What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 63: Telekinetic Training?

After leaving Tang Baona’s complex, Xiang Kun did not immediately call a cab, but instead leisurely strolled down the road.

It had been a while since he last patrolled the bustling areas at night. Even though it was now close to midnight, many restaurants, convenience stores, and snack shops in the vicinity remained open. Delivery men and people either returning from or headed for entertainment could be seen everywhere.

Raised sensory abilities and an increase in brain capacity to process these sensory inputs were the result of targeted training and several mutations he had undergone recently.

As he strolled down the streets, he used the information collected from his vision, hearing, and smell to develop a 3-D holographic map of everything within a ten-meter radius centered on him.

Of course, there are plenty of discrepancies between the real world and this imagined one, but what he gets is sufficient for him to understand his surroundings.

Whenever he saw people, he subconsciously estimated their professions and probable destinations at the fastest speed.

For instance, the man who had just staggered past him wearing a white shirt and dark-colored suit pants, smelling of sweat, indicating he had been outdoors all day, was likely a salesman. The scent of alcohol and barbecue suggested he had just finished grabbing a bite with friends or co-workers and was now heading home.

This estimation took just over two seconds.

Of course, Xiang Kun was unsure whether his judgement is always right. These were, after all, preliminary “scans” of the people and environment around him, like a radar that only alerts when there are obvious anomalies.

He believes that with his targeted training and increased frequency of blood drinking leading to more physical mutations, his judgement will become faster and more accurate.

If Xia Libing’s first judgement about him having high vigilance is something he would have wholeheartedly agreed with.

He indeed had high vigilance, especially after his mutation.

Vigilance originates from a sense of insecurity, and insecurity comes from the unknown and uncertainties.

After realizing that he could guide the direction of his mutation by conducting targeted training before blood drinking, Xiang Kun had been focusing on enhancing his sensory abilities and the speed of processing sensory information. The goal was to gather more information, reduce the “unknown” factors in his surroundings, enabling him to better control and understand his environment.

However, the real “unknown” lies within his own body.

His sense of insecurity comes more from his own body rather than the external world.

His constantly changing body, so different from ordinary individuals, was filled all over with “unknown” factors and “uncertainties”.

Even though Xiang Kun had documented a multitude of data relevant to his bodily changes, summarized a large number of laws regarding these changes, and even guided the direction of the changes through targeted training based on a “Vampire Mutation Model”, the truth was, he still knew very little about the cause of his abnormal changes, and had no idea where these mutations might eventually lead him.

If possible, Xiang Kun had hoped to collaborate with some authoritative medical institutions or research institutions.

However, not being able to find any similar ‘cases’ or related information on the internet made him temporarily give up this idea.

About the gray powder that was formed from the tissues of his own body, he had thought about sending a sample to externally operating labs for analysis.

After a series of tests like infrared, nuclear magnetic resonance, X-ray

Diffraction, and elemental analysis, he would probably know what it was.

But he was worried that if they discovered some special or strange substance, it might expose his secret prematurely and bring him trouble.

He had also considered studying a postgraduate degree in biology for researching himself and possibly winning an award…

This idea too was quickly dismissed, considering his current situation, his lifestyle wasn’t suitable for studying with others. Plus, for him who had a mutation cycle of 5-6 days, the learning process might be too long.

Self-study?

Actually, right from when his mutations began, he had been reading a large amount of basic medical and biological tutorials and all kinds of related cutting-edge information, trying to find theories and methods explaining his bodily mutations.

That’s why, when he accidentally met Professor Li, he chatted a lot with him. When he heard from Tang Baona that Yang Zhen’er worked in a pharmaceutical company and played poker with a postgraduate from the Medical University, he immediately agreed to join them, hoping to learn from these “professionals” and figure out the direction to study in.

Even though Yang Zhen’er was in finance and Xia Libing is a psychology postgraduate, the interaction tonight did not achieve the expected goals. However, playing cards and chatting with the three women made him feel a return to normal life’s rhythm, which he found beneficial for his mental adjustment.

Moreover, under his deliberate guidance that night, they discussed some movies about superpowers, vampires, and mutations, such as Scarlett Johansson’s ‘Lucy’.

It tells the story of the female protagonist swallowing a pill causing her brain to become 100% developed, transforming her into a form of superhuman. Of course, the idea that “the average human being only uses 10% of their brain” has been debunked numerous times—it’s a load of crap.

But one thing is clear: for many people, the potential of the brain remains untapped.

As for Xiang Kun, he had discovered that his brain, or rather his mental capacity, was also affected by the ‘mutation’.

At first, he only noticed improvements in concentration, mental state, memory, and the efficiency of reading and thinking. All these tied into his overall physical condition and didn’t reveal much.

But as he continued to enhance his sensory capacities, his brain’s information processing capacity reached a limit. Consequently, he carried out targeted training.

These enhancements in the processing of sensory information are, in reality, the evolution of brain capacity.

Xiang Kun couldn’t deny the thought: improving memory, computational ability, and reaction speed through targeted training shouldn’t be a problem— after all, this had already happened.

He could find ways to become “smarter”, with stronger learning ability, to help grasp more knowledge and understand and research his own mutation.

But at the same time… could he somehow, through telekinetic training, make his brain evolve functions it originally didn’t possess through the mutation?

Upon this thought, Xiang Kun stopped in his tracks, disregarding rideshares, and hailed a taxi home instead.

Although reason told him the thought was ridiculous with a low chance of success, since such absurd things were already happening to him, perhaps there might be a surprise in giving it a try?

So once he got home, he closed all the doors and windows, turned off the air conditioner, and the fan, making sure there were no major currents in his house.

Then he placed a napkin on the table, sat down, and stared thoughtfully at it, imagining controlling its movements.

But after only a short while, he found himself unconsciously changing focus, zooming in his view, even able to clearly see the texture of the tissue.

The scent of the tissue was also delivered clearly to his brain.

And if he stared for too long, his consciousness would uncontrollably start to drift, even subconsciously calculating the size, thickness, weight of the paper, and guessing the pulp raw material and possible place of origin based on smell…

Quickly shaking his head, he cleared these thoughts, redirecting his attention back to “moving it”.

Xiang Kun sat at the napkin for over eight hours, from midnight until the sun came up. His eyes were still fixed on the napkin, which, however, didn’t move a hair’s breadth.

He was not disheartened by this, as this was just “training” to start with.

Because of the sudden idea the previous night, Xiang Kun sat in front of a napkin for more than 16 hours, only getting up for a few minutes in between to drink some water.

Although it might seem straightforward, this process was far more painful than his 16-hour physical, muscle, or sensory training sessions.

At seven in the evening, when his hunger kicked in, Xiang Kun moved his eyes away from the napkin and went into the kitchen to get two rabbits for blood intake—those were the two rabbits he had injected his own blood into but from the observations, they showed no signs of mutations.

Of course, this time he didn’t swallow any stone to resist the urge to sleep. After cleaning up the mess, he prepared the rabbit meat and put it in the fridge then directly went to bed.

When Xiang Kun woke up at 8:43 the next evening, his first reaction was to dash beside the living room table, firmly gazing at the napkin on it, attempting to move it with his “thoughts”.

But twenty minutes later, the napkin remained still.

Xiang Kun even had the strange sensation that the patterns on the napkin resembled a face, laughing at him. It was a blatant mockery.

Xiang Kun sighed. A weak gust of air escaped from his mouth, causing the napkin on the tabletop to gently flutter, then slowly fall to the ground along the smooth surface of the table.

Controlling things with telekinesis? Damn, I must have dreamt too much!