Translator: Atlas Studios
Editor: Atlas Studios
Xiang Kun woke up and shot a glance at his phone screen.
10:27 PM, July 25th.
He recalled that he had forgotten to start the stopwatch when he passed out the night before.
According to his vague memory, the last time he checked the time was at about 8:50 PM, which meant that he had fallen asleep at around 9 PM.
Xiang Kun had not recorded the exact amount of time he had slept after his first feeding session. But a rough estimate would be about 27 hours. He had used a timer for his second sleep, which was 25 hours and 17 minutes in total.
This time was about the same—slightly more than 25 hours.
There was a certain element of particularity in the first time. Hence, it was reasonable to exclude it from the analysis. A preliminary conclusion could then be drawn from the last two experiences that he would need at least 25 hours of sleep after each feeding. In other words, he would “vanish” for one whole day.
Xiang Kun decided he would set an alarm before the next sleep. He wanted to test whether he could be forcibly woken up during his rest.
After that, he started to examine the new changes to his body. He first looked at the three open books that had been placed at the same spot the whole time. He had been using them to train his eyesight.
The light in the room had always been on during his practice. Hence, the effects of lighting could be ruled out. After a brief glance, Xiang Kun moved one of the books backwards and stepped further away, until his back was touching the wall.
His eyesight had already been better than normal people’s before his third feeding. Even then, he was unable to see the words at the original distance.
But now, those words could not be any clearer.
He knew that he could see them well even from another one meter away.
Xiang Kun pulled open his window and gazed at the night view outside. He immediately felt as if the entire world had been switched to high-resolution mode.
Done testing his eyesight, Xiang Kun removed his clothes and measured the dimensions of his arms, thighs, waist, and his weight, but there were no significant increases.
He had gained 4.3kg of weight, weighing 91.7kg at the moment.
In fact, he had weighed himself before he drank blood the night before, and it was 87.1kg. There had been a slight drop in his weight after his second feeding.
However, taking into account the rabbit blood he had drunk and the glass of water he had consumed after waking up, the total should not exceed 400g.
Apparently, all the weight gains had come from his increased muscle volume.
Xiang Kun then timed the duration he could hold his breath for, which surged from a maximum of 8 minutes 44 seconds before the third feeding to 11 minutes 35 seconds now.
Clearly, the training regime, which focused on eyesight and lung capacity, had resulted in remarkable progress.
Of course, he could not be sure yet whether the improvement was directly linked to his training.
He had to wait till the next day to test the results of his left arm bicep curls at the gym. Normally, his right arm was stronger than his left one. Hence, his right arm should still be stronger if there had been an overall improvement in physical abilities after feeding. However, his speculation would be proven right if his left arm turned out to be more powerful. It would be verified that the changes to his body, as well as areas that had been improved, were directly related to the training he had engaged in right before feeding.
That was also the reason he had been training his left arm alone while neglecting his right arm.
Although he did not have access to gym facilities right now, he could tell that his left arm was much stronger than his right arm based on measurements taken on his arms and his sense of strength in both arms.
As usual, Xiang Kun recorded all data on physical changes, uploaded a few photos, and saved the documents. As he studied his own photos, his eyebrows knitted together in unease. It seemed his muscles had been growing too fast due to his high-intensity workouts in the past few days!
Oftentimes, there were online posts from workout newbies crying about their fear of becoming “ugly, muscular monsters” before they even stepped into the gym. Those posts would often receive taunting remarks from experienced gym-hitters, who explained the extreme difficulty in getting those bulky muscles. Not only did they have to commit to laborious, long-term training of a strict regime, they also had to control their intake of food and supplements. Sometimes, they even had to use drugs like steroids.
Now Xiang Kun had really encountered that issue. Judging from his body’s changes after his feeding this time, he would really become a “man of muscles” after a few feeding sessions if he carried on with this high-intensity strength training.
On the one hand, drastic differences in his physique over such a short time would certainly attract unnecessary attention and speculations. On the other hand, large muscles would adversely affect his agility. Therefore, he had to modify the focus of his training in the next few days.
The feeding this time had granted Xiang Kun a few bits of important data:
“1. The time between each feeding and the occurrence of the next hunger is around six days. Not counting the 25 hours of sleep after each feeding session, it is estimated that blood can last for five days of unaffected daily activities. During this 5×24 hours, there is no need for rest, sleep, or any form of ingestion.
“2. Hunger comes with uncontrollable emotions and actions, and will last for around 22 hours. Based on the ‘poem reciting’ video clips recorded since the night of the 23rd, there are obvious signs of unsuppressable anxiety since the fourth hour after the onset of hunger. However, the symptoms are greatly relieved during the day.
“3. The time between the onset of sleepiness after feeding to falling asleep uncontrollably is around one and a half hours.”
The data could serve as a reference, though its reliability remained to be tested. Yet it was still useful as guidelines.
Xiang Kun checked his phone and saw Baona’s messages from two days ago. After he rejected her invitation, she replied, “It’s okay. Next time then.” with a sad emoji.
Judging from their chat history alone, Xiang Kun had been a bit too cold and passive. He guessed that Baona would never take the initiative to contact him again, even if she was kind enough not to block him.
Besides, it was too late to explain himself now. After all, this was what he had hoped for too.
Xiang Kun let out a sigh of regret as he realized that he had missed a cute and outgoing girl.
Unexpectedly, however, he bumped into Baona at the gym the next day.
At about 7 PM, Xiang Kun left the gym. On his way out, he ran into Baona, who was just entering for her yoga lessons.