A/N: I wanted to go a realistic approach to Ark; as realistic as it can get. And I'm not really a big fan of videogame mechanics, so I decided to turn those mechanics into a science, which is how the Implant and all the survivor interphase works. Since it is widely speculated that humans are manufactured by the Ark or its creators to use as an experiment, then I'm going to go with that. No survivor is under control of the Ark creators, but they were bioengineered as some kind of experiment (at least that's my theory). That's where the science behind the Implant comes in (such as the Engrams, leveling system, tribe management system, whistles, tame groups, etc come in) I think we can all agree that the science in the Ark lore is pretty intense itself.

Survival of the Fittest – Book 1: Survival Quotient to Be Determined

Part 1 – Beginnings

Chapter 2 – The Implant

It's been a week since I have washed up on this island and it has been without major incident. I haven't seen any other humans since the Carnotaurus attack that first day. The dodo's however, are plentiful, almost over populating the beaches of this peninsula. My basic needs had been met and I stuck to gathering materials such as plant materials and fibers. I made a few more tools I could use after my first Pickaxe broke. It was easy to repair, just a tedious process. I made a couple more wooden spears, tallying my wooden spear count up to seven. I did figure a good way out to make crude paper, though I could make more reliable paper if I had hide. I'd have to do so later. I had many ideas but I wanted to put them on paper for better recollection.

One of the ideas I had was to build a bigger shelter and camp in the jungle. The spot was near the cliff where the rock traveled over half the river to the inlet. The reason being was because if I ever needed to make a quick escape off this little piece of land, I could get across the river in a hurry. I had begun construction on the shelter there. It was going to be a 12x12x8 with a triangular roof made out of wattle and daub. The Wattle would come from smaller trees nearby while the daub would come from clay that I could make. I had plans to put up wattle and daub wind breakers up that also doubled as a mediocre wall to keep the stray small carnivore out. In my head, I had an entire layout of a camp ready. I wanted to put it on paper however, which I did. I also started to come up with a better design for a spear. A wooden spear was good and all, especially useful when skewering dodo's and could be used for spear fishing, but I needed to make something a little more sharper and was able to pierce tougher hide of larger animals. The spear I spoke of was a called a flint spear which was a wooden shaft with a sharpened flint as the spearhead. To further help me in the tool department, I started to chisel out a stone knife or two. If I ever needed to skin animals, which I knew was somewhere around the corner if I survived long enough, my previous tools wouldn't help much.

As far as other pursuits go, I had finally finished my leaf shorts to help protect my nether regions. I needed to see about makings some crude cloth soon. But I wanted to get the more reliable shelter up first. I found out that my thatch lean-to keeps most of the rain and weather off me while I slept, but some snuck in. What if that had been a carnivore? With all these dodos I'm surprised that there hasn't been another carnivore sighting yet. Maybe I was just lucky. I did start to notice something though that didn't define luck. It defied science, with that being a loose term considering the three towers in the distance. Trees and bushes started to grow back at an alarming rate or better yet, they regrow overnight while I slept. Every tree or bush I had chopped down or harvested for their berries or plant fiber had reappeared the next morning after I had harvested them. That made life even more strange. There weren't many new dinosaurs or prehistoric beasts to come this far on my peninsula. In fact, I hardly ever saw any dinosaur except the abundance of dodo's, the occasional dolphin out in the water breaking surface, or Pteranodon up in the sky.

Early one morning, I was collecting stones to use on the beach, which I found out are just like the trees and other foliage. Everything you harvest from, comes back within a day or two. Strange. Maybe it was the towers? I didn't know. Regenerative terraforming technology or something? There was no telling. I'd have to travel to one of those things to see. Maybe those towers were centers of civilization or ways off this island. I hadn't seen any airplanes or boats. Whatever this place was, it was one hell of a mystery. I heard something in the brush near my position. I dropped the few stones I had and pulled my spear off my back which was fastened there by a plant fibered rope. I had become accustomed to the sounds that dodo's make either their calls or how they moved around. Animals all had a distinct sound. I hadn't heard this sound before. It was like a trill. Then I saw it. It was one of those theropods that I saw briefly as it chased the dark skinned human my first day in this land. I got a better look at it this time as it didn't take its beady eyes off of me. It had two crests and frills. I immediately figured out what this species was. Dilophosaurus. Inaccurate from the real one as far as I knew. It was like a recreation of Jurassic Park's version. This Dilophosaurus was green and grey. I held my spear between us as it walked out slowly like an expert predator would. It knew I knew it was here. The first thing that came to my mind was that it was either going to lunge or spit. The only reason I suspected spit was because of the frills. Anything that had frills was poisonous, either in its bite or spit that it launched at you. That couldn't happen with this little copyrighted knockoff, right? Its frill came up as it inhaled. Wrong. I dodged in time as the spit of greenish black goo shot pass me. It was quite a lot almost like a blob.

The Dilophosaurus let out a hiss-like growl and came at me. It moved slow for its size. Usually animals that were that small were a bit quicker if they were carnivores. I didn't want to kill it if I had to. Maybe I could scare it off. I used the butt of my spear like a bo-staff and smacked it up side the head. The Dilophosaurus flinched back but came at me again. I hit it again, this time knocking it down. It got back up and looked at me growling.

"You'll either learn yer lesson or die ya little fucker." Have you ever had an epiphany? Or déjà vu? What I was feeling, was a little bit of both. I felt like if I knocked this creature out, something would happen to it, or me. And it scared me a little. I had an innate urge to knock it out and try to…..feed it? What the hell? I resisted. That was maddening. The Dilo finally seemed to get the message and ran away back into the brush. I waited a minute or so before returning to my stone gathering. I kept an eye and an ear out for any Dilophosaurus sounds or movement. I admit that this would be a lot faster if I had a basket or something that could hold all the stone that I could wear like a backpack. That gave me an idea of what to do next. I'd weave basket backpacks so carrying things would be easier. Doing so was even more prevalent and set in stone after I made fifty or so trips up and down the peninsula gathering stone off the beach and returning it to my measly camp.

While cooking another Dodo, the cloudiness of the day turned into rain coming from the ocean. The wind picked up and the tide came in several feet. The waves from the ocean also seemed to come to the land harder as it would from any storm. Only once I had moved my half cooked Dodo off the fire did I realize I left the paper I had been making out. Well that was ruined. I tried saving it, when something strange happened. The paper was still as dry as it had been while it was sunny. It had been in the rain for at least thirty minutes. You'd think the paper wouldn't be salvageable. But here it was, like normal loose-leaf paper and split into many different sheets. What the crap? That added another mystery to this place. The science was all wrong. Or was it all right? Where the crap am I? So making and maintaining paper was now so much easier.

This place made no sense. I started to write things down with charcoal that I made, after this revelation of waterproof paper.

Strange Land Mysteries:

Extinct fauna

Strange Plants

Renewable resources that reappear over night

Three Towers, each hosting a different color

Seemingly fresh crystal clear blue water with thin brackish waterline.

Waterproof paper after it has been primitively made

On another piece of paper I wrote:

Personalized Mysteries:

Embedded device on left arm that reacts to things

Skinnier with slightly more muscle than before, physically fit

Strange sensations when performing certain actions, most notably when trying to deter creatures from attacking almost like resisting goes against.

Another piece of paper listed the creatures I had so far seen:

Confirmed species-

Dodo

Parasaurolophus

Dilophosaurus

Carnosaurus

Triceratops

Sarcosuchus

Giant Piranha?

Titanboa

Pteranodon

Unidentified dolphin

Manta?

Unidentified Whale

Unidentified small theropod (smaller than dilo? Was near camp on first or second day)

Another piece of paper held how long I have been in this land in a tally which at the moment was a week. Other pieces of paper had sketches of designs on them most of them being how-to's. I started with my tools, then moved up to my spears and lean-to shelter. Now it was time to work on sketches for the Wattle and Daub shelter, or more on the layout like an architect would do. I also started drawing up plans for other things such as making a primitive makeshift weaving machine that would help me make mats, curtains, or wind breakers. When I was done brainstorming for the day, I picked a Dodo and made a meal out of it along with a dodo egg from the female dodo that was near my camp.

The next morning, I decided to begin the day with weaving baskets out of plant materials. The process wasn't hard, just tedious. The first type of basket I made was shaped like a cylinder which was known as a coil basket. I took leaves off of berry bushes and twisted them while making them form a circle. Using more plant fibers, I tied them together to keep a sturdy foundation. My base of the basket was completed after thirty minutes. I began working on the hard part. The sides. It was the same process, only instead of making a solid circle base, I made it as a ring. I used more plant fibers to tie multiple rings together which helped fasten them to the base of the basket and to each other. Finally, to finish off this backpack basket, I made two straps out of reinforced plant fibers and tied them on the basket. That should make carrying materials much easier. But without a field test, I couldn't know for sure. So I did. I went down to the beach and loaded as many stones as I could. Albeit very heavy, the basket held up with a slight sag on the base of the basket, which was understandable. For good measure I made two more of these baskets which took up the majority of my day as I had to find supple plants that I could use. As a side note, I had a snack or two with the berries.

With day eight in this land out the way, I decided to begin moving materials to my new campsite. I'd build there while maintaining my camp here. Really, there were a few concerns in travelling there. One, it was about an hour long trek up into the jungle. Two, carrying materials that were heavy that distance put a strain on me. Three, I had to watch out for predators. Four, it was getting hot. Five, this was one hell of a project I was working on.

On my way up, I started to contemplate how I was going to get water to the new site. The only thing I could think of was using some of the bamboo as a container with a couple large jungle leaves tied to the bottom to keep the liquid in it. I'd put two holes in the top for handle holes. For handles I'd tie a plant fiber rope through the holes and have a long one so I could pull the bamboo up and down via the plant fiber rope. That would work, hopefully.

After an hour long trek to the location I began looking around the potential site. There was so much brush it wasn't funny. The site was protected from being spotted from the beach if a hostile human tried to find me. Then again, I hadn't seen a single human yet except for on the first day here. I decided to begin. Placing stones where the four corners of the shelter would be, I started to use another to dig lines between. Afterwards I began to work on my water situation. It wasn't a hard-little project, it was just tedious which took around two hours. But I had water. The hard part was judging the distance between where my height was and the water. I kept having to bring the rope back up. And even after I managed to touch the water, I had to put more plant fiber rope into it so it could bring the water up. It wasn't the most effective way to do it, but it worked. There was enough water to suit my needs. The first bit of water I drank to quench my thirst.

I started construction on the Wattle and Daub building by chopping down a lot of young trees. There were five saplings on two sides and six on the other two for doors. One door would face away from the cliff, and the other towards it. Afterwards, I continued making the frame of the hut, fastening it together with a lot of plant fibers, thatch, and vines. This process took around three or four hours. The frame of the roof was an A-frame, supported by many young saplings slightly smaller in diameter than the rest of the hut's frame. Getting the thatch on the roof was the challenging part as I had to stack anything nearby to get the right height so I could put them on. With the frame of the hut complete, I decided to return back to camp for the day as it had been several hours and it was late in the afternoon. Plus, I was hungry. As dire as living like this as it sounded, I was beginning to enjoy myself. It was peaceful. The sky was clear with stars out. The ocean lapped at the shore. Everything seemed stable for now.

Peacefulness the next morning was cut short. Another Dilo was hunting my food source. So I hunted it. This time, I didn't show mercy to a predator. I killed it. I stabbed it right through the head with a wooden spear. As it squirmed for dear life, I moved as quickly as I could and snapped its neck to end its suffering. Cleaning the Dilo was slightly different than other reptiles. For starters, I could already tell it was warm blooded. Dinosaurs were like a cross between birds and reptiles as well. After I discarded all the innards and skinned the Dilo, I began to cook it. Dilophosaurus did not taste how I imagined it would. For starters, it tasted like a cross between pheasant and a snake. The meat was slightly tougher than what I was expecting as well. Nevertheless it was a welcomed new taste. I left the Dilo hide to tan over a boulder near camp.

I decided to collect thinned wood to serve as the wattle of my hut as I made my way to the new site.. I collected two full baskets just on the way there. When I arrived, I noted if anything had been touched. I left things in a particular order and memorized how I left them. No one has been this way, human or animal. As soon as I was done inspecting the camp, I put my backpack down, walked over to the cliffside and lowered the bamboo water collector. After I pulled it up, I sated my thirst and got to work. I spent the next hour or so weaving the wattle between the frame. I completed most of the hut, only missing half a side. I went around in the jungle nearby chopping down small limbs from trees and vines, all while keeping an eye out for predators and keeping my new camp in sight.

When the wattle was complete, it was time to start on the daub. Making clay was tough. I had to dig down into the soil with my hands, use the bamboo water collector to get water up here, then make large double handfuls of muddy sticky soil into a wall that would coat the wattle. If there was wattle or framework, daub would be there to cover it except the slant of the roof. I didn't even complete this process. I got around a quarter of the way before I realized I needed to head back to my original camp for the day to sate hunger and fatigue.

On the eleventh day of being in this land, I was working hard on my new home, muddy hands and all. I decided to finish the roof with thatch and leaves, before continuing daubing the hut. It wasn't hard to do, but I did have to climb a tree and tie many ropes to me and make a makeshift pulley system to lower me down. It wasn't the dumbest thing I've done, but making sure that my roof was waterproof was essential. The A-frame would hold up nicely under the weight of the thatch and the rain that would come down upon it. I water tested the roof to confirm that I wasn't going to get wet. With the walls complete with daub it was time to make shutters for my two windows and doors for my two doors. I began working on the frame of the doors and shutters which wasn't too hard. I'd make them in the same fashion as the rest of the wattle. Making hinges was easy, I just drilled holes carefully in the daub, poked smaller bamboo inside and ran plant fibers through it and tied them around the door or window frame. Instant door. It wouldn't keep someone out, but it would protect the inside from the outside weather. It was only once I finished the windows and doors did I realize that it was too dark to return back to my camp. At least I brought some berries and some cooked Dodo one my way here this time. That was my meal and I slept on the dirt in my hut with no fire. At least it was warm in here. The next morning I returned to my original camp with an empty basket. My plan was to move everything over to the new shelter. When I arrived at my first camp, there was a Dilo nearby. I decided to kill it and skin it while making a meal out of it. It wasn't too hard. But that spit was lethal. I always dodged it. What I was afraid of was that I'd eventually get double-teamed by these things and couldn't dodge effectively. I wanted to build a shield to block that spit.

So I did build one out of wattle and the tanned hide as well as a little bit of wood to reinforce the wattle. Carving the wood was a bit of a task, but I managed it. The shield was heavy, but the leather straps held. I'd have to test it later against a Dilophosaurus. I gathered my remaining supplies and made for my new shelter. Once I arrived, I immediately made a campfire. I yawned as I leaned against a large tree looking at my camp as the campfire crackled. It was peaceful for now. With a bit of Dilophosaurus flank left, I ate it and turned in for the night.

Day twelve came around and there was nothing going on outside. The plan was to make the wattle and daub walls around my little camp to act as barriers from predators as well as cover from any projectiles. Speaking of which, I should just go ahead and make a bow and some arrows to add to my stores of weaponry and tools. It would be a great way to keep stock of everything if I ever needed it. I sighed scratching my implanted device, which made fingers twitch. There was a brief glow of orange. The orange was normal, but it glowed brightly which was what caught my attention.

"What the…?" I muttered to myself. For the first time since I arrived here, the device did something. I tried recreating the device's glow. Instead of just recreating it, I made it do something completely different. To begin with, it was an interphase of some sort. I kept looking at it wondering what it could be. The first thing that came to my mind was that I was a frickin' RPG character in some stupid videogame. I did not like it one bit.

From left was something marked Inventory. In that inventory was a copy of my implant which read:

Specimen Implant-

Sample #: 251992364

Vernacular ID: Michael "Nate" Warren

Gender: M

Specimen Physical Age: 13 days

Specimen mental age: 25 years, 1 week, 6 days

Occupation: Engineer, Wildlife Biologist, Rancher

Hobbies: survival preparation, Animal Training, Military Martial Arts, and Outdoorsman skills

Survival Quotient: To Be Determined

Geneology: Mother- #451972588 Father- #461971453

Generation: 1B

Specialization: Generalized survival and adaptability

Dependence: Non-dependent on primitive engrams

Specimen Survival Level: Current – 1 Pending: 5

Enhancements – N/A (Has not received Survival Quotient)

Study: Ingenuity and Engram expansion, leadership

I blinked. What the hell? I was tagged? I didn't like this one bit. I kept looking at the interphase. The next thing I saw was things you'd see in a climate sheet for a particular area.

Ark Location: Island #CA-I-D-001

Sub-Location: Footpaw

Day: 40

Day since arrival: 12

Location Temperature: 95 degrees F

Location Weather: Sunny/partly cloudy

Time: 08:29

My heart dropped. I was being monitored. I was on an island, tagged like an animal being monitored. Something wasn't right. I breathed in trying to control my shock. The next thing I saw were my vitals.

Specimen Vitals –

Health: 100/100

0 resistance to physical damage

No injuries

No diseases contracted

Healthy athletic body

Stamina: 100/100

Sprint time is estimated 40 sec at 14 mph

Swimming sprint speed is estimated at 1m 10 sec at 3.2 mph

Oxygen: 36/36

Estimated Breath hold time: 36 seconds

Hunger: 94/100

Last consumed: Day 39 20:35

Status: Normal

Thirst: 84/100

Last Hydration: Day 39 20:36

Climate factor: Normal

Status: Normal

Weight(lbs):

Body weight: 221.5

Implant inventory weight 0/100

External weight: 2.7

Conditioning: 100/100

Strength (lbs): 150

Torpor: 1/200 Succumb: 50/200

Hyperthermal resistance: 0

Hypothermal resistance: 0

I looked away from my interphase. What was I to whoever was monitoring me? A Guinea pig? I tried to control my breathing. I could feel my heart rate going up. After I calmed down, I continued to look at the Implant.

Survivor level: 1/100

Pending: 5

Survival Experience: 152.4/5

Engram Points available: 0 (56 pending)

I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. Survivor level? Experience? What the hell? I started to come to the theory that I was an RPG character of some sort. But this was real. The world around me was real. It felt real. It smelled real. It looked real. I also felt like I was a statistic; like all this information was statistic sheet you'd see on athletes or something. I noticed something though. What the hell was Engram Points? I knew what an engram was. It was a hypothetical permanent change in the brain accounting for the existence of memory, or a memory trace. And what was this "leveling up" thing going on here? I concentrated on that for a moment. I had to pick a statistic to increase? The fuck? I concentrated on health going up by one. The result was the statistic changing from 100/100 to 110/110 and 0 resistance became 2 resistance. As soon as I did so, I felt slightly different. Not in a bad way, but like something was lifted off my shoulders. My engram points went from 0 to 8 with 48 pending. My survival level went up to 2. I continued to "level" up. I hated that term. I felt like a frickin' videogame character. I leveled up oxygen to 110/110 which gave me 40 seconds total in holding my breath underwater. Not sure how that was going to be useful. I didn't plan to go into the water deep enough to need to. But if it was a last resort. My engram points jumped up to 16 with 40 pending and I was now a survivor level 3.

I leveled up conditioning next, which made my strength go up to 155, and both resistances to extreme weather go up by 2. I was now a survivor level 4. I leveled up weight next, which the only thing that changed was my implant inventory weight to 110/110 lbs. The next level up was for stamina which I did twice. My sprint speed went to estimate to 44 seconds at 14 mph and my swimming sprint went to 1 minute 30 seconds at 3.4 mph. I was survivor level 6 and I had 56 engram points. How this was possible and how someone could measure something like this was beyond me.

I concentrated on something that was elusive to me at the moment. Engram points. What were they for? I got my answer in the form of some kind of chart. It was labeled with survivor level and many "engrams" next to it. There were three different engram to deem their availability. Learned, unlearned, and locked. It was like a subliminal message to understand how this thing worked. Unlearned mean "spending" engram points. Locked meant that I couldn't achieve it until I hit the next survivor level. I hated this thing. There seemed to be five different categories of engrams as well all under different "trees". They were craft, build, knowledge, Tek, and Ascendant. It was here, that I truly felt I was in some kind of roleplaying simulation or strategy game. I didn't like it. But in order to understand this place, or begin to, I needed to figure these engrams out and what they were used for. Just accessing this little function in the interphase gave me a subliminal understanding of what the engrams were for. Basically, engrams were aided survival tools of instant knowledge for those who do not already possess skills or knowledge to do what the engrams are titled.

But I had one thing unlocked already under the craft tree. Torch. Level two there were other choices known as basic campfire, Fire-making kit, Primitive rotisserie, stone knife, wooden club, and Stone hatchet, stone pick, wood spear and paper. Level three had wooden spindle, bone needle, plant fiber string, primitive sandals, primitive shorts, primitive shirt. Level four was stone-headed spear, primitive sandpaper, primitive water skin, Primitive Basket, Primitive Bucket, Primitive hammer, primitive chisel, Primitive simple Adhesive, Hide Sheet. Level five had Clay, Mudbrick, Clayware, Clay tiles, Simple Tanning rack, Hide Sleeping Bag. Level six had Mortar and Pestle, Spark powder, Blood Extraction Kit, Narcotic – Tranquilizer.

For the Building Tree, level 1 was Basic Lean-to shelter, and plant material bedding. Level 2 had an A-frame shelter, Primitive Textile weaver and thatch flooring. Level 3 had Wigwam, Thatch walls, thatch window/windowframe, Thatch flat ceiling/slanted ceiling, Thatch angled walls. Level four had Burlap shade tarp, Primitive storage box, Bushcraft shelf/rack. Level five had Primitive Pottery wheel, Primitive forge blower, Primitive Clay Kiln, Small deadfall trap. Level six had Adobe/Mud Foundation, Adobe/Mud Wall, Adobe/Mud Flat Ceiling/Sloped Ceiling, Adobe/Mud Window/Windowframe, Adobe/Mud Angled Walls, Adobe/Mud Furnace, and Paneled Flag.

The knowledge engram tree was basically an annoyingly spread out tree that covered countless engrams. I figured out that if one did not possess certain Engrams from one of this multiple branched tree, then learning an Engram from the other trees would be useless or cannot learn them period. It was like how one learns mathematics. You can't do algebra or geometry if you can't add or subtract. I guess this system worked kind of in the same way? This was a level of technology unheard of and made no logical sense. Then again, I did make waterproof paper out of plants that shouldn't be possible either. And then there's those extinct animals running around. The branches of this tree were unlabeled, but they all followed a similar pattern, which I could kind of guess the direction the branch's engram cluster was used for. For example, there was an engram branch or two for survival knowledge such as selections of the core three basic survival needs: Food, Water, Shelter. Those were already in use for me. There was another branch for mathematics ranging from simple counting, to geometry and measurement. There was another branch which was larger than most known as Primitive skills which were further branched out. One of them was Forested Bushcraft, which I was fluent in and most of the engrams there were already unlocked. Some of the engrams here did not require engram points. They required studying or witnessing something. There were countless engrams here, almost like a million or so. It'd take me years to look at them all in detail.

The last two trees were completely blacked out. I had no idea why, but I couldn't even access them.

I experimented with this Engram tree for a moment for good reason. I wanted to see how this worked. So, I learned the most useless thing I could due to the fact that I already knew how to make the majority of these; Paneled Flag. Immediately, my mind was flooded with the knowledge of how to make that flag and knowing the exact materials to use. It was weird, but that's what an engram really was. It was as if I regained a memory.

The last part of the interphase was something called the Tribe Management Interphase. I wasn't sure what this thing was for. All I knew was that it said, You have not created or joined a tribe yet. That wasn't really reassuring. I was actually kind of worried about that one.

I was so caught up in figuring out this implant that I didn't realize that I spent nearly three precious daylight hours on it. It was time to go for a dodo hunt. The only problem was, now that I was in this jungle, my food source was further away. It was a sacrifice I made for security. I just had to build my barriers. But that would be for another day.