Three days later, in a snowstorm, Ringo's figure appeared, walking barefoot, wearing only sunglasses, a tank top and shorts, carrying a large backpack.
He was covered in snow, but he didn't stop, just kept walking forward.
Underneath, his body was shaking fiercely, but he wasn't freezing, his body was constantly working to evolve to withstand this temperature.
His skin was thickening and searching for ways to conserve internal heat while still maintaining normal bodily functions. His heart began to work faster to pump more blood and warm his body. There were several other solutions, such as growing hair and fat, but he didn't want that, so his body had to work harder to find a way.
Using his own DNA and the DNA he acquired from other living beings, his body calculated fiercely while his heart worked hard to avoid freezing. Luckily, his heart itself was a fierce machine, pumping 10 times per second without feeling any internal pressure.
Ringo didn't mind the work his body did, he simply took pieces of dried meat from time to time and ate them to maintain energy while his body worked at maximum capacity. This level of pain could hardly affect him after what he'd been through. He simply kept walking forward toward his target, which would still take several days to reach.
He looked at the thermometer and found the temperature to be -37 degrees Celsius, the further north he went, the lower the temperature dropped.
Luckily, the equipment he'd bought was designed for extreme cold, only stopping working at below -150 degrees Celsius.
So he continued walking quickly away.
When he realized his dried meat was running low, he used his ears to find new prey. He heard some heartbeats bellow the snow, probably rabbits under the snow or something, but they were too small to be worth it, so he headed deeper into the forest.
He wasn't in a rush for this mission because it wasn't urgent. In fact, the target was on the wanted list and as long as they caught him, dead or alive, he could be handed over at any time.
So he took his time adapting to the freezing weather.
He could feel himself growing again in this environment, it felt like he was back in Germinal, but due to his current Super level, he was accumulating energy much faster.
Before, it was like trying to scoop up sand with a cup, now it's like using a bucket, he could scoop up much more at once, and it was faster and more efficient.
In terms of gameplay, if Han Xiao could see his status, he previously received 1 XP per second in a stressful environment, now he receives 10 XP per second.
This has greatly accelerated his improvement.
He no longer held back and all his energy was used to make him grow, in terms of attributes, he believes that it depends a lot on how he receives stress, before and currently, he has always been very passive in receiving stress, it was never about lifting weights or running long distances, so probably his statistic with the most points is his resistance, this explains why he can take bullets like mosquito bites.
He thought that after this snow training, he would do training focused on strength and speed.
He wanted to use Hila's power to train his spirit, but that would have to wait.
Arriving at a cave hidden by undergrowth in a coniferous forest, he heard heavy breathing inside. It was very slow, and its heart was also beating very slowly. He could tell it was probably a hibernating animal.
He approached stealthily, his body adapting to make as little noise as possible.
Inside, he saw a huge polar bear, about 10 meters long. It looked like a cross between a bear and a wolf, with an elongated snout likely full of teeth, but also chubby, likely its reserves for the cold winter.
Shrugging, he approached, his hand elongating with extremely sharp black nails. His hand was barely visible when it sank into the bear's brain. He died before he could even understand anything. That was Ringo's mercy to him.
He picked up the bear and dragged it outside while grabbing a machete and sharpening it, ready to carve the meat. But at that moment, he realized something, frowning.
His normal ears elongated like a bat's, improving his hearing even more. The next moment, he was startled.
He could hear two very faint heartbeats inside the bear.
But looking closely, he realized the bear was actually a female bear!
Ringo looked at the bear's belly, clenching his fists.
There were many things Ringo could disregard now. Killing was no longer something he rejected, but killing a pregnant... even of another species. He felt nauseous for a moment and wanted to vomit, but he quickly used his energy to adjust, returning to normal.
Of course, he knows he's a hypocrite, killing a fish with eggs is not the same as killing a mother bear. Essentially? Yes, but the mother bear has privileges, perhaps because she is a mammal or just because she is cute.
Looking at the bear's belly, he knew they would die if they didn't leave soon.
He sighed deeply as the snow fell on him and the cold wind surrounded him.
-Do bears really hibernate when they're pregnant? - This confused him, but in the end, he didn't think about it anymore. He bent down and used the knife to carefully open the bear's abdomen.
Beneath the fat and meat, he finally managed to remove the placenta. It was the most disgusting thing he'd ever done, but when the placenta burst, he was relieved that the pair of cubs had developed enough to fully form. He didn't know the normal size of a bear cub, but he could only do his best.
As he watched the cubs coughing and grunting as they took their first breaths, his gaze softened slightly. They were barely furred, slightly pink, would probably die in the cold. So he took his clothes from his backpack and carried them back to the cave, making a nest for them.
Then he returned and began skinning the bear, ready to turn her pelt into a bed for them.
He didn't know a thing about working with a bear's fur, but he still had a satellite connection and researched online, as well as how to care for bear cubs, and also discovered that this species of bear was called a long-tusked wolf bear, a pretty straightforward name in his opinion.
After housing the cubs and harvesting the bear's meat, he transformed into a bat and searched the region for a food source for the bears.
He found a nursing mutant mountain goat that had lost its cubs. He brought it back. The goat wasn't happy, of course, but he tied it up and let it become a qualified milk pouch.
It got food without having to worry about being hunted, so the goat adapted to its new life within a few days.
The bears continued to grow as he cared for them. After a week, he had completely adapted to the temperature, to the point where he could walk naked without harm. But he didn't leave. He didn't know why, whether out of guilt or attachment. He wanted to raise both bears.
They were both males, he named the larger one Jack and the smaller one Will.
Ringo, on the other hand, began a different type of training. He uprooted a 20-meter pine tree as thick as two waists. He used the heavy trunk for exercise, carrying it as he ran. The scene looked very amusing for his small body. It was also very difficult to keep the object balanced on his small body. So, he increased his size to 5 meters tall to raise his center of gravity. He decompressed his body to do so. His strength didn't change, but it was now much easier to maintain his balance.
Thinking about balance, he found another way to train, standing on thin ropes tied between two trees and performing acrobatics. With his skill, he quickly got the hang of it and got better every day.
Besides that, he learned to throw knives, concentrate his strength, and even jump from tree to tree like a monkey learning Parkour.
He was training his explosive power, doing long and exhausting workouts like sprinting at top speed and even throwing himself against trees with all his strength, breaking his bones countless times.
When this stopped working, he threw himself against rock walls.
Even using his ability to actively modify his genes to acquire animal traits that would enhance him was an active process of trial and error, but it was worth it. On the outside, he looked no different, but inside, he was becoming increasingly inhuman, mainly because his ability changed not only his appearance but also his genes.
It wasn't like normal, where he just had to stand still and wait for the ability's effects.
His evolution usually works passively, so if he didn't do this kind of trial and error, he would need luck to achieve similar results.
In simple terms, it's as if he knew the value was between 100,000 and 200,000 and slowly tried to find a way between that number. His power, on the other hand, depended on going from zero to infinity, trying each possibility one at a time.
This when his evolution can be active in this way. The only example he knows of so far was Lin Wei Xian's use of negative reinforcement.
Perhaps this will change in the future, and his power will become more precise even when actively engaged, but for now, when he wants to improve without relying on environmental stress, but on his own ideas, he needs to go slowly.
He relies on his subconscious, so these new changes he sees as beneficial soon become permanent. Any "mistakes" he doesn't see are also corrected by his own skill.