Blackwater Swamp, on a sweltering afternoon.
Headscar slept sprawled across a tree branch, his limbs spread out and his tongue hanging over his chin.
Perhaps the dry season was unwilling to end and had released all its remaining heat at once. The past few days had been unbearably hot, and even the monkeys' cries sounded listless.
At the center of the swamp, the unshaded ground was a blinding expanse of white. The sun had baked the earth through.
Famu was eating a capybara he had caught in the water.
Capybaras were common enough, but opportunities to eat cooked food were rare. After biting the capybara's head to pieces, Famu tore the rest into chunks and laid them on the rock before him. The rock had baked in the sun all day and was scorching hot. Before long, the surface of the meat began to sizzle.
The capybara's rich fat revealed itself in the heat. Solid lipids melted, sending droplets of oil splattering.
Famu's taste buds were stirred. It was a simple craving for delicious food, unrelated to hunger.
After simulating Bloodburn, I can use the High-Temperature Domain to eat cooked food, Famu thought.
"Estimated feasibility: ninety-eight percent," the Scepter replied.
"Good."
The rock could cook only part of the meat; thick fat still enveloped most of the protein. Famu wasn't quite satisfied, but this was the limit of what the hot rock could do.
Famu quickly simulated Bloodburn.
"Your Excellency, this is extravagant," the Scepter said again.
"Have you never seen humans do extravagant things?" Famu asked in return.
The Child of the Earth Furnace Core grew slightly warm, and a small High-Temperature Domain was precisely contained above the rock.
The chunks of meat, which had previously been heated only on the surface, were enveloped by invisible heat. Moisture within the flesh began to vaporize violently, and golden oil ran down along the grain of the meat and dripped onto the ground.
Even Famu couldn't help marveling.
This was one small step for humanity, and one giant leap for Typhons. Barring any surprises, he was the first Typhon to eat cooked food.
Headscar's nostrils twitched as he slept on the branch. He suddenly opened his eyes and looked toward the island in the middle of the swamp. Nightmare Leopards had an extremely keen sense of smell, and Headscar had caught an irresistibly tempting scent. Unable to bear it, he leaped down from the tree and into the water, paddling a few strokes with his paws to reach the island.
A wave of heat struck him in the face.
Headscar saw the master of this place.
That body, black as night, lay prone, swallowing chunks of meat.
Famu swallowed a mouthful of cooked meat rich with the aroma of fat. Neither the texture nor the flavor of raw, cold flesh and blood could compare with cooked food.
Seeing Headscar arrive, he gently swept his tail and tossed the two remaining golden-brown chunks of meat in front of him.
Headscar gulped down the meat in two bites. He had caught and eaten a hare not long ago and wasn't hungry, yet somehow everything he had eaten before seemed utterly tasteless.
What is this? How can it be so delicious?
Headscar couldn't make sense of it.
This experience lay beyond the hunting memories passed down through generations of Nightmare Leopards. Meat cooked over fire was the ultimate luxury in the natural world, and also a symbol of the origins of civilization.
Once touched by it, one could never again feel reverence for bloody raw meat.
Headscar's gaze fell on the rock Famu had used to roast the meat, but in the end he looked away.
In Headscar's eyes, the rock belonged to Famu, and he could not entertain any thought of claiming it.
He left the island.
Famu coiled up again, exposing as much of his scales to the sunlight as possible, and continued absorbing heat like a statue.
These past days, Famu's research into achieving the Child of the Earth Furnace Core's aberration had run into difficulties.
The next stage of Child of the Earth, applying force to external objects, was one of the two prerequisites for creating a gravitational field.
Given enough time, this would pose no difficulty for Famu. It was a problem he wouldn't even need to trouble himself over.
Typhons were among the oldest overlords on this continent. As long as he passed through the cycles of rain and drought in due course, shedding his old skin between sleep and hunts, his body would enter its prime as the years went by. The Furnace Core within him would naturally mature, and the great powers hidden deep within it would also unfold in their own time.
But the problem was time.
The Staff of Life's catalysis period had ended.
His earlier explosive growth, like a balloon being inflated, had come from the Staff's protective measures. To prevent him from dying young, he needed to develop combat strength in a short time, so the Scepter System had shortened his growth cycle.
Blackwater Swamp was a playground for Famu now, but a year ago, the swamp had been fraught with danger for him.
Black Kai Crocodiles lurked in the undercurrents, giant-toothed fish prowled the deep water, and enormous elephant fish greedily searched for prey hiding on the riverbed. Juvenile Typhons could easily end up as protein in another beast's mouth. It was rapid predation and growth that had allowed Famu to escape that predicament.
But catalysis was a double-edged sword.
Once a Typhon reached adulthood, it could no longer undergo catalyzed growth.
An adult Typhon's growth required abundant accumulation, chiefly of Earth Vein Energy and Biological Furnace Cores. These were already beyond the scope of a mere body of flesh and blood. In Typhon terms, they required sensing the intertwining of the soul and the pulse of the earth.
If he continued using the Scepter to grow, it would alter the Furnace Core's original evolutionary path.
It might even lead to the miserable fate of being crippled, with bones unable to support his own weight and muscles unable to support Famu's swift movements.
Under the normal laws of nature, Famu would have to wait decades for his Furnace Core to reach its next stage naturally, just like Muerjia over by the Mara River, becoming an old veteran whom several or even a dozen generations of nearby communities would live to see.
Decades?
That was a little too long for him.
Famu wouldn't wait that long. He could accelerate his growth by consuming large quantities of Earth Vein Energy and the Furnace Cores of other creatures.
The other prerequisite was obtaining enough Dead Sun Armor genes.
He needed to unlock the Bloodburn ability hidden in this body. He had to become able to wield the High-Temperature Domain as freely as his own breath and limbs, like a true Dead Sun Armor.
With his thinking at this point, what he needed to do next was clear.
Hunt Dead Sun Armor.
Even pure Earth Vein Energy was less important to Famu than a single Dead Sun Armor.
The old Crowned Heron's Luminous Core had established that the path Famu intended to take would work.
And so a Dead Sun Armor's corpse would be the foundation stone for Famu's journey to the end of that path.
The question was where to find a Dead Sun Armor. This was a Muerjia's territory, and the Dead Sun Armor were far away to the west of the Samei River. How would plunging recklessly into Dead Sun Armor territory be any different from what Ross had done? Even if Famu hadn't killed him, the Muerjia of the Mara River would have.
Famu looked up at the sky.
The dry season was drawing to an end, and the rainy season was almost here.
Once the floodwaters descended from the mountains and flowed into the rivers, forming a shallow, sea-like floodplain among the forests, a Typhon would be able to go anywhere.
Should I leave this place with the floodwaters?