There was no calendar in the mountains; the years and months drifted by.
In the blink of an eye, a month had passed, and Bai Chuan had finally put down roots deep in the mountains, carving out territory of his own.
How had he gotten that territory?
Of course, he'd taken it by force.
When he'd first arrived, he hadn't yet decided which area to settle in. Then, at that very moment, one of his own kind—the King Cobra—had crawled out.
It let out a series of hissing warnings, trying to make him leave and telling him that this was its territory.
Only then did Bai Chuan realize he'd invaded the territory of one of his own kind.
But was Bai Chuan the sort of person who'd leave just because someone told him to?
That warning only made him decide to stay.
By now, after evolving several times, he was already one of the best among his kind. Naturally, he had no need to yield, and won the battle.
The thing worth mentioning was that, aside from that initial fight over territory, he'd spent the entire month living a monotonous life of eating his fill, sleeping, then eating again.
The peace of this period had been so profound that Bai Chuan had begun to wonder if this place was heaven.
After all, what he lacked most right now was time. Back in that other area, something was always going wrong here or there, making him think everywhere was fraught with danger.
But thanks to a whole month of peaceful growth, his body had now reached five meters in length. As for his girth, it was about as thick as a human thigh.
At the same time, he'd gained a thorough understanding of just how powerful his Digestion and Absorption ability was now.
It used to take him ten days to save up a little point, but now it only took six.
His rate of evolution had nearly doubled.
And after a month of evolution, just how powerful was he now?
One look at his panel said it all.
'Name: Bai Chuan.'
'Species: King Cobra.'
'Lifespan: 8 years.'
'Points: 1 (91%).'
'Abilities: Final Growth LV2 (details), Snake Venom LV2, Agility LV2, Strong LV2, Energy Saving Storage LV1, Danger Perception LV1, Flexible LV1, Scales LV1, Swimming LV1, Digestion and Absorption LV1...'
'Ability Structure Library: Rat, Sharp-Snouted Viper, Python, Frog, Grasshopper, Vine Snake, Water Snake...'
'Editable...'
Compared to before, he now had two more LV2 abilities: Agility and Strong.
Agility came from a wild hare he'd caught again during this period, while Strong came from a wild boar.
Yes, a wild boar—a young one that had somehow gotten separated from its group.
Normally, wild boars lived in groups. Their hides were as hard as stone, formed when their hair mixed with mud and hardened.
On top of that, they had hard, sharp tusks.
Under normal circumstances, he'd have no chance of hunting a wild boar on his own. And even if he somehow managed to kill one, he wouldn't be able to eat it all.
Wild boars were far too vengeful. Once you provoked them, they might stand their ground to the death.
So fighting a wild boar was usually more trouble than it was worth for a venomous snake. Even if he poisoned one to death, he'd have no chance of eating it, because it would be too big to swallow.
And if a venomous snake failed to get up a tree in time, it could be trampled or rammed to death by the herd.
That was why, in the wild, Eye Kings usually left wild boars alone. They had no dealings with each other at all.
But he'd been incredibly lucky that time. He didn't know what had happened to the herd, but the boars had scattered in all directions, leaving one young boar alone.
When Bai Chuan saw it, he carefully studied his surroundings and found no herd guarding it. He weighed the potential rewards against the risks.
The rewards outweighed the risks, so he took a chance, poisoned the young boar with one bite, and swallowed it.
That was how he gained the Strong LV2 ability.
Thanks to those two newly acquired LV2 abilities, his body had grown from three and a half meters to a massive five meters in just one month.
He'd truly struck it rich.
Now, his strength had increased dramatically, and so had his speed.
In terms of strength, he was no weaker than a wild boar. As for speed, his body wasn't built to match a rabbit's 70 km/h, but he'd still reached 50 km/h.
Don't dismiss that figure as unimpressive. The fastest crawling snake, the black mamba, could only reach a maximum of 20 km/h.
Even the highest instantaneous speed achieved by a human runner was only 44.722 km/h.
That made it clear just how absurdly fast he was for a King Cobra.
From today onward, if he ever had the misfortune to encounter humans, he could easily escape on speed alone.
And his strength had changed beyond recognition, too. With power comparable to a wild boar, and his current speed on top of that, even just charging into something would be terrifying.
Of course, he didn't dare throw himself into a charge just yet. It seemed he was growing too quickly, and his scales' strength hadn't quite caught up with his body.
He'd become this powerful in just one month. It was probably time to go hunt a few more large birds of prey.
After all, he'd long since had enough of the monotonous view available to snakes: lifeless and colorless.
Before, he'd had no guarantee of survival, so he'd had to prioritize evolving his physical strength. But now that he was stronger, it was time to consider support abilities.
He'd been looking forward to birds' vision for a long, long time. And among birds, were there any better than eagles?
He also wanted to see whether his current strength would let him hunt eagles with ease.
And as it happened, he knew where a few eagle nests were.
As the thought came to him,
the enormous snake crawled back out of his cave. His body was now too large to fit into most tree hollows, so he'd had no choice but to settle for a cave.
In the green forest,
his serpentine body wound its way forward. His powerful muscles were hard to conceal even beneath his scales, a testament to the terrifying strength of this giant snake.
As his heavy, powerful body moved, it kept making a rustling sound—the noise of him crushing fallen leaves and grass.
And with his unmatched speed, whenever that sound rang out, a dark shadow flashed silently through the forest. His metallic scales looked beautiful and mysterious in the dappled sunlight.
Bai Chuan headed toward the mountaintop. Suddenly, his body went still.
He slowly lifted his head and stared to one side. His icy snake eyes were full of wariness as his body began to coil, and his neck suddenly flared out.
This wasn't a good start.
Bai Chuan's mood turned grave.
Before long, the pounding sound of running footsteps rang out.
In the direction Bai Chuan was watching, a huge Wolf Beast appeared, standing a full eighty centimeters at the shoulder and nearly 1.3 meters long. Its fur was gray, and its bright, alert wolf eyes gleamed with a hunger to devour its prey.
As the Wolf Beast appeared, more wolves, each a little smaller than the first, began to emerge behind it and to the side.
One by one, the Wolf Beasts raised their ears and held their tails high, their bodies crouched low.
They had clearly entered an attack stance.
Seeing this, Bai Chuan immediately understood that the wolf in front was the Alpha Wolf of the pack. He counted them quickly: seven wolves in all.
This was going to be tricky. Bai Chuan had never fought a pack of wolves before, so he had no idea how it would turn out.
He tentatively raised his upper body high, hoping to scare the wolves away.
In an instant, more than two meters of his serpentine body lifted into the air, and his flared neck made him look even thicker and taller.
Yet all this caused no more than a slight stir among the pack. At the Alpha Wolf's low growl, they quickly settled down again.
Before you continue