DINOSAUR GAUNTLET 1

Carl was curled up and confined all over his body. There was a faint illumination around him that let him faintly see shapes. He could tell that he was currently inside an egg.

'Well, at least I'm not experiencing birth again. I've got all those particular memories from the various worlds locked away the first moment I can.' One of the downsides of having a perfect memory combined with being inserted into various worlds is that he had many memories of being born, over and over. Not to mention having his diapers changed, or sicking up.

Yeah, perfect memory was awesome, but until he gained an occlumency skill to order and lock up certain memories, it was very embarrassing since it allowed him to remember everything with perfect clarity.

Turning his focus back to his situation, Carl spent a moment focusing on his senses. He could hear the sounds of eggs cracking around him, which indicated that his fellow T-rexes were being born. So, Carl stretched out his body and pressed against the shell of his egg. It soon cracked apart, and he kept pushing and stretching out until the egg fell apart around him, dumping him onto the ground of the nest.

Carl got his first look around his new world. He could immediately see the large looming form of who he instinctively recognized as his mother hovering over the nest.

He shook himself as he struggled to get up, his body feeling a bit unstable as he got used to his new body and instincts. At the moment his forearms were actually decently sized for his body; he could actually almost walk on four legs if he wanted. He guessed that his arms wouldn't keep up with the growth of the rest of his body. They were fated to turn vestigial.

Half of the eight other dinos in the nest had already broken their shells and were scrambling about. Carl realized he was unusual in that he had so much control and strength already as a newly hatched. None of the hatchlings were able to get up yet, they were just laying around squawking with open mouths.

Carl felt the corners of his muzzle twitch in amusement. Looking up at his "mother" that was gazing at him, he realized he was acting a bit unusual compared to a normal hatchling. Pulling up every ounce of acting skills he had, Carl dropped to the ground and started imitating his siblings, crying out his stomach's pain.

Seeing a bit of what looked like satisfaction in his mother's features as she gazed at her brood, Carl chuckled inside. This was certainly a new experience. He had had multiple new relatives every time he had entered a new world. But this is the first time he'd had animals for relatives. He wasn't quite sure how to handle it for now, so he thought he would play along.

Included in the instincts of his new body was the ability to read body posture and expressions, as well as the sounds the T-Rex made. So he understood the impatient barking of his mother as complaints about his "father" taking so long.

Carl suddenly felt like someone was targeting him, trying to attack and eat him. Looking around, he saw the shifty gaze of one of the hatchlings eyeing him up as it tried to scoot towards him.

Carl rolled his eyes in exasperation at the impatient little guy and snapped his teeth in his direction in warning. It didn't take the hint and kept coming. Carl whipped his little tail around when it got too close and knocked the little guy tumbling back.

A moment later, Carl couldn't help but stare as two other siblings latched onto the little guy that he had knocked over and start to gnaw on him.

Their mother snorted on the group, causing the hunger fueled "play" to end, much to Carl's relief. Even though they were non-sentient, Carl didn't want to see the babies eating each other on the first day of their lives.

A short time later, another T-Rex showed up, dragging a juvenile Hadrosaurus, which he dropped at their mother's feet. Carl saw his "father" for the first time. The two adult T-Rexes then tore off chunks of meat from the duck billed dinosaur and dropped them in the nest, where Carl's "siblings" fell to with gusto.

A moment later, Carl joined them in tearing up strips of meat for his empty stomach.

Oh so delicious!

When he had finally filled his belly and the ache of hunger had subsided, Carl had some time to take stock of his situation.

Even though Carl still had access to all the perks he had purchased earlier, he noticed that his dino body was clearly an alternate body, instead of just a shape shifted body.

When he used his animagus form, he still retained all the martial arts, Ki, Magic, and Profound Energy improvements as his normal human body.

But in his T-Rex body, he found that this body was brand new and it was starting straight from scratch. He still had access to all his bloodlines and perks, but his Magic, Ki, and Profound Energy were basically at zero for now.

It would take some time for his Magic to fully mature so that he could use it properly. And he would need to start his Ki training and Profound Cultivation all over again from scratch.

That was a complication that he hadn't foreseen, but he was still much better off than if he had only the body mod and not the perks added to his body mod. It would just take a bit of training to regain some of his old skills.

With the thought that he needed food and energy if he was going to do his training, he forced himself to gorge on delicious, bloody dinosaur meat. He didn't stop at stopping the hunger, he kept going until his stomach was round and plump.

He needed to grow and get strong. And he wasn't about to do it on Ki or Profound Energy alone. While he could fight his body's instincts to feed, Carl decided to let go a bit and enjoy the moment.

Soon enough all the hatchlings were stuffed and snoozing. Carl's parents soon finished their own meal, and then lay down nearby to snooze as well.

Which left Carl the only one still awake as he fought off the sleepiness. Now that his stomach was so very, very full, he could focus on starting his practice to improve his dino body so he would have an advantage in surviving.

Due to his previous experience with Ki training and cultivation, he was quite sensitive to those particular energies. With the Great Way of the Buddha technique, Carl could feel the energy of the world around him. He began the practice and starting absorbing the energy that basically formed as Ki in his body.

According to the technique, he was channeling Ki throughout his body to temper it and strengthen himself in order to strengthen his body and be able to absorb more Ki. Wave after wave of Ki washed through, slowly improving his muscles, ligaments, bones, skin, and even his intestines and various organs. Carl noticed that his digestion speed ramped up as it used the meal as fuel to speed up his body's fortification and growth.

Shortly after the first round of training, Carl felt starved once more. The digestion had sped up so much, his stomach was once more empty.

So he stopped his Ki exercises and quietly got to his feet. He made his way to the carcass and began gnawing off more chunks of delectable meat to fill the void where his stomach should be.

Carl saw that his parents noticed him eating more, but they didn't do anything and went back to their nap. It showed Carl how alert they were to their surroundings, even when resting. Carl soon found out that the claws on his arms could be used to grab, hold, and even help tear off chunks of meat to be dropped down his gullet.

Once he was full again, Carl began his body strengthening routine once more. The sun set, and his dino relatives continued to nap and digest their food, while Carl the glutton continued eating and practicing through the night, periodically stuffing himself.

While he was practicing, in the back of Carl's mind, he was pondering a question. Did he want to continue to hang out with the family and see just what life as a T-Rex family was like? Or did he want to strike out on his own?

There were pluses for each one. Staying with the family would afford him more protection and he wouldn't have to hunt for himself right away. He could continue his training without interruption.

On the other hand, he would probably be stuck with them for quite a long time if he stayed. If the T-Rex stayed in family units, he would probably become responsible for them at some point.

He wasn't sure if he wanted to take on that responsibility. How long did T-Rexes live for anyway? And he didn't know how the reproductive cycle worked for these dinosaurs, but he was not getting any female T-Rexes pregnant!

Before he could answer that question for himself, the situation was taken out of Carl's control. A loud piercing noise came screaming down from the sky. Carl looked up and could just see a streak of fire before the meteor impacted nearby.

The sound of trees being shattered blended in with the loud bang of impact close by. The air was suddenly filled with dirt and dust, obscuring even his vision.

Carl could vaguely see his dino parents scoop up the now awake hatchlings in their mouths, before booking it away from the source of the crash. Carl realized that they had left him behind because he wasn't with his siblings in the nest, and their instincts had taken them over to get out of there immediately.

Looking in the direction that his parents had run in, then looking towards the impact zone, Carl decided that his decision was made for him, since he was already separated from his dino family. So he got up and started moving towards the meteor's landing site. He had never been around for the landing of a meteor, so he was curious to see the spectacle.

Carl began moving through the woods deftly and easily. He was impressed at how quickly his body had improved through just several hours of his Ki practice and digesting his food. He had already grown several inches due to the Ki practice speeding up his development. He would say that he was about the size of a large chicken at the moment, but a very deadly chicken indeed.

As Carl negotiated the rocks, hills, and various debris thrown around by the meteor, he noticed a lot of animal activity, running away from where he was going. Glancing around at the fleeing animals, Carl made sure to keep an eye out in case any of them decided they wanted a quick snack of approximately chicken size. He would have to bust out the fowl-fu if they got any ideas.

A short time later, Carl found the reason that none of the fleeing animals paid attention to him, as he smelt smoke. Apparently the impact had started a forest fire. If he wasn't fire resistant, he too would be running away as fast as he could.

So even though this body hadn't gone through any Profound Cultivation yet, he knew he still had his fire affinity which made him immune to fire, so he wasn't worried about the fire. But he was a bit worried about the smoke that was irritating his lungs, since his body wasn't robust enough to deal with it yet.

While thinking about whether he should run with the others away from the fire so he didn't suffer from smoke inhalation, he realized that he could feel his magic stronger inside him. The only thing he could guess was that his quickly maturing body from the Ki practice was able to handle more magic inside.

Shrugging at the easy convenience this presented him, he pulled on his magic and cast a bubble head charm to make sure he had a supply of fresh air. Feeling the strain, he realized that holding that one charm seemed to be his limit for now. It was sufficient for now. Carl then continued to hop and dart through the forest, making progress toward the impact zone.

He soon arrived at the fire, which was spreading outward from the impact zone. Carl looked at the flames that were eating the trees as it spread outward. The heat didn't especially bother him. He could feel it, but it didn't hurt him at all.

He dashed forward through the fire and emerged on the other side where the impact had thrown huge amounts of dirt all over the place.

Thinking about how his magic had improved from his slightly matured body due to the Ki practice, Carl had a weird thought. He had zero Profound Cultivation in this body, and he didn't sense any Profound Energy in the air. Just what happened to his pocket dimension that he had access to when he reached the Sovereign Profound Realm?

Carl could still feel the inner world full of energy that he got from Nine Profound Exquisite Body perk. He could vaguely sense his pocket dimension since it was connected to him. And he could sense that it still had everything stored inside, but his body wasn't able to exert any control over it due to being a complete newbie with no cultivation.

'Looks like the Yamato is in storage for now.' Carl grumped to himself. 'At least I have access to the inner world and the energy stored there. I can regain my cultivation by using that energy and then I can access the pocket dimension and retrieve my ship.'

Relieved that he had a solution, Carl put the issues aside for now continued forward. He soon arrived at the lip of the meteor impact. While he was standing on the edge he looked down into the crater, where he saw a large space stone oozing out a black goo that was obviously a symbiote like Spiderman once had.

'Hehe, if only that were the case.' Carl thought as he looked down at the big dirt hole in the ground. Of course there wasn't a space symbiote here for him to bond with. He didn't even see the meteor that was likely buried under soil. Carl looked around the area and saw the blasted trees, rocks, and dirt strewn around.

It was quite a sight. Carl almost felt like he was in a movie, seeing the scene of destruction. Just as he was wondering if it was the only meteor, Carl saw the sky lit up by meteors as they rained down.

'Damn my big mouth! If only I had access to my ship!' Carl cursed as he hoped that none of those damned space rocks landed on his head. He also cursed himself for picking the damned drawback that gave him a natural disaster. He thought he would have more than just a few hours to grow up and get stronger before disaster struck!

Carl kept an eye on the meteor's trajectories, and saw that one would land within a kilometer of him. Very close, but he would probably be fine. Carl hunkered down in the meteor hole in front of him, ignoring the heat, under the hope that lighting, or meteors, wouldn't strike the same place twice.

The closest meteor landed soon after, shaking the ground and rattling Carl's teeth. He continued to keep an eye on the sky to make sure he would see it coming if anything were going to land on him.

After 15 minutes, the rate at which the meteors were falling started dwindling, causing him to sigh in relief.

That relief changed to a sort of horrified disbelief as he finally took his eyes off the sky and looked around at the destruction. The reflected glow of fire was everywhere he looked. The shower of meteors had really kick started the fire started by the first meteor.

The ground as far as he could see was torn up. The forest was on fire. The prey animals had run away. This wasn't really any good place to survive.

Carl looked over at the nearest tall tree that was still standing a couple hundred of meters away. He made his way over to it, hopping from rock to dirt pile to tree trunk. The tree looked like half of its foliage was stripped from it by the disaster. Carl decided not to chance it as it looked a bit unstable.

So he moved on to a tree a bit further away that somehow escaped the fire and was still standing; he began climbing. His body strengthened by Ki was still going strong for now. He might have to rest soon, though. Carl's claws sunk into the bark of the tree, giving him traction to climb up.

He soon got high enough to see further out. Carl mapped out where the fires were in his mind. He saw that, hopefully, some of the meteor strike started fires would act as fire breaks, stopping the spread of more fire.

But there was going to be quite a lot of acreage burning before the night was over. Carl sighed sadly. If this had happened even a year later, Carl figured he would have already been strong enough to go around all night and use his fire mastery to stop fires.

But at the moment he was too weak in his new body. He could easily lose his life if he wasn't careful by exhausting himself and falling prey to some opportunistic dino.

After some calculation, Carl determined that he would return to his family's nest. It still had part of a meal that he could use for a couple days. After that, he would have to go hunting on his own if his family didn't return. He was pretty sure they wouldn't come back and would settle wherever they ended up.

Carl then made the laborious climb down. Seriously, climbing up was easy, climbing down was hard.

XX

Carl's chicken sized form slipped through the trees as he kept his alertness up for any predators out to hunt him. His new alternate form of a baby T-Rex was actually pretty fun to run around in.

He was streamlined to run in a forward direction. His legs had been enhanced by his Ki training, so he was able to make great leaps forward when he encountered any obstacle. His tail even gave him the ability to flip his body around while in air so that he could orient his body properly while leaping.

More than once or twice he'd face planted in the ground while getting used to the ways he could control and flip his body midair. But that really just made the whole thing more fun for him. No one was watching him crash, so he could spend his time truly getting used to his new body's abilities and learn how to properly use his tail to flip his body midair.

With his knowledge and skills, he knew he could train it up in no time to be strong enough to not be in any danger from the surrounding dinosaurs. But for now, he needed to be careful.

After travelling through the smoky woods for some time, Carl found his way back to the place where he hatched. He saw the remnants of the carcass his "father" had brought back, and there wasn't much meat on it left. Maybe enough for a couple more meals.

In order to protect himself from any surprise attacks while he was training again, Carl cast a notice me not charm on the clearing. The slight feeling of weakness that came after he cast the spell shocked Carl for a moment.

Sprawled on the ground, he realized that he really wasn't really ready for spell casting yet.

But after thinking about it for a bit, he realized that it was because his new body wasn't used to channeling large amounts of energy. The bubble head charm earlier had been a small enough expenditure that he didn't really notice the load on his new body. But the notice me not charm required a bit more power.

'So, it looks like I'll have to practice magic as well to improve my body's ability to channel magic.' Carl thought as he rested on the ground, panting. 'Based on the Nine Profound Exquisite Body that I got from the ATG world, I wouldn't actually hurt or damage myself by trying to channel too much energy. But that doesn't mean I can't tire myself out by doing something I'm not used to in such a new body.'

Carl then settled himself in the nest and began another round of practicing the Great Way of the Buddha technique to temper his body with Ki. The previous time Carl had first trained in the technique he had taken over a day to master the first level. Before the meteor shower he had only managed to spend several hours training before the disaster struck.

Now, with no distractions, Carl managed to complete the first stage in only a few more hours. Once more, the phenomenon of a six foot tall silver pagoda appeared around Carl's form. After some time, the pagoda began shrinking and placed itself on Carl's forehead.

Carl came out of his training trance, once more ravenously hungry. His gaze fell on the remnants of the hadrosaurus carcass. To a human, the idea of eating the bloody carcass that had been lying in the dirt for more than a day would have been disgusting. But with his body's instincts, Carl just drooled a bit before he fell on the meal in front of him.

With the sharp increase of his body's strength from his practice, Carl didn't act polite and just devoured the remnants of the carcass whole, bones and all. The bone marrow especially tasted delicious to him.

Once more feeling replete, Carl sat back for a bit and thought about what he was going to do from here.

The first order of business was survival. He needed to hunt food for himself, especially if he was going to be so hungry every time he practiced his techniques.

At this point, even at the first stage of the Great Way of the Buddha, he was confident in his body's power and ability to keep himself alive.

The second order of business was to resume his practice in Profound Energy. Because until his new body once more had the control over the Profound Energy, he wasn't going to be able to access his dimensional space.

And the final thing was that he needed to be wary of the dinosaurs and humans in this world. Until he regained his indomitable power, he was going to be vulnerable to ambushes and the humans and their modern technology.

With that in mind, Carl focused on his small dino body to determine his current situation. He got a bit of a shock then, because he found that he had grown by a good 6 inches in just one night!

'Whoa, my Ki practice is really increasing the speed at which my body grows!' Carl thought in excitement as he jumped around the clearing, testing out his newly grown body. It was probably a result of completing the first stage of the Great Buddha Technique.

After a bit, Carl calmed back down and once more looked at his body. This small T-Rex body was nimble and able to jump around quite nicely, even before the addition of his body strengthening technique. While standing on his two legs, he could either rest his tail on the ground to raise his head up higher to look around, or use his tail to balance his head parallel to the ground as he walked around.

He spent a moment to admire his tail and claws. Very scary!

Carl then focused on the situation inside his body, and that's when he found out that all 54 profound entrances were already open due to the perks he had added to his body mod, even if he didn't feel any Profound Energy in the surroundings. Which was a relief, because he didn't think he would be able to do acupuncture on himself in this form to open them all.

He could also sense the various bloodlines that he had added to his body mod. The Golden Crow, Dragon God, and Phoenix bloodlines were continually surging through his body, improving it as time went on.

That was one of the amazing things about Spere's cheat system. Even the things that he didn't get from buying perks could be added to his body mod. Things like the Phoenix bloodline that he got from Feng Ra.

Looking at how the bloodlines were circulating in his body and improving it moment by moment gave Carl a sense of satisfaction. Even though this T-Rex body was back to the basics, and his Dragon God bloodline was back to being only 6 drops of blood, he was happy with his situation.

There was just so much satisfaction he gained from the idea of training his new body up again. Even the idea that a lot of his martial arts skills were useless to him in this form didn't bother him. It instead excited him, thinking about how he would have to train his new body to fight and hunt based on the principles and skills he already knew.

With everything straight in his mind, Carl settled down and automatically began trying to gather energy from his surroundings to start his profound cultivation.

Carl frowned as he realized that there really wasn't any useful profound energy in his surroundings. There was still some trace amount of Profound Energy, but it was so attenuated that it was difficult to gather enough to even attain the first level of the Elementary Profound level, let alone advance any further.

After spending a few moments futilely trying to gather profound energy, Carl gave up. He wasn't going to be able to get to the first level of the Elementary Profound Realm at this raate. There just wasn't enough profound energy to practice. Carl sighed internally in dismay.

'I guess that's why this isn't a cultivation world.' Carl kicked the dirt in dismay with his clawed feet. 'At least I'm able to use nature energy to practice Ki.'

It would have been more difficult to survive if he wasn't able to practice his Ki techniques, but he would still have been okay. Even without Ki, he still had his magic and bloodlines strengthening his body. It was just too bad he was stuck without profound energy for so long.

Carl suddenly had an idea, and looked into his inner world full of different energies from his Nine Profound Exquisite Body. Even if his body had been changed, he still had the same inner world, after all.

Carl found after some experimentation that he could pull out the profound energy he had stored inside to help him improve his cultivation level. So working delicately, Carl pulled out a bit of Profound Energy, just small threads of it, to begin his training.

After a short time, Carl had attained the first level of the Elementary Profound. He was excited for a bit, before calming himself down and thinking things through logically.

'Hmm, I've got to figure this out carefully.' Carl thought. 'I only have so much profound energy stored inside my inner world, and I can't really add to it for now. I can increase my cultivation level to the Sovereign Profound level with what I've got, and I'll still have some profound energy left over to manipulate my pocket dimension. But I've got to be careful not to use too much, since I can't replenish it. Looks like I'll be sticking to Magic and Ki techniques for this world.'

Carl decided that he would spend the rest of the night cultivating his profound energy, and he would then go hunting the next day. With that settled, Carl curled up on the ground and began his practice, secure in his notice me not charm to keep him safe.

XX

Many miles away, a middle aged man parked his car in the parking lot outside a building complex. He got out, carrying a briefcase with him, and entered the building marked E. His expression didn't change from the blank look he had as he passed through the security checkpoint.

Once past the security, he entered the elevator and moved to the 23rd floor. Exiting the elevator, he strode confidently down the brightly lit halls to a particular office. Without knocking, he opened the door and entered.

Without looking at the secretary that half stood, he barged into the office.

A very fit man who looked to be in his thirties looked up from the paperwork he was going through, and scowled when he saw who entered with no warning.

"What is it, Barnes? I told you before; I won't be part of your damned treasure hunts." The scowling man rapped out before the intruder could say anything.

Barnes airily waved his hand, dismissing the man's words as he approached the desk.

"I'm not here about that, this time, Sheffield. Whippleton sent me with orders to recruit you and your group for a particular job." Barnes set his briefcase on Sheffield's desk, popping it open and pulling out a file that he dumped in front of Sheffield. Ignoring Sheffield's dark scowls, Barnes then carelessly plopped into one of the chairs.

"What is this?" Sheffield asked without touching the file while continuing to glare at Barnes.

"You should read it first. Then I'll answer any questions after." Barnes blithely answered as he unconcernedly looked around the office. "Nice digs you got here for successfully completing that Descarta job."

"My team has a 100% completion rate. We pride ourselves on that fact. And that's exactly why we won't work with you on your futile hunt. We work on difficult but possible jobs, not chasing after legends and specters." Sheffield sarcastically commented.

"Ouch! So hurtful!" Barnes sarcastically mocked. "I just never expected the brave commander to be so tentative about a simple job."

"Whatever." Sheffield dismissed before opening the file Barnes dropped on his desk. "I won't give into your pitiful provocation. If schoolyard taunting worked to make me act, I wouldn't have been nearly as successful as you aren't."

Barnes grin gained a bit of an ugly edge to it, but he didn't respond this time, as Sheffield was already reading the briefing. After some time, Sheffield looked up from the satellite picture he held in his hands.

"Really? Dinosaurs?" Sheffield asked dubiously.

Barnes shrugged in response. "Dinosaurs, mutants, escaped lab animals. Whatever they are, Whippleton wants to catch them. We only found them because someone was tracking a meteor storm and the satellites took pictures of the impact site. Whippleton made sure the pictures didn't end up online, so we have the lead over anyone else. The whole place is surrounded by mountains, in the ass end of nowhere, so it's going to be a bitch to get to. But it also makes it hard for any competition to do anything. And he's willing to pay your group handsomely for success. The more samples and subjects you bring back, the better the pay."

Sheffield sat back in his seat thoughtfully. "How much are we talking here?"

Barnes looked at him for a moment, and then quoted a very large number.

"Well, I think there is room for cooperation after all." Sheffield smiled sharply at the possible profit he stood to gain. He got on the phone with his secretary and had her call for his lawyer to review contracts. "Once we have a contract signed, I'll expect a deposit to get my people moving. But by the end of the month we'll have people on site and…subjects…will start to be transferred back."

Barnes chuckled in a slightly mocking tone at Sheffield's abrupt change of attitude. Despite laughing at the man, Barnes didn't think he would make a different choice either, faced with the huge amount they could make.

"Good. Once I return with the signed contracts, Whippleton's people will transfer your money. The faster we do this, the better chance we have to beat the competition." Barnes drawled as he strutted out of the office.

Sheffield's gaze turned back to the satellite imagery of the dinosaurs. His people were the best, which meant that they stood to profit hugely from this exotic grab and bag. His mind was already listing the people he would need to assign to this job, and what they would need to buy or modify.

Yes, Sheffield lived for challenges like this.