After breaking down the Hunter Lizard carcasses to ready them for cooking when they made camp, Grud excused himself to go take a piss. After going behind a tree, he took out the Hunter Lizard heart he snuck away in a pouch and scoffed it down.
After he was done eating the heart, Grud rejoined the other hunters to make take a break some distance from the site they butchered the lizards.
Soon after, all the hunters were hauling as much lizard meat as they could carry along with the three paralyzed hunters. They marched onward the rest of the day without encountering any predators, 'Either those Hunter Lizards we just killed controlled a large territory, or it is more likely that there are no other pack predators in the area and the solo predators are smart enough to avoid us when we move in big numbers. That should not be much of a problem for the tribes.'
When the sun was going down, the call to make camp was given. After the shelters were set up, the older hunters got to cooking the lizard meat while Dhun gathered the other hunters for another fighting lesson.
Dhun used his staff to draw out a ring to spar in. When he called for volunteers to come forward to spar, this time the participants were not as eager as last time. So Grud took a step forward before anyone could.
Dhun just nodded at Grud and readied his stance. 'Hope I do somewhat better this time and keep in mind what he told me last time, to be aware of my surroundings.' after thinking back to the first sparring match with Dhun, Grud realized he was being led around the ring like a Tusk Pig.
Grud took his stance, and after a few seconds of staring at each other, unlike spars with other hunters, Dhun made the first move and lunged the tip of his staff forward at Grud's face, as Grud used his own staff to perry the strike to his face out of the way, he noticed something while focusing on Dhun's staff that he intercepted.
'That was a rather slow jab for-' Before Grud could finish that thought, he felt an impact on his stomach and fell backward only to see Dhun's leg come back down from a kick. "I told you last time to be aware of your surroundings, you were so focused on my staff that you did not see my attack come from other parts of my body. Recover and raise your guard again!"
When Grud got back to his feet and raised his staff, Dhun charged him again to start throwing more staff jabs at him. Grud parried and blocked with his staff and tried to dodge what hits he could, 'On the up side, I am defending alot better than yesterday…. On the downside, his attacks are getting faster and more complicated.'
As the spar continued, Grud had to start using his arms to take some of the blows and unlike spars with other participants so far, Dhun started aiming for Grud's legs too. This left Grud no time to think and could only react to the incoming blows.
This time, instead of leading Grud around, Dhun was controlling where Grud was retreating to by targeting Grud's feet. Sturdy Grud's body may be, but getting whacked on his feet and toes still fucking hurt!
Grud tried to hop to the side when Dhun attacked his feet only to remember 'Shit! Can't maneuver mid-air.' but it was too late, while Grud was mid hop Dhun quickly brought his staff to the side of Grud's foot and effortlessly flicked his staff.
This flick made Grud's body fall horizontally on his side with an "Oof!" and just as Grud was recovering from his fall, Dhun's foot crashed into his chest which sent Grud rolling backward only to find himself recovering to his feet outside the ring.
"You are fast, strong, and sturdy but you still lack awareness and skill at combat, these things can be solved by experience, what you need to train for now is to avoid using your arm to block strikes, as sturdy as your body is, in real battle your arm would become useless very fast." Dhun reprimanded, before dismissing him and calling for the next person to spar with.
The sparing continued for the other participants, but unlike yesterday, Dhun was alot more talkative and pointed out flaws to address and ways of improvement to those he sparred with, which made the whole session end a lot later than the previous day.
Throughout dinner, until he got back to his shelter, Grud was reviewing his spar with Dhun in his head, 'I should have learned from that Green Path tribe idiot, what was his name again? Gam… something… never mind. The moral of the lesson is always to keep your feet on the ground.'
After pondering some more, he was lured to bed by Mita who was waving her plump translucent ass at him. After a day of fighting lizards and then Dhun, he pumped her full of the day's excitement and frustrations until she was a cum filled mana balloon before falling asleep.
—
When Grud fell deep asleep, the mutating agent in his body got to work when it sensed new genetic material to work with.
After parsing thru the genetic material from the Hunter Lizard, it found that the host's muscles and bones were superior, so genetic information in regards to muscles and bones was recycled as biomass.
Next was the scales, which while superior in resisting cutting and piercing damage to the host, will be a great detriment due to the host losing the ability to regulate body heat via perspiration. Nonetheless, it was a useful mutation, and decided to store the genetic information in case of future use.
After going over a few more features that did not seem compatible or useful, the mutating agent came upon the eyes which may not have the best eyesight, but had an interesting feature. It seems like the genetic donor could see a light spectrum that the host could not, so it decided to add that feature to the host's eyes. After all, if the host could see more things, the host will have better chances of surviving and finding resources.
[AN: Fun fact, some lizards can see the Ultraviolet spectrum of light.]
The next thing it found interesting was the ability to smell with its tongue, well not exactly, it was the ability of the genetic donor's tongue to capture scent particles in the air and bring it back to its olfactory organ to smell. It may not be as useful to the host, but having redundancy in case the use of the primary olfactory organ is damaged was a good thing. So the mutating agent added the feature.
Lastly and most notable of the genetic information the mutating agent found, was regeneration. Oddly it only affected the tail of the genetic donor which was used to store fat and nutrients, but it was regeneration nonetheless. Unfortunately, the genetic information was not complex enough, so the mutating agent did its best to adapt the regeneration feature to the rest of the host's body since the host did not have a tail.
The end result was that regeneration's speed and efficiency were greatly reduced when compared to the genetic donor. Unless better or more complex genetic information in regard to regeneration was introduced to the host's body that will not change. But in the view of the mutating agent, some regeneration was better than no regeneration at all.
—
When Grud woke up the next morning, he felt more hungry than usual. But that was not what was bothering him this morning, the moment he woke up before he even opened his eyes, he could feel his eyeballs have a mild thumping ache.
Grud also noticed the roof of his mouth was tingling for some reason. When he took a morning yawn, he was rudely interrupted by an assault of different smells to his…. Mouth?... roof of his mouth?
After forcing his mouth close from his yawn and his eyes springing open, Grud noticed his second problem, his vision was greyed over. He could see just fine, but everything was shades of grey.
'Oh no… am I going blind? Why am I smelling thru my mouth? Is the spirit of the Hunter Lizard whose heart I ate cursing me?' Grud's panicked mind rattled off as more possibilities of his situation started flowing into his mind.
>Husband Grud… what wrong? I feel you fear.< Grud heard Mita speaking into his mind and turned to her, in the world of grey she was shining blue and translucent… and for reasons he did not know, the semen floating inside Mita was more prominent compared to the surroundings.
Mita just tilted her head in confusion, >Why eat scale beast heart do this? Heart just meat. You eat meat no problem.< After taking a while to decipher Mita's broken talk, he realized what she was saying, 'Eating the lizard's heart is just meat and that it should be no problem? I don't think I have ever told her about my power to absorb the strength of the beast I eat, have I?'
After giving Mita an abridged version of his power, Mita stilled with a contemplative look on her face, and after a few seconds said, >If your power take strength and this happen now. Maybe this not wrong. But is strength.<
Grud thought about it for a while, 'So far, all the hearts of the beasts I have eaten have only been a blessing, maybe this Gray vision and smelling thru my mouth may be a blessing too.'
After digging a hole for Mita to dispose of his semen in, Grud exited his shelter to the wider gray world to take a morning piss. While he was relieving himself on a tree, Grud noticed wherever his piss splashed was viewed more prominently in his grayed vision.
When Grud was done and shake off the access piss, he noticed his hand was also viewed with the same prominence as where his piss had splashed, 'That's weird, I wonder what this means?'
Just before he left to get breakfast, another hunter came up to a tree beside his, as Grud looked at this hunter with his greyed vision, he noticed that not much stood out, that was until the other hunter also whipped out his dick and started taking a piss.
That was when it clicked, as small droplets of piss splashed back onto the hunter's hands and legs after hitting the tree, it dawned on Grud as he looked back at his own hands, 'Is my hands convert in my own piss?'
As Grud was pondering this, the other hunter quickly finished his business as he quickly walked away from the weirdo who was staring at him while peeing.
After the other hunter left in a hurry, Grud rushed to a nearby stream to wash his hands and legs due to the revelation of his now very visible lack of hygiene.
And just like that, the blissful ignorance of lacking hygiene was stripped away from Grud.