Reyansh sat by the riverbank, completely numb. His clothes were still half-drenched, and the icy jungle wind cut relentlessly into his skin. But strangely enough, he wasn't feeling the cold as much as he felt a terrifying commotion unfolding inside his own body.
His heartbeat was out of control.
With every thud of his heart, it felt as though ice-cold water was racing through his veins instead of blood.
Trembling, he tried to lift his broken right arm.
Just yesterday, merely twitching his fingers felt like it would kill him.
But right now—
His eyes narrowed in astonishment.
The pain was faint.
Incredibly faint.
Reyansh snapped upright.
He stared intently at his arm.
The swelling was still there, and his skin was bruised blue in several places.
But that strange, mangled bend in the bone... it didn't look the way it did before.
"How is this happening so fast?"
He rotated his arm just a fraction more.
Click.
Something shifted slightly out of place inside.
And suddenly, something began crawling right beneath his skin.
Reyansh's entire body went rigid with fear.
He instantly pulled his arm tight against his chest.
The flesh beneath his skin was moving as if thousands of tiny insects were squirming around inside.
The skin around the broken bone kept rising slightly, then sinking back down.
Click. Click. Click.
Faint cracking sounds of bones knitting together echoed from within.
His breath caught in his throat.
"What the f—"
Just then, that same cold, mechanical voice echoed directly inside his mind.
Cellular Healing activated.
Reyansh turned entirely into a statue.
The voice was much clearer this time.
It didn't feel like someone was speaking to him from the outside; it felt as though a system had taken over right in the middle of his own thoughts.
Ability classification: Body Mutation.
His eyes slowly narrowed.
"Body Mutation."
The voice echoed again.
Host has consumed mutated organism.
Mutation pathways unlocked.
And in the very next instant—
Faint blue lines began forming in the air right before his eyes, looking exactly like a transparent screen.
Reyansh recoiled in panic.
But the screen stayed right where it was.
Words began typing themselves out upon it.
BODY MUTATION — 1 Point
NEURAL MUTATION — 0 Points
SENSORY MUTATION — 0 Points
ADAPTIVE MUTATION — 0 Points
GENETIC MUTATION — 0 Points
His gaze remained glued to the screen for a few seconds.
Then, new words emerged at the bottom.
EVOLUTION REQUIREMENT: 100 Mutation Points Required.
"A hundred?" Reyansh blurted out instinctively.
He reached his hand forward to touch the screen.
His hand passed straight through it.
A hologram.
But it looked completely real.
He let out a deep breath.
The cobwebs in his mind were finally clearing up.
That transparent fish... this transformation inside his body... and this healing.
Everything was connected.
New words flashed on the screen.
Mutation Types Explanation:
Body Mutation: Physical strength, regeneration, muscle density, organ enhancement.
Neural Mutation: Brain processing, reaction speed, memory, mental resistance.
Sensory Mutation: Vision, smell, hearing, danger detection.
Adaptive Mutation: Environmental resistance, poison tolerance, heat and cold adaptation.
Genetic Mutation: Rare evolution pathway. Alters species-level traits.
Reyansh read on silently.
And the more he read, the more a cold understanding settled deep within him.
This was no video game.
This was a survival structure.
The system continued—
Mutated organisms contain evolutionary energy.
Consumption grants Mutation Points.
Rare organisms provide greater gain.
Ability extraction possible through beast termination.
Current probability: 1 in 1000.
Reyansh's brows furrowed.
"One in a thousand."
Meaning, landing an ability like Cellular Healing was pure luck.
Massive luck.
He closed his eyes and slowly leaned his head back against the tree trunk.
The jungle air didn't feel the same to him anymore.
Until yesterday, this place just felt terrifying, but today—
He could feel that this entire jungle was evolving.
Every tree.
Every animal.
Every single living creature.
Everything.
And whoever failed to adapt to this environment would be slaughtered outright.
His gaze drifted to the flowing river water.
If anyone had told him two days ago that he would be sitting in another world reading about a mutation system, he definitely would have laughed it off.
But now?
Now, his own broken arm was magically putting itself back together right before his eyes.
He had no option but to accept this new reality.
He slowly clenched his fist.
This time, the pain was significantly less.
Incredibly less.
Then suddenly—
There was movement beneath his skin again.
Reyansh immediately looked down at his arm.
The skin near the bone began to swell slightly.
Click. Click. Click.
The movement was much faster this time.
A painful hiss escaped his mouth.
"Ssshit."
It felt as though someone had shoved a hot iron rod inside him.
But amidst that exact pain, he could clearly feel the bone setting back into its correct position.
He gritted his teeth tightly.
For a few minutes, he just wrestled with the agony.
Slowly, the pain began to fade.
Then, his eyes caught his own reflection rippling in the cold river water.
He stared at himself for a few seconds.
His face had changed.
Not completely, but his eyes... there was something different about them.
Until yesterday, those eyes held nothing but terror and panic.
Now, they possessed a strange sharpness.
Exactly like a wild predator constantly scanning its surroundings for danger.
He noticed that his hearing had grown slightly sharper too.
From somewhere far behind the trees, the sound of water droplets dripping was crystal clear to him.
He could even feel exactly which direction the wind was blowing from.
"Is this because of that ability?" he muttered to himself.
Just then, his eyes landed on some strange, large insects crawling along the riverbank.
Until yesterday, they would have just been disgusting bugs to him.
But today, his mind automatically thought—
Will eating these give me points?
He stood startled by his own thought for a few seconds.
Then, he let out a faint, helpless laugh.
"Great. Now I'm actually thinking about eating bugs."
But his laughter didn't last long.
Because he knew the bitter truth.
If he wanted to stay alive here, he had to eat.
Anything.
He began looking around.
Now that the panic had subsided, his mind was operating in a completely practical manner.
Priority:
What does he need first? Water. He had found it.
Food. He would have to forage for something.
Weapons. His knife was practically junk now.
And the most crucial thing... shelter.
Night was about to fall again.
And in this jungle, night meant the real masters of the domain came out.
The two glowing, horrifying eyes from the previous night suddenly flashed before his mind.
A slight shiver ran down his spine.
If he hadn't climbed that tree yesterday, he wouldn't be alive today.
Reyansh immediately shook the thought away.
Fear is a good thing; it keeps you alive.
But panic doesn't.
He slowly stood up.
This time, his balance was much better than before.
He rotated his right arm to test it.
The pain was still there, but it was no longer unbearable.
"Cellular Healing," he said, staring at his hand.
"If this ability keeps working like this, I'll recover in no time."
Just then, the system activated again.
Cellular Healing — Level 1
Healing speed depends on:
Nutritional intake.
Energy reserves.
Body condition.
Warning: Severe injuries may consume excessive biological energy.
Reyansh exhaled heavily.
So this wasn't some unlimited magic.
For healing, the body required energy.
It required food.
Otherwise, the body would start consuming itself from the inside out.
"A balanced system," he murmured softly.
And that was the part he found most terrifying.
If all of this had been some random magic, it might have been easier to look for loopholes.
But this was entirely structured.
Calculated.
As if someone had turned evolution into a pure science.
He picked up one of the sharp stones scattered around.
Then, without thinking too much, he slashed the sharp edge of the stone lightly across his finger.
Blood welled out instantly.
It stung, too.
But his gaze remained fixed entirely on the wound.
Nothing happened for a few seconds.
Then—
The skin slowly began closing up on its own.
The bleeding stopped.
The cut mark began to shrink.
Reyansh's eyes widened.
Within just a single minute, nothing but a faint red line remained where the cut had been.
"Damn."
Now he truly understood what he had stumbled upon.
If he had arrived in this world without this healing ability, he probably would have been killed last night.
But along with this, another dangerous realization dawned on him.
The other creatures existing in this world must have evolved in the exact same way.
Meaning, this jungle didn't just house big animals; there were living, breathing, mutated killing machines roaming around.
He pulled his broken knife from his pocket.
The blade was almost completely gone.
"You won't last long, friend," he said to the knife, starting to grind it against a rock.
But after rubbing it just a few times, he realized it was pointless.
The metal of the knife had gone completely soft.
He shoved the knife back into his pocket.
Finding a new weapon had now become a top priority.
The sun was slowly setting.
That strange sky with its blue glow was now shifting into a deep purple.
The jungle was altering its form once again.
In the daytime, this jungle felt bizarre.
But at night... it was lethal.
Reyansh quickly began gathering dry branches from around him.
Fire.
He needed fire at all costs.
But the biggest problem was—he didn't have a lighter.
His phone battery was already dead.
He took two stones and began striking them against each other.
Nothing happened.
He tried again.
Struck them again.
Rubbed them.
Even after trying like a madman for half an hour, not a single spark of fire emerged.
His hands were beginning to ache.
"Wonderful," he muttered, collapsing onto the ground in exhaustion.
Suddenly—
Piercing through the dead silence of the distant jungle, an incredibly long, horrifying screech echoed.
Reyansh's body froze instantly.
That voice didn't belong to a human.
But it didn't completely sound like an animal either.
The moment he heard the sound, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.
Just a few seconds later, another sound came.
This time, it wasn't from very far away.
Heavy rustling was happening somewhere among the trees.
Reyansh dropped low immediately.
His breathing automatically became slow and shallow.
He noticed it himself—he was moving perfectly quietly, without even thinking about it.
Instinct.
His body was adapting itself to this threat.
He slowly backed away and hid himself between the massive roots of a large, dense tree.
The darkness kept thickening.
The sounds of the jungle had completely transformed now.
The daytime insects had vanished.
Now, there were only the rustling steps of unknown, terrifying things echoing around.
Somewhere, dry twigs were snapping.
From another direction, heavy growls rumbled.
And up above in the canopy, something was sprinting at an incredible speed.
Reyansh sat through the entire night like an alert predator.
But this time, there was a major difference.
Tonight, he wasn't helpless.
He had the system.
He had the healing.
And most importantly—now he knew the rules of this game.
To survive in this horrifying world, just remaining a human wasn't going to cut it.
He had to adapt.
He had to evolve.
Otherwise, this jungle would chew him alive.
He stared down at his healing right hand in the pitch darkness.
And then, in a low, cold voice, he whispered to himself—
"This world doesn't reward mercy or pity."
A dangerous glint sparked in his eyes.
"Only one thing works here—Adaptation."