Chapter 69: Dragon Head Appears?

Of course, before leaving he didn't forget the bat jerky he'd obtained from his risky venture.

Based on what he'd heard at the pharmacy yesterday, Baichuan realized he hadn't actually taken the wrong path — or rather, both paths led through.

Going further ahead from here would take him out of the Daze region and into the true river mouth.

And the group of people he'd seen at the very beginning had come across the sea from an island on the other side — they'd had diplomatic ties with both factions of Yingu for generations, you could say.

But none of that had anything to do with him, Baichuan; fortunately, it let him learn the information he truly wanted to know.

Sea, here I come!

Baichuan stood in the depths of the Daze, tilting his head up toward the disc-like moon as he made his declaration.

Late at night, under the hazy moonlight.

In the Daze, a monstrously huge snake-dragon-like creature raised its enormous head high toward the moon, endlessly flicking its forked tongue.

It gave off an eerie, horrifying scene, as if the monster were worshipping the moon to cultivate.

……

With this departure, another five days passed.

During those five days, Baichuan gradually moved away from that group of crocodiles' territory and re-entered the river channel that had recovered.

If not for that, he estimated the time spent would have been several days longer.

During this period, he also thoroughly scanned the ability model on that bat jerky.

Unfortunately, his points aren't enough right now, and he needs to prepare for entering the sea — more on that later.

As he left the dense forest swamp, the view before his eyes suddenly opened up.

No longer the lush, sky-occluding forest, no longer the pitch-black sludge.

What met his eyes was a scene of stark contrast — the sea surface churned with towering waves, waves crashing endlessly, countless glittering white water droplets shattered by the waves and splashing into the air.

A briny sea breeze blew toward him, carrying the scent of seawater, constantly slapping against his snake head.

Facing him on one side was yellow water, murky as sludge — river water surging out from the channel; on the other side was seawater, azure blue tinged with specks of green.

For a moment, yellow and blue shone against each other, endlessly separating and endlessly merging.

This was a spectacular sight only visible at a river mouth — the merging of river water and seawater.

This scene made Baichuan subconsciously think of the mandarin duck hotpot from his previous life.

Of course, don't look at how dirty this yellow-mud-like river water seems — for marine creatures, it's actually a precious resource.

It's precisely because of these resources that the Jianghe Ruhaikou is one of the areas with the densest distribution of marine life.

At least, at this moment Baichuan spotted countless dense, faintly visible red heat sources beneath that seemingly turbulent sea surface.

Those were food — and also potential targets he might end up fighting to the death with.

But before he went into the water, there was one last thing left.

He needed to solve the flaw of being unable to eat underwater.

More precisely, he needed to create a drainage outlet — one that, after he opened his mouth and swallowed food, would let the water accidentally swallowed along with the food drain out of his mouth.

Because if it were just simply opening his mouth underwater, he could still manage that.

The valve unique to a snake's throat allowed him to open his mouth and attack underwater without water getting in.

But it couldn't prevent water from entering his body when eating.

Because his mouth was relatively too small — the unique structure of a snake's mouth limited him, making it impossible to spit out the water in his mouth while in the water.

If this issue wasn't solved, in the future when eating he might need to frequently surface to expel the water from his mouth before he could eat.

That wouldn't be a good thing — shallow water areas would be fine, but what about seabeds fifty or a hundred meters deep?

Would he have to catch prey and then swim back to the surface every time he wanted to eat?

He'd probably tire himself to death underwater.

Fortunately, he'd noticed this early enough — during this period, whenever he had enough points, he'd been constantly simulating various ability enhancements in the panel space.

He finally found a feasible enhancement.

That was Underwater Breathing LV2 + Ken Yao LV2.

Because ability evolution produced different changes on different hosts, once the Ken Yao from the crocodile was placed onto his body—

Then his body, in order to handle the powerful bite force of this ability, would inevitably generate countless powerful biting muscles.

Only these biting muscles could support a LV2-level Ken Yao.

And the appearance of these biting muscles would also inevitably make his head and mouth grow enormous — because his original snake mouth was too small to accommodate so many biting muscles, the muscles would inevitably shift backward.

The manifestation would be the back-lower part of his head becoming bulging, creating a clear dividing line between his head and snake body.

No longer the Yanjingwangshe's rice-spatula small head, and his mouth would also extend forward, becoming somewhat long and narrow — but not as exaggerated as a crocodile's, roughly shaped like a wolf's muzzle.

With this situation, combined with the Underwater Breathing LV2 from fish, the two would undergo a wondrous ability fusion.

Causing the gill filaments used for fish respiration to appear on the back of his head — extending out from the bulging biting muscles created by Ken Yao LV2.

Transforming into a mane of dense, lion-like, bright red hair!

When this scene appeared, it shocked Baichuan, who was still in the panel space at the time — wasn't this the appearance of a Jiaolong's head?!

Add a pair of beautiful dragon horns, and it would be a complete dragon head!

Subconsciously, upon seeing this scene Baichuan immediately decided to evolve!

Evolve! He must evolve!!

Even though after evolving he would lose the snake-mouth function of being able to open beyond 120°, this function was honestly too much of a gimmick for the current him.

So, now he was just waiting for his points to become abundant again, and then he could fully evolve and remove this weakness.

As for why this would remove the weakness of being unable to eat underwater?

Because fish gill filaments inherently have a drainage function.

After evolving, he would grow gill filaments with underwater breathing and drainage functions, combined with a mouth that had grown larger and longer, shaped like a wolf's muzzle.

He could completely bite the food into his mouth, close it fully, and expel any seawater that accidentally flowed in through the gill filaments behind his head that resembled a mane.

Then he could swallow the food — simply perfect!

At that time, he would be one step closer to becoming a flood dragon!

At the very least, he'd finally have the look of a dragon, no?

The mere thought of it made him somewhat unable to wait.

Unfortunately, his points had only just climbed back to 3.16%, meaning he would have to wait another full day here.

In one day, he could begin evolving once again.

Thinking about it, he truly couldn't wait.

After flicking his snake-forked tongue a few times to taste the briny moisture of the sea breeze, Baichuan dove straight into the water.

Staying near the river mouth was a little too conspicuous, even in his stealth form — what if he was spotted again by accident?

So, he'd play it safe, find a hidden spot nearby, dig out a nest, and prepare for tomorrow's evolution.

Speaking of which, Baichuan suddenly realized that among all his abilities, the one he'd been using most diligently was actually digging holes!

What was this? Even after transmigrating to another world and becoming a snake, he still couldn't forget about building houses?

Hilarious — in his past life a man without a home, in this life he'd become a snake with a luxury home wherever he went.

First a mountain villa, then a river-view room, and finally a sea-view room!

Thinking of this, Baichuan laughed as well.

……

Time flew by; one day passed.

And Baichuan had long since settled inside the nest he had prepared, ready and raring to go.

99.7%……100%……

As the points on his panel filled up once again, Baichuan had once more scraped together 4 points.

(End of this chapter)