Chapter 3: 3

Strands of white mist came off the body of a rabbit-like creature and were absorbed into Wang Yuan’s body . After sensing the total amount of white mist around his soul, Wang Yuan briefly calculated how long they would last before setting off once more .

On the way here, Wang Yuan had discovered quite a few new things .

The most important of which was related to the 13 crows .

Unsurprisingly to Wang Yuan, these 13 crows still carried the mutated germs inside their bodies, they were essentially 13 pathogen vectors, so if any wounded animals came into contact with the crows’ bodily fluids, they would be infected .

While wandering, he had commanded the crows to capture other animals in order to conduct infection experiments, repeating for over a hundred times at this point .

Unlike the crows, every animal that was infected by the germs would die within half an hour to one day, of course, it could also be because of the lack of specimens .

For the last few days, Wang Yuan had also discovered quite a few lifeforms that were very different from the animals on Earth, but none of them could resist being killed by the 13 mutated crows, as they all carried deadly bacteria . As soon as they were pecked by the crows’ beak, they would surely die .

But these animals displayed very varied reactions after being infected by the germs . Among them, the time of death for most mammals was about the same as Wang Yuan, the specimens experimented on included rabbit-like herbivores, saber-tooth-like carnivorous beasts, as well as a few monkey-like omnivore primates .

The symptoms were nosebleeds, the loss of strength in their limbs followed by vomiting or uncontrollable excretion, before laying limp and dying . The entire process took about half an hour to one hour, and omnivores were generally able to hold out longer .

Insects were a lot worse, as soon as they touched the crows’ excretions, they would writhe in pain for only 10 minutes before dying, the amount of white mist they supplied was also pathetically little, so Wang Yuan had completely ignored any further experimentations on insects .

Birds had the greatest immunity to this type of germ, after infecting over 10 different species, he found that the average period of survival for them was 18 hours . The species that survived for the longest had even begun to mutate like his crows, shedding their feathers and growing new ones, but unfortunately, they also died after 27 hours without successfully mutating .

The main reason why Wang Yuan died mere minutes after he arrived in this world was because of multiple germs and diseases acting on him at once, combined with the sudden change in the environment of another world . By this point, the germs that lived on the crows had already mutated several dozen more times, and were no longer the same kind that killed Wang Yuan from before .

In fact, the germs were still mutating without stopping, and Wang Yuan wasn’t sure if it was just his imagination, but he could now faintly feel the existence of these germs .

“The white mist is being consumed too rapidly” Wang Yuan was currently hiding inside a mountain cave . It was currently the middle of autumn outside, so the sunlight in the middle of the day wasn’t too intense, but if Wang Yuan stayed under sunlight, the white mist protecting him would disappear at a faster rate . Now that he didn’t have much white mist to spare, Wang Yuan wasn’t planning on wasting them .

What was said about there being no ghosts in the middle of the day in his past life most likely had its reasons . According to Wang Yuan’s deductions, the white mist had the same effect as a body, which was why it could protect his soul .

The 13 crows were out hunting and taking their prey back into the mountain cave . The prey that were brought back were alive but infected with the bacteria, so they writhed and squirmed until they died as strands of white mist escaped from their body and replenished what Wang Yuan had used up .

Thanks to the crows constantly supplying him with the cool aura, Wang Yuan finally felt his soul become complete again, he felt like he was currently a punctured balloon, constantly patching up the holes with everything he could in order for the air inside to not escape .

Using that as a comparison, his body was the balloon and his soul was the air inside, now that the balloon was punctured, half of the air had already spilt out, so he had to constantly use other things to keep the air inside before it all escaped .

From a technical standpoint, he was no longer the same person as when he was still human, even part of his current soul was being supplied by the crows . He’s nothing but an incomplete remnant soul, even if he had inherited the majority of Wang Yuan’s memories and soul .

“I will need a stable supply of white mist . If possible, I will need even more crows to give me even more aura to replenish my soul” Wang Yuan had such a thought, even though the 13 crows were constantly supplying him with the cool aura, it was nowhere near enough .

“Perhaps if I fully replenish my soul, I will no longer need to worry about the white mist running out and exposing my soul”

“It will be winter soon as well, I do not need to worry about temperature, but the crows will”

“And the germs are still constantly mutating, it’s possible for these 13 crows to die from the mutation at any moment”

“Once the crows die, without them hunting for more creatures to replenish the white mist, the only thing waiting for me is death”

“Which means I need to quickly find intelligent lifeforms, only then can I develop my forces in an organized manner” stuck inside the cave without being able to leave, Wang Yuan had nothing to do but plan his path from now on .

He was feeling an extreme sense of urgency as he was constantly treading on the border of death, one wrong step and he would be eliminated, this time without anything to remain of him .

Once the sky darkened, Wang Yuan set out once more, the 13 crows flying ahead as his scouts, looking for signs of human life . While slowly moving forward, Wang Yuan had a certain feeling, that once he found humans, a lot of the problems that he was facing would be easily resolved .

…

“Comoros, be careful” a bearded man carefully flicked a spider off the shoulder of a youth in front of him with a dagger and squashed it with his foot .

“Thank you, uncle Dax” the youth called Comoros appeared to only be around 14-15 years old . His young face still had a bit of fear as he hurriedly thanked the bearded man .

“Save your thanks for Maynus . I don’t know if it’s because she is watching over us, but we’ve only gotten this many prey after three days of hunting” the bearded man, Dax, put the dagger away, stroked his beard and sighed, Maynus was the Goddess of Misfortune that the Cauchy tribe people believed in .

There wasn’t enough food in the village, yet they still had to deal with the damned Kent tribe as well . Their hunting party was formed this time around in hope of being able to bring back a bit more food and help the village survive through this winter .

Caw caw caw…

With a strange cry, a black crow that was a bit bigger than normal landed on the branch of a tree near them, tilting its head to look at the group of people below .

“Damn it, a follower of Negary, so it was you who brought misfortune” one member of the hunting party saw the crow on the branch and scowled . In the Cauchy language, Negary carried the meaning of dirty, disease, gloomy and ominous; at the same time, it was the name of a God . Because of the crow’s jet black feathers, their strange cry and their scavenging characteristic, crows were called the ‘followers of Negary’ .

In their folklore, every crow in the world was a follower of the God called Negary, helping him spread diseases and omens .

When the bearded man, Dax, nocked an arrow on his bow and was about to shoot it down, he found that the follower of Negary had already flown away .