The Bottleneck Period of Cultivation

Chapter 12: The Bottleneck of Cultivation

Ye Qin wasn't smug about strangling a natural predator several times his size. His mind was replaying the scenes from the recent battle, constantly analyzing them.

Honestly, if it weren't for his cultivation, killing such prey would have been impossible in the wild.

He wasn't a natural snake, after all. His past life as a human gave Ye Qin an advantage, which was also the foundation for his future progress.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have embarked on the path of cultivation.

Animals possessed spirit but lacked wisdom. Now, having both, peculiar changes could occur.

After resting on the ground for a while, Ye Qin finally recovered.

He looked at the hawk's corpse and was troubled.

Since he had eaten a field mouse earlier, he wasn't hungry. Moreover, he couldn't possibly eat such a large creature.

Besides, the hawk had too many feathers, making its texture unappealing. It was like how some people disliked eating fish because of the numerous bones.

For Ye Qin, the hawk before him was the same. So, he didn't bother with it, waiting for other carnivores to deal with the hawk.

Ye Qin didn't know that shortly after he left, no other predators arrived.

A tall figure walked over from not far away. He slowly picked up the feathers that had fallen on the ground and then saw the hawk's corpse nearby.

"Huh? I clearly saw it flying this way earlier, how did it suddenly die?"

The man was puzzled. He picked up the hawk's corpse and examined it closely, discovering that the hawk's bones were all soft, as if crushed by some immense force.

The surrounding grass was also somewhat messy, with scattered feathers everywhere and some tracks.

Based on the scene, the hawk had just engaged in a fierce battle with another creature.

Although the hawk's size wasn't comparable to lions or tigers, it was the absolute king of the sky. Coupled with its ability to fly, it possessed absolute speed and charging power.

Excluding animals of immense size, most land creatures were no match for it.

The man's pupils contracted as if he had seen something. Among the green grass, a few black scales shimmered in the sunlight.

He picked them up and couldn't help but exclaim, "These are snake scales."

"Could it be that the creature fighting the hawk was a snake?"

The man found it hard to believe. Hawks were natural enemies of snakes. Their sharp claws, fangs, and beaks possessed immense lethality to snakes.

Once caught by them, survival was almost impossible.

When a snake saw a hawk, it would flee. How could it possibly initiate a fight?

Yet, in this battle, the snake had won.

It defied the natural order. Throughout the entire ecosystem, such a thing was impossible.

However, the scene before him left him no choice but to believe.

Snakes killed their prey by constricting them, causing suffocation and bone breakage. The marks on the hawk's corpse fit this characteristic.

Coupled with the discovery of snake scales, there were no other animal traces.

All signs indicated that the creature that killed the hawk was a snake!

Hawks had always hunted snakes, but now it was the other way around. While such incidents occurred, they were not common.

Although there were instances of prey fighting back in the animal kingdom, there was a prerequisite: the difference in strength and size between the combatants wouldn't be too extreme.

The man looked at the snake scales in his hand, unable to identify the specific type of snake for the moment. However, the scales were small, suggesting the creature itself wasn't large.

It was well-known that a creature's strength was directly proportional to its size.

A 5-meter-long giant python exerted a pressure of 1 kg/cm² when constricting its prey.

Therefore, a creature with scales like these would have at most enough strength to constrict and kill two sparrows or a large field mouse.

To strangle a hawk to death was simply a fantasy, an impossible feat, as small snakes lacked such power.

Furthermore, based on his knowledge, only medium and small snakes inhabited this mountain range; pythons were not found here.

If a large snake or a venomous snake had managed to fight back, it would have been understandable. But for a small, non-venomous snake to kill a hawk?

It was simply incredible.

Even a biologist would be amazed.

Everything before him defied logic and was utterly baffling.

The man found it strange but didn't dwell on it. "The world is indeed full of wonders."

Meanwhile, on the other side, Ye Qin had returned to the cave. With this full meal, he estimated he wouldn't need to forage for several days and could focus on cultivating in the cave.

Not far from the pile of bones was a pit several meters deep. From a human perspective, this wasn't exaggerated.

But when the creature digging the pit was a snake, it was quite miraculous.

It was common knowledge that snakes didn't dig their own burrows; they didn't have this habit. They usually occupied the burrows of other animals or found a hole in the wild to serve as their den.

Let alone digging such a large pit, it went against all biological common sense.

Ye Qin cleared all the soil to the side. The newly dug pit was becoming more defined. With a little more time, it would likely be completed.

After completing all of that, Ye Qin began to cultivate again.

"Rumble—"

Muffled thunder rumbled outside the cave, approaching from afar, heralding the arrival of a new round of rainfall.

Outside the cave, the rain pattered down, like large pearls and small jade beads falling onto a plate. Occasionally, a few loud frog croaks could be heard, as if performing a soaring symphony. However, none of this could disturb Ye Qin.

He could quickly enter the state of visualization, but it was somewhat regrettable.

The state of "deep concentration" he had experienced during his first cultivation session never reappeared.

After this period of visualization, he guessed that the previous state was not something that occurred frequently and might represent a transcendent state of enlightenment.

If he could enter that state, his body might undergo inexplicable changes, and his cultivation would also become more diligent.

However, these were all Ye Qin's speculations. After all, he had entered it unknowingly last time and hadn't even had a chance to figure out what was happening.

Later, when he tried to enter it again, he couldn't grasp the knack. He didn't know if it was the wrong timing or the wrong method.

Perhaps he would only understand the underlying principles when he entered that state of enlightenment for the second time.

When Ye Qin opened his eyes again, the rain outside had stopped.

Without the bothersome sound of rain, his mind became restless, like a small stone thrown into the lake of his heart, creating faint ripples.

"Sigh, my cultivation these past few days feels a bit off."

Ye Qin couldn't quite explain or articulate it. It was as if he had clearly reached the threshold, but there was only a final thin paper window that he couldn't break through no matter what.

It felt like looking at flowers through fog – so close, yet because he couldn't find the right method, he could only wander aimlessly.

Ye Qin couldn't help but murmur to himself, "This is probably what they call a bottleneck period. Moreover, I've always been uncertain and unplannned about my future cultivation path, just taking it one step at a time."