Before the upgrade, I could have chewed on that tail until my jaw fell off and I wouldn't have broken the bone. Now? It felt like biting through a breadstick.
But as I looked at my handiwork, I noticed a potential flaw in the design: sabers.
Sabertooth cats are evolutionary specialists. Most cats have balanced upper and lower canines that work together like a pair of scissors to lock onto a throat. But my kind? Our upper canines are giant scimitars, while the lowers are basically steak knives.
"The longer the blade, the easier it snaps," I mused. The hyena gene had toughened the surface enamel, but the internal structure was still brittle. Hardness and flexibility are two very different things in physics. If I hit a thick bone at the wrong angle, my signature weapons could shatter, leaving me with a very expensive dental bill and no way to hunt.
I had two choices: reinforce the structure (impossible, unless I find a gene for titanium teeth) or make them replaceable.
"Wait... I remember a documentary from my human life. There's a predator that cycles through thousands of teeth in its lifetime. Sharks."
I dove into the system's gene bank, scrolling past the terrestrial stuff until I found it.
[Shark Gene: Tooth Regeneration – 300 Gene Points]
Three hundred points. That's a steep price for my teeth Insurance, but if it means I never have to worry about a broken saber again, it's worth every rabbit on the plains.
New goal: Get 300 points and become the first Sabertooth with an infinite ammo rack in his mouth.
"Roar~~"
The familiar call of Mom and Dad pulled me out of my internal monologue. I looked up to see them dragging the back half of a Przewalski's horse (Equus ferus przewalskii) across the grass.
"ROAR!" I responded, trotting over to meet them.
They've been watching me heal with what I can only describe as feline confusion as Smilodon fatalis had a brain approximately 15% to 20% smaller than that of a modern lion or tiger of comparable body mass.
While its overall brain-to-body ratio was lower than today's big cats, its brain structure was highly specialized. Endocasts of Smilodon skulls show a well-developed visual cortex and regions associated with forelimb coordination, suggesting it was a highly efficient ambush predator that relied on physical precision rather than complex social strategy or endurance tracking.
Essentially, the saber-toothed cat traded the higher cognitive processing seen in modern felines for the specialized motor control needed to pin down massive prey and deliver a surgical neck bite.
They don't understand how an open fracture and a dozen infection-prone bites healed in a few weeks, but they don't care. I'm alive, I'm standing, and in their world, that's all that matters.
Mom dropped the horse carcass in front of me with a heavy huff, signaling it was my turn to eat. But as I leaned down, I saw it—the gash on her shoulder from the hyena fight had ripped back open. Fresh blood was matting her fur.
She must have strained it during the horse hunt. My heart's beating with strange emotions. Seeing her hurt while she was busy making sure I was fed made my stomach churn with a mix of guilt and anger.
The worst part? My Healing Points only worked on me. I was a superhero who couldn't save his own family. If things got really bad, all I could do was watch her lick her wounds and hope for the best.
Night fell over the Mississippi, and the plains turned into a sea of silver under the moonlight. The rest of the family was already out cold, Zack's loud, rhythmic snoring serving as the background track to the evening.
I lay down next to him, but I wasn't sleeping. I was watching the clock.
[Ding! System upgrade in progress. Time remaining: 0:05:59...]
I hovered in that space between wakefulness and dreams until the final chime echoed in my head.
---
[Ding! System Upgrade Successful. Current Version: 2.0.]
[Welcome to Gene Evolution System 2.0. Attribute mechanisms and Healing permissions have been updated.]
---
"What's the catch?" I asked mentally.
---
[Notice: As Host has entered the Sub-adult stage, the baseline for physical development has shifted. Exchange rate for Gene Points to Attribute Points is now 10:1.]
[Feature Unlocked: Global Healing. Host can now apply Healing Points to external targets. Point cost varies by injury.]
---
The exchange rate hike was expected—it's harder to improve a professional athlete than a toddler. Ten to one is a fair tax for breaking the limits of my species.
But the Global Healing? That was the game-changer.
"System, you beautiful piece of code. You're finally useful."
I didn't waste a second. I stood up and crept over to Mom's sleeping form. It was time to see if I could finally return the favor.