Seeking a Hibernating Python

At the sight of it, Bai Chuan's eyes lit up in an instant.

Now that was a surprise!

He'd not only found a warm cave, but also a king python over two meters long, hibernating inside.

That settled his food for the days ahead.

With a murderous glint in his eyes, Bai Chuan crawled toward it.

At the same time, perhaps sensing danger, the king python, which should have been hibernating, suddenly stirred.

But it was too late.

In the blink of an eye, a sharp claw wrapped in high-voltage current slammed into the king python's vital spot, seven inches behind its head.

The entire snake began to convulse.

The current lasted only an instant, but its sharp, venomous fangs took advantage of that brief moment to bite down. The next moment, venom gushed out.

And that wasn't all. To keep his prey from waking up, Bai Chuan went at it with both claws, tearing at its scales without pause.

Scales flew and blood sprayed everywhere.

In just one minute, the hibernating king python had gone to meet its ancestors, never even knowing what had happened.

Looking at the dead king python, Bai Chuan felt that he was still fairly full. After thinking it over, he crawled back out of the cave.

He scooped up a ball of snow with his sharp claws and brought it back, then covered the python's corpse with it.

Since he didn't want to eat it yet, and it was winter besides, he might as well preserve it and save it for when he got hungry.

After that, Bai Chuan coiled up in the cave and rested for a while, satisfied. He had to admit, there were so many things he could do now that he had a pair of claws.

Then he looked around at the narrow, shallow cave and shook his head in dissatisfaction before getting back to work.

He figured he wouldn't be hibernating this winter. If so, he would need a good cave.

This one looked terrible to him now.

First, he needed to dig deeper, to avoid a repeat of what had happened last time. Next, the entrance passage needed to be narrower and winding, so cold air couldn't creep in from outside.

Finally, the resting area inside needed to be larger, so he could store any prey he caught but couldn't finish.

After giving it some thought, Bai Chuan settled on a plan and got to work.

By evening, the last glimmer of sunlight disappeared, and winter's brief day quietly came to an end.

By then, Bai Chuan had been working for almost a whole day and had finally finished half of his new cave.

He looked at his claws, which were already beginning to wear down badly, and shook his head helplessly.

Thankfully, they could grow back. And thanks to Regeneration LV1, they grew back fairly quickly, fully recovering after just one night. Otherwise, he wouldn't have dared to dig so hard.

But he was exhausted today and needed a good rest.

He'd only just woken up, yet so much had happened. He needed some time to sort through it all and figure out what to do next.

As his thoughts turned, Bai Chuan lowered himself to the ground and began his first day of winter.

The next day, Bai Chuan crawled out of the cave and was delighted to discover that the snow had stopped.

It was a good sign, and it would also save him from wasting energy when he went out.

As everyone knew, he was a snake now, and he didn't know why he no longer had the ability to slow his metabolism as the temperature dropped. He couldn't tell whether that was a good thing or a bad one.

But now, to resist the cold, his body burned through a great deal of energy whenever the temperature fell, just to maintain his body heat.

And burning through lots of energy meant getting hungry faster.

In a winter when food was so hard to find, getting hungry too quickly was no good at all. It could even get a snake killed.

So the snow stopping was undeniably a good sign.

Taking advantage of the fine weather, Bai Chuan quickly left the cave and began exploring this winter, which was completely unfamiliar to him.

As he went, Bai Chuan searched purposefully for tree hollows, rock caves, and sandstone areas.

He'd thought about it while resting last night. Snakes normally needed to hibernate, except for an oddball like him.

If that was the case, why not make the most of this winter and look for powerful snakes to devour, gaining their ability models?

He could start by looking for pythons.

His body was certainly large now, measuring 5.5 meters in length.

Compared to most pythons, he could be said to be no smaller. But his body wasn't thick enough.

Because of the way he'd been born, his body was flattened and oval. He could spread it out quite wide, but it wasn't round enough, and he had relatively little muscle mass.

That was unlike snakes in the python family, whose bodies were generally round and packed with muscle.

Because of his evolution, his strength might not be any worse than a python's when it came to a sudden burst of power, but he could never match one in endurance.

His body's flexibility and agility also fell short.

Pythons were famous for their powerful constriction. Their constricting strength spoke for itself: their bodies had to be both supple and incredibly agile.

Otherwise, how could they coil around their prey or enemies?

As for Bai Chuan, the Eye King did rely on its size, but it depended much more on venom. Compared to pythons, its use of its body was a mere drop in the ocean.

It wasn't completely useless, but despite its long body, it had no real ability to constrict.

For venomous snakes, the only dangerous part was always the head. With pythons, every inch of their body was dangerous.

So if he could gain a python's abilities, he would no longer have a single weakness. His growing size would no longer be pointless or of little use.

By then, his body would be incredibly agile, and he'd have a python's constriction, deadly venom, sharp claws, electric current, and invisibility.

Just how powerful would he be? What shortcomings could he possibly have?

Just thinking about it made Bai Chuan feel excited.

In this weather, if he found a hibernating python, he'd gain not only its abilities but also food—and all without lifting a finger, with no risk at all.

It was a deal with nothing to lose and everything to gain.

With that thought in mind, Bai Chuan put every ounce of effort into searching.

All the sensory organs across his body stayed alert, sensing his surroundings without pause.

But sometimes, no matter how much you wanted something, you couldn't make it happen. Things often didn't go your way.

This mountain range was vast, and the snowy forest stretched as far as the eye could see. Finding a python hibernating in some underground or otherwise well-hidden cave was no easy task.

If they were so easy to find, snakes would have gone extinct during hibernation long ago.

And so Bai Chuan spent over a week searching.

Fortunately, during that time he found the dens of plenty of other creatures—snakes, frogs, mice, hedgehogs, and more—so he wasn't left without any food at all.

Speaking of which, he had to mention hedgehogs. If he hadn't grown a pair of sharp claws, he might not have been able to do a thing about a hedgehog curled up into a ball of spines.

But now, with his sharp claws and electric current working together, it didn't take long for these once-troublesome creatures, too prickly to risk biting, to be torn apart and swallowed.