茶杯狐 -CUPFOX

Chapter 45 Going out

Xiang Kun reviewed his two battles with the Giant Owl.

The first was a meeting engagement by the lake. Although the owl took the initiative, it was not entirely a sneak attack. After all, Xiang Kun had already located it by scent, leaving him time to react.

In terms of his response, he had done nothing wrong. After evading the first strike, he didn’t opt to continue escaping, showing his back to the Giant Owl, but instead chose to engage in close combat, wrestling with sheer strength. Hence, despite losing the initiative and having to respond hastily, he still managed to wear the owl down by trading injuries.

In the second engagement in the forest, Xiang Kun became the one actively seeking battle. He even shed blood to entice the Giant Owl to attack. Then, using the moment the owl swooped down from above, he seized the timing and the gap, leaped directly through its claws, embraced the owl, and stabbed a screwdriver into its eye.

It might seem like he was taking a risk, but in reality, Xiang Kun, backed by his powerful Dynamic Vision, was able to make accurate judgments of the owl’s actions. With the estimation that the owl’s eye injury had not fully healed, affecting its sight, judgment of space and distance could be slightly off and delayed, he had a greater likelihood of success.

In summary, Xiang Kun believed that:

1, He needs to continue enhancing his Dynamic Visual Ability, which plays a crucial role in frontal fighting or during dangerous moments;

2, He needs to boost his strength, but at the same time, flexibility, speed, and agility shouldn’t be compromised. He needs to balance the training load between the two. He still needs to do a lot of flexibility, agility, and running speed training while improving his strength, so as to avoid excessive weight and bulk growth;

3, His previous judgment about Striking Technique was indeed correct. Most of the systematic Striking Techniques do not help him much, because those techniques target normal human bodies. He doesn’t need to participate in competitions or fights. As in the deadly battles last night, everything is over in a flash once contact is made. Being faster, stronger, more ferocious, and perfect, any additional technique is not as useful as a screwdriver or metal object. However, this does not mean that he doesn’t need any technique at all. He still needs to summarize and learn on his own, to find methods that suit him and better utilize his physical capabilities;

4, When facing mutated raptors or beasts like the Giant Owl, he can’t brute force his way through or show fear. He needs to target their weaknesses and go all out once he identifies them, being more ruthless and fiercer than them.

Looking back on his two encounters with the Giant Owl, Xiang Kun realized that other than the initial shock of seeing the owl for the first time, during both his injury for injury battle by the lake and his flying assassination in the mountains, he felt tense and excited, but there was not a hint of fear or terror.

The wounds inflicted by the owl were painful, but that pain somehow excited him, even giving him the sensation of being able to unleash greater strength than usual. The more painful it was, the sharper his mind became. After the pain subsided and the wounds healed, he experienced a pleasure similar to what he felt after jogging or working out in the past.

He felt like he was really enjoying those life-and-death battles.

This should be a change brought about by his mutation because he used to be rather careful and cautious. Frankly speaking, it wouldn’t be wrong to say he was rather timid.

This also served as a warning for him, reminding him to closely monitor his own emotions.

When encountering danger, he should be ruthless, ferocious, and willing to risk his life when necessary. But in normal times, he needs to exercise restraint to avoid being affected by his aggressive and combative emotions.

Next, Xiang Kun spent a few hours sorting out the images from the Giant Owl’s memories.

The scenes in the owl’s post-mutation memory spanned across all four seasons, meaning that the owl had been mutated for at least a year. And in those images, the number of prey the owl had hunted and bled after mutation was two hundred and thirteen.

If Xiang Kun was used as a reference, then the owl should have undergone at least two hundred and thirteen mutations — and there might be many more hunting and blood-drinking scenes that Xiang Kun didn’t get.

As for the human cities the owl had been through, besides the places in his own city that Xiang Kun was familiar with, there was another relatively undeveloped town or village that it had passed by after leaving the mountains.

Although there were no significant landmarks or shop names in the image for Xiang Kun to determine his location, he saw the Chinese characters and letters on the license plates of the cars on the road and knew it was from a neighbouring city.

Xiang Kun recalled the forum post he had found when he searched the internet after being attacked by the Giant Owl at the lake the night before. The post was originally posted in the forum of a certain county in the neighbouring city.

So, Xiang Kun found the post and sent a direct message to the poster claiming to be a journalist for a news website and requested for an interview.

Then he found the poster’s previous posts and used his username, location, age, etc. to conduct a internet-wide search, thus determining that he lived in a certain village in a specific county of the neighbouring city.

After receiving his new phone from Jingdong in the afternoon, Xiang Kun left home, boarded the bus to the station, and purchased a ticket to the neighbouring city.

Upon reaching the bus station in the neighbouring city, Xiang Kun transferred to another bus heading towards the poster’s county.

On the bus, Xiang Kun finally received a private message from the poster. However, the poster was clearly skeptical, believing that Xiang Kun was a scammer pretending to be a journalist.

Not bothering to engage in a debate, Xiang Kun asked for his phone number promising to top up his account with a 100 yuan phone credit as a thank-you for the interview, and hinted at more incentives after the interview.

The doubtful poster sent his number over, and immediately received a message from the telephone company confirming that indeed 100 yuan of credit was added.

Immediately after, Xiang Kun called him, inquiring about the circumstances at that time, and asked for specific details about the location and the tree where he had seen the strange figure.

The poster then repeated his original post in detail, with Xiang Kun occasionally interrupting to ask questions.

“Did the figure in the tree move at all? What was its manner of movement?”

“What did the figure look like, for example, was its head large? Could you see its limbs?”

“Did you approach the tree later to observe? Were there any traces left behind, such as footprints, claw marks, or feces?”

“Before it disappeared, did you see which direction it moved in, upwards or downwards?”

The poster answered all of Xiang Kun’s questions, and at the end, he asked, suspiciously: ‘Which news website are you from? Why are you interested in my post? It didn’t get many replies or clicks.”

Xiang Kun off-handedly replied, “I am a journalist from UC News. We are currently doing a special feature on rural superstitions and tales, so we are collecting similar stories that have a basis in reality and first-hand experiences.

“Of course they are true! By the way, what other incentives did you mention earlier…?” The poster showed no doubt at all and was more concerned about the previously mentioned incentives.

“Rest assured, once I submit the story to our editor for review and it’s approved, I will formally request a face-to-face interview with you. Then you will receive a substantial interview fee.”

After ending the call, Xiang Kun had already arrived at the county station. He immediately hired a car outside the station and headed for the village mentioned by the poster.

From the description given by the poster during their phone conversation, Xiang Kun had already suspected that the “human figure” seen on the tree a month ago could have possibly been the giant owl. As his car began driving along the mountain road towards the village, he became more certain because he had seen this road within the owl’s memories from an aerial perspective.

Xiang Kun had followed the clues here as quickly as possible hoping to find the original habitat of the owl and perhaps discover some clue as to how it had mutated or if there were any other of its kind present..