Chapter 14 - The plains

Adam spent several days climbing the hills while eating the various fruits he found along the way. He stayed clear of any strange berries or sour fruits. The sweet-tasting fruits he picked from the trees didn’t have any bad reaction to him so he didn’t want to push his luck by eating other random berries that might be poisoned.

He eventually made it high and far enough that he was no longer on an inclined slope since the hill had started to flatten out. For the first time since he started his journey up from the island, he saw not only grass but an open area with huge grass plains.

The scenery was reminiscent of the great African savannas. He had climbed far and high from the beach’s tropical jungle and the climate had become warmer and drier the higher he climbed.

The tropical palm trees and vines were nowhere to be found up here. Replaced by denser, more solid wood with more common-looking shapes with multiple branches. Those huge trees weren't as densely packed since the open fields extended as far as he could see. The tall yellowed grass was another factor that reminded him of the savannah, and also its wildlife.

He could see a herd of some sort of bison or large brown cows. It was hard to make out from far away. They seemed to be bigger than cows and were eating the plentiful tall grass. This grassland extended for as far as he could see into the horizon. You have to understand that this place Adam had assumed to be an island was truly massive. It was still possible for this to be an island, but the more Adam saw his surroundings, the more he began to believe he was actually on an entire continent.

Adam had spent several days making his way up and across the jungle and had watched the scenery gradually change right in front of his eyes.

He had moved a lot faster than any normal person could. His magically reinforced muscles and already super human-level body made him as fast as a car without much effort. The time needed for a normal hiker to travel all this way was probably over a month.

As a result, he was well and truly in a different climate and environment. The birds he would see flying above his cliff didn’t seem to venture this far out. That was good news for Adam since he had only been protected from them so far thanks to the dense jungle. This open environment with only sparse tree coverage would be a perfect hunting ground for the flying predators.

That then raised another question. If the birds don’t hunt here and can’t hunt in the jungle, then where do they find food? It was another reminder of how huge this place was.

The path he took seemed to be a shortcut out of the jungle but he had only explored a tiny corner of the tropical environment.

The other side of the cliff, or what lay above it was still a mystery to him. For all he knew, the cliffside was the true ground floor for most mana beasts and his little beachside spot was the lowest and most mana-poor region.

Adam still had most of his water left since he had made use of the many juicy fruit trees for sustenance so far. That being said, he couldn’t see any water anywhere in the grasslands. He would have to travel further in since the herd of mana buffalo had to have a way to drink water.

He tried to avoid the tallest grass patches as he made his way closer to the herd. He didn’t want to get jumped by some equivalent of a leopard or a pack of lions.

When he was close enough to properly use mana sight, he looked at the large gathering of brown beasts in the distance and was surprised by what he saw. A sea of grey and red met his eyes as the herd lit up in bright colors.

This was the first time he had ever seen a red-colored mana core. By looking closer, he could see that the smallest calves were all black, and the adolescents were grey. The bigger ones had red cores but he did also notice a handful of orange-colored cores.

This was the most amount of magic core evolution knowledge he had gotten so far. Based on the amount and look of the red core beasts, red was the next step after grey. Orange was the rarest so that must be the evolution of red.

The real question was how they all evolved their cores if they didn’t hunt other mana beasts. The answer was obvious from their behavior.

The fact that you can tell what level their cores are simply by observing their appearance suggests that they evolved in a constant and linear way. Their core level corresponds to their age and physical strength. They seemed to only be interested in eating the tall grass so they must be somehow absorbing mana from it.

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This was a surprise to Adam since he couldn’t see any mana in the grass with his mana sight spell. He dialed up how much mana was used in the spell and was able to see that a small amount of mana was all over the place. The grass indeed had a very small amount of pure white mana in it, but it was only slightly more condensed than the ambient mana.

The was no way that Adam could get anything from that tiny amount of mana even if he spent the rest of his life chewing the tall yellow grass.

“I guess magic isn’t the only superpower in this world. Evolution is still as powerful as ever.”

It was only natural that different species would develop different abilities for survival. It was the same on Earth and having magic only seemed to put evolution into overdrive since things that wouldn’t be possible now became simple.

Adam thought back to that perfectly invisible lizard in the jungle. It probably had an innate camouflaging ability, but injecting mana into that racial feature brought it to a whole other level of functionality.

Adam assumed the grey core simply had a huge mana capacity, but that wasn’t the case since he had already experienced its limits when using body reinforcement and even the mana blade spell would drain him when running for long durations.

Having natural abilities augmented with mana was an obvious thing to happen but Adam hadn’t thought about it before. He didn’t have a huge biological advantage over the other animals. All humans had to go for them was their brains…

“Wait a minute, can mana beasts use a spell? Do they even have the system window?”

He of course knew that they could augment themselves with mana just like him, but he had never seen anything use mana spells or attacks outside of their bodies.

Was this his biologically given power? The ability to create new ways to use mana with his higher intelligence?

The idea didn’t seem that far-fetched. This would be a huge advantage for Adam. But then again, not all animals were dumb just because they hadn’t built a worldwide civilization. The intelligent glim in the weasel's eyes reminded Adam of the scary side of this theory.

Adam remembered that dolphins had their own language and social structures. They were extremely intelligent and could learn faster than most humans. The same for octopuses, whose problem-solving skills were exceedingly better than those of us hairless apes.

If the less intelligent beings can use mana as a boost to themselves and the more intelligent can use it in a more sophisticated and advanced way, then humans probably won’t stand a chance. We are neither the most intelligent nor the strongest.

He was broken out of his thoughts when a loud cacophony of noises could be heard off in the direction of the buffalo herd. He was still a distance away but the sight of the hundreds or even thousands of brown creatures stampeding was hard to miss.

Something had gotten them seriously riled up and he soon found out what. A pack of what was probably the equivalent of lions in the food chain had emerged from behind the large herd and was chasing them in a weaving pattern, no doubt trying to split individuals away from the main group.

These predators didn’t resemble felines but instead looked more like dinosaurs. Their lizard-like heads with sharp pointed teeth reminded Adam of large velociraptors. They had striped white and yellow patterns across their bodies and were as tall as a person and as large as a car.

Adam didn’t worry about being in danger since he was still a few kilometers away even if the land was very flat and without much cover. It felt like he had been thrown back in time to the Jurassic period as the swift velociraptors ran between the young buffaloes and occasionally let out screeching noises to guide the stragglers away from the herd.

He used mana sight to see how strong the new arrivals were and was surprised to see that they were only grey cores. Most of the adults of the herd were red so he assumed the raptors would have red cores too.

After the initial panic from the herd, they stopped running away and instead packed closer together with all the red cores forming a wall of buffaloes with the grey and black cores at the center. The raptors weren’t bothered by this since they had managed to get two unlucky grey cores to stray far enough from the herd that the dozen raptors were able to slash and bite them until they died.

The raptors took their time since they had blocked off the escape route and had surrounded the distressed creatures. The herd didn’t come to help and Adam even spotted the orange core from before standing at the vanguard of the buffalo wall.

It seemed that the herd decided to abandon its two grey cores, instead of trying to fight. The raptors might not have the strength to kill the stronger buffaloes but they could easily run laps around them and slowly inflict more and more wounds on the bigger and bulkier creatures.

Adam watched for many minutes as the raptors started slicing and feasting on the fallen buffaloes right in front of the herd. They remained in a defensive position for as long as the raptors were nearby. Neither side went anywhere near the other after the two grey cores were slain.

The raptors did try to fight among each other, no doubt about who would devour the cores. The biggest raptors were the ones that ate them and a large portion of the flesh, leaving the others to eat what was left. This wasn’t a great plan for the smaller raptors but they didn’t get into any serious fights, a large screech and a showing of teeth being enough to put the other in their place.

This scene was more than enough to help make up Adam’s mind.

“Nope, I would get torn to shreds if I tried to take either side on”

He needed something a little less dangerous to hunt. The trouble was that most of the weaker creatures like the black and grey cored buffalos were protected by the older and stronger of the species. Either he would need to get creative and use traps or he needed to find something else to hunt entirely.

But this grass plain was huge and there was bound to be other mana beast further in. This wasn’t the end of Adams' journey of discovery, it was only the first step in the exploration of this continent and its inhabitants. He kept moving onward in a different direction from where the velociraptors and buffalo were.