analysis of the situation, the augmentation was like a drop of water in a lake. It dropped on one attribute, and the ripples went to the others to help them. This all sounded OK, but when you considered that Jonathan had six know attributes, this created a shocking effect.

If a ripple was 1/6 of a drop increase, having six times those ripples made it so that each attribute had the equivalent of an extra increase.

Adding to the fact that Jonathan’s attribute fed themselves, the increase for each attribute was absolutely shocking in his case. Although it wasn’t like the one from eating the dark wolves, and probably not from eating the normal ones, the increase was still amazing.

The dark wolves increase could be considered about 10 years of constant, hard training of an attribute.

The normal wolves were a 5-year increase.

The moose was a half-year increase on a direct attribute, and 1-2 months on others.

As such, it could be considered that Jonathan got a full-year increase in each attribute. Add to that the inter augmentation between the attributes and this was about a year and a half increase.

Facing this reality, Jonathan understood that his future potential was much higher than his peers. This “talent” would allow him to always become exponentially stronger than other humans, ensuring that he was always at the top.

‘But it’s only useful if I can live to use it.’ Jonathan’s expression stayed the same while talking to Steph, but inside, he frowned.

Although his situation wasn’t as good as his previous worlds, it was still decent. He had a source of food and clean water (at least for him with his healing attribute), a shelter that protected him from the wind, and people to talk too. This was already better than some people in his previous world.

‘Although I would like to get some fresh clothes, this is better than nothing.’ With his increase in size and strength, his clothes had stretched and ripped at some places. Only his hoodie was still “fine.” Although it was annoying, he didn’t complain.

‘In my opinion, this is all too good to be true. Sending people here for nothing? I don’t believe it. They knew that we would be in groups and hence survive more easily, so this wouldn’t be the last thing they did to us.’ His intuition, which he felt had gotten stronger with his perception attribute, was screaming at him for some time now.

‘This is all too easy. There must be other challenges. Perhaps…’ He had a sudden thought. ‘They send the predators? No, that shouldn’t be the case. But if they can place us here, they can probably place animals too. Then, it’s up to them to hunt us or not.’

Finishing his thinking, he asked Steph.

“Do you think that we’ll meet predators soon?”

Steph was a bit shocked by such a sudden question, so she didn’t immediately respond.

“I hope not to, but I guess it’s unavoidable.”

“You wouldn’t want? Why? You can get stronger, much stronger. You’ll be able to decimate any human without any effort. The impossible will turn possible!”

Jonathan said that with a lot of enthusiasm.

Even though he didn’t welcome an attack, he wasn’t scared of it at all. He felt he could attack if the enemy was weak and run if he had to. If he was lucky, he would even be able to kill and eat them.

“That is true, but so what? Those animals are scary. And not for nothing. They are also deadly. Sure, we can run, but what happens if you meet an animal faster than you? One bite is enough to end it all. I don’t want to risk that.”

“Fair enough.” Jonathan had no choice but to agree with her. Not everyone was an adrenaline junky like him, so being in this situation must be terrible for them. Especially for those that barely had an attribute.

“Jonathan.” Stephanie’s tone changed, becoming very direct.

“Yes?”

“If we get attacked. Will you give up on me? Don’t lie.” She starred at Jonathan straight in the eyes.

Jonathan was a bit shocked by the sudden question, but he knew his true answer was.

If people became of useless weight to him, he would give up on them. But not Stephanie. Stephanie was a sister to him, a part of him. When he lived for himself, he also lived for Stephanie. They had gone through everything together. Small or big, futile or major.

They had shared the same bed, they had eaten the same food, hey learnt the same things, had gone through every struggle together. Even seeing each other fully naked was nothing new.

They were indivisible.

He had a true sister, but this link was stronger than blood for him.

If Stephanie was about to die, he wouldn’t hesitate one second to put his life at risk to save her.

“Give up? As long as an inch of my body can move, I’ll destroy anything to help you.”

Stephanie smiled when she heard this. She didn’t thank Jonathan, but instead turned back to her smug attitude.

“Of course, you would. After all, it’s me, Stephanie.” She puffed her chest of like a little kid.

“Yeah whatever, just go and do something useful instead or wasting your time here.” He pushed Steph away from him and moved away to work on things like maintaining weapons. A bright smile was on his face.

It was always like this when he spoke with Steph. She was the sunshine to his dark days.

…

Today, Jonathan wasn’t sharpening wood. He was using rocks.

With his increase in strength, he could shatter them and find a good piece to use as a tip. Furthermore, the rain made it so that he could use the whetstone method to sharpen the rock and his knife without wasting any water.

After a few hours, he had a decently sharp piece of rock, which he installed at the tips of a wooden stick. This was much better than his knife setup, since the rock was much bigger and heavier.

Furthermore, if he lost his spear he would still have another weapon on him.

As he started sharpening another good piece of rock, a young girl came next to him.

Jonathan immediately recognized her.

“Good afternoon, Yamina.” Jonathan said with a slight smile on his face, as he continued his sharpening.

The young girl in front of him and grown from the last time they met. She looked more mature and beautiful.

“Hi Jonathan. What’s up?”

“Nothing much, I’ve been cutting rocks I found. They make perfect spear tips and that will help if we want to hunt or get attacked. What are you doing?”

“Currently, nothing. We’re a lot here, so it’s hard to have a purpose. However, a small group decided to depart to pick up plants.”

“And you want me to join?” Jonathan guessed what she wanted to say.

“Ah, so you guessed it. Yeah, I wanted to know if you would like to tag along.”

“Foraging takes a lot of time and I still have this to do, so I can’t.” He shook his head with an apologetic look.

“No, it won’t be long since the place has already been discovered by your friend Julien. We’re just going to pick the plants up. It won’t take long. Furthermore, the leader promised larger portion for those that went to pick up the plants.

Jonathan doubted the authenticity of the last claim, but he knew that it was true that Julien came back from somewhere a few minutes ago.

“If you put it that way, I’ll go.”

“Great! Follow me.” Yamina happily turned around and headed towards the group of scavengers.

Had she known that Jonathan had only followed her because his hands were tired, she wouldn’t be this pleased.

He grabbed his spear and headed in her direction.