I realized quick enough that yes. My One Piece-style enhanced body did come with a bit of a hidden cheat. I didn't have much if any problem ingesting much larger than usual portions of food without facing any issues.
Which allowed me to eat as much of the three deer I had killed as possible. Without any issues... Besides, you know. The hour it actually took to eat all the meat itself off of three damned deer.
Along with that bonus of being able to stuff myself nice and good. I also learned that I was healing faster then I should be. As with a full stomach, I could damn near feel my body working overtime to fix the finger-digit-sized pit in my stomach where I charged by one of the doe's.
'Alright. I am sitting pretty at 23 total Ordinary Geno points with my Primitive, Mutated, Sacred Blood, and Super tiers were obviously still empty. I need to get back to the Shelter and see if I can buy some trash Ordinary Beast Souls to mutate them.' I thought as I stood up with a grunt of effort and then continued my hike back to the shelter.
And my trip to the shelter didn't take too long as I made my way to the groups that controlled the shelter and started shopping through the trash. "I will take this Saber Tooth Dagger, Soldier Ant Armor, and Scorpion Spear." I spoke firmly with the older man running the stand giving a toothless grin making me inwardly shudder.
As I already knew this man was a total bastard, an old man who lived inside a shelter selling high-quality but still low-ranked Beast Souls, which meant he was a deserter who never left the Sanctuary after refusing to do the compulsory military service or joining a college.
And he got off in ripping people off without the connections to truly fuck him over as the kids belonging to noble families would just be given mutated Beast Souls at the very least.
"That will be forwarded to my XXXX account young laddie. Now what is your name, I got a couple mutated Beast Souls coming in next week and I bet you want to see them being sold off... Maybe you even have the money saved up buy them kaka." He cackled as he traded over the Beast Souls and I felt them enter my soul space.
I shook my head and said with a wry smile. "Orphan, ain't got nearly enough money to buy that."
And hearing that he clicked his tongue before saying boredly. "And here I thought you had taste after buying the ant armor."
I just shrugged and left the small building his store was based in and after some thought I shrugged and went to leave the Shelter again. The sooner I could get my Geno points filled out, the sooner I could make a group and begin steamrolling this damned universe.
Making my way towards the exit of the fortress I heard loud jeering. "Holy shit! Look at Ass Freak go! He managed to get Yang Manli on the ground!"
I frowned and my lips twitched as I saw the typical Xianxia protagonist all but forcing himself onto a woman in his natural habitat. With him having used some kind of martial art move to put her into a headlock... And with his free hand, I saw from my angle that it was under her and on her chest.
'Do I get involved?' I thought and then I heard Yang Manli scream out. "Bastard get the hell off of me!"
And in response Han Sen, the so-called protagonist of the universe spoke called out calmly for all to hear. "Call me grandfather and apologize for calling me a thief."
Yang Manli was silent, and my cheeklips pinched as I saw his hand on her chest move. Then I sighed and walked over, pushing through the throng of watchers.
And without a word, I kicked Han Sen directly in the side with a cracking noise ringing out.
"Bast-" He snarled as he held his side and I felt a flare of his killing intent before raising an eyebrow before I manifested the spear beast's soul into my hand making him pause as he realized how outnumbered he was.
"I am not blind... Yang Manli, you lost. But you don't deserve to be humiliated like that." I spoke before looking back to Han Sen.
"You won. But had no right to humiliate and do that to her. Congratulations Han Sen, the Ass Freak you made multiple more enemies for yourself." I drawled out.
I walked away as people were looking around and then they glared at Han Sen as they realized Yang Manli who was the right-hand woman of Qin Xuan the woman Han Sen once stabbed in the ass on accident was covering her chest with a furious blush.
And Han Sen's killing intent was drowned out as dozens of men and women looked at him in fury as they realized all too quickly what he had done.
With that all done, I made my way out of the Shelter. Whether Han Sen died or not literally made zero difference to me. He was a total bastard but he was a dime a dozen with just the luck of a literal dozen cheats landing in his lap separating him from other young masters.
Once away from the shelter, I continued walking with the pain medication I bought kicking in nicely dulling the stabbing pain in my gut into a dull ache with myself making sure to cover up the smell of blood with some natural oils that went over the top layers of the bandages.
'Hmm... Honestly, I got a bit of an idea actually.' I thought as I traced the map I got previously and then headed in a different direction towards a large river.
Once I got to the larger river I stiffened as I could all but feel the dangerous fish and other creatures inside river. But I was undaunted.
I got to the edge of the river and with some effort I found a dead tree on the edge of the river and then I hacked, and after two hours of using a pocket saw, I managed to bring the dead tree into collapsing into the river with a loud crashing noise.
From there, I waited a while for things to cool down, and then I climbed down the trunk of the massive dead tree that was in the water and got myself comfortable in a bough of branches that still had leaves to obscure my view.
And my thoughts were right, as fish naturally came to eat the leaves of the tree and any insects that were tunneling out of the dead tree.
[Ordinary Tier- Silver FishX3 killed, Consume it to get 1-10 Geno Points] [Ordinary Tier- Worm Eater X2 killed Consume it to get 1-10 Geno Points] [Gained Ordinary tier- Beast Soul- Worm Eater's Scale Dagger]
With my strategy, it didn't take me long to use the scorpion spear that thankfully had manually controlled poison on its blade to spear through the impromptu shitty nets I made from all the parachute cords I brought with me.
Sure it wasn't pretty and a lot of fish were dodging the nets. But I only needed to catch so many.
But soon enough I got a bigger fish quite literally as the bigger, smarter predators were coming in to get the fish which were congregating around the tree's branches that had fallen into the water.
'Hmm this tree had a bunch of termite and bug damage. The fish must be eating well.' I thought seeing a turtle passing my nets and its head snapping out like three feet outwards to snap up a fish at blinding speed.
But I kept silent, and unmoving as I saw a snake slithering across the water towards my general position before it dove into the water and I grinned seeing it enter my nets looking to get the easy fish within that had been killed by my spear.
And once the large snake swam into my net I jerked the sock-style net closed with it thrashing as it felt the knot around the end of the net gripping its scaled body.
But my net was also tied to the big ass tree I was on so it couldn't go anywhere and only succeeded in tightening the noose around its form.
Not that it mattered as I began stabbing the shit out of the giant snake with the Scorpion Spear... And as I was doing so, I couldn't help but frown as I realized the spear was barely going through the snake's muscle so I made the spear leak its venom as I kept stabbing the snake even if it would ruin the meat for anyone but me to eat.
Literally fucking five minutes later of stabbing the poor tied up bastard this was the result
[Mutated Tier- Thousand Teeth Serpent/Juvenile- Consume to acquire 0-10 Mutated Geno Points] [Gained Mutated tier- Beast Soul- Flaying Whip]
I pulled the heavy as fuck snake's body out of the water as I registered the juvenile commit and knew I didn't want to run into its parents or any more as I knew for a certainty that should I fall into the water I would die.
So I quickly made my way to the beach, and got into the forest a bit but close enough to keep the beach to my back so it would be easier to keep an eye on what was behind me. And then began dressing up my kills and cooking them to eat.
The smell of fish and snake cooking filled the air as I relaxed with my back to a tree. But I froze as the sounds of crashing leaves and foot falls rang out in the distance. Foot falls of something that didn't give a shit about hiding its position and approach.
But it only took a minute for me to blink as the sound of walking to reveal itself. It was Yang Manli. And as she approached I actually took in her appearance as she raised up her hands with a disarming calm look to show she wasn't hostile.
Han Sen... Definitely knew the target to go for. As Yang Manli, was a stacked dark purple-haired beauty with matching purple eyes whose hunting outfit consisted of a tight-fitting silk armor that clung to her voluptuous frame.
"Yang Manli, can I assume you are alone?" I asked calmly as I tried to listen to other footfalls or look around to see if there any others.
And Yang's face twitched before she sighed and said. "Yes I am alone Jake Bariss, I am also not here to ambush you or anything, anyway I wanted to personally thank you for stopping that bastard from groping me and-" She paused as she looked at the snake cooking and raised an eyebrow.
"I looked up your file after the event. You are new to the sanctuary and an orphan to boot with no sponsor, today your first day. How did you kill a mutated creature?" She questioned with a raised eyebrow.
After a moment of thought, I shrugged and said honestly. "I used the wisdom of humanity. I trapped it, and then like humanity killing a great bison, I took it slow with a spear and bled it to death."
Her face twitched at hearing that and her eyes glanced over at the netting I had used before she snorted and said. "Well I can see from its size that its still juvenile so you are lucky for that. As those paracords would have snapped under the strength of an adult." She warned me.
She wasn't bragging or putting me down either. She was legitimately warning me as full grown mutated beasts were firmly in the supernatural territory and could do some wonky shit.
To say nothing of messing about with something stronger like a Sacred Blood monster.
I nodded my head and said calmly. "I appreciate the warning Yang Manli, though you can use my first name if you want. In either case, yes I trapped it to kill a stronger opponent I otherwise couldn't naturally beat."
And that wasn't a lie at all... If I didn't have the bastard all tangled up into my netting it could have easily ignored my spear and either attacked me. Which would have killed me should it have dragged me into the water. Or just ignored me in general and continued eating the fish it was hunting.
Yang Manli's lips pinched before she sniffed and her hips shifted as she leaned slightly on her hip with a hand going to her other hip. "Jake, do you have any considerations for what force you plan to join?"
I gave Yang Manli a look before I said dryly. "Between Qin Xuan and Tian Mu the so-called Son of Heaven. There isn't much choice, especially with how Tian Mu loves to use his men as disposable pawns."
She smiled but I raised up a hand and said bluntly. "Yang Manli, I will have to stop you there. I refuse categorically to join any force before I at least max out my Mutated Geno Points. I need the assurance that when the group goes for bigger group targets, I myself am able to defend myself."
There was a moment of silence before Yang Manli nodded slowly while in clear thought. "I understand Jake... Fine, then I need to speak with Little Qi, but I can maybe do something about that."
My lips twitched as I realized what she meant. She wanted to have their group sponsor me by having me fed the meat of the beasts other people had slain and have leftover to power-level me basically.
Which... I fucking wasn't against honestly. This shit was extremely dangerous and terrifying!
Having members share the meat of kills was also the reason groups in the Sanctuary worked as well. Just because only one person could get a Beast Soul from a whale didn't mean literally thousands of people couldn't get Geno points from eating the whale for example.