Chapter 55: Awakening, Encounter

So saying, Baichuan calling that special power within his body "Ice Origin" really wasn't wrong.

Perhaps, to put it in a more fantastical way, that Light Point that had poured into his body back then could be called the origin of his Ice Frost power.

And the derivative of the Light Point, "Ice Origin," was born from the origin and freely driven by him to use, much like magic power or spiritual energy.

Thinking this way, Baichuan felt it was actually quite fitting.

In other words, he now finally had a proper long-range attack method.

However, Baichuan figured this power was better kept as a trump card for now—normally, the less he used it the better, because after consuming it, the energy he needed to replenish was even greater.

This was still the consumption on land; if it were in water—

Tch, from his attempt not long ago, that consumption could make Baichuan cry himself to death.

Think about it—when surrounded by water, one portion of Ice Origin on land could shoot out and freeze prey, but in water it wouldn't stop at one portion; three or four portions might be needed.

After all, along the way, the water would just absorb all the power away.

It looks spectacular, but the power all leaks out.

Right now he was like a motorcycle fitted with an airplane engine—when running at full power it was terrifyingly strong, but in terms of energy, it was nowhere near enough for him to squander freely.

Perhaps he should add another ability related to storage?

After all, battles consumed large amounts of energy, and it wasn't as if he had it every moment. He could completely, on ordinary days, slowly store up enough energy, so that when battle came he could let loose and spray it freely.

Musing over it, Baichuan felt this ability really could work; in the future he could pay more attention to abilities in this area.

……

Time slowly passed, and under Baichuan's nonstop eating and drinking day after day, five days went by.

As the last sliver of percentage ticked over, Baichuan's points once again arrived gloriously at 2.

And by now Baichuan had already curled up inside the temporary nest he had prepared in advance.

A cave dug out a day earlier not far from the river.

He silently opened the panel, selected the ability he had long been unable to wait to evolve: Digest LV2!

Without the slightest hesitation—copy, split, place into fusion—all in one go. A sign that Baichuan was growing ever more practiced.

Along with another deduction of points, Baichuan's reserves were finally completely zeroed out.

And he, amid a familiar intense drowsiness, quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The familiar destructive viscous liquid once again slowly secreted from every part of his body, step by step covering his entire snake form completely.

Finally, it slowly formed an object resembling a giant egg, and began to harden little by little.

Evolution, once again, had begun.

……

Two days later, early morning.

In the lush green forest, a slash of golden light pierced in like a sharp sword, and the morning mist gradually dispersed beneath this sword-like radiance.

Beneath the golden light, the river babbled, deer drank, birds sang, and flowers of every color bloomed across the hills.

It was just the season of warming spring and blooming flowers, of bright sunshine.

Everything looked so full of vigor and vitality, yet—

"Crack—"

The sound of a snapping twig rang out.

Along with the sound, heavy footsteps also began to sound in turn.

This heavy sound, as well as the unusually strong stench of blood on this uninvited guest, both signified the viciousness of this predator.

With a single breath of wind, before the person even drew near, his scent arrived, directly shattering the scene's atmosphere of thriving vitality.

Countless animals raised their heads to sneak peeks toward the source of the sound; the timid ones had even begun to furtively flee—wild rabbits, hamsters, and various sparrows among them.

For a time, the peace was gone, the forest fell silent, and only the sound of the river slowly flowing past remained.

Under these circumstances, before long, a bald, burly man whose body was out of proportion, travel-worn and weary, walked out from the forest.

He was covered in the dust of travel; the gray shirt on his body hung wide open at the chest, and the right arm was already completely gone, exposing a right hand utterly out of proportion with his entire body—thick, dark, and densely covered in black fine hairs.

Upon close inspection, one could see countless black vein-like patterns, like bulging blue veins, winding up along the arm and finally disappearing into the chest.

"Daze isn't far ahead now. I hope I can make it in time."

The burly man gazed toward the tributary in the distance, paid no heed to the animals that had already begun fleeing in all directions, and muttered.

This person was none other than Zhang Dadan, who had gone without rest for several days, traveling nonstop, trying to get ahead of that band of thieves to intercept them.

After muttering a word to himself, just as he was about to leave, suddenly his whole body stiffened. His left hand directly covered his temple as he half-crouched down, breathing somewhat painfully. His eyes at this moment were also a sheet of crimson, filled with chaos and rage.

The muscles all over his body also bulged and writhed unnaturally, as if something terrifying lurked beneath the skin.

That abnormal arm, too, now sent countless black, blood-vessel-like objects flying out, dancing wildly around him like tentacles, making his entire figure look like a demon.

He staggered back a few steps, shook his head hard, forcibly restraining his uncontrollable right hand. Leaning against a large tree, he kept taking deep, gasping breaths.

After a long while, he finally recovered; the crimson in his eyes faded, and the eerie tentacles on his right hand also began slowly retracting. At this moment his face turned abnormally pale.

"Damn it, the backlash is starting this fast? No good, I've got to find some blood-food, otherwise I—I'm not going to hold on."

Saying this, he stood up again, looked around, then casually picked up a stone from the ground and hurled it at a roe deer still standing there foolishly in the distance.

In an instant, a scream rang out, and that foolish roe deer stiffened its four limbs and collapsed to the ground, twitching ceaselessly. Crimson blood began to flow out unceasingly, dyeing a large patch of ground red.

That strong smell of blood, carried on a wind that had begun to blow at some unknown moment, drifted toward Zhang Dadan. Subconsciously, Zhang Dadan twitched his nose, licked his parched lips, as if parched and hungry, and strode over with great steps.

With a single grab of his large hand he seized the deer's head, brought it close to the deer's neck that was not yet quite dead, then bit down hard. With a sharp jerk of his head backward, a large chunk of bloody deer meat was torn off.

He tilted his head back, gulped it down in a few swallows, and from time to time bent down to sip a few mouthfuls of fresh deer blood.

A bloody feast had begun.

……

What a sweet, fragrant smell of blood.

Just waking from the sleep that followed his evolution, the starving Baichuan caught a sweet, metallic scent of blood and instinctively flicked out his forked tongue to track its source.

It's worth noting that even after evolving for so long, he still hadn't fully shed a serpent's sense of smell — for instance, his fondness for the smell of blood, and his dislike of the fragrances and sharp scents that humans find pleasant.

He swayed his increasingly thick body, stretching out his long serpentine form at will, then left the temporary cave he had used for his evolution and began crawling toward the outside.

Not knowing which predator had caught some prey and was now feeding, his starving body could hardly wait to take both of them down.

And outside, a faint sound began to rise.

"Hm?" Zhang Dadan, who had been tearing into a deer's carcass, froze mid-bite. "What was that sound?"

(End of chapter)