Entering the Mountain

Chapter 46: Entering the Mountains

It was already past eight in the evening by the time they neared the village.

Xiang Kun's original plan was to first scout the tree mentioned by the forum poster to confirm if it was indeed the giant owl he had seen. He intended to have the driver wait for a while, then head to a nearby town to find a hotel or inn to rest for the night before heading into the mountains to search the next day.

However, once the sky turned dark, Xiang Kun changed his mind.

This was because he suddenly discovered that his visual capabilities at night had undergone a significant improvement—or perhaps, a mutation.

When the light was dim, he could actively switch to a new visual mode, as if a "lens" had been overlaid onto his retinas. The environment, which had previously been dim, instantly became incredibly clear—even clearer than the footage from night-vision devices he had seen in movies and on television.

Yet, the scenery viewed in this mode was different from normal conditions; because there was no color, the entire world seemed to be composed of black and white, or more precisely, varying degrees of light and shadow. However, this mode allowed him to judge the distance and movement of objects with great precision.

This was no longer a simple visual enhancement; it was the complete addition of a new mode.

He knew very clearly that this was not a result of his training or the direction of his mutation; it was ninety-nine percent likely due to drinking the blood of that giant owl.

He had read the data: an owl's night vision is exceptionally strong.

With this ability, Xiang Kun now possessed the capacity to operate in the mountains at night, meaning many things no longer had to be restricted to daylight hours.

Therefore, upon arriving at the destination, Xiang Kun told the car that brought him to return.

Most of the young people in the village had gone to the cities to work or study, leaving mostly the elderly behind. There were no streetlights in the village, and unless there was some sort of event, people rested very early, so there weren't many people on the roads.

Thus, Xiang Kun was not disturbed in the slightest as he quietly found the largest tree at the village entrance, the one mentioned by the poster.

Although Xiang Kun had never climbed a tree before, given his current physical fitness, this was naturally not a problem.

After scrambling up the tree, Xiang Kun switched back to his normal visual mode, turned on his flashlight, and carefully inspected the area where the "human shadow" mentioned by the poster was supposedly located.

It wasn't that he couldn't see clearly in night-vision mode, but some traces required color discrimination, and details were easier to spot under strong light.

After rustling around in the tree for about twenty minutes, Xiang Kun indeed found claw marks.

He knew that if the shadow the poster had seen a month ago was indeed that giant owl, then given its weight, size, and sharp talons, it would certainly have left deep claw marks, and they would definitely be on a thicker horizontal branch.

A month had passed, and the owl's scent had dissipated, but the claw marks remained.

Upon finding the marks, Xiang Kun felt a surge of energy. His analysis and initial intuition had been correct; this trip had not been in vain.

After climbing down from the tree, Xiang Kun took out his phone, opened a map app, and observed the situation surrounding the village.

In fact, on the way there, Xiang Kun had already conducted an investigation. Although this village was in the mountains, it was far from being deep in the wilderness. It was only a forty-minute drive from the nearest town, the road conditions weren't bad, and there was plenty of traffic. This was, at most, a stopover point for the owl after it had left its original habitat.

Let alone the fact that there was no scent of the owl now, even if there were, Xiang Kun couldn't possibly track it from here.

On the map, to the east and south of the village were increasingly flat plains and cities, becoming more and more prosperous.

To the north was a large mountain, but beyond it were also densely populated towns.

Only to the west—the further west one went, the more dense the forests became, the lower the level of development, stretching all the way into the neighboring province.

Xiang Kun speculated that the place where the owl had previously lived should be in that area.

He did not linger in the vicinity, nor did he look for a place to rest for the night. Instead, he shouldered his backpack and headed west, stepping into the darkness of the mountains.

In his backpack were two sets of spare clothes, several pairs of socks, underwear, a power bank, a flashlight with a row of spare batteries, a Swiss Army knife, and a water bottle.

If a wilderness survival enthusiast saw what Xiang Kun had brought, they would likely shake their heads; it was simply too little, lacking many basic essentials.

But for Xiang Kun, these items were sufficient.

In fact, because of the newly discovered night vision, Xiang Kun didn't even need a flashlight while moving at night.

He didn't stick to the paths, nor did he blindly charge westward. He would frequently stop to find a tall tree to climb or ascend other high points with good visibility to observe his surroundings.

Xiang Kun was comparing the surrounding scenery to the images from the owl's memories he had acquired, using them to track the owl's footprints and habitat, searching for any traces it might have left behind.

At 2:00 PM on August 16, a bald backpacker was sprinting at high speed along a mountain road.

He wasn't just running on the road; when passing certain curves, he would even jump directly from above to take a shortcut.

The drop was at least two stories high, but after landing, the bald man would roll to dissipate the force and continue sprinting at full speed.

If anyone saw him, they would surely be astonished—not just by the bald man's speed or his leap from such a height, but even more so by the fact that... this guy was actually barefoot.

This bald man was, naturally, Xiang Kun. On the fifth day after entering the deep mountains alone, he decided to end this journey and head home.

Although, all told, Xiang Kun had only been in the mountains for four and a half days, roughly 110 hours, he was different from ordinary people. He had basically not stopped to rest during those 110 hours; regardless of day or night, he was constantly moving. He didn't need to forage for food, cook, rest, sleep, or even find a place to relieve himself. Therefore, the actual utility of his four and a half days was likely stronger than fifteen days for an ordinary person.

As a result, he had even walked his shoes to pieces. He had brought spare clothes and a backpack, but there was no way to replace his shoes. He had no choice but to walk the world with his bare, leather-tough feet. At first, his feet were a bloody mess with countless abrasions and bruises, but since his recovery ability was strong, he didn't pay much attention to it, treating it as targeted training for trauma recovery.

During these four and a half days, Xiang Kun found many traces left by the owl, mostly claw marks left in various places. He even found the skeletal remains of a beast that had died at the hands of the owl based on those memory images; the marks left on the bones showed just how terrifying the killing power of the owl's talons was.

He also found the owl's mutated nest—a rock cave on a cliff face.

Xiang Kun also confirmed the range in which the owl hunted and lived before its mutation, as many of the landmarks corresponded to the memory images he had obtained.

Unfortunately, he did not find any clues regarding the cause of the giant owl's mutation.

Besides this, Xiang Kun had also hunted a few wild animals in the mountains. Although he only carried a Swiss Army knife and it was difficult to deal with thick-skinned, medium-to-large animals like wild boars, catching a wild rabbit or pheasant was quite simple.

Xiang Kun mainly did this to test if the fresh blood of these wild animals differed from the farmed poultry and livestock bought at the wet market. He only licked a tiny bit of each, not daring to taste more, lest he fall into a sleep state after ingesting too much blood.

The result was that there was no difference from what he bought at the market.

However, this trip into the mountains was not entirely without gain.