After a few moments of struggle, Kevin's face showed determination as he concluded his inner struggle with a decision.

…

At the same time, John crossed the river and reached the other side of the river. His spirit finally relaxed from the stress of thinking about when the people of the kingdom would arrive.

After crossing the river, John traveled at a much slower pace. He's not going back to the place he was born, because there was no prospect or good growth for him from where he was born. Even if he read the memories of thousands of people, he didn't find what he was looking for from their memories.

So, he decided to use the remaining time to research the animals in the forest with the knowledge gained from the people's memories. He found three animals that have somewhat special abilities that he considers his next potential race. These three animals have relatively remarkable regeneration characteristics.

But John doesn't want to just believe the people's memories and waste the precious chance to be reborn as another species and awaken a unique talent. So, he decided to examine some of the animals he considered to have potential and glimpse to what extent their abilities developed and if there was any prospect of their species’ evolution.

John moved towards a large lake in the forest which he found from one of the exploration team members' memories from the Black Bear City. After a two-day journey, he reached a large sky-blue lake with various animals from large-sized Elephants to small rabbit-like animals.

He slithered into the lake at an unhurried pace without making any commotion. The animals near him all flew away from there. John entered the lake and became transparent, as he didn't want to alert all the animals in the lake and lose his target. He looked around in the water with high concentration, to not ignore any creatures.

A few minutes later, John stopped before a two-meter-wide blue turtle. The turtle tried to swim away in panic from John, but John was faster than it. So, he caught the turtle, bit its hind leg, and imprisoned it by coiling around it. The turtle trembled in fear looking at the huge snake. But John doesn't give a fuck about its thought process and continued to monitor it cruelly.

The turtle's plump fleshy head and legs shrunk a bit in a few moments and the wounded leg healed at a rapid pace. John looked at this with amazement, as he couldn't heal at such a rapid pace even with the insane abilities he possessed. With amazement John bit and ate all the legs of the turtle under its miserable stare.

The Turtle made very uncomfortable noises and looked at John with a ferocious expression. John didn't care as he was much more interested in the turtle's ability for now. The turtle's four legs healed within a few minutes, but it was much slower than the first time it healed. The turtle recovered, but its head and shell all became bleak and it aged rapidly at the same rate its legs healed.

Seeing this, John didn't stop; he repeated the same process a few more times. Without much suspense, the turtle healed all the time, but it became so tired and its recovery speed slowed down after a few times of this process.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

After repeated experiments, the turtle finally died with wrinkled old skin and a weak body. John looked at the weak dead body of the turtle and thought (The turtle is consuming its lifespan to heal. I don't know if it will heal naturally if I let it eat food and replenish its energy.)

So with new ideas, John captured another blue turtle and repeated the same experiments. But this time he let the turtle replenish some food and see if this increased the turtle's healing speed and decreased its aging speed.

But the experiment ended up with only disappointment, as the turtle performance didn't fare much better than when it was starved. This turtle only lasted one more time than the turtle that was starved. So, he concluded that these turtles’ healing conditions all depend on their lifespan, and only by depleting the lifespan did they heal fast. With disappointment, John headed out of the lake and moved towards another animal's location with regenerative ability.

John found that the newly grown limbs of the turtle were much tender and tasty to eat when it's healed for the first few times. But after numerous times, its flesh tasted like wax and there were almost no health benefits. So John thinks that the humans noted this blue turtle for its taste purpose, and he was a little amazed at its healing ability.

He began to wonder if their purpose for remembering this animal's ability was for their tasty flesh. With dismay and a doubtful attitude, John slithered out of the lake and moved towards the direction of the habitat of an animal with a regenerative ability.

…

In the meantime, troops from the capital city neared the largest river in their kingdom, the Riya River. The kingdom's agriculture and its nature thrived depending on this river, and it was very hard to cross the river with a human body.

Even with a well-built ship, it was very hard to cross this raging river that almost destroyed everything that floated in it, the river's large width made it look like a sea with human vision. It's a river formed with water from icy mountains from the kingdom of Rakum in the north.

On the river shore, Major Kevin looked at the raging river with an irritated expression, as he didn't expect the giant snake to cross the river and reach the wilderness of the kingdom where the kingdom's influence was almost zero.

They couldn't get any support in case of emergency and they had to face forest and cannibalistic native tribes in the wilderness. So this mission became even harder to continue. Major Kevin and his soldiers made a camp at the river shore for now.

As they planned the next course of action. After settling down everyone in the river shore.

In the largest tent beside the group of tents a mile away from the river, Major Kevin sat alone in his tent and thought (I need a boat that's strong enough to carry my troop to the other side of the river to reach wilderness and my soldiers are not enough to hunt the giant snake in the wilderness. So, I need more soldiers and the ability to traverse the river safely.)

After a few minutes of contemplating, he sent a letter of request to the capital and then commanded the chefs and assistants to hunt animals in the forest for food in the coming days and sent a bunch of soldiers of border defense and requested more food from the black bear city.

After he finished setting up everything, he practiced the formations and close combat with his soldiers for the next few days while waiting for backup from the capital.

…

In a deep forest with trees covering up most of the sunlight, a five-meter-long green-colored lizard was standing on a tree branch looking for any animal to hunt that fit in its stomach.

Under the tree filled with dead leaves and various types of insects.

~Rustle~

Suddenly with a faint rustling sound the dead leaves on the ground got shaken and a small head popped out of the ground and looked at the surroundings vigilantly. After finding no threatening animals nearby, the animal slowly got out of the hole and then covered the hole with dead leaves making its nest disappear in the surroundings.

The animal was a brown colored two-legged animal covered in thick fur with only black eyes. It sniffed around by standing on two legs, to pick up the scents in the surroundings more clearly. It suddenly picked up a familiar smell, after realizing the owner of this scent from its pitiful short memories, the animal panicked and entered a survival mood.

The animal turned around and tried to enter its nest.

~Swish~

But the lizard suddenly jumped down from the tree and spread its hand in the air like it was gliding. Surprisingly slight transparent wings spread under its arms, with the help of the wings the lizard came down the tree at insane speed and reached the two-legged brown-furred rabbit with large ears and small eyes.

The rabbit ran towards its nest at the fastest speed possible. But, the lizard using the wings that are specially evolved for speed attack easily caught up to the rabbit and inserted its claws into the rabbit's brain killing it instantly. Then the lizard bit a piece of lizard and began to chew its meat.

Unexpectedly, a first-sized mantis-like insect with sharp razor-like forearms appeared beside the dead rabbit and attacked the lizard. The insect's attack speed and its sharp forelegs made it impossible for the lizard to escape. The insect left a fatal injury on the lizard's head and then disappeared into the forest.