New Feelings

Chapter 21: New Sensations

Xiang Kun opened the window, and the sounds from outside immediately flooded into his ears with startling clarity. The sheer volume and chaotic nature of the noise left him quite uncomfortable, even causing a bout of tinnitus.

It wasn't just the sound; a barrage of pungent, highly stimulating odors followed, nearly forcing tears and snot from his nose.

Xiang Kun hurriedly shut the window, frowning as he thought: Is this enhancement of hearing and smell a bit too extreme?

If he were this sensitive all the time, wouldn't living in a city be a form of torture?

Fortunately, his worry didn't last long. After forcing himself to adapt for a while, Xiang Kun discovered that the overwhelming impact of his heightened senses quickly subsided.

The chaotic stream of auditory and olfactory information only became clear again when he consciously focused his attention on them.

It was similar to how his hearing had improved to a certain degree after his second time drinking blood; he might not have even noticed it if he hadn't closed his eyes on the rooftop one night and suddenly heard sounds he previously thought were impossible to catch.

The human brain filters and even blocks information received by the senses, only processing what people want or need to know.

Compared to the improvements in strength, vision, and lung capacity, the enhancements in hearing and smell were harder to quantify or track without specialized equipment.

In his room, Xiang Kun closed his eyes and attempted to focus his entire attention on his hearing, accepting the various auditory signals.

With his hearing significantly amplified, the information Xiang Kun received and his perception of time changed drastically. It wasn't just a simple amplification of all sounds; his brain was flooded with a cacophony of noise. For a short time, he struggled to identify the source and nature of each sound, feeling as though he simply couldn't "keep up" with the input.

He didn't know how much time had passed before Xiang Kun suddenly felt dizzy and nauseated. He quickly opened his eyes, took a long breath, and diverted his attention.

Was he still unable to adapt to the heightened hearing?

Reflecting on the sensation, he soon realized it wasn't the hearing itself, but rather his brain struggling to cope with the sheer volume of auditory data.

The human brain is constantly looking for ways to "slack off," though this laziness is, in fact, a self-preservation mechanism.

Sensory organs collect information incessantly, but this data is always "selected" based on necessity. Much of what we see, hear, smell, and feel is far more than we consciously perceive.

It's like those visual blind spot images; people often don't notice the strange details at first glance, only seeing them after a hint is provided. In reality, those details were always there, just ignored by the brain.

Now, although Xiang Kun's senses had evolved and he was receiving exponentially more information, his brain's ability to process that data hadn't evolved at the same rate. After all, his previous training hadn't involved processing such a massive influx of auditory input simultaneously.

So, after resting for a while, Xiang Kun switched modes, focusing his attention on only a single sound at a time.

Amidst the honking of cars, the shouting of vendors, and the blaring of music from outside, Xiang Kun carefully peeled away the layers of noise, searching for the sound closest to him...

Tick, tick. Was that the sound of a faucet dripping in the bathroom? No, it wasn't his own; it was the neighbor's.

A sudden clatter echoed through the pipes—the sound of a toilet flushing upstairs, the wastewater rushing down the drain.

Was that a sharp gunshot? Was the young man upstairs playing a shooter game or watching a movie?

He faintly heard someone speaking—it sounded like a woman's voice, but it was a low, buzzing murmur, and he couldn't make out the words.

Xiang Kun stepped out of his room, walking down the hallway with his eyes narrowed, then descended the stairs. He was tracking the source of that female voice.

This ability to pinpoint the source of a sound was something he had been focusing on for the past few days, and it seemed to be working quite well.

A few minutes later, Xiang Kun finally located the source. It wasn't in his building, but in the grocery store diagonally across the street. It was the shopkeeper's daughter talking on the phone.

Xiang Kun stood across the street, over a dozen meters away from the store. The daughter was on the second floor, completely out of sight and separated by a wall.

Yet, Xiang Kun could hear the content of her conversation clearly.

At that moment, the entire world seemed to have been muted, save for the woman's voice on the line.

However, this required intense concentration. Once he relaxed or shifted his focus—for instance, when the grocery store owner greeted him—the daughter's voice became muffled and indistinct, as the chaotic, varied sounds from other directions immediately reclaimed his mind.

But as it stood, Xiang Kun was still deeply shocked by the improvement in his hearing.

The magnitude of this change far exceeded his previous expectations.

After all, when he had trained his physical strength after the first two times he drank blood, the improvements remained within the realm of a normal human. Aside from his abnormal recovery speed and stamina, his absolute strength hadn't exceeded what a normal person could achieve.

But now, after only five days of training, his hearing was far beyond that of an ordinary person. He didn't believe any amount of training could bring a normal human to this level.

However, Xiang Kun speculated that perhaps his sensory organs hadn't physically changed that much, but rather that his original capacity had finally been fully unlocked.

Xiang Kun continued to wander through the night, just as he had for the past few days, testing the hearing and smell he had honed through targeted training and mutation.

If his initial reaction to the series of bodily mutations had been fear and worry, he now felt mostly curiosity and excitement.

Having discovered that he didn't seem to be in immediate mortal danger, and despite the various inconveniences, the improvements to his bodily functions made Xiang Kun take a more proactive and positive attitude toward the mutations—if he was going to mutate anyway, why not steer it in the direction he desired?

For the past few days, Xiang Kun had spent almost every night wandering the streets. He knew the dozens of nearby roads like the back of his hand, yet walking them tonight felt entirely fresh, just like the sensation he had felt when he first stepped out into the night a few days ago.