The journey home was a lot less stressful for the hunters, mainly because of Grud now being able to kill most beasts and monsters with relative ease.
When asked about his newfound combat prowess, Grud showed everyone what he could do with his empowered body and long bone daggers.
Not that the hunters could see or sense the mana empowering his arms or daggers, but the effects of which could not be denied when he demonstrated on trees and rocks.
When Grud described how he did it to some of the more curious men, Grud explained it as best he could, but in the end, all of them had no reference to say otherwise and took it at face value and passed it off as a shaman only thing.
Little did Grud know, that because of showing off his new powers, he would soon become very popular, not only with hot nubile young women but the more wizen academic types, because when the expedition men return to their tribes and tell of the tale of the expedition, they mention of Grud and his newfound powers through the use of mana, which got the their local shamans all hot and bothered, in the intellectual curiosity sense… most of them.
—
When the returning expedition reached the Rock Skull tribe, they were met with the cheers of the tribe welcoming them to host them for the night.
The only thing the Rock Skull tribe did not expect was the Chieftain of the Long Shadow tribe along with a cadre of his hunters tagging along. The only thing Chieftan Dhun said aloud to Chieftan Froll was that it concerned a meeting between chieftains and left it at that.
As for Grud, he was met by his seven wives and the newest member of their family in Nita's arms, "Welcome home, my love! You've returned whole to us." Meet your first child, Ayla" Nita said as Ayla was awoken by the noise of the cheering crowd welcoming the expedition.
With a trembling hand towards Ayla, "When… When was she born?" Grud asked as he stroked the chubby cheek of Ayla's with a huge smile creeping up on his face.
"A week ago. Beautiful, isn't she? Come now Ayla, meet your father." Nita said as she lifted the baby to Grud, and he awkwardly cradled Ayla in both arms but eventually changed to cradle her in the crook of one arm due to Ayla being too small, or actually Grud being too huge.
Grud brought his finger to Ayla and booped her on the nose, which was followed by Ayla grabbing Grud's thick finger and doing what all babies do, stick it in her mouth. Grud kissed Ayla's head and turned to Nita.
"She is indeed beautiful. Well done my love." Grud said as he bent low to give Nita a loving kiss, then he turned to his six other heavily pregnant wives and gave them all hugs and kisses. Just as he finished kissing the last of his wives, Ayla started fussing, which brought Nita to collect her from his arms, "Looks like she is hungry."
After collecting Ayla, Nita pulled Grud in for a kiss, at which point both of them felt Mita transfer via their lips to Nita. When they broke off the kiss, Nita whispered, "I think it's time to introduce Mita to the family tonight, I will leave Ayla with my mother tonight."
It was still early afternoon when the expedition reached the rock skull tribe, so Grud still had to help around to get their guest settled.
After having an impromptu lunch for their returning hunters and guests where many stories were told around many fires, Grud looked for the tribe's crafter Vok, there was some armor he was excited to see, especially after learning about the mana conductivity of monster materials.
Grud entered a hut, and he was met with the same ever grumpy face of Vok, before Grud could even greet him, Vok cut him off, "So you survived, good. If not I would have to resize it for someone els–" Vok stopped before he could finish his sentence and eyeballed Grud up and down.
"Your body got bigger from the last time I saw you, but I guess you are here to see the armor." Vok said as he got up from his current work and walked over to a draped pelt.
Vok flung off the pelt to reveal the set of Monster Centipede armor dressed on a simple T frame. The armor included a chest plate and strap-on armor for his shins, thighs, and upper and lower arms.
"You like?" Vok asked, to which Grud could only nod as he almost salivated over the shiny smooth carapace.
"Good, now stretch out your arms and legs, I got to alter a few things because you got bigger."
After getting his measurements taken and then getting all but kicked out of Vok's hut, Grud went to his next stop.
As he neared his next destination, Grud heard the familiar sounds of a mortar and pestle. "Dhuk! I am back!" Grud announced himself as he entered the shaman's hut.
"Ah, Grud my boy, good to see you are well. And congratulations on your first child." Dhuk said as he put away his pestle.
"Yeah, thanks. Oh, by the way, I got a present for you." Grud then opened a pouch at his side and fished out a crystalline shard around the length of an index finger and passed it to Dhuk.
"Is… Is this a Monster Core?" Dhuk said as he squinted his eyes at the shard in his hand.
"It is. That is one of the biggest ones I got while on the expedition, and that is for you, as thanks for starting me on the path of a shaman." Grud said with a smile.
"It is quite a bit bigger than the one I showed you last time. You said you got this on the expedition, how many monsters did you kill out there?" Dhuk said with an expectant gleam in his eyes.
Grud started counting with his fingers, then thought hard as tried to remember, then decided to rebound off, "On my own, more than ten less than twenty."
This made Dhuk very happy. This was because due to hunting etiquette, if you kill your prey solo, nobody had claim over your kill, meaning Grud had many monster cores that he could hopefully share with Dhuk. That was when a thought came to Dhuk.
"Wait, how do you not know how many monsters you killed? You should have the same number of monster cores as your kills unless some beast or monster keeps stealing your kills." Dhuk asked.
Grud had a somewhat guilty look on his face while scratching the back of his head, "Well, you see… I, um… ate… most of them." Grud said, the last part coming out as barely a whisper.
Dhuk leaned toward Grud and asked, "I'm sorry, what was that? I did not hear the last part."
"I… Ate most of them." Grud said timidly.
"YOU WHAT?!!" Dhuk shouted
"Wait, wait, I can explain." Grud quickly blurted out and started telling Dhun about his findings about consuming the Monster Cores, empowering his body the same way monsters do, and the use of monster material and its mana conductivity.
Dhuk, stroked his beard as he listened to Grud and thought, 'It makes sense in a way, Grud is the first person we have ever known to survive consuming a Monster Core, and other monsters have been observed eating each other, maybe that is one way they get stronger? So does that mean Grud is a Monster Man? That may also explain him being able to use mana in the same way monsters do, when shamans try to do the same thing, it either fails or damages our mana structure. Hmmmm… questions upon questions appear. All that being said, there is still the last point.'
"As for the monster material, I take it that those are an example of it?" Dhuk asked as he looked at the pair of bone daggers Grud set by his side as he sat on the ground.
"Yes, it is, made these myself." Grud said as he passed one of the daggers to Dhuk.
Dhuk received the bone dagger, flicked it with his finger, and thumbed the edge, which was not so sharp, "Mmmm… the only thing sharp about this is the pointy end, are you sure this will be sharp?"
Grud gave a knowing smile and said, "Just push mana into the dagger."
Dhuk did so, and in the eyes of the two shamans, the bone dagger glowed with mana. With fascinated eyes, Dhuk grabbed a bone he had been grinding for his ingredients and ran the now empowered bone dagger across it with barely any strength. This resulted in a very obvious grove drawn across the bone he was testing on.
Dhuk's grin widened as he put the tip of the bone dagger to the ground and after exerting some strength, managed to drive the dagger a quarterway into the ground, then extracted it. "Truly marvelous. Even if I was younger, I would not have been able to drive the dagger into the ground with just my own strength without winding up for a strong blow. This needs to be studied more… Don't tell me you ate the bones too"
"No, no, I have a share of the monster materials that we brought home. I can pass some to you to study." Grud said as he got up, "I will come back later with the monster parts later, I need to do some catching up with my family."
—
After taking care of his affairs and collecting his share of the beast/monster materials from the crafters who accompanied the expedition, which amounted to quite a fair bit, on the count of Grud using his newfound power to demolish quite a fair of the beasts and monsters on his own while the expedition was returning home.
In fact, all the hunters had make-shift baskets on their backs laden with valuables that they would bring back to their tribes. And with Grud solo killing so many things, he had to get the help of other hunters on the condition that they got a cut of what they were carrying for him.
By the time he was walking home, he was carrying four full baskets of bones, pelts, teeth, horns, and tusks that had to have the tops tied over to prevent overspill of the items within.
"I'm home." Grud announced himself as he parted the pelt covering the entrance of his home. He opened the entrance to the sight of his seven wives sitting around chatting with each other, along with his daughter and his mothers-in-law Iko and Rae.
After greeting Iko and Rae, Nita handed Ayla to Rae and the two in-laws made their way out of the hut with faces showing that they knew what was going to happen next.
That was when all of the wives made their way to the wide bedding and Nita petted the empty spot in the middle of the lounging pregnant women, "Come, dear husband, rest and tell us of your journey."