He was ecstatic with this discovery. The fear that had plagued him since waking up in this nightmare world evaporated, replaced by the burning certainty of a man who had finally been handed a weapon.
"So what if I don’t have a System like the protagonists in those novels?" Sol laughed out loud, the sound startling a nearby bird. "I don’t need a blue screen telling me I leveled up. I’ll just eat my way to the top. I’ll still become invincible."
Awoooo-gh!
A strange, guttural howl cut through his celebration. It sounded distant, but in a forest like this, distance was a lie.
Sol snapped his mouth shut, his senses... still buzzing from the energy boost... detecting the subtle shift in the forest’s atmosphere. The birds had stopped singing. The insects had lowered their drone.
"Right," Sol muttered, his eyes darting to the shadows. "Better move before, becoming lunch for something."
He wasted no time. He moved to the carcass. The snake was heavy, easily fifty pounds of dense muscle and scale, but for the current Sol, whose body was silently being reinforced by the mysterious vessel he inhabited, it was manageable.
He dragged it to the edge of the stream. First, he picked up a heavy, sharp-edged piece of slate. With a grimace of effort, he sawed through the remaining connection of the snake’s neck, completely severing the crushed head from the body.
"Just in case," he whispered, kicking the venomous head into a deep crevice between two rocks. He knew from his old world’s biology that reptile reflexes could cause a severed head to bite hours after death.
Next came the messy part.
He knelt by the rushing water. He didn’t have a knife, but he had a sharp flint he’d found earlier. He slit the belly of the snake from throat to tail.
It was his first time doing this, and his stomach churned slightly at the smell of raw musk and copper. Yet, his hands moved with a strange, autonomous confidence. The memories of the original Sol guided his fingers... peeling back the tough skin, removing the entrails, and washing the pale, firm meat in the cold current.
"Thank you for the meal, and the lesson," Sol muttered, washing the blood from his hands.
He worked quickly, constantly checking the tree line. He grabbed his sack and dumped the contents... the chilis, the fungus, the strange herbs and other non-recognized stuff—onto a large fern leaf.
He coiled the clean, heavy ropes of snake meat at the very bottom of the basket. It was a dense, protein-rich treasure that would feed his family for days. He covered the meat with a thick layer of broad leaves to mask the sight and suppress the smell. Then, he piled the chilis and other gathered items back on top. To any observer, it would look like a simple basket of vegetables and spices.
He lifted the basket, settling the strap over his shoulder. He felt satisfied. A vial of poison for his enemy, meat for his family, and a strengthened soul for himself.
Crack.
A twig snapped nearby.
Sol spun around. In the dense twilight of the undergrowth, he saw pairs of yellow, reflective eyes blinking in the darkness. Hyena-sized shadows were moving through the ferns, obviously drawn by the scent of the snake’s blood he had left on the riverbank.
"Well, that’s definitely my cue to leave," Sol muttered quietly.
He turned and moved away slowly. He had a bit of strange info from last life and didn’t run... as he had read somewhere that running triggered the predator chase instinct... so he walked with a swift, purposeful stride.
He moved through the forest, his basket heavy with chilis, strange stuff, and the hidden carcass. The air was thick with humidity, but Sol moved with a strange, gliding grace that he obviously hadn’t possessed an hour ago.
The scavengers were fighting over the entrails he had left by the stream, but he didn’t care.
His mind was buzzing. Not with noise, but with electricity. The sensation of "devouring the soul" of the snake had settled into a humming clarity. The world looked high-definition. He could hear the scuttle of the scavengers behind him fighting over the discarded entrails. He could smell various strange smells mixed in the forest.
As he walked, hitting the safer Hunter’s Trail, he slowed down his analytical mind began to process the implications of what had just happened.
"Okay," Sol muttered, his voice sounding crisp to his own ears. "I just absorbed a soul. That actually happened."
It was outrageous. It was supernatural. And it forced him to stop and re-evaluate everything.
If something as impossible as ’eating a ghost to sharpen the mind’ was real, what else had he been dismissing?
He looked down at his own body. He was carrying a basket that weighed easily sixty pounds, trekking through dense jungle terrain, yet his breath was steady. His legs felt like coiled springs.
"Okay," Sol muttered, his voice sounding crisp to his own ears. "Let’s break this down. I need a working theory."
He was a man of science, even if stranded in this primitive world. He needed a working hypothesis.
"Observation A: I killed the snake while the Ash-Grey Tether was active. Result: Massive spike in mental clarity, sensory perception, and a recovery of mental fatigue."
He touched his chest. As expected, the Ash-Grey energy pool was still at 50%. The fuel hadn’t increased, but the engine... his mind...had been upgraded.
"Conclusion: The Tether acts as a conduit. When the target dies, their primitive spirit—their ’software’... is sucked into me. It strengthens my Soul."
This was Path One. The Path of the Mind. By dominating and consuming predators, he could expand his consciousness. This would allow him to control stronger beasts, hold the connection longer, and perhaps eventually dominate humans with complex minds.
But what about his body?
He looked down at his arm. As expected, the bruise from the snake’s tail whip... which should have been a deep purple welt by now... was already yellowing, fading fast, the pain fading into a dull, distant itch.