What It's Like Being a Vampire

Chapter 398: Parasitic Thought Process

After eating the “mutated parasite” in the wee hours and waking up after a short sleep, Xiang Kun discussed his situation with Xia Libing via his cellphone, booked the next available flight, took a taxi straight to the airport and prepared to fly back to Citong.

At the airport, Xiang Kun sat in the waiting hall, appearing to be dozing off.

To others, it seemed understandable to be sleepy this early in the morning while catching a flight.

However, in reality, Xiang Kun was completely focused on feeling the changes in his body, especially when it came to his senses, carefully verifying whether there was any mutation.

The “dream” he had after drinking blood gave him a hunch that the “mutated parasite” could enhance and boost his senses.

Intuitively, he believed that his traditional five senses – vision, hearing, smell, taste, and touch – had all experienced subtle improvements.

Of course, because his baseline capabilities were already incredibly robust, the extent of this improvement was quite small. He was only able to approximately determine this through his unique method.

However, he felt that even if he hadn’t eaten that “mutated parasite” and had only been drinking blood according to the usual cycle, the natural enhancement after the next “Blood-drinking Period” would have been of similar magnitude.

While there were no dramatic changes in his conventional five senses, his “sixth sense” had seen a clear boost.

Now Xiang Kun could close his eyes without entering the “Super Sensory State” and could feel the magnetic and electric fields around him very clearly.

Then, based on these sensations, he could inadvertently determine where there were electronic devices, where there was an electric current, where the current was strong, where the current was weak, where alternating current devices were used, and where direct current devices were used.

Moreover, based on these judgments, he could further infer which devices were cell phones, lamps, computers, electric cars for transporting luggage at the airport, and which ones were connected to the internet.

With careful sensory input, he could even vaguely use these electromagnetic data to pinpoint the exact locations of individuals and creatures – however, this clearly integrated auxiliary information given by other senses and the details inferred after knowing the results.

The fact that such a distinct evolution occurred immediately after his “Blood-drinking Period” when he had just consumed the “mutated parasite” was ample evidence that this “mutated parasite” certainly had the ability to perceive its surroundings through changes in magnetic and electric fields.

However, based on what Old Xia and he had learned before, from “Dream in A Dream” of the actual memories of several hosts of the “mutated parasite”, Xiang Kun knew that when this “mutated parasite” was in a host’s body, it relied on more than just this magnetic field sensitivity to judge the external information and host’s situation. It must also have accessed the host’s perceptions or emotions.

Otherwise, it couldn’t have chosen to escape just before the “Vampire Patient” was about to be arrested, and it wouldn’t have guided its host in Yangcheng who was about to be arrested to jump off a building and escape.

Xiang Kun leaned towards the idea that the “mutated parasite” could perceive subtle changes in the host’s emotions through the hair-thin, densely-packed “tentacles” it extended after parasitizing the host’s body, and thus judge the host’s situation.

Thinking this, Xiang Kun couldn’t help but look at his own fingers, wondering whether he could also “extend” these fine tentacles from his hands and sense other people’s emotions or share in their sensory information without needing to rely on “Emotion Infused Objects” just by touching them?

However, after staring for a long time, no tentacles extended from his hand.

Of course, if he really could mutate and extend the tentacles of that “mutated parasite”, he’d prefer if… the tentacles could extend from the top of his head?

Uh, wouldn’t that image be strangely eerie?

But Xiang Kun also knew that the tentacles of the mutated parasite worked inside the host’s body. If he could really mutate and extend such tentacles, to gain knowledge of another’s emotions, he would probably need to penetrate the other person’s body and let the tentacles enter the body. Simple skin contact wouldn’t suffice.

In this case, his “Emotion Infused Objects” were actually better, at least they’re “wireless”!

Xiang Kun entered the “Super Sensory State” again and perceived all kinds of cognitive information in this state.

As the “Super Sensory State” itself is built on the basis of the “sixth sense”, and the “sixth sense” had made a clear improvement, Xiang Kun experienced significant changes in his perception during the “Super Sensory State”.

This feeling was akin to the experience when he had just mutated and removed his glasses, the world had suddenly become much clearer.

However, this wasn’t because his perceptual range had broadened in the “Super Sensory State”, but the initial depth of his perception had improved.

In the past, when he was perceiving a certain cognitive information in-depth, he would slowly gain more and more cognitive information, but this required him to concentrate on one thing, and after a certain extent, his brain couldn’t handle it and it would forcibly exit the “Super Sensory State”.

But now, without delving in, he received more first-layer cognitive information when he noticed something in the “Super Sensory State” than what he used to get after much effort.

Just like looking at a pool, the amount of information hasn’t changed, but before, he could only see 20 cm below the surface, to see deeper, he had to dive, but now he could see 80 cm deep at first glance, and by diving a bit, he could see to depths of 2-3 meters.

From the perceptual information in the “dreamland” after blood-drinking, Xiang Kun felt that the sensing abilities of the “mutated parasite” were somewhat similar to his “sixth sense”, but they were substantially different on the whole.

The way it processed the sensed information was also vastly different from his cognitive information in the “Super Sensory State”.

To use an analogy, the “mutated parasite” could be said to be using a lens similar to Xiang Kun’s, but the “mutated parasite” was like an old-fashioned camera, while Xiang Kun’s was a super recording and image processing device connected to a top-of-the-line chip with various electronic components.

Of course, now the “mutated parasite’s” lens had been stripped off and modified by Xiang Kun to be used on him…

On the plane, Xiang Kun frequently entered the “Super Sensory State” for various types of sensing and testing.

He certainly couldn’t parasitize other creatures like the “mutated parasite”.

There are many abilities that he probably couldn’t apply, wouldn’t evolve or could only be used to help him understand his own body.

But he suddenly had a strange thought: could he… consider himself a “parasite” and regard the environment as a host to “parasitize”?

After getting off the plane and getting into Old Xia’s Camry, Xiang Kun first summarized the results of his self-examination and perception in a format with columns 1, 2, 3, 4 for Old Xia.

Then, he brought up his idea about “parasitizing” the environment.