Chapter 48: Another Function of the Panel

An extreme cold, and one that held not the slightest harm to him, had in that brief moment just now coursed through his entire body.

And the first effect it produced was freezing to death or driving out all the various parasites that had been living inside him.

After all, this cold was merely harmless to him, but for those disgusting things, that wasn't necessarily the case.

In nature, not every parasite can endure the cold.

Cold and scorching heat have always been the two great enemies of living things.

No wonder he felt a wave of refreshment now; instinctively, Baichuan opened the panel and took a look.

The moment he entered the panel, the first thing that caught his attention was that lifespan, still steadily increasing.

【Lifespan: 9 years 11 months +】

Previously his lifespan had only been 6 years and 10 months left; at the time he had even been a little troubled, wondering whether he should find some creature with an especially long lifespan to see if there was any ability that could increase lifespan.

But unexpectedly, without doing anything at all, it had suddenly increased by 3 years and 1 month, and this length was even still slowly increasing without stop.

This was directly extending his lifespan.

This ability evolving was simply too worth it!

Even if there were no other effects, just this one thing—increasing lifespan—he, Baichuan, would accept.

Not to mention, he had also evolved the power of ice.

But the question came: why had his lifespan increased along with it just from evolving a power of ice?

For a moment, curiosity rising in him, he even subconsciously ignored the urge to try out his newly acquired power.

He lowered his snake head and began to ponder.

In the end, he looked again at the parasites on the ground, and a flash of insight crossed his mind.

Perhaps, to some extent, this increase in his lifespan wasn't because of some external power added in?

But rather it was the lifespan he should have had all along; in the past, his life had been so short because vast numbers of various parasites were hidden within him, constantly eating his flesh and drinking his blood.

Because the lifespan shown on the panel was judged based on his current bodily condition.

The lifespan displayed was his current bodily state—the specific length of time he could survive under normal circumstances without accidents like being killed.

In other words, it was the maximum time his cells could survive under the erosion of all those parasites.

Now that his body had been swept through by the extreme cold, nearly all the parasites within him had been cleared out, leaving him with no external burden whatsoever.

With no parasites eroding at the cellular level, his cells would naturally no longer be damaged by the harm these parasites caused.

Then the lifespan that the panel had judged as lost due to the parasites' inhabitation would naturally return to him.

After understanding this point, Baichuan became all the more curious about the true nature of this ice-cold power.

He turned his head to look at the white worm now collapsed on the ground, no longer crystalline and translucent; it now looked as though it had fallen from a lofty divine object back into a mundane one, utterly wretched.

Why had the source of these powers previously appeared as tiny light points, and after he strengthened that ability of the Ice Silkworm, there had been no change at first?

But when he touched the box containing the Ice Silkworm, why had such a tremendous change occurred? Looking at the Ice Silkworm's appearance, it was as though he had stripped everything away from it.

Then what is the true nature of this power?

And then he thought of the ability he had strengthened, named 【Symbiosis LV2 (Shihan)】.

What kind of existence can be called symbiosis?

That was rather thought-provoking.

But Baichuan now was only thinking about it; he didn't intend to investigate it in detail.

Or rather, he probably didn't yet have the qualifications to investigate in detail.

Not to mention, from the current look of things, he had only gained benefits, with no drawbacks in sight; just letting him, as if reborn, escape the troubles of all kinds of parasites, gain an incomparably healthy body, and increase his lifespan was already worth it.

One might even say, this was something he couldn't get enough of—the more the merrier, bring on a few more.

After weighing the gains and losses, Baichuan finally turned his head to look at this little mouse; what was to be done with this little thing?

At this moment, the creature also seemed to have sensed something, raising its clever little head and gazing at him with eager, pitiful eyes.

Killing it was out of the question; after all, it had helped him so much.

In fact, looking at the whole process, if this little mouse hadn't been so full of spirit, not only failing to be a drag on him like other mindless creatures, but actually helping him,

he really might not have been able to obtain the power of this Ice Silkworm.

After all, the suppressor needed to suppress the Ice Silkworm had to be a living being that could move; if it were a mindless creature that didn't know how to cooperate or obey, when he went into the water to escape, he couldn't possibly keep it submerged the whole time, could he?

If during that time it had run about and knocked the wooden box away, and by some mishap the box was opened, then under the Burst of the Ice Silkworm, everyone would probably have been done for together.

Thinking about it now, Baichuan felt he had still been far too careless.

Fortunately, the final result was a good one.

It could be said that without it, Baichuan could never have obtained this power of ice.

He had to admit, the master who had cultivated such an intelligent mouse was truly remarkable.

A creature with such spiritual intelligence—killing it just like that would be a bit of a pity.

Bringing it along was even more impossible; that had already been mentioned before.

His own special nature, the existence of the panel, destined him to press forward alone, a lone snake, toward higher peaks.

But leaving just like that, Baichuan felt a little uneasy.

After all, he wasn't some heartless, ungrateful being who would use someone and then cast them aside; if he really just ran off like this, it probably wouldn't be long before this thing got caught by that Zhang Dadan.

If he was really going to leave, he ought to give it a little bit of help.

"Then what can I do to help it?"

After thinking for a while, Baichuan was struck by a sudden idea.

His previous panel abilities had all been used on himself; so could the panel help other creatures evolve?

Speaking of which, every time he chose to begin evolving, how exactly did the panel carry out the entire evolution process?

He only knew that every time he woke up, he saw himself wrapped in a hardened shell; where had that shell come from, and how had he actually evolved these abilities?

If he could help other creatures begin evolving, could he use this chance to observe clearly how he himself had begun evolving in the first place?

Thinking of this, Baichuan opened the panel and glanced at how many points he had left.

【Points: 8 (7%).】

8 points, more than enough.

Baichuan closed the panel and looked again at the little mouse, approaching as the tiny thing wore a panicked expression.

Then he extended a sharp claw and grabbed at the mouse's tail, intending to lift it up so it couldn't resist.

His movement paused; he looked at his own huge, razor-sharp claws — one lift like that would probably just snap the little mouse's tail right off.

Then he changed from lifting to grasping, scooping it up in one grip.

Ignoring its panicked squealing, his pair of sharp snake eyes stared at it with full concentration.

Before long, a message popped up on the panel.

【Target scanned, editable.】

Editable!

(End of this chapter)