Paul's mind was going a mile a minute. This was not something he thought possible. And from looking at the girls they were having the same thoughts as he. Alex had said he could do it, but they hadn't believed him, but somehow he did. This changes things going forward, bringing into mind new types of dangers they could face in this world. Especially if the natives are his people and are not that friendly.

It started after they descended from the sky towards the first city. The shuttle touched down on the sea and it floated just like Alex said it would. The problem is that there was no shore, only a cliff. Alex reversed the shuttle so that the hangar door was facing the cliffside.

He scanned the ocean floor while backing the shuttle toward land. The closest he was able to bring it was 20 meters from the cliffside.

"Now, I assume you have some gear that will allow us to get up the cliff?" Paul had asked when the shuttle stopped. It was the only way he could think of at the moment for them to go up there.

"No, we'll have to go to the top of the shuttle and use a makeshift bridge. I have some pins and ropes we could use" he said while getting up from his seat and going down towards the hangar.

Now Paul was confused, how would they get the ropes across? "Where do you pretend to secure the ropes? And how?"

"There is a big tree up there, I just have to attach the ropes to the tree using the pins, " This didn't answer the question, because Paul's problem wasn't about using the ropes but how they would cross the 20 meters gap to attach it to the tree.

"How do you propose we get to the other side in the first place, we'll need to be there to attach it to the tree. Do you have some type of really powerful air gun or something? Because there is a twenty meter gap to the other side"

Alex looked at him like he was incredulous at what he said, did he not see the gap? It's displaying on the screen

"Did you forget when I told you that my people improved ourselves?" He asked. Paul did remember it, it was during one of their many conversation when Paul asked how he can live up to 400 years. He said his ancestors used genetic engineering to improve themselves, but Paul got the impression it was mostly improving health and increasing lifespan, not something that would help them solve the current problem

"I don't see how that helps" Angela said echoing his thoughts.

"I said that you could get more info from the library, didn't any of you try to look it up?" Alex asked. At the Paul didn't see how his ancestors using genetic engineering to improve themselves would be relevant in their current situation, and he thought Alex thought the same since he didn't delve into it and had just told them to read in the library if they were curious. At the time they got the impression that talking about it was depressing for Alex since it reminded him the fact that he would spend his last days hungry and alone on space.

Now it seems to have become relevant again "It looks like none of us did, you better enlighten us" Alice said.

His answer was "Well, to put it simply I will jump across the gap and attach the ropes to the tree so that you can pass."   He could probably see from their faces that they couldn't fathom that idea. Not even Olympic champions could jump that far.

"Ok, we better start with visual aids" he said when he got to the hangar and went to some drawers and took out ropes and what looked like harpoons, or two really big nails, which made more sense when he took out what looked like a hammer. 

They followed him to the top of the shuttle via the airlock on the back of the bridge, and were expecting him to give up the ruse, but they were sorely mistaken.

Alex took off in what looked like a lazy run, but each step was carrying him far, and before he reached the edge of the shuttle he simply jumped. The jump carried him well over the cliff's edge and his landing was effortless. He proceeded to go to a tree and hammer the two big harpoons to the opposite side of a really large tree, and Paul assumed he used it to attach the ropes.

He then jumped back carrying the ropes and found three of them still staring unable to speak

"Told you" he said like what he just did was something minor. He needed to explain what just happened because it was simply too fantastic. Did the improvements his ancestors did give him super strength, and if so, Did the people in this world also have super strength? And based on how fast he moved Paul also assumed superspeed.

"You need to give us a lot more details than that" Angela said "That is not supposed to be possible."

"We better go inside" he said and started the climb back down into the shuttle. They followed him back inside, and when they reached the bridge he had them sit down.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"You were right that I was vague about this subject, but, truthfully I didn't think it would be relevant" he said. Paul had to give him that because none of them thought it would be relevant, or else they would have looked through it in the library.

"How was is that you being a superhuman not relevant?" Angela asked annoyed, she clearly disagreed with that assessment.

"Well, before today I didn't think we would be trying to sneak in a unknown civilization, and being in the shuttle didn't warrant doing anything that you would call superhuman" he answered simply.

"Ok, you better give us all of the details" Alicia said "Because, I assume that this is true for all of your people, including the natives of this planet"

"That's probably true. Ok, from the beginning" he said  "Do you ever wonder were all the ancient  myths of monsters came from?" he asked. He had already explained this on the first day

"You said other cultures worshiped you as gods, probably because of your level of technology" Paul answered based on what he remembered from their first day here.

"Well, yes, but I am talking about the myths of monsters, like the werewolf" he said. Paul always thought it was simply people's overactive imagination trying to explain something they saw

"Are you saying our ancient cultures thought you were monsters in disguise because of your technology?" Alicia asked

"No, I am saying that sometimes there were  truth behind those beliefs" he said "Sometimes because of misunderstanding, like a man wearing a power armor and who thought it would be cool to put horns, giving rise to horned beast myths or a man using a type of glider giving rise to half bird creatures, but some, like werewolves and others were not that much an misunderstanding" he said

"Are you saying that there were real werewolves, like men who transform wolves in the full moon and transmit their lycanthropy?" Angela asked and from her tone the idea itself was a little frightening, and Paul didn't judge her. If they were actually true, it would terrifying especially if they were in this planet.

"Yes and no, Lycans are real, they don't transform in the full moon and you don't turn into one if bitten by one. They are born like this, and don't bite, at least no more than normal people do" Alex said with a chuckle, then he pointed at the screen. It's good that he was finding this funny, because that at least meant things were not so dangerous.

The screen changed and it showed two naked people and a human silhouette for comparison

The figures on screen were being rotated to be shown from all angles, these Lycans looked just almost like normal people but were taller. The biggest differences were the prehensile tails they had in their lower backs and their faces.

Their eyes were bigger than normal people and were a little further apart from each other, that was probably due their nasal bridge, as in they didn't have any, or better yet, it was at the same level as their forehead, no dip like normal people and it was wider than normal, which caused the eyes to move apart. They also had thick eyebrows and what looked like big canine teeth. They ears looked almost like normal human ears but they were a little pointy at the top.

They didn't actually anything like wolves as their name suggested and Angela pointed it out "The don't look anything like wolves, they  look more like some humanoid aliens from movies" of course, leave it to Angela to have a movie comparison handy.

"I don't know where the wolves part from myth came from, but these are the original Lycans, they have existed for thousands of years. The association with wolves or full moon probably came from people's fertile imagination" Alex answered, and before Paul would have agreed that all myths come from people's imagination, but, now he was not so sure. He has seen too many things in the last few days that he would simply attribute to people's imagination.

 "Do they still exists till now?" Alicia asked,

"Yes, they do" he answered. That was a very scary notion

"Where did they come from, and what do they have to do with you being superhuman, is one of your parents a Lycan" Angela asked, of course this was the topic that made her interact with Alex more.

"Well, to put it simply, we created them. Or some rogue scientists created them"  he said and then proceeded to explain what happened. 

It looks like even before they left earth his people's knowledge about genetic engineering was in a very advanced stage, a little beyond what earth has now. They didn't just use it in plants and animals or for gene therapy like earth is using now, but to improve themselves.

But it looks like although the improvements they did at the time allowed them to reduce diseases and increase their lifespan so that most people could live up to one hundred and fifty years some people thought it was not enough.

There was a group of rogue scientists who believed that although their technology was progressing fast they were still far behind in what they thought to be the most important aspect. To improve humanity itself or even reach immortality and not just increase lifespan a little.

These scientists started secret programs where they performed experiments to further they understanding of genetic engineering.

The experiments were done in remote villages, and it was easy because people didn't understand what was happening when their baby was born different, and didn't know what to do or how to contact the Lantean. It looks like their isolationist policy allowed these rogue scientists to work unchallenged for over one hundred years. During these one hundred years they created a lot of abominations but their greatest creations were the Lycans.

When they were found out it created a lot of problems in their society, mostly because these scientists were backed by very influential people that included some council members that from what he explained were like member of parliaments and the highest government officials aside from the queen.

Since the political infighting could cause a civil war the queen invoked some sort of ancient law that allowed her to force every one of her people to move to the newly terraformed world.

When the general population got wind of the details they backed their queen's judgement. Since they were afraid that these creations were going to pollute the earth's gene pool they decided to take them to the new world.

But a side effect of all of it is that their knowledge of genetic engineering improved fast and reached a level where they were confident in their ability to safely edit genes to improve or even to create new races in an unprecedented level. 

"So, with your new knowledge you decided to turn yourselves into superhumans?" Alicia asked

"No, we actually created multiple serums that each would have a different result, we hadn't decided on what path to take"

"So, what made you choose this path?"

"The Lycan war" he answered simply