What It's Like Being a Vampire

Xiang Kun instructed the taxi to drop him off at an area in the eastern part of the city near the mountains. He then got out of the car carrying a bird cage and set off to climb the mountain in a certain direction.

The surrounding area was not completely desolate, it was still within the city limits, with plenty of buildings on and around the mountain. Several roads and trails had also been established for cars to climb the mountain and for tourists to take pleasure walks on plank trails and stone steps.

However, a change in the weather was imminent; a storm was on the horizon, and naturally, there weren’t many people on the mountain. Moreover, Xiang Kun purposely deviated from the main road and ventured into the narrower paths. If not for the fear of damaging his clothes and shoes, which would make it inconvenient to hail a cab later, he would have plowed ahead just like he did in the Qinling Uninhabited Area.

Xiang Kun chose a rough route to the mountaintop. There were no accessible paths in this part and the area was overrun with weeds, devoid of any scenic beauty.

He casually climbed a tree, hung the bird cage on it, and planned to retrieve it when he was ready to leave.

However, after climbing down the tree, he thought for a moment, climbed back up, retrieved the bird cage and hid it somewhere else – although the chances were slim, if the tree was struck by lightning, it would be terribly unfortunate for the “golden glittering” inside.

Xiang Kun stood on the edge of the mountain, gazing at the looming clouds overhead, highly focused, his brain calculating rapidly.

He had now broken down various elements of the environment and created multiple cognitive models that collectively formed a large cognitive model of the atmospheric electric field. By using his cognitive patterns, he felt the changes in the magnetic and electric fields.

The intensity of the atmospheric electric field is constantly changing. The difference between the electrostatic field on a clear day and the changes during this “disturbed weather state” is significant. In the latter state, Xiang Kun could more easily collect the relevant data, which would help him improve his cognitive model of the atmospheric electric field.

Such calculations were beginning to give him a headache, but he was familiar with his own limits and didn’t put an immediate stop to it. Instead, he painstakingly controlled his cognitive intensity, maintaining his current state.

The better his cognitive model of the atmospheric electric field, the easier he would be able to infer the conditions he needed to mimic the flight of the mutated spider and construct and improve his cognitive model of “Electric Mastery Flight”.

With the passage of time, Xiang Kun was becoming more adept at judging the changes in the atmospheric electric field. His attention was now focused on a few low-hanging storm clouds. He knew that when the local electric field strength between the storm cloud and the ground reached the electric field strength required for atmospheric ionization, it would ionize the air and form a precursor discharge path – the first step towards lightning.

Of course, Xiang Kun did not plan on “intercepting” the lightning; he was not a cultivator seeking to overcome some celestial crisis.

Ninety percent of lightning bursts between the earth and clouds, with less than ten percent striking the ground directly. The average current of such lightning is thirty thousand amperes, which can even reach as high as three hundred thousand amperes.

The temperature produced by a lightning strike can reach up to thirty thousand degrees Celsius. Xiang Kun did not possess such extreme heat resistance. On the contrary, his experiments had shown that compared to physical damage, this kind of high temperature damage is far more lethal to him.

Those humans who were struck by lightning and survived were mostly hit by lightning on the periphery, not directly.

Xiang Kun was concentrating on the process of lightning formation, constantly improving his cognitive model.

Based on Xiang Kun’s previous observation of the “mutated spider” flight process and the fragments of the “mutated spider” flight memory obtained later, it seemed the spider could utilize the intense changes in the electric field during a lightning event to “charge” itself, thereby improving its flight ability.

However, this method of “charging” didn’t involve it getting directly hit by lightning.

If the “mutated spider” was compared to a boat and “flight” was compared to sailing on water, then the electric field during a thunderstorm would be akin to deeper water depths, capable of carrying this ship’s draught. However, in clear weather, there may not be enough water, making it easy to run aground.

“Charging” after the advent of lightning was like adding a power system to the boat, enabling it to navigate better in the waterway. Nonetheless, sufficient water depth was still a prerequisite for setting sail.

As a flash of lightning lit up the clouds and the thunder roared, Xiang Kun’s pupils gradually deepened.

His line of sight turned pitch black, as if his eyes were covered, but in this darkness, countless faint points changed and arranged themselves. It was not night vision or infrared thermal imaging mode, it was a sight Xiang Kun had never seen before. Yet, he didn’t feel blinded at all. He could still accurately determine his position and the surrounding conditions through those countless points. Most importantly, he could now relatively clearly feel the movement trends of a large amount of charge around him, and feel the specific changes in the electric field in the distant clouds.

A little over a second later, Xiang Kun’s vision returned to normal. He quickly observed his surroundings, and spotting a lake opposite the diagonal cliff face, he started to step back, leaving himself a sprint distance of about six or seven meters. Then, he took his phone out of his pocket, casually tossed it into the nearby grass- it was his recently replaced Redmi note8pro, and he didn’t want it to break or get wet later.

He slightly lowered his center of gravity and began to prepare.

A few minutes later, through his cognitive model, Xiang Kun seized the opportunity and started to sprint with all his might.

Inside the clouds, the Electric Dragon stirred, and amidst the rumbling thunder, the lightning split the air along the same path, disappearing mid-air.

Almost simultaneously as it disappeared, Xiang Kun leapt off the cliff.

With a loud bang, he turned into a ball of light, clearing a meter upwards off the ground like he was defying gravity, and then continued to plunge downwards.

However, due to the change, he didn’t fall towards the lake as initially planned.

“What are you looking at? Let’s get going, it’s about to rain, and we didn’t bring an umbrella!”

A woman who appeared to be in her thirties, carrying a child’s schoolbag, briskly walked on a small path laid with stones. She realized her trailing son had stopped and immediately turned around to urge him.

“Over there, it seems like someone jumped off a cliff…” a boy who appeared to be in the third or fourth grade of primary school muttered, looking at the distance.

Following her son’s gaze, the woman saw the cliff but frowned, “Why would anyone jump off from there? Are they crazy?”

For one, the cliff was not very high, and two, below it was either a lake or a dense forest. Falling from there won’t result in immediate death, but a high probability of serious injury or paralysis. No one would be foolish enough to jump off the cliff, and the son’s line of sight directed at a path unreachable by any road. Who could have reached there? Her husband working in this scenic spot has told her that these are all small mountains, and no one has ever attempted a suicidal jump. Although there have been a few cases of accidental falls.

The woman initially speculated whether someone had accidentally fallen and was about to question the boy further. She wanted to confirm whether she needed to call the police and notify the park management. However, her son’s next sentences infuriated her.

“It seems like the person turned into a ball of fire, no, a ball of light, no, turned into the sun and flew away.” The boy frowned and changed his wording several times before settling on what he thought was the most accurate description.

However, the next thing he knew, his ear was being tugged by his mother, “Did you sneakily use your father’s mobile phone to read online novels again? Are you reading those stories about flying up to the sun in the daytime, transforming horse energy into fighting spirit? A ball of light? The Sun? No wonder you’ve been doing worse and worse in the exams. No wonder during the parent-teacher conference, your headteacher said that you’ve been leaving your homework incomplete!”

Xiang Kun was far away from that mother and son duo. He was currently lying motionless on the ground. Many broken branches and leaves had fallen down with him.

He had initially predicted that his landing area would be the small lake, but he hadn’t expected that after “charging” mid-air, he would fly so far directly outside the lake.

Fortunately, the lakeside was surrounded by trees. After being enveloped by the Light Group, Xiang Kun’s downward momentum shifted. He was thrown forward instead of downward, and the buffering by the tree branches ensured he didn’t fall too heavily.

Xiang Kun lay on the ground for several minutes, waiting for his body to self-heal and also recalling the sensation of being encompassed by the Light Group.

When the Light Group appeared and enveloped him briefly, he was immediately yanked downwards due to his weight. Clearly, the Light Group was incapable of bearing his weight and letting him fly. Simultaneously, he could not detect a way to consciously form the Light Group and control its direction.

The Light Group, to him, appeared much like his shadow, arising after a numbing sensation on the scalp, but he could not perceive it distinctly.

Xiang Kun was now like a sailor who had set out to sea, yet his ship had sunk even before leaving the dock…

But he was elated. After all, he had touched the ship and seen the sea.

Although he knew he had a long way to go before he could really fly, Xiang Kun now had confirmation that he indeed had acquired the flight-related ability from the mutated spider’s blood. To fully incorporate this ability into his own body and fly, he needed many more improvements and modifications, and needed to finish updating his cognitive model of Electric Mastery Flight.

After his body had recovered, Xiang Kun climbed back up the mountain on the same path.

Having wandered in the Qinling Uninhabited Area, Xiang Kun was now adept at navigating through woods and mountains, climbing up a small mountain more effortlessly than a monkey.

Returning to the site where he had jumped off the cliff, Xiang Kun accurately located where he had left his phone. But as he stooped to pick it up, a sharp pain shot through his fingers, and the phone burst into sparks then he instinctively flung it away.

“Damn it!”

Xiang Kun shook his hand, glanced at his partially scorched fingers, then looked at his phone, which was obviously toast, lying not far away. He felt like crying but had no tears.

Clearly, he still had a large amount of electrical charge surrounding his body, which had not cleared away.

Even though his phone was ruined, Xiang Kun couldn’t just leave it there. After making sure it wouldn’t ignite, he picked it up, put it in his pocket, then went to retrieve the shiny coin.

His clothes were dirty and torn, and he predicted he would be refused a taxi ride if he tried to take one looking like this. Luckily, this was not a remote mountain area, so he planned to walk to a place where he could change his clothes first.

At eight in the evening, in a light drizzle, Xiang Kun walked into a shopping mall.

“Huh? I’ve lost my connection, damn, what’s going on with my signal?”

“Ha! It’s karma… uh, I’ve lost my connection too…”

“Heh, that’s what you get for using Apple. My Huawei is…eh? Mine’s gone too?”

“Okay, the network is back.”

After entering the mall, Xiang Kun overheard similar voices constantly. Those who were within a 2-meter radius of him would keep losing their phone signals as he walked by, regardless of whether they were using 4G or WiFi signals. He seemed like a moving source of interference.

He was not surprised by this. He was well aware that he was still experiencing the “aftereffects” left by the Light Group. Earlier, streetlights on both sides of the road would flicker as he walked past them.

This effect from charging with the Light Group should completely disappear in a few hours.

For now, he hadn’t found a way to control this new ability. But it was similar to having a bought a ship that was sitting there, waiting to be steered. Learning how to sail was only a matter of time.

From certain features revealed so far, Xiang Kun was sure that this ability he possessed wouldn’t be limited to taking off during thunderstorms or gliding off cliffs like the mutated spider. In human society, he could develop even more related abilities. In terms of practicality and influence, these abilities could potentially be even stronger than flight.

Luckily, Xiang Kun had suffered from his phone dying on him twice before, so now he never left without carrying cash. Otherwise, now that his phone was dead, he wouldn’t have money to buy new clothes and a ticket home.

…

“Twenty past thirty-seven,” announced a mechanical female voice from the phone.

As she heard the automated voice, Xiao Pingguo furrowed her brows, feeling slightly worried.

After Xiang Kun had left in the afternoon, they had exchanged a few messages on WeChat, discussing details about the “focusing attention” training method. But then he stopped replying.

She initially thought Xiang Kun must have fallen asleep on the bus. But when she factored in the travel time, he should have arrived at the station by now and still hadn’t replied.

Xiao Pingguo knew Xiang Kun’s habits well. If he was occupied and couldn’t reply, he would inform her promptly before ending the conversation, instead of simply disappearing without a trace. If he had fallen asleep on the bus, he would have undoubtedly replied once he woke up and saw the message thread.

Thus, Xiao Pingguo speculated that his phone might have died and expected him to reply once he charged his phone at home.

Xiao Pingguo put her phone down and focused on the several wooden sculptures on her table. She gently felt them with her hands, imagining the feeling she had experienced in the afternoon.

Xiang Kun had made a lot of effort in the afternoon to convince Xiao Pingguo subconsciously that the coin had special properties and kept encouraging her to use this coin in her training. According to the cognitive model he had established for Xiao Pingguo, this approach should have been correct.

However, what Xiang Kun hadn’t anticipated was that Xiao Pingguo did indeed find this coin slightly different from others. But she found something she thought was even better for focusing her attention – the four wood carvings that Xiang Kun had given her.

Xiang Kun did have a deep understanding of Xiao Pingguo, but he underestimated the effect her dreams about the sculptures had during all this time. After all, she only mentioned the content of these dreams when discussing them with Xiang Kun, without bringing up the carvings in the conversation.

She had dreamt so many times. In happy dreams, she would always see minions, and in dreams where she studied computer science, she would see one of the three-piece carving set. Thus, Xiao Pingguo had a unique perception of these carvings. She felt these carvings were spiritually connected to her, as if they could communicate with her.

However, she found it childish to share these thoughts with her father, who was an associate professor, and Uncle Xiang, who had given her these carvings.

I recommend “Various World Dragon System”, with 11 available versions and over 2.4 million words in total.