Ken first opened his computer and ordered a Redmi phone for 1199 yuan on JD. His old phone was also a budget model, used for over a year and shattered beyond repair, making it unnecessary to fix.
He rarely used his phone for anything beyond basic tasks. Before, he spent most of his time in front of a computer, and his phone was mainly for browsing Zhihu, GitHub, CSDN, or reading e-books during his commute. Now, his focus and energy were spent on mutation training, and his phone's most used features were the timer and flashlight.
With no current income and the looming threat of running out of resources, he couldn't afford to buy an expensive phone. If he broke it again, there would be no money to replace it.
He checked the inventory in the city warehouse and saw that the phone would be delivered by the afternoon.
He also browsed Taobao for the cheapest pair of black-framed reading glasses, since his old pair had shattered by the lake and he needed a replacement to maintain a familiar appearance in front of acquaintances.
Then, Ken began his routine of measuring and recording his body data after each wake-up.
His weight had increased by 1.4kg, now at 95.4kg.
His temperature had dropped slightly to 27.4°C.
Perhaps the repeated close encounters with the mutated giant eagle had put his body into a constant state of perceived danger, driving it to enhance its recovery ability. This time, his wound healing speed had dramatically improved, from 12 minutes and 23 seconds to 10 minutes and 55 seconds—this was even with the daytime suppression of recovery. If the usual 20% decrease after sunrise was factored in, his recovery time after sunset would likely be around 9 minutes and 5 to 6 seconds, a huge improvement.
His senses of smell and hearing had also improved noticeably, though it was hard to quantify precisely.
What surprised Ken most was the change in his bones. Comparing photos of his body before and after the mutation, his shoulder width and arm length seemed to have increased. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that his height had also gone up.
Ken stood by the wall, marked his height, and measured it with a tape measure.
179.7cm—he had indeed grown taller.
Previously, during a company health check, his height had been recorded at 177.5cm. Although there were slight variations in height based on the time of day and measurement tools, and he had once been measured at 178.9cm during his university health check, even with that as a reference, he had grown nearly 1cm.
Unfortunately, he hadn't measured his height, shoulder width, or arm length after his first mutation. Back then, he never imagined that his bones would undergo changes too.
After the battle with the mutated giant eagle last night, he wasn't too surprised by his bones' secondary development.
He had been reflecting on the dream he had after drinking the eagle's blood—a dream he hadn't had since his body's mutation began on July 11.
At first, he hadn't thought much about it upon waking, but now, recalling it, he realized that it might not have been just a dream.
The dream's scenes were similar to the brief 1-second vision he had after tasting the eagle's blood. It was like the first-person view of the eagle's actions.
But this time, in the dream, Ken didn't see just 1 second of footage; instead, there were numerous scenes, chaotic in their order and disconnected, one after another, jumping in time and space. The majority of these scenes were of soaring and diving in the air. Honestly, the experience wasn't pleasant.
But now, as Ken remembered the scenes from the dream, he realized he could recall and "watch" the dream's images again.
It was completely different from the way he recalled real-life memories; it felt like opening a new window in his mind, allowing him to view someone else's experiences from a first-person perspective.
Indeed, the images from his dream seemed to be the mutated giant eagle's memories.
He had only tasted a drop of blood before, which gave him a 1-second glimpse of its vision. But after drinking a significant amount of the eagle's blood, he had experienced a full dream, receiving an overwhelming number of memory images from the eagle.
Could memories really be stored in blood, and the more blood consumed, the more memories one gains?
Ken had drunk chicken and rabbit blood before but had never seen any images from them. It seemed this property only applied to him and the mutated eagle—if the eagle drank his blood, would it also be able to see his memories?
The lack of time organization and chaotic nature of the memories made it difficult to analyze.
Ken couldn't help but wonder whether the eagle's intelligence was still insufficient, causing the confusion in its memories. Or perhaps all memories accessed in this manner were inherently disorganized.
There was useful information in these memories, but it would take time to sift through them. However, a few key facts had already become clear.
First, the eagle hadn't been born with these mutations. Like Ken, it had undergone a transformation, but the details of how and why it mutated still needed to be explored in the memories.
Second, the eagle, just like Ken, survived by drinking the blood of other creatures. Judging from what Ken saw, the eagle had killed and consumed far more creatures than he had.
Third, the eagle originally lived in a deep mountain range, and it had only encountered Ken after finding the rabbit Ken had killed in a garbage dump. It seemed to have been unable to track Ken's location accurately. The encounter by the lake was most likely accidental.
As for why it left the mountains and entered the city, that was still unclear. However, from the memories, it was clear that Ken was the first human it attacked.
It was apparent that the eagle's size and ability to fly were the result of the same mutation Ken had experienced.
For a predator like the eagle, its survival was based on hunting. After the mutation, it became more powerful, and its prey more abundant. Its sharp talons could even pierce the tough skin of wild boars.
The eagle's intelligence had also increased with its mutation.
Ken couldn't help but speculate: were the creatures in ancient myths based on such mutated animals?
He even wondered if an animal, originally domesticated by humans and with a strong desire for communication, could evolve speech through multiple mutations.
Could the idea of creatures turning to dust and completely disappearing after death be why these myths persist, with no proof to the contrary?
Of course, these were just theories.
Ken had always sought to find someone like himself, but never expected that the closest case he would find would be a giant mutated eagle.
And this eagle, which had sought to kill him, ended up dead by his hands, with its blood consumed by him.
Ken couldn't help but wonder: could he be the first human to undergo mutation?