Chapter 416 - Chapter 416: Chapter 416: Entering the River (1/2)

Chapter 416: Chapter 416: Entering the River

Xiang Kun walked to the river bank, avoiding surveillance cameras along the way. Now he didn’t even need to switch into infrared thermographic vision mode to observe. His “sixth sense” could directly help him locate the cameras, and the scope of their approximate recording area. Through calculation, he could avoid their range just like dodging the beam of light.

Based on his previous observations and online map analysis, he found a secluded, dimly lit area by the river that was not covered by security cameras.

Xiang Kun jumped over the river dike and carefully examined the riverside bushes using various senses before he began stripping down to his shorts.

After hiding his clothes, mobile phone, and room card in a dry spot he had identified, Xiang Kun slowly walked into the river.

Around him, floating in mid-air, were six coins and twenty tungsten steel balls—these were the “super-connected objects” he always carried with him.

As he stepped into the icy river, Xiang Kun slowly dipped his body, letting the river envelop him completely. All twenty-six “super-connected objects” entered the water with him.

On the surface of the river, only faint ripples remained. Then there was an absolute stillness with only a few bubbles, quieter than if a stone had been dropped.

Under the surface, Xiang Kun was scanning around with his eyes open, but he didn’t seem to be holding his breath, behaving just as comfortably as if he were on land.

Indeed, Xiang Kun did not need to hold his breath to maintain his activity. His body could “breathe.”

Ever since his mutation last year, Xiang Kun had run many breath-holding experiments and trainings, always keeping a record of the time he could hold his breath.

Although his breath-holding time was getting longer, he was very sure that despite his drastically mutated body, he still needed oxygen.

Just after a riverside walk back to the hotel with Old Xia, Tang Baona, and Yang Zhen’er, an “inspiration” popped into Xiang Kun’s mind. He filled the sink basin with water, exhaling all the air from his lungs before submerging his head.

Then he found that after holding his breath, he could access a previously unseen “anoxic mode”. He stopped the act of breathing but experienced no difficulty nor an urge for oxygen. His body seemed not to need oxygen immediately.

However, Xiang Kun believed that instead of not requiring oxygen, his body had evolved other ‘breathing’ methods due to the ingestion of the “mutated parasite”.

Since the hotel did not have a bathtub for him to experience fully submerging his body, Xiang Kun secretly left the hotel and plunged into the river at night.

Sinking into the river was smooth due to his already substantial weight. In the water, after switching to the special “anoxic mode”, he experienced that cessation of breath again, just like in the hotel bathroom.

Xiang Kun carefully observed the changes in his body, drifting along the riverbed like an abandoned stone statue.

He then realized that after switching breathing modes, some of his physical functions declined slightly. However, this didn’t affect his sensory abilities and cognitive functions. Clearly, the body automatically prioritizes these areas.

The decline was mostly in strength, endurance, and “explosive power”. Of course, without real testing or experimenting, he couldn’t tell how much exactly these had declined.

Nonetheless, he noticed no significant changes in the sensations of muscle exertions and other body functions compared with when he could breathe normally.

It was like an electronic device that could still light up the screen, just with lower brightness. Nothing seemed to have fundamentally changed in its operation.

So Xiang Kun speculated that what he switched to after holding his breath underwater was not an “anoxic mode”, but an “oxygen-saving mode”.

Then where did the oxygen come from?

Xiang Kun knew that fish breathe underwater using gills.

Fish use their gills to capture dissolved oxygen in water and to release carbon dioxide. But even if he had developed the function of fish gills, wouldn’t he need to open his mouth to suck in and expel water?

But the fact is, he didn’t need to open his mouth under water, or filter it.

Xiang Kun immediately thought of his observation after catching the “mutated parasite”.

Most of the internal parasites in this world rely on glycolysis for energy and do not need oxygen.

However, it was clear that the “mutated parasite” is not among them. Even after leaving its host, it could still survive and had certain mobility. Its maneuverability and adaptability in water far exceeded that on land, so it must need to breathe.

However, in Xiang Kun’s observation, it didn’t have a gill-like structure.

So how does it breathe?

Xiang Kun continued to perceive carefully and then noticed the slightly cool feeling to the touch of the skin. He had noticed this feeling at the very beginning, but initially thought it was simply due to the cold water.

Upon carefully recalling the subtle differences before and after fully submerging and activating the “Oxygen-saving Mode”, he soon realized that this slightly cool feeling covering the entire skin may be the result of the “respiration” of the skin.

Xiang Kun carefully observed his own skin in the water. By constantly switching between dusk vision and the Infrared thermographic vision mode, even underwater, he could still take advantage of his visual superiority.

Often, some cosmetic advertisements claim that “human skin also breathes”, “pores breathe”, but in reality, pores do not have the function of “breathing”.

However, it seemed that on Xiang Kun’s body, those advertising slogans had come true. He seemed to be breathing through his pores at a very low rate, absorbing oxygen in the water, and expelling out carbon dioxide from the metabolism through the pores. But in the water, this process had been broken down into smaller reactions, which were difficult to observe visually, and even he himself could hardly perceive them clearly.

After confirming his breathing method under the “Oxygen-saving Mode”, Xiang Kun began to expand his attention outward and open his senses.

Following the “Inspiration” from the casual stroll by the riverside with Old Xia and others, Xiang Kun once again used the “Parasite Everything” mode to sense the surrounding river water.

Then he found that while breathing through the skin, he also had a new sensing ability in the water. His skin seemed to be more sensitive to the fluctuations of the water. He could judge the movement tracks of creatures in the water, the location of dead objects within ten or even twenty meters through this sense.

Xiang Kun carefully sensed these pieces of information, thinking that they were not only derived from the evolution of abilities brought by the “mutated parasite”. Most of the credit went to his own super sensory, information processing, and judgment capabilities. Only when combined could such comprehensive information scanning capabilities in water be achieved.

Then Xiang Kun no longer “drifted with the flow”, but began to swim actively in the water.

He had only learned the Frog Style before and was pretty average, but now in the water, he was swimming according to an “instinct”.

His swimming posture was like a fish, similar to the butterfly leg swimming posture, but compared to the human butterfly leg swimming, it was much more relaxed and effortless. His two hands also stretched out from under his chest from time to time, controlling the direction, allowing himself to save energy by going with the flow.

After swimming for a while, Xiang Kun found that his connection with the river water seemed to become more intimate, as if a pair of shoes had just been put on, after wearing and exercising for a while, they became increasingly fitting.

So Xiang Kun’s movements in the water became smaller and smaller, but his speed and flexibility increased.

After swimming in the water for more than an hour, Xiang Kun stopped again, then controlled the twenty-six following “super-connected objects” to gather around him.

As soon as he started swimming, he had loosened his control over these “super-connected objects”, only gathering them after swimming a certain distance, to avoid them being taken too far by the river water and getting out of his control range, which would be too troublesome to retrieve one by one.

But at this time, Xiang Kun sent these twenty-six “super-connected objects” far away on the riverbed, the furthest even more than a hundred meters away.

Originally, at such a distance, he could sense it but definitely could not control it, he had to enter the “Super Sensory State”, precisely locate it first, before he can operate it.