Chapter 26: In Search of a Hibernating Python

Seeing this, Baichuan's eyes lit up in an instant.

What is a pleasant surprise? This is a pleasant surprise!

Not only did he find a warm cave, he also found a two-meter-plus king Jinshe in hibernation.

Now his food for the next while was settled.

Baichuan crawled over with a fierce glint in his eyes.

At the same time, perhaps sensing danger, the king Jinshe that should have been hibernating suddenly twitched its body.

But it was too late.

In just an instant, a sharp claw wreathed in high-voltage current seized viciously at the seven-inch spot of the king Jinshe.

For a moment, the entire body of the king Jinshe began convulsing.

Although the current lasted only an instant, the sharp venomous fangs took advantage of that brief moment to bite in, and the next instant venom gushed forth.

That wasn't all — to prevent his prey from waking up, Baichuan directly went at it with both claws, tearing at the other's scales nonstop.

In an instant, snake scales flew and blood splattered everywhere.

Within a mere minute, this hibernating king snake had departed to the west, not even knowing what had happened.

Looking at the dead king snake, Baichuan felt that his stomach was still fairly full, so after some thought he crawled back out of the cave.

Using his sharp claws, he carried a snowball back and placed it directly over the king snake's corpse.

Since he didn't want to eat it right now, and it was winter anyway, he might as well preserve it and eat it when he got hungry.

After finishing all this, Baichuan contentedly coiled up in the cave to rest for a while. He had to admit that having a pair of claws allowed him to do far too many things.

Then he looked at this narrow and shallow cave, shook his head in dissatisfaction, and got busy again.

He estimated he wouldn't be hibernating this winter, so since that was the case, he needed a good cave.

The current one — he looked at it and felt it was too poor.

First, he needed to dig deeper, to avoid a situation like last time. Second, the entrance tunnel needed to be narrower, and the tunnel had to wind and twist, to prevent cold air from seeping in from outside.

Finally, the resting area inside needed to be larger, so that prey he caught later that he couldn't finish could be stored there.

After a brief moment of thought, Baichuan finalized his plan and got to work.

……

Evening, as the last trace of the sun's afterglow vanished, the brief winter day had quietly passed.

And at this time, Baichuan, who had been busy for nearly a whole day, had finally finished his new cave — well, more than half of it.

He looked at his claws, which had already begun to wear down quite seriously, and shook his head helplessly.

Fortunately, these claws could still regrow, and thanks to Regeneration LV1, they didn't grow back too slowly — just one night was enough for a full recovery. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to dig so recklessly.

But he was tired enough today; he needed a good rest.

Having encountered so many things right after waking up, he also needed a little Time to sort out his thoughts and figure out what to do next.

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, Baichuan lay down his body and began to spend his first day of winter.

……

The next day, Baichuan, who crawled out of the cave again, was pleasantly surprised to discover that it had actually stopped snowing today.

This was a good omen, and it could also reduce unnecessary energy expenditure during his outings.

One had to know that now, as a snake, although he didn't know why he had lost the ability — whether it was good or bad — for his body's metabolism to slow down as the temperature dropped.

But now, to resist the cold, his body would massively consume internal energy as the temperature dropped, in order to maintain his body temperature.

And massively consuming internal energy meant getting hungry faster.

In this winter where food was hard to find, getting hungry too fast was not a good sign — if he wasn't careful, it could kill him.

So the snow stopping was, I have to say, a good omen.

Taking advantage of this good weather, Baichuan quickly left the cave and began exploring this winter, which was utterly unfamiliar to him.

Along the way, Baichuan purposefully searched for tree hollows, rock caves, and sandstone areas.

While resting last night, he had thought it over — snakes normally all needed to hibernate, except for an outlier like him.

Since that was the case, why not take this good opportunity that winter brought to search for some powerful snakes to devour and obtain ability models?

For example, searching for pythons.

Currently, his size was indeed considerable, reaching a length of 5.5 meters.

Compared to most pythons, he could be said to be not much inferior, but his body's thickness was insufficient.

Due to congenital reasons, his body shape was oblate — it could expand greatly, but it wasn't round enough, and his muscle mass was relatively insufficient.

Unlike Python-type snakes, whose bodies were generally round and full of muscle.

Although due to evolution, his Burst in terms of strength might not necessarily be inferior to a python's, in terms of endurance he was far, far behind.

At the same time, his body's flexibility and agility also couldn't compare to theirs.

One had to know that pythons were famous for their overwhelming constriction ability — it went without saying that with such strong constriction ability, their bodies must be both flexible and incomparably agile.

Otherwise, how could they coil around prey or enemies?

As for him, although king cobras also relied on body size, they depended more on venom. If their utilization of the body was compared to pythons', it could only be said to be dwarfed.

It couldn't be said to be completely useless, but such a long body possessed no real constriction ability.

For venomous snakes, the dangerous part was always only the head, but for pythons, the entire body was dangerous.

Therefore, if he could obtain a python's abilities, then for him there would no longer exist a single weakness, and growth in body size would no longer be dispensable and of little use.

At that time, a body flexible beyond compare, possessing both the python's Chanchao Jiaosha and lethal venom, as well as sharp claws, Electric Discharge, and invisibility abilities.

Then just how powerful would he be? What shortcomings would still exist?

Just thinking about it made Baichuan feel a little excited.

One had to know that in this kind of weather, once he discovered a hibernating python, not only would he gain abilities, his food would also be settled — and without the slightest effort, with absolutely no risk.

It could be said to be a beautiful deal where one investment yields ten thousand returns.

Thus, under this notion, Baichuan exerted twelve parts of vigor in searching.

All the way, every kind of sensory organ on his body was constantly and ceaselessly perceiving.

However, sometimes certain things cannot be achieved just by thinking about them; when heaven does not follow human wishes, it happens quite often.

Such an enormous mountain range, a snow forest stretching beyond the reach of one's eyes—finding pythons hibernating in various underground or incomparably hidden caves within it is no easy task.

If they were really that easy to find, snakes would have long been completely wiped out during hibernation.

So searching like this, Baichuan ended up spending over a week.

Fortunately, during this period, he found the caves of quite a few other creatures, such as various kinds of snakes, frogs, rats, hedgehogs, and so on, so he wasn't left without a single bit of supply.

Speaking of this, one has to mention hedgehogs—were it not for his having grown a pair of sharp claws, he might well have been helpless against those hedgehogs curled up into spiky balls.

But now, under the dual exertion of his sharp claws and electric current, it didn't take long for these formerly troublesome things he wouldn't have dared to bite into to be torn apart and enter his stomach.

(End of this chapter)