novelIt's Name is "Cloudracer"
| ← Ch.228 | Ch.230 → |
Stinky wind!
A cold sweat appeared on Chen Fan's forehead. How did a monster manage to go behind him, without him realizing it? Could it have happened when he was shooting the hyenas?
Hoo... Hoo... Hoo... Hoo...
A strange sound came from Chen Fan's jacket as the monster breathed. Not daring to move his upper body, Chen Fan's right hand gripped onto the trigger of the machine gun. He planned to turn around abruptly, then tear the monster behind into pieces with the bullets.
Of course, there was a precondition here! That was, the monster behind him did not assault him within one second!
Animals, even those as slow as turtles, would burst out an incredible speed the instant when they want to prey on another organism. This speed greatly exceeds that of humans, whose hunting skills have been buried for over two thousand years.
Hunt with the fastest speed is the basic survival rule of carnivores! Run with the fastest speed is the basic survival rule of herbivores!
After hundreds of thousands to millions of years of practicing the concept of survival of the fittest, the physical strength of animals has developed so much, that humans are much weaker, and the difference cannot even be measured in a sensible way. For example, silverback gorillas that are living in the African rainforest each weigh about 150 kilograms, and can shove a car for four to five meters in just one blow.
When a person's life is in danger, he will always be able to maximize his potential, and this was true for Chen Fan as well! Hold the gun, turn and aim, he reminded himself. These three actions were carried out perfectly by him, and the only thing left to do was to pull the trigger...
But, alas, he did not manage to pull the trigger! It was not that he was eaten by the monster. Instead, when he turned around, like a bolt of lightning, and saw the monster's appearance, he was stunned.
It had a white head, shaped like a triangular diamond, and was as huge as a buffalo, that gave out a dazzling glow under sunlight, and its widened mouth was full of sharp teeth.
It was that white python. Chen Fan could recognize it from the first look.
Roar!
The python's black eyes were filled with curiosity, as it stared at him, blinking. Even when Chen Fan suddenly turned around, it did not have any reaction.
I can't shoot it!
In his heart, Chen Fan was glad that his reaction was fast. The python was extremely quick, and if it wanted to kill him, it would take less than 0. 1 seconds. On the other hand, it would take at least 5 seconds to kill the python with bullets. If Chen Fan had fired at it and made it angry, he would be creating trouble for himself.
In the past, Chen Fan had met the python with his own body, but once the python was injured, and then on the following remaining occasions, Chen Fan stood behind the windows in the stone tower, so the electric eel was partially blocking him from the python.
To be honest, since the python was so smart, it should know that Chen Fan was the electric eel's master. That way, if Chen Fan did not attack it first, it would not assault him.
The truth proved Chen Fan right. The python was only attracted to the place by gunshots. After noticing Chen Fan, it approached him curiously, with its pink forked tongue flicking out at times.
"Python bro, please don't go mad!" After looking into its eyes, realizing that it had no intentions to attack, Chen Fan heaved a huge sigh of relief, then slowly lowered the machine gun, which he had been holding high.
Vroom!
Before Chen Fan could react, the python licked half of his body with its long tongue.
"What. Why do you always like to lick others with your tongue, just like a dog?" A few invisible black lines appeared on Chen Fan's forehead. Dogs lick people to show their affection, he knew. But, what about snakes? Did they lick those whom they admired or respected as well?
Seeing that the python was docile, Chen Fan slowly extended his right hand and stroked the center of its jaws a few times. It felt smooth and cold. Meanwhile, the python did not have much of a reaction, only lowering its head slightly.
"I am like a King!" Chen Fan really wanted to lift his head and shout towards the sky, but he was afraid that the python would bite him. Hence, he simply continued stroking the python for a while, before backing into the armored transporter and closing the door at the top.
Being in this unknown world, Chen Fan would not feel safe, at least as long as the electric eel was not with him. Hence, he had to quickly call the electric eel over.
When the electric eel hastily reached, the white python was coiled up beside the armored vehicle, basking in the sun. Its train-sized tail had turned a low bush nearby into a flat land in its boredom.
After an intimate contact with his own body, Chen Fan's fear towards the python was very much reduced. Without controlling the electric eel to chase the python away, Chen Fan opened the vehicle door directly and jumped out, pulling the steel cable into the cave. Looping the steel cable around the pangolin's paws, Chen Fan turned his attention to the electric eel and controlled it to reel the cable in like a wheel.
Roar!
The strange scene attracted the python, which stared with interest for a few seconds, then wrapped its tail around the steel cable, pulling it just like the electric eel. In the end, with its help, the pangolin's carcass first hit hard onto the rocks during a turn, after which, the steel cable went tight and the pangolin's paws broke off from its body.
"Bad at helping, but good at spoiling!" Chen Fan found this scene both frustrating and funny.
Using an electric arc to chase the python aside, the electric eel pulled out the paws and threw them away. Chen Fan then ran out of the cave to drag the steel cable back in again. The python also probably realized that it had done a disservice. Since, without any apologies, it ran away into the mountain forests.
After cleaning up the messy carcasses near the entrance of the cave, Chen Fan clapped his hands and returned to the driving chamber of the armored vehicle. He had already cleaned up the cave, so the only thing left to do now was to purchase some electrical storage, illumination devices, and a gate in order to turn the place into a fortress that was suitable for humans to live within. The first few items could be bought from hardware stores, while the gate was more troublesome, as it had to be tailor-made.
The protective gates usually had two types. One is made from pure steel, while the other has a steel frame, with an interior filled with special cement. Using the principle that he had to use the best quality always, Chen Fan went online and found a steel manufacturer near Zhongyun, asking them to build a steel gate that was twenty tons in weight.
Since the gate was so heavy, it would be ridiculous to expect a human to open it. The only way was to install a set of gear wheels on the inside, then use a rotary wheel to slowly open it.
...
The next morning, Chen Fan started transporting the bought equipment towards the world on the other side of the ripples. After receiving the gate in two day's time, he would be able to turn that place into a natural underground shelter.
Two days later, the gate, which was painted in green-gray rock designs, was sent to the dock. Accompanying the gate were 24 solid steel nails, each three meters long and 40 centimeters thick, as well as an ash gray flat shovel.
The steel nails were ordinary, and were meant to be drilled into rocks, to make the frame firmer. On the other hand, the shovel, whose shaft was five meters long and whose blade was 1 meter wide, was extraordinary! That was because it was made from tungsten steel, and cost as high as sixty thousand yuan!
The material has both an extremely high hardness and melting point, and is mainly used to make the filament in light bulbs, as well as to cut alloy steels efficiently.
So, why does the tungsten filament in light bulbs glow?
That is because the metal has a very high electrical resistance. Current cannot pass through easily, thereby, it then produces heat energy inside and glows. The way tungsten works is the same as iron, which glows when red hot.
The melting points of tungsten and iron are respectively 3380℃ and 1515℃. Holding the five-meter long handle, made from ordinary metal, the electric eel could pass electricity through it and heat the blade to a few thousand degrees Celsius, which could be effectively used to close the gap between the door and the column of nails.
After the electric eel dragged the gate to the cave on the mountainside and installed it, Chen Fan quickly brought the eagle, which was already over 125 kilograms in weight, and whose body was covered with gray-brown feathers, onto the armored vehicle.
It would be too late, if Chen Fan did not bring the eagle to the cave at that time, because its wingspan was already over seven meters long. In a few days, it would probably not even be able to fit inside the armored vehicle.
Although the eagle was bigger than any other eagles in the world, it was still a baby bird, whose feathers had not fully grown. It was so dependent on Chen Fan, that it would follow his instructions blindly. Chen Fan held it just like he was hugging a cat, as it was very obedient.
It was already over ten days since the eagle was hatched. After ten more days or so, it would be able to formally begin practicing its flying skills. After all, the purpose of Chen Fan hatching it in the first place was so that he could ride on it and soar in the blue sky.
Therefore, starting from that moment, he had to train it into a qualified mount. Otherwise, when it was grown, it would no longer be so convenient to train.
As for the way to train it, Chen Fan decided to use the same method as police dogs. He would lure it with food, causing it to eventually perform certain actions as a conditioned response.
Lying on the ground was the most basic technique, which would be trained first. This was so that, when it was grown, Chen Fan could climb up and down from it more conveniently.
Before an animal is trained, its master needed to give it a name. In this way, when the name was called, and it would then understand that its master was summoning it.
The name had already been decided: Chen Fan would call it "Cloudracer"! The eagle was female, and so this cool and elegant name was quite suitable.
Also, he deliberately cut down the paws from the two pangolins, used the Kun Wu to chop down a small part, then asked a highly skilled handcraft master to make three beautiful high frequency whistles, the kind that many people played when they were young. The small, steel whistles were silver in color, had a flat mouthpiece and a round body, and were of a high frequency in pitch and tone.
The whistles were meant to call the eagle from afar. The frequency of their sound was over 3000 Hertz, and eagles were most sensible to sound waves with frequencies of 3000 to 7000 Hertz, because the sound made by rodents falls within this range.
"Cloudracer, lie down!" A beef block, its favorite food, was held in Chen Fan's left hand, while his right hand kept signaling in front of Cloudracer.
Of course, even though Cloudracer could not understand what Chen Fan was saying, it still stared at the beef on Chen Fan's left hand with anticipation. Since the lure did not work, Chen Fan had to use force. He went up and pressed on Cloudracer's back, pushing it down gently.
Cloudracer did not resist. It obediently cooperated and lowered down its body, which earned it a small piece of beef as a reward. Repeating this for five times, Cloudracer was smart, and learned that, when it saw Chen Fan signal or heard him shout "lie down", it should obediently lie down on the ground, because it would then get food. In order to train it, Chen Fan purposely did not feed it until it was full. After learning the action, the next step was to slowly train it, so that the action would become a conditioned response in its mind, and it would then lie down even without food.
The whole afternoon was spent by the man and the eagle in this training: the eagle would lie down, stand up, eat the beef, and repeat this cycle. The next day, the eagle, which was as clever as the python, actually managed to learn quickly. Without Chen Fan signaling, it kept lying down and standing up at the same spot, and Chen Fan did not know whether to cry or laugh!
After lunch, Chen Fan started to train Cloudracer with the whistle. He wanted to train it until it could instinctively understand that hearing the whistle meant that its master was calling for it.
After blowing the whistle just a few times, Cloudracer did not come, but the white python ran over happily instead, after which, it stared at Cloudracer, whose feathers were almost full, drooling. The python naturally had an immense interest in anything with wings.
In fact, Chen Fan had seen it hiding on the hills a few times, pretending to be dead. Whenever a bird landed nearby, no matter its size, the python would blow out a gust of cold mist, freezing the bird and then eating it.
The python scanned Cloudracer's body with a greedy look, frightening Cloudracer so much that it hid behind Chen Fan, trembling. However, because the electric eel, which had many blue electric arcs dancing on its body, was just beside them, the python could only stare at the bird and not do anything else.
Roar!
The python looked at Cloudracer reluctantly, then ran to the mountains in the distance to continue catching birds.
Howl!
Not long after the python left, Chen Fan suddenly heard a miserable bellow from the distance. He originally thought that it came from the python, but after turning his head, he realized that the python was lying on the peaks unharmed.
"Probably some large animal got caught by its natural enemy!" Shaking his head, Chen Fan continued training the golden eagle. Cloudracer, which had already grown to 150 kilograms, was 1. 8 meters tall when it stood up straight. When Chen Fan rode on its neck, it could still walk shakily.
Howl!
In the evening, when Chen Fan was about to go back and sleep, another miserable roar came in the distance, together with the faint sound of something crashing onto the ground. Even if the sky was to fall, Chen Fan would not bothered about it, as long as he was not affected. In light of this fact, he even prayed in his heart that it would be better if all the huge animals around him died.
Before Chen Fan went to sleep, he would always bring Cloudracer to the seaside, and let it stay with the electric eel, so that, if there was a danger, the electric eel could jump up and protect it.
...
The next morning, Chen Fan exited the armored vehicle and waved at Cloudracer, as if he was the leader of a nation who just alighted from a plane. He threw a piece of beef weighing over 1 kilogram at Cloudracer, which jumped up like a spring, caught the beef, and swallowed it.
Rumble...
A dull noise came from the distant mountains, and accompanying the rumbling were the faint cries of animals. Chen Fan estimated that it was at least tens of leagues away from his location, and that it was probably caused by two large animal populations fighting over their territories.
At the moment, Cloudracer's feathers were starting to become golden, and the original fluffs were already covered by feathers with hollow shafts. Driven by instinct, its two wings often flapped unconsciously, just like a propeller helicopter with insufficient fuel that was struggling on the track.
Chen Fan was already training it on how to walk left and right, which would form the foundation for learning how to fly left and right. Riding on its back, Chen Fan would signal it on the direction to go by pulling the feathers on its neck.
At first, Cloudracer certainly could not understand Chen Fan's intentions. However, as long as it did not go in the direction as signaled by Chen Fan, he would keep pulling its feathers hard, until it walked in the correct direction, after which, Chen Fan would award it with a piece of beef.
After it could understand that pulling its feathers was meant to signal it on the direction to go, Chen Fan would move on to a more advanced training. Meaning that, he would signal it on the direction he wanted it to go by shifting his center of gravity.
And lastly, dear readers, just to explain more clearly on a few things you may have read: Some readers may be wondering, since the python's head was only the size of a buffalo, how could the electric eel, which was about as long as the python, hold the armored vehicle in its mouth? That is because a snake's head is much thinner than its body. The head of a green anaconda, which is over ten meters in length, is not even as thick as a rubber ball. On the other hand, an electric eel's head is as thick as its body. Furthermore, an eel has a fat but short body, while a snake is thin and long.
| ← Ch. 228 | Ch. 230 → |