Chapter 8: The Road to Soaring Is About to Begin

Under the moonlight, this venomous snake was none other than Baichuan.

As the saying goes, a gentleman avenges himself; ten years is not too late.

But he, Baichuan, is no gentleman!

Yes, reason told him that his future was boundless — as long as he endured, he would one day be invincible, and there would no longer be anything he needed to fear.

But that was all in the future.

Why was he evolving so frantically, hunting and hoarding points every day? Wasn't it simply because he wanted to evolve more perfectly and more powerfully?

Only by evolving more perfectly could he once again savor the beauty of this world; only by evolving more powerfully would he never need to wrong himself again.

If not for that, why would he need to push himself so hard? Wouldn't it be fine to just live like a normal king cobra?

Precisely because he had already been wronged and helpless enough in his past life, in this one he only wanted to live freely, no longer having to compromise himself.

It was merely a medium-small raptor — did it warrant him wronging himself like this?

He was the king of venomous snakes, blessed with human intelligence!

Was dealing with a brainless raptor really that hard?

True, as a raptor fighting a land creature, it was naturally in an unbeatable position — as long as it wasn't arrogant and careless, the moment things looked bad it could immediately take to the sky and flee.

But could it really stay airborne forever without landing?

Not necessarily. The knowledge from the Great Explosion era in his past life had taught him that no matter what creature, as long as it was made of flesh and blood, it would eventually tire and need rest.

And that resting period was the best moment for him to strike.

Perhaps other animals knew this too but couldn't act on it; but he was different. What was the greatest hallmark of human intelligence?

It was the ability to observe the present state of things, summarize patterns, and thereby devise solutions.

Over these three days, he first confirmed its range of activity, then, drawing on his knowledge of birds from memory, quietly searched for its nest within that range.

Next, he once again pinpointed its resting times.

And so, after four days of searching, he had finally made all the preparations.

In the deep of the night when the bird slept, he arrived like an uninvited guest.

For this, he had even altered the king cobra's usual routine.

One should know that the king cobra species' routine had always been active by day, returning by night.

Yet for revenge, he had switched to moving at night.

……

Reflecting on the efforts of these past few days, Baichuan no longer dawdled. His serpentine muscles tensed, gathering power!

With a sudden lunge, his dangerous and lethal serpent kiss bit the goshawk's neck in an instant.

Then, unusually, he used his thick, powerful serpentine body to coil tightly around the hawk, paying special attention to the goshawk's sharp talons.

One should know that king cobras, when hunting, are rarely seen using their coils to attack — their thick scales and lethal venom gave them the confidence to simply bite down and not let go until the prey died.

It was only in rare king-cobra-versus-king-cobra situations that body coiling appeared.

Of course, this also showed that the king cobra's coiling ability wasn't strong — but not strong didn't mean nonexistent.

From this, one could see how seriously Baichuan was taking this moment.

The surge of sharp pain finally woke the goshawk, but it was already too late.

A mere raptor barely over fifty centimeters tall with a wingspan of just over a meter — how could it possibly be a match for a king of venomous snakes over three meters long?

Not to mention that by now it was already coiled by the thick, powerful serpentine body, its neck bitten, its wings unable to spread, and both talons bound up.

Before long, Baichuan felt the prey's struggles in his coils weaken, and its body slowly begin to stiffen.

Once Baichuan was fully certain the venom had taken effect, he slowly loosened his coils, and saw that the goshawk was breathing out but no longer breathing in.

Only then did Baichuan move his snake head over and glance at the other's head — good, there was indeed a bald patch.

This meant he hadn't picked the wrong target.

Next, he glanced at the sky, saw there was still plenty of Time, and began his gluttonous feast.

He was probably one of the very few venomous snakes to eat a hawk.

……

By the time Baichuan finished eating the goshawk and returned to his tree hollow, the sky was already beginning to brighten with dawn.

This was normally the time he used to head out; now it had become his rest time. He had to admit, these past few days of seeking revenge had worn him out completely.

Fortunately, it had all been worth it.

Now six days had passed, and his points had already accumulated to 60%. Soon he would once again have a point to spend.

As for how to use this point, he hadn't yet decided — after all, his knowledge of biology was still too limited.

Thinking this over, he sank into a deep sleep.

At dusk, after sleeping for nearly a full day, he finally stirred awake.

The very first thing he did upon waking was open the panel, then look at the Ability Structure Library — where a new model had conspicuously appeared.

……

【Ability Structure Library: Laoshu, Jianwenfu, Jinshe, Qingwa, Cang Ying.】

……

After staring for a while, he casually tapped open the Cang Ying model.

In an instant, a translucent Cang Ying glowing with a ghostly blue light shot up into the air, landed before his eyes, and slowly rotated.

Come to think of it, this was his first time seeing a hawk-type model so directly.

Sharp eyes, a curved and hard beak, thick and sharp talons, a majestic bearing.

One couldn't help but exclaim — what a magnificent bird!

At the same time, the abilities of this Cang Ying popped up in due course.

【Race: Cang Ying.】

【Ability Structure: Feixiang LV2, Lizhua LV2, Clairvoyance LV2, Xiaohua Xishou LV1, Qiangzhuang LV1 (Xiongqiang Yihua), Niaogu LV1 (Flight Yihua)…】

"Hiss! Wh-what a rich set of abilities! There are actually three LV2-level abilities, and… and… there's actually…"

"Xiaohua! Xishou!"

Looking at the extraordinarily rich panel above, Baichuan at first just sucked in a breath of cold air and exclaimed, having to admit that eagles truly live up to being one of the rulers of the sky — even though they aren't the top-tier raptors, their abilities are still this rich.

Until he read further down and suddenly discovered an ability called "Xiaohua Xishou"!

At that moment, the pleasant surprise came so suddenly that it left him too excited to make a sound.

After coming back to his senses, he burst into wild laughter:

"Hahaha~ Looks like the heavens really are helping me. You plant flowers with care and they never bloom; stick a willow by chance and it grows into shade. At last, at last I've found 'Xiaohua Xishou'! Now the path to soaring has truly begun!"

No wonder he was this excited — anyone who knew his panel abilities would understand what kind of soaring leap would happen once he possessed 'Xiaohua Xishou'.

In the past, no matter how much he ate, he could rely on the panel's passive ability to start a frenzy of digestion.

But the pity was that no matter how fast he digested, as long as his absorption ability couldn't keep up, the energy produced by digestion could only dissipate and be wasted for nothing.

It was precisely because of this, and because the panel's ability could only be triggered once per day, that he needed as long as ten days to save up even a tiny bit of points, and had to hunt frantically every single day.

But now things were different — the strengthening of digestion meant he no longer had to rely on the once-a-day panel ability to digest, and could instead digest rapidly at every moment.

The strengthening of absorption meant he could absorb more energy in a day, and more energy would shorten the time needed to save up points.

And what a shorter Time meant went without saying — faster point generation, faster evolution of more powerful abilities, and even more powerful LV2 Ability.

At that moment, in his extreme excitement, he didn't even pay attention to the heat-sensing facial pits and the eagle's Clairvoyance vision he had been dreaming of day and night before.

(End of chapter)