What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 10 Training Program

After returning home, Xiang Kun opened his notebook and recorded the sets of strength data he had obtained at the gym that day. He then went to check on the condition of the rabbit.

Xiang Kun replaced the rabbit’s food and water, and then left it alone. After all, this was “food,” not a “pet,” and it was best not to spend too much time interacting with it.

In the short term, Xiang Kun decided not to actively drink blood. He wanted to see how long it would take for hunger to kick in after a single blood-drinking session.

He checked his WeChat, which he had previously set to not send any notifications, so he wouldn’t know if others sent messages unless he actively checked it.

On WeChat, Chang Bin sent him the WeChat and phone number of the girl he wanted to introduce to him, and had already arranged a meeting place for them the night after tomorrow.

Chang Bin had originally planned to go to the meeting with Wang Han to make things less awkward, so they both would have someone they know present at the first meeting.

However, Xiang Kun refused, claiming that their presence would hinder his interaction and understanding of the girl as he would be more reserved.

Seeing as Xiang Kun felt this way, Chang Bin naturally didn’t insist on bringing his fiancee along, he simply cautioned Xiang Kun to be a good conversationalist, to be relaxed, show good manners, and leave a good impression.

Xiang Kun replied positively to Chang Bin, but in his heart, he was thinking about how to end this blind date as quickly, yet as tactfully, as possible.

He soon realized that his worries were unfounded. If the girl was as Chang Bin had described, she probably would not be interested in him.

His previous blind date experiences had proven this point. Xiang Kun, whether in terms of personal charm or objective conditions, found it hard to attract decent young women.

He also lacked romantic experience and was not adept at interacting with women.

Thus, he concluded that to end the blind date quickly without putting Chang Bin and Wang Han in an awkward position, he just had to be himself.

…

Xiang Kun checked the information gathered from the internet by his data-scraping script. After removing most of the literature and related critiques and comments, he found several accounts of adults having dental maladjustments, massive skin shedding, and spontaneous recovery of myopia – these “medical conditions.” However, even dental maladjustments in adults are usually a single tooth and due to issues arising from the baby-to-permanent teeth transition. The skin shedding and myopia recovery were also extreme individual cases, and none of them have taken place as quickly as in his case.

As for the simultaneous occurrence of several symptoms, including only being able to drink animal blood and vomiting whatever he eats, not a single piece of information could be found.

Although his data-scraping script had not yet completed crawling the required information, he halted its operation knowing that, continuing under these rules, the information generated would still be of little help.

He revised the rules to eliminate the previously irrelevant information, and then restarted the script.

The inability to find anyone with “symptoms” similar to his, made Xiang Kun increasingly anxious.

It wouldn’t matter if he was the first person to have these bodily changes due to X, or if the message had been deliberately concealed and blocked – either situation was not beneficial to him.

Xiang Kun initially wanted to answer some relevant questions anonymously on Zhihu, detailing part of his physical changes, to see if someone with a similar experience would contact him. Alternatively, he thought of posing questions on some medical and biotechnology forums or platforms to hopefully receive some answers. Professional students and researchers would undoubtedly have a clearer understanding of the related “cases” and “pathology” than him.

But after rethinking his options, he decided not to disclose his situation yet, even on the internet.

He spent another sleepless night.

Xiang Kun knew that now, other than possibly needing to sleep after drinking blood for digestion, he wouldn’t feel tired at any other time, day or night, and didn’t need to sleep.

Of course, it could also be that he hadn’t been awake long enough at one stretch, and maybe after a few more days, he would need to sleep regardless of whether he had drunk blood or not.

But for now, he had almost twice as much time to get things done and to think, compared to average days.

Not only did he not need to sleep, he didn’t need to eat either. His physical strength and energy were much stronger than before, and it was easier for him to focus and maintain his physical condition.

Looking at the records and pictures he had documented these days, and reflecting on the changes in his body after drinking blood twice, a thought popped up in Xiang Kun’s mind:

The changes in his body after drinking blood twice could be seen as some kind of strengthening of his body functions.

But he wondered if this kind of strengthening followed a fixed pattern, or if it changed depending on the type of blood drunk and the activities he did before drinking.

Just like how normal people go to the gym for strength training and muscle building – through intense strength training to break down muscle fibers, then consuming protein to repair and grow muscles, and increase strength.

If you focus on bench press and similar strength training, targeting chest and tricep muscles, these muscles will grow in size and strength. You can train specifically and improve specifically.

After his second time drinking rabbit blood, Xiang Kun’s strength increased significantly. Was this increase related to his muscular exercises of doing a large number of push-ups before?

If so, what’s the limit to this increase, and can it exceed the normal human body limit?

Apart from muscles, can other abilities also be enhanced?

His body now was vastly different from a normal human body, and the methods of muscle and strength increase should also be different. But the pattern should still be similar – the body detects a limit and hence, makes various adjustments like hormone changes, increasing certain abilities, to help him survive better.

Xiang Kun decided to conduct target-specific “training” before the next blood-drinking to determine the pattern of bodily changes after each blood consumption.

As for the “training” subjects and contents, Xiang Kun created a new document:

1, Single-arm strength training, focusing on the left arm: Dumbbell Curl, etc.

2, Vision training: Practicing Long-Distance Vision.

3, Lung capacity: Practicing holding breath.

The first exercise would have to wait until daytime to be conducted at the gym. As for the second and third exercises, they could start now.

Actually, Xiang Kun wasn’t even sure if these exercises would work, but he decided to give them a try.

He positioned three books at a distance where the words were just unreadable, recorded this distance in the document, and then kept shifting his gaze between the three books, trying to read the words.

After ten minutes, he began to hold his breath and recorded his breath holding limit in the document.

He repeated this cycle until dawn.