Chapter 51: Imbalance Within?

Right, just dash into the sea!

Anyway, what do these troublesome matters have to do with a snake who only wants to transform into a dragon?

If not now, when.

Let them fight it out among themselves—I'm not sticking around!

After mentally summarizing all the information he had gathered, Baichuan once again arrived at the riverbank.

Without hesitation, he plunged straight in and dove beneath the water.

As the great snake's massive, thick body slowly sank beneath the water, countless fine, crystalline splashes rose from the river's surface, and countless small fish scattered in all directions.

Along the way, Baichuan was truly free of restraint, swimming as wildly as he pleased—no longer needing to float on the surface with his head held up while other creatures perched on his back.

He charged recklessly beneath the water, occasionally bursting through the surface like a flood dragon rising from the depths, startling countless animals into panicked flight, before diving back down to the riverbed.

Seen from afar, the enormous serpentine shadow beneath the water and the sleek body that occasionally broke the surface made it look as though a flood dragon had appeared in the river, playing in the water.

After stretching his body to its heart's content, Baichuan returned to the riverbank, along with a large fish he had caught in his claws.

After flicking the water droplets from his scales, he began to wolf it down.

Half an hour later, a full Baichuan casually found a shady spot beneath a tree, closed his eyes, and carefully felt the listless power within his body and on his scales slowly beginning to recover.

All of this was the newly enhanced abilities at work.

Yes, ever since that stream of light representing the Ice Frost power had poured into his body, a peculiar sensation had naturally arisen within him.

Within his body, around his neck, and on his scales, an additional "power" had appeared… well, let's just call it power for now.

He could control this power at will, as easily as moving his own arm—wherever he wanted to emit cold air on his body, he could emit cold air there.

And it would not cause him any harm.

However, this power was currently in very poor condition, looking as though it had been over-exploited to the brink of collapse, and was in urgent need of energy to recover.

This was also why Baichuan had not tried using it directly right after obtaining it.

Because this power was already overburdened, especially since it had helped him clear out another wave of parasites within his body upon entering.

If he were to forcefully use it again, it might just crumble and vanish.

Now that he had eaten his fill, this power within his body had also begun to slowly recover.

Still, it would take some time before it was fully restored.

Of course, this power had already steadied itself now, so he could use it a little or two—though the intensity might not be all that great.

Thinking of this, Baichuan was in no rush to use it.

Honestly, ever since he had discovered that this power could keep him in a relatively healthy state free from external intrusions, his attitude toward it had clearly changed.

No longer did he think of using it for attack first, but rather for maintaining his own purity and flawlessness.

Secondly, only when he had room to spare would he consider slowly developing other aspects of this power, such as using it for attack.

In terms of priority: maintaining himself > means of attack.

After all, he already had plenty of attack methods, and this power was currently in a listless state—there was no need to recklessly abuse it for a momentary need and cause it to be destroyed.

However, this power had its pros and cons; having said so much about its benefits, it also had an unavoidable drawback—it required him to supply it with energy.

Just like the spiritual energy and magical power of cultivators, mages, and the like, this power gave him a whole bunch of visible benefits, so he inevitably had to supply it with energy.

It's just that those cultivators and mages recover by absorbing the spiritual energy and magical power of heaven and earth.

As for his energy supply, it was drawn from the energy stored in his body on a daily basis and from the food he ate.

Of course, put this way it might not sound like a big problem—purely making a mountain out of a molehill.

But from another perspective, to put it bluntly.

This meant that this power was competing with his panel's point-accumulation function for energy.

Because while his digestive ability remained unchanged, his absorption ability had been strengthened.

Suppose the energy produced from digesting food in a day was 100.

He only needed 20 to maintain his body's daily activities, so out of the remaining 80, normally 70 would be converted into points, and the remaining 10 would be stored as fat.

Now, excluding the 20 used to maintain the body, that 80 would be fought over by the panel and this Ice Frost power, with none left over to be stored as fat.

In other words, he now had two energy-hungry additions in his body; if he didn't make changes, two situations would arise.

One, the accumulation of points wouldn't slow down, but there might be a phenomenon where he clearly had eaten his fill, his belly even still bulging, yet his body would still grow thinner day by day.

This was because his digestion couldn't keep up—the food remained in his stomach but couldn't be digested, leaving nothing for his intestines to absorb, and thus no energy to be transported throughout the body for the Ice Frost power and the panel to consume.

Two, the accumulation of points would return to a snail's pace, but his body would be healthy, with most of the energy being supplied to the Ice Frost power for consumption.

He didn't want to see either of these two situations; whether it was the speed of point accumulation on his panel or his own physical health, he couldn't just let them develop so freely.

But if he were asked to give up this power, he would be unwilling—especially after seeing the dramatic increase in lifespan and the sight of all the parasites within his body being cleared out, he was even more reluctant to let go.

Anyway, all powers have their drawbacks… no, perhaps it shouldn't be called a drawback, but rather an equivalent exchange.

Just like the generation of venom in his venom glands and the discharge of his Electric Generation ability, these all required the consumption of large amounts of Biological Energy.

Do these count as their drawbacks?

How could they? Everything in the world follows a law of conservation of energy: energy cannot be created from nothing, nor can it disappear into nothing—it only transforms from one form to another.

His Sedu was like this, his Electric Discharge ability was like this, and now his Ice Frost power was like this.

It's just that compared to the former two, his Ice Frost power required a particularly larger amount of energy.

But compared to the benefits it brought, was it worth it?

Baichuan said: absolutely worth it!

"It seems my digestion and absorption… no, perhaps this ability should now be split into two parts now—digestion is still the original LV1, but absorption has become LV2."

After realizing this, Baichuan couldn't help but feel a mix of amusement and helplessness.

He never thought there would come a day when he would be troubled by his own absorption ability being too strong.

One had to admit, a snake's life is full of uncertainties.

For now, it seemed that in the short term he would have to rely once more on the panel's once-a-day "frenzied digestion" function.

In the past, he had felt this ability was a wasteful extravagance born of desperation, because his body's absorption couldn't keep up — most of the digested energy simply leaked away from his body.

So ever since he had evolved a digestion-and-absorption ability, he had rarely used this panel function.

Now it seemed he had no choice but to use it again.

(End of this chapter)