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As mammoth after mammoth fell, the hunting groups who took down their target reinforced other groups to expedite the demise of their targets.
The mammoth matriarch who defended her herd was wise enough not to overextend herself and stay close to the herd, and when she noticed that the hunters were just posturing to keep the herd away from all but the ten females and one male who went outside the range of the herd's protection, especially with the one human that smelled like a dangerous predator, she wisely decided to cut their losses and signal the herd's retreat with a trumpet blast.
Slowly, the herd backed away from the hunters while taking special care to make sure their young stayed in the encirclement. And when the hunters were but small specs in their vision, the herd picked up speed to get away from the small hunters.
As the matriarch brought up the rear of the herd to make sure there were no more attacks, she looked back to burn the location and those who had slain her kin into her memory. As she did, the memory of the dangerous man came back to her.
In all her years of leading her herd, she had only ever encountered individually weak pack predators or solitary predators that were strong, but today, she had seen a human that embodied both traits, and with what limited mental and emotional faculties she had, she was relieved that the dangerous man only stopped with only one male mammoth.
When she thought they were safe, the mammoth matriarch made her way through her herd to do a headcount and see who was missing. When she was done, she realized that her sister was among those who had fallen.
This angered the matriarch, but she understood the laws of the jungle and that even predators needed to eat. Her anger would pass in time, but she would remember.
***
When the last of the ten mammoths fell, all the hunters began dismantling the carcasses, and empty wagons pulled up, waiting to be loaded.
As they cut into the mammoth carcasses, the older hunters used this time to teach the younger ones how to break down their prey into usable parts. Seeing that this would slow down the work, Grud decided to call his men to set up camp near the carcasses.
Unlike normal times, they did not need to worry about the meat going bad in the cold, and any predators that the scent of blood would attract were long gone.
While waiting for his personal tent to be set up, Grud, who was currently drenched in blood, decided to make the best of his blood-drenched state and helped with the dismantling of the mammoth carcasses.
By the time all the carcasses were broken down, the sun was close to setting. When Grud and the rest of the hunters made their way into camp, mammoth meat was roasting on spits, and snow was being boiled for the men to cleanse themselves of their bloody work.
When everyone had their fill, they all sat down to decide on how to split their spoils. During this discussion, Grud presided over it but did not interject. Instead, he was there to pull back his people if they got too greedy with the spoils. He even gave up the mammoth he personally killed as long as he kept the skull.
When all the discussions were done, Grud decided to turn in for an early night's sleep to heal from all the scratches and bruises he got from the mammoth bull thrashing him around.
When Grud finally fell asleep, his body began to change as the mutation agent began working after years of dormancy due to his rather routine diet.
***
Sensing new genetic material it had never sensed before, the mutation agent flowing through Grud's body shook off the metaphorical dust and got to work parsing through what genetic information could be extracted and adapted to its host's body.
After it was done parsing through the information of the new genetic material, the mutation agent found a few useful traits it could adapt to its host's body.
The first and most pressing matter that had to be addressed, especially in recent years, was the cold climate. To that end, the mutation agent found two solutions from this new genetic material. The first was Cold-Adapted blood. This adapted Grud's blood to function at low temperatures, allowing oxygen to reach their extremities without thickening. The second adaption to fight the cold was an insulative layer of fat. The mutation agent increased the fat production just under Grud's skin, which would increase depending on the temperature or sweat off if it got too warm.
The next useful trait the mutation agent found was Seismic Sensitivity. The previous owner of the genetic material was capable of sensing minute vibrations through its feet, which made it useful for its host.
The last major thing the mutating agent found, besides minor changes to further optimize and strengthen its host's muscles, organs, and skeleton structure, was the ability of the previous owner of this genetic data to have a prehensile penis. It knew that its host did not have any issue reproducing, but if its host was ever in need of ejaculating his semen into hard-to-reach places, it was better to have a prehensile penis than not. This change to Grud's penis had the side effect of making his penis girthier than before
Out of the changes that Grud went through while unconscious, some of them were partial successes… depending on how one would see success. One such case was Grud's balls. The mutation agent found two desirable properties of the genetic donor. The first was its bigger size, allowing its host to produce more semen to keep up with the increased sexual demands from his harem. The other desirable property was bringing the host's testicles into the body instead of letting them hang outside and knock around.
But with how big the testicles already were, it was just not practical to do so without compromising semen quantity and production speed, so the mutating agent decided to increase the size of its host's testicles while discarding the other option and leaving the testicles in their original position.
When all the changes to the body had been made, the mutating agent once again became dormant, waiting for the next time new genetic material was introduced to its host's system.
***
Grud woke up as the morning sun peeked through a gap in his tent, feeling less chilly than all the days he had been since camping out. "Did someone put more wood on the fireplace for me while I was asleep?" Grud wondered to himself as he looked at the fireplace, only to find a pile of ashes that had long gone cold.
As he reached out to touch the ground near the fireplace to see how recently the fire had gone out, Grud noticed that his hand was chubbier than usual. As he turned his arm left and right, Grud could tell that he had less muscle definition than he remembered. After using his other hand to squeeze around his arm, he was relieved that it was just a layer of fat and that he had not actually lost any muscles.
As Grud wanted to see if this sudden acquisition of fat had affected the rest of his body, Grud looked down and noticed that the tent his morning wood usually pitches was… swaying?
Grud froze in place, thinking some small animal was right where his dick should be, and for whatever reason, his balls felt extra tight against the ball hammock he called underwear. Hoping that the sudden uncovering of the blanket he was under would scare away the small animal at his crotch, Grud tossed away the blanket… only to see his one-eyed snake staring back at him.
As he saw his dick sway and swerve from side to side like a snake, Grud could only gape at it.
After a few seconds, Grud did a few experimental pokes at his dick before grabbing it. As he touched, squeezed, and stroked his dick, Grud found that despite his dick's newfound flexibility and bendability, a solid squeeze told Grud that his dick was still as hard as ever.
After a few minutes of playing with his dick, Grud discovered that besides the subconscious movements, he could will his dick to bend at will. He then bent and applied weight to see if it could support enough weight to carry even the heaviest of his wives and was happy with the results. "The girls are going to love this." Grud chuckled to himself.
Now that he was satisfied with how his dick turned out, he had to see what taking the strength of the mammoth had done to his balls because it did not feel so tight when he fell asleep.
Grud reached for the knot, keeping his underwear other. Unlike other men who wear underwear that covers their dick and balls, Grud had long given up on containing his dick and let it hang free. At this point, his underwear was purely for the purpose of keeping his balls from slapping against his thighs whenever he walked. He even had to walk slightly differently than everyone.
When Grud undid his underwear knot, his balls flopped out on his sleeping roll. His balls, that was once the size of large grapefruit when he was blue-balled, were the size of small melons. "This is getting out of hand." Grud muttered to himself as he cradled his testes. "When I get home, Nita is going to need to bring out the measuring plank and weighing scales again."
As Grud checked his body for any other changes, he heard the sound of camp activity start to pick up as people started waking up. And he could not walk around with his morning wood, so he dug a hole and spent the better part of an hour wanking to take the edge off and filling the hole with his baby batter.
He then tossed some soil over the cum filled hole and hoped nobody stepped in it when the seasons thawed the place.
With all his imminent needs taken care of, Grud got to his feet and fell on all fours from a sense of vertigo. Not knowing what was happening, Grud stood up with both feet on the ground and had vertigo hit him again, but he stayed himself and closed his eyes to not see the inside of his tent spinning.
Wanting to know what was going on, Grud concentrated on the new sensation and visualized it in his head. What Grud mentally saw was ripples… ripples everywhere, almost like when a bunch of kids were constantly throwing stones in a lake. But as he concentrated more on the ripples, he noticed that most of the ripples were happening in different directions.
Wanting to see what these ripples were, Grud took an unconscious step forward and felt a ripple come from the step he had just taken, "Footsteps… they are all footsteps… I am feeling the footsteps of the men outside. Another gift from the mammoth." Grud smiled.
'I need to learn how to control or turn this off, or else I will be stumbling and losing my balance even with a simple walk.' Grud thought to himself and called out for someone to fetch him breakfast while he got acquainted with his new power.
By the time the men were ready to move out, Grud did not find a way to turn off the Seismic Sensitivity in his feet, but he did learn how to ignore it while walking in a straight line. "Not what I hoped for, but better than nothing." Grud said to himself as some of his men helped tear down his tent. It was time to go home.