Watching the video, Ken felt a wave of disbelief. He noticed highlighted comments featuring footage from other angles, though less clear, indicating multiple people had recorded the incident. He even saw a clip from a surveillance camera, likely uploaded by the grocery store owner.
A headache brewing, Ken returned the phone to the reporter. Pleading urgent matters, he hastily left home.
Walking the streets for a while, he concluded the situation wasn't catastrophic. During the confrontation, he hadn't displayed any superhuman abilities. As long as he refused interviews, kept his face hidden, and maintained a low profile, public interest would eventually fade. Ultimately, netizens were captivated by the event itself, not him.
He headed to the city's busiest district, found a roadside beverage shop, bought a drink, and sat by the entrance with his eyes half-closed, appearing to doze. In reality, his full attention was focused on his hearing.
The voices of staff and customers inside the shop, the footsteps and conversations of pedestrians outside, the sounds of distant traffic and car horns, promotional broadcasts and music from nearby malls—countless sounds were dissected and categorized in his mind. He would then lock onto a specific sound and concentrate on "capturing" it. For instance, he might track a particular set of footsteps, following their movement and direction, estimating distance, even inferring the material of the shoe soles, until the sound faded beyond perception.
Through this method, Ken used his hearing to mentally "construct" a map of his surroundings.
After his last blood ingestion, Ken had noticed a significant leap in his auditory acuity, surpassing normal human levels. Following the third ingestion, he adjusted his training regimen, reducing emphasis on strength and increasing focus on agility, balance, and, crucially, targeted sensory training for sight, hearing, and smell.
Ken remained seated at the beverage shop entrance from around 10 a.m. until past 5 p.m., never opening his eyes or shifting his position. The shop staff probably assumed he was asleep. At 5:15 p.m., he finally opened his eyes, stretched as if genuinely waking from a nap, stood up, and tossed his untouched drink into a trash bin before leaving.
Instead of heading home, he continued his auditory training. He wandered the streets, randomly selecting sound sources to pursue. Sometimes, spotting people conversing or on phone calls in the distance, he would gradually close the gap until he could faintly discern their words, then increase the distance again, constantly pushing the maximum range of his hearing. Other times, he would randomly lock onto one sound amidst a cacophony—a single set of footsteps in a crowd, a dog bark from an unseen location, a ringing phone from an indeterminate source. He also practiced using fixed, continuous sound sources as anchors—a mall's PA system, music from a clothing store, even machinery sounds—slowly moving away from them.
His method for auditory training was simple: listen more, discriminate more, find and exercise the limits of his hearing.
For the next several days, he spent roughly ten hours daily roaming the streets, listening to every type of sound imaginable. He discovered that nighttime training was far more effective than daytime. Not only were his physical functions and mental acuity heightened at night, but the relative quiet, with far less ambient noise, made training easier at his current stage.
Thus, his routine solidified: daytime for gym workouts, nighttime for street wanderings and random sound hunts.
This practice exposed him to sounds he'd never imagined: the chirps and scuttles of insects in grass and gutters, the gnawing of rodents, the subtle creaks and groans of buildings' materials expanding, contracting, or vibrating, the distinct sounds of wind navigating different alleys and streets, and even faint, elusive noises whose origins he couldn't pinpoint.
Alongside hearing, Ken also trained his sense of smell. Similar to auditory training, it involved discriminating and tracking various scents. However, he trained these senses separately, as simultaneous focus on hearing and smell at this stage led to interference, preventing full concentration on either.
When beginning olfactory training, he would find a spot to sit, close his eyes, wear earplugs to block his primary senses, and rely solely on his nose to perceive and dissect the mélange of odors around him.
Compared to sound, scents were more challenging to distinguish and train. Often, a dominant odor would overpower others. Furthermore, after spending time in one environment, his nose would adapt, decreasing sensitivity to the prevailing smells. Sometimes, he deliberately sought out places with strong, complex odors for training—garbage piles, stinking ditches or ponds, or food streets bustling with diverse aromas.
On the evening of July 30th, Ken returned from the gym and stayed in. The familiar hunger had returned. Calculating, it had been roughly six days since his last ingestion, aligning with his previous estimates.
This time, he skipped any endurance experiments. Upon feeling the hunger, he processed the remaining rabbit at home and consumed approximately 165ml of its blood. Drowsiness followed swiftly. Setting an alarm on his phone for 23 hours later, he lay down, curious to see if external noise could rouse him from his post-ingestion slumber. He chose 23 hours, wary that waking too early from insufficient sleep might have unknown adverse effects. The alarm was set for a one-minute duration, repeating three times.
...
When Ken opened his eyes again, lying in bed, he experienced a moment of disorientation. The world felt subtly different, but after several minutes of contemplation, he couldn't pinpoint the change.
Sitting up, he checked his phone. As suspected, the alarm hadn't woken him. It seemed noise alone couldn't penetrate his post-ingestion hibernation. He wondered if physical contact would work, and if so, how intense it needed to be.
His sleep this time lasted 25 hours and 27 minutes, still within the previously observed range, showing no significant variation.
Suddenly, the room felt noisy. He could distinctly hear people at the roadside stalls outside, chatting and boasting over drinks. Assuming he'd forgotten to close the window before sleeping, he walked over only to find it shut tight.
He paused, then realized the truth. The outside world wasn't louder; his hearing had grown sharper.