Senior Owl

Chapter 47: Senior Owl

Xiang Kun had originally assumed that the owl's mutation path relied mostly on animal instinct and its inherent habits, unlike his own, which involved deliberate training and guidance.

However, near the owl's cliffside nest, a rock covered in claw marks beside a forest stream made Xiang Kun realize that this owl had actually been engaging in targeted training.

In the owl's memory fragments, Xiang Kun had not seen it sharpening its claws, but based on the spacing of the marks left on the rock, he determined they were indeed made by the giant owl.

Judging by the traces on the rock, it wasn't just sharpening its claws; it had performed a large number of grabbing, piercing, and gouging attacks. The initial claw "chiseling" marks were shallow, while the later ones grew increasingly deep. It was clear the owl had been using the rock as a dummy prey. Xiang Kun could imagine that its claws must have been covered in wounds and frequently broken at the start, but with its regenerative abilities, this had no impact on its survival. After the blood-drinking mutation, the sharpness and hardness of its claws would have undoubtedly increased significantly.

The giant owl's massive, razor-sharp claws had been forged through such repeated, reinforced mutations.

Upon discovering the owl's training method, a thought occurred to Xiang Kun: could he imitate the owl and sharpen his own fingernails? If he had possessed a set of sharp claws earlier, he wouldn't have needed any weapons; facing that giant owl, a single Black Tiger Steals the Heart strike would have been enough to deal considerable damage...

But he dismissed the thought almost instantly. After all, the structure of a bird's talons and a human's hands were different; the primary function of human hands remained the use of tools. If he could mutate ten retractable "iron claws," that would be fine, but if he simply mutated his fingernails into beast-like talons—hard and long—it would not only be eye-catching but also inconvenient for daily tasks, making even typing on a keyboard a struggle.

Xiang Kun also found a pile of small stones in the owl's cliffside cave nest. At first, he didn't understand why the owl would pile them up; it didn't look like it was lining the nest. Could this owl be "landscaping" its own home?

But after searching through the owl's memory fragments and finding a scene where it actively swallowed stones after hunting and drinking blood, Xiang Kun formed a hypothesis:

Could this be the owl's method of suppressing the drowsiness that followed blood-drinking so it could return to its nest before sleeping?

One had to remember that the wild was not like the city; deep mountains and dense forests were filled with all sorts of dangers.

Xiang Kun bought meat rabbits at the market and kept them at home, slaughtering them for blood whenever he needed. After drinking, he would fall asleep immediately. Unless his friends or family had an emergency and couldn't reach him, it was unlikely anyone would disturb him, let alone pose a danger.

But for that owl to drink blood, it had to hunt for itself. Because blood lost its efficacy if it left the body for too long or if the prey had been dead for too long, it generally drank on the spot or moved to a nearby location. It wouldn't specifically drag prey back to its nest—after all, many of the creatures it hunted after mutating were quite large.

Given this, if the owl were like Xiang Kun and experienced intense drowsiness after drinking blood, and if its sleep were long and difficult to rouse, then sleeping just anywhere in the wild would be dangerous.

Therefore, it swallowed stones into its stomach to suppress the drowsiness, holding out until it could fly back to its nest and vomit the stones out before sleeping safely.

Otherwise, there was no way to explain why it would swallow stones and then vomit them out specifically in its cliffside nest. After all, since its mutation, it only drank blood and did not consume other food, so it had no need for stones to aid digestion.

As for why it chose stones rather than meat or plants—things more suitable for "eating"—Xiang Kun guessed that stones were more uniform and denser, making them easier to suppress when the urge to vomit arose, and easier to expel completely in one go.

Of course, these were merely Xiang Kun's deductions and guesses. He planned to verify them with an experiment once he returned.

If effective, this could be a useful emergency measure.

For instance, after that great battle with the owl, if he could have used this method to stay awake, he might have been able to witness the process of the owl's corpse disappearing, which would have been a great help in understanding the mutation factors within himself and the owl.

Of course, more importantly, it would allow him to avoid falling into a deep, prolonged sleep in an unsafe location.

Although he hadn't found the cause of the owl's mutation this time, exploring its mutation process by comparing the various traces in its habitat with his memory fragments was still of great help to Xiang Kun in understanding himself.

After all, if one assumed that every hunt and blood-drinking session led to a period of deep sleep and mutation, this giant owl had mutated far more times than Xiang Kun.

Whether in terms of the number of mutations or the duration, it was a "great senior" to Xiang Kun.

Moreover, these four and a half days of life in the mountains had allowed Xiang Kun to better experience the improvements and changes in his physical functions following this mutation, and he had further familiarized himself with them through training.

Beyond gaining night vision from the owl's blood, his dynamic vision, hearing, and sense of smell had all been significantly enhanced, and this enhancement was not merely a matter of sensitivity.

In the mountain forest, he possessed an extremely strong ability to instantly distinguish the sounds and scents created by various other creatures—something Xiang Kun, who had always lived in the city, had not possessed before. It was as if he had directly acquired the owl's "database" for hearing and scent.

This made his survival in the forest incredibly easy; he often felt as if the world were entirely within his grasp.

Sometimes he even thought about how nice it would be if he also had the owl's ability to fly.

Of course, that was just a thought. If he were to mutate a pair of giant wings right now, he would truly be forced to live in seclusion in the mountains.

Xiang Kun, who had been sprinting along the mountain road, suddenly stopped and stood by the roadside, looking back at the mountains.

This area could no longer be considered "deep mountains." It was quite far from the region he had spent the last few days in. Although development was still minimal and there were few people, a mountain road had at least been paved. There were villages and temples on the mountains; occasionally, villagers drove up and down, and pilgrims went to the temples to offer incense.

The reason Xiang Kun stopped was that he heard the sound of a car. Ten seconds later, an SUV appeared around the bend.

He raised his right hand and gave a thumbs-up, the universal gesture for hitchhiking.

To be honest, he didn't hold much hope. Four cars heading down the mountain had already passed him, and none of them had reacted to his "thumbs-up," showing no intention of stopping.

Of course, he had no reason to complain. Even if the roles were reversed and he were the one driving, he wouldn't stop for a tall, dusty, barefoot, bald, muscular man flagging down a car on the side of the road.

Regardless, he could just keep running; by "taking shortcuts" from time to time, he wouldn't be much slower than a car—the mountain road had too many sharp, dangerous curves, and even heading down, no one dared to drive fast.

He had checked the map on his phone when he had a signal; there was a fairly large village at the foot of the mountain where he should be able to hire a car to take him to the nearest county or town to buy a ticket home.

However, his luck was good this time; the SUV actually slowed down and stopped beside him.