“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” It was like the most delicious scent in the world had assaulted his mind and he was falling to the beast. This was the biggest test of endurance and willpower he had ever endured. He had to pull the guts out almost an inch at a time before have to turn around and howl in moan and grunt. Eventually though Jason succeeded in his task, he had a strong sense of identity and constantly reminded himself that he was a sane, rational, smart, being. Jason may not be human but he definitely wasn’t whatever this species wanted him to be.
After smearing the guts over the skin of the wolf he eventually got to the point of hanging the skin on the wall and then eating the guts slowly, each bite taking more willpower than the last, especially the heart. Finally, he got to the meat and bones which were much easier to eat. They still tasted good but didn’t have much of an effect on his psyche. The bones crunched like hard candy against his razor teeth and the meat was ground into past. But he save the last of the largest bones. He wanted to make bags and backpacks and regular stone was far to brittle for the job.
In his digging Jason had found good stores for copper, iron, what he thought was tin, and various other metals, he even found coal, so he could start a fire. Without proper ventilation though, he wasn’t going to start a forge any time soon. So he couldn’t really make any tools better than his natural claws. He also needed wood and for that he needed to go outside. But he was still tiny so that was a no go. This dire wolf actually had some strong claws and teeth which required a little more chewing to eat so Jason thought that he probably couldn’t take them on just yet.
After finishing his meal Jason was completely overcome with exhaustion. His willpower and energy had been completely spent. Then failing to realize the peeking behemoth by the entrance he fell asleep.
The next morning Jason woke up and surprisingly felt better than he had ever before. As he inspected himself it was obvious that he had grown at least a size.
‘In one night I don’t even fit in my bed?’ Jason rolled out of the now very small snow- mattress bed and inspected himself. He was now at least two inches taller and a full weight class bigger. He was now a 4-foot-tall chimpanzee sized monster with 10-inch-thick arms and legs. His tusks had also grown to be 3 inches tall and were in his line of site. All of these were rough estimations of course because he still hadn’t seen any trees or other wildlife that he could compare too. Except for the dire wolf which was huge and didn’t help much other then confirming that monsters were big. ‘I need to see a tree.’ Jason thought.
Anyways he felt powerful and as he walked out he inspected Tooth who now looked far bigger then him. His teeth were worse looking then before and his eyes had an even more menacing shade of red then before. The same thing happened to Mane and Hairy. All of their features were enhanced and they got bigger. Jason assumed he had gotten smaller than them because he chose to resist the natural instincts in him, causing him to waste energy instead of letting loose.
Jason didn’t care though what he was more interested in was the magic! So after leaving his siblings behind he went to his now considerably larger mother. Jason estimated that she must have eaten at least a dozen wolves by how well she had filled out over the course of the night. You could see the ribs on her before but now she was just a giant hulk of muscle. So with a slow nervous gate he walked up to the sleeping behemoth and tapped on the monster’s arm.
“Gurgrr.” With a slightly annoyed groan Jason’s hairy mother opened one eye and stared at him, a question mark hanging above her head.
“Grar grr grar!” With his best gorilla speech making he tried to communicate with her. However, now that he thought about it this was the first time he had thought about talking to his new mother, other than just getting food and getting her to clean up his mess when he was an invalid. He then tried his best to mime what she did. After pointing to the magic scratch that she had made earlier and making his own Jason wildly flayed his arms about trying to mimic the spread of ice and the creation of that ice wall from earlier.
“Guur Guru!” Unfortunately, all this display got was a few purrs from the big lug, after which she carried Jason back to his own den.
This pattern went on for another month Jason would wake up and start excavating his cave, making tools and sculpting with his claws making advancement in his ability to control his hands and feet. Then his mother would repeat the same scratching motion sealing off the cave entrance with indestructible magic ice. He tried every possible technique he could think of to break it or absorb the magic, but it would all end up fruitless. Then his mother would come back with a meal. Sometimes it would be wolves, other times deer or fish. What amazed Jason though was when she brought back monsters. White giant crabs that had giant boulders on their backs. Big fuzzy fluff balls that had one mouth with circular teeth and no other limbs. White and rough skinned toads that looked poisonous on the inside.
Every time the food was thrown to him he would have a slightly less intense reaction to it. Then he would wake up the next morning bigger and stronger than before, the metabolism of the white apes was no joke at all. This went on until Jason and his siblings were only 5 feet shorter than their 20-foot-tall mother. They had all filled out nicely and were now very frustrated to get out to see the world. Tooth especially, he would constantly claw at the walls in an effort to escape the ice prison but their mother would just bat him aside when he went too far.
This horseplay once caused a collapse of one of Jason’s mining chambers. After that he decided to beat the crap out of the brute and take a few of his teeth in exchange. He may have been bigger than Jason but all he did was charge in a rage and try to maim him with his claws. This was easily countered by a few hits to the temple and some broken fingers. Now all tooth did was dig tunnels deeper inside looking for an exit, with little success and a lot of cave ins.
Jason on the other hand was quite enjoying his time. He had successfully crafted a large adjustable backpack made out of wolf and deer hide and reinforced with mountain crab chitin. He could now carry all of the minerals that he couldn’t break with his claws or teeth and had plans to melt down into proper weapons. He even some jewels and precious metals like gold or silver worthless now but he wanted it for trade with civilization. He would carry them out along with all his tools and find a forested area to start his search for intelligent life. Hopefully when he was grown up enough his mother would finally let them out.
“GAROOOO!!!” His mother let out a howl that signaled that she wanted everyone to gather. This meant that she was either leaving or returning so Jason put down a sculpture he was working on and made his way slowly towards the sound. Once he got there Jason and his siblings sat down in front of their mother and waited for that same display to take place. They had to come because Jason had surmised that she had to know where everybody was to avoid freezing her own children, otherwise everything would be indiscriminately frozen.
This time though as that ice blue aura surrounded her she suddenly reached out and tapped on Tooth’s forehead, to Jason’s horror, Tooth immediately fell over convulsing in seizures. This shocked Jason, but before he could react she was on him and poked his forehead. It felt as if an icepick had pierced straight through his skull and he immediately keeled over, all his muscles were constricting and loosening at the same time, he couldn’t breath and he felt like he would be crushed by his own bodyweight as he struggled to control himself. Afterward he saw a nightmare, savagery beyond anything he had ever encountered before, images rolled through his head of slaughter and pain, brief glimpses of hell, of love, loss, jealousy, rage, and pure emotion. He was living the lives of others for the briefest of moments before being ripped from his own conscience and being thrown into another. These were his ancestors. The dead memories of his species as they fought abominations, as they bled for survival in the harshest of ways. This went on for what felt like eternity until finally it was too much and he just fell away.
A great deal of time later Jason woke up feeling peculiar. His mind was still reeling from that experience, images of thousands of years of history was being sifted through his mind all at once. Jason could tell that a lot was being left out and thrown away, leaving only the bare necessities.
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“What. Is. This!? I, I can feel it!” There it was. The thing he had been waiting for; Jason could feel in his frontal lobe that spark, that primal energy that he previously thought only gods could possess. He slowly lifted his forefinger and with a tap that same Indestructible clear ice started spreading.
“Ha-ha! Ahahahahahhhhh!” Jason laughed screamed and cried at the top of his lungs. He now understood what that finger tap was for. It was an energy that was passed on and the only way to unlock the potential was with another’s help. It was like a mystery of the universe had opened up to him and he had comprehended a Dao. He then kept tapping his finger. Focusing on that feeling and using his newfound power. Suddenly though he became very lightheaded. Jason soon figured out that he was experiencing mana depletion and stopped his magic. A quick inspection of his surroundings revealed a 5 foot in diameter circle of ice, pitiable compared to his mother but still something.
Finished with his happy tantrum, Jason decided to get up and see the others. He walked out of the room and took a sniff. Then he noticed the noise, or lack thereof. The cave was completely silent. With a cautious step Jason walked towards the entrance of the cave where the most recent smells were, what he discovered were four tracks going in different directions. It was his siblings tracks.
“Guess I’m on my own.” With a small sigh escaping his lips, Jason accepted the situation. Now that he had undergone this sort of magical awakening he understood a bit more about his species. They were really just animals; basically on par with chimps in intelligence. He could probably teach them sign language or try and train them but they could never form a society and had little familial love, it was quite depressing on a whole. However, there was a saving grace, Jason was free to leave now and in his visions he had seen the one thing that he needed. There were definitely humans in this world or at least there equivalent. In the glimpse that he saw there was definitely a clothed individual before it was savagely ripped apart.
“Well, time to move.” With a little excitement in Jason’s steps he ran back to his room and carefully collected his essentials. His large handmade bone and skin backpack was filled with hard and soft ores, all his jewels and precious metals, along with some extra animal skins, crab chiton and frog poison sacs. Then Jason took some of the large and straight leg bones that he had saved and used his ice magic to make icicle javelins. The ice definitely wasn’t as strong as his mother but it was better than nothing.
After a quick inspection Jason finally took his first tentative steps outside the cave. Caution filled his every move as he surveyed his surroundings. He sniffed the air, listened to the wind and scanned the horizon. Jason knew that everything here was perfectly adapted and completely camouflaged. So with a cautious step he made his way towards the valley below.
Two hours later Jason came across the scent of dear. With renewed vigilance he stepped towards the animal and after another thirty minutes he found the trail. His adrenaline was now pumping as he stealthily crept towards his target. As he passed a ridge he saw it. A movement in the snow gave away the position of a sleeping female doe. It was completely camouflaged in the white snow but as it breathed his extreme vision could tell. So as he came closer he slowly took out a bone spear and once he was one-hundred meters away he pulled back flexing the muscles in his body he made sure to use his core and waist to pivot his torso. Then with a massive whip like motion that Jason could swear had broken the sound barrier he released the javelin.
The spear had passed through the deer as if it was ripping through a thin sheet of cloth and continued on burying itself in the earth. With muffled glee Jason rushed towards his first kill, but before he managed to get to his meal the ground opened up.
‘Shit!’ With just a sliver of space left he managed to jump as high as he could, over what he recognized as one of the giant mouthed fluff balls, in time to hear the cold snap of its jaws catching nothing but air.
“RAAARGH!!!” In that moment Jason’s eyes went completely red and he rushed back towards the stupid fur ball that had the audacity to try and eat him. He knew these fur balls were ambush predators. They’d lie in the snow for weeks at a time waiting to grab a meal and then they’d burrow underground if they failed. Jason then quickly arrived at the now retreating tuft of fur and shot his arm straight down through the ground, grabbing hold of its side and with a titanic feat of strength wrenched the beast from the ground. It wasn’t until he had pummeled the beast into a near paste like substance that Jason regained control of himself. He shuddered when he thought of it. He had completely lost control and in his rage had minced the creature to bits.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” Jason yelled. He thought he had gotten control of himself in the past weeks but it seemed like he still needed to practice in the heat of battle. Sure it was fine to lose yourself with something that could be easily beaten, but if he found a creature that was his natural predator he would need to keep his wits.
With another thought Jason finally shrugged of his frustration and made his way to the dear. It was a good clean kill and after skinning it and eating the rest he continued on his way. He wanted to head in a southern direction, but he didn’t know if the four cardinal directions even existed on this planet so he decided to just follow streams of frozen water in the valleys of the mountains until he found something worthwhile.
Weeks passed on Jason’s journey. Every day he would try to cover as much distance as possible. He would fight, eat, move and sleep. The battles he had were titanic and brutal. The crabs would throw giants boulders off their backs and constantly try and snap his limbs off. Green poison would shoot out randomly from the snow. The white frogs were in packs and took up huge territories covering entire mountains. When Jason saw a particularly bumpy mountain he would always avoid it, even though his skin was hard to melt through, being covered in goo was never a good experience.
The wolves were in even bigger packs then he thought. In this region they were close to the bottom of the food chain. Even the dear would be able to easily shred them. This lead them to an annoying adaptation; by increasing their breeding capabilities to a crazy degree. The wolves bred like rabbits. Honestly they were just a pest that roamed the relatively safe mountain valleys, Jason would sometimes be surrounded by groups of hundreds of them. It was quite a site to see, 2-meter-long wolves gathering like a swarm of zombies. Jason would always have to slaughter at least half of the mongrels before they would start to run. This provided plenty of practice for his self-control. Jason figured that as long as he wasn’t slighted or tricked and if he didn’t get any taste of blood he could maintain himself. Otherwise the berserker rage would grip him like a vice. It also helped to mainly use his spear as a weapon and not his claws or fists.
Having an extra joint in your arm proved tremendously helpful in reaching your opponent and provided that extra whipping motion that would double his penetrative power.
Aside from the battles Jason had also measured his growth in the last few weeks and estimated that he had finally reached his full adult size. About 22 feet tall and to his estimates around ten tons. Added with his massive backpack and animal skins that he had tried to make into what resembled a cloak, he was now a mobile fortress. Jason was also making remarkable improvements in his ice magic. Like a muscle constant use and stretching everyday extended his range to about 30- feet around him. Anything that stepped into the edges of this indestructible domain of ice would either freeze to death or be impaled. Jason could also cover himself in ice, curl into a ball and roll through the valley. Sure it would increase his speed and conserve energy but he would rarely do it since he’d always get caught by an animal or surrounded by monsters.
This didn’t mean that Jason was king and could freely roam about the tundra. Sometimes he would catch a whiff of what he assumed was a lizard. It smelled fishy and a bit like Sulphur. That meant it was the territory of a dragon He had very briefly seen one crossing the sky’s. Huge monstrosity’s probably 200 meters long and of the eastern variety. It was also covered in icicles so he assumed they had a similar magic to his own. After witnessing that; Jason had a nerdgasm and a panic attack because feeling its aura in the sky made him underground for the rest of the day.
Jason also sometimes would catch a whiff of his own kinds territory. It didn’t matter though since the species was extremely solitary. Any interaction was usually in finding a mate or fighting over territory which for obvious reasons, Jason cared nothing for.
In this time, Jason had also figured out that it was starting to get slightly warmer and his choice to continue along the river was a good one since the farther he went and the thinner the ice became it would eventually lead him out of the mountains. Hopefully that environment had convenience stores, but he wasn’t inclined to believe it.
“Hah, yes there it is” A month of searching and Jason had finally come across a massive ridge and after climbing it he was greeted with a cliff that overlooked a vast snow covered forest. He could even see a bit of green as he looked at the rolling hills in the distance. It was honestly a strange sight for as far as he could see on either his right or his left was a cliff that clearly divided the mountains he had been born in and the forested area below. It was as if a god had clearly cut a line through the planet and lifted the surface. In some parts it was around 50 meters and others the cliff was thousands of metres clearly cutting through the mountains/
This wasn’t that interesting though. What really excited Jason was the smoke. Someone was definitely using a fire!
“GrrrrrooOOOOOOAAARR!” In triumph of having found his goal Jason roared to the heavens in terrifying glee.