Chapter 82: Eyes
Hugh's instincts took over, and he immediately identified the sudden movement to his right. His eyes immediately focused as he had never done before.
His self-preservation earned from fighting life or death with the squirrel gave him the ability to respond quickly. Without even thinking about it, Hugh did whatever he could to see what was happening.
Underneath his eyes, a mutation suddenly occurred. His thin eyes suddenly turned circular while his irises became bigger. He could suddenly see every tiny movement in his vision.
He had only felt this type of vision before, and that was when he had transformed into a giant eagle. He looked to his right and saw that the ground seemed to have been displaced a little bit.
If it were from before, he would not have noticed the difference. Now that he had an eagle's eyes, he could see the minute displacement of small pebbles in the ground.
The ground shook a short second after, and something burst out of the earth. The soil flew off everywhere and showed the creature that was underground.
It was another giant mole. Hugh observed the mole and saw that it was the same size as he had encountered before.
As he observed the mole, he locked eyes with it. The mole was looking around and sniffing the ground when it came upon Hugh. It seemed to have looked for something in the vicinity.
It suddenly smelled something in the ground, and it follows the scent like a dog. It continued to this path until it reached the place where the previous mole died.
There was still a pool of blood that stained the ground, and it seemed to have caught the attention of the mole. Once it understood that its fellow mole had died, it looked towards Hugh and understood what happened.
It displayed a menacing face and extended its claws from its arms. Hugh did not move and only looked at the mole with his eagle eyes.
It was strange because it was like he could see every fiber of the mole's fur. He had never experienced this before, so he was speechless.
He saw the claw come after him, but he did not move. He already knew that the mole would not attack above ground; it would bury itself underground and attack him.
The mole attacked the ground and started to bury itself on the floor. Hugh did not panic and waited for the mole to attack him.
With his eagle eyes, he was able to see the small details of displacement in the ground. Like a calculated dodge, Hugh rolled out of the way of the mole's attacks.
With his eagle eyes, he was able to see when the mole would attack him, which made it easier to dodge against. He rejoiced at this fact since he could use the eagle eyes to enhance his fighting ability.
As he watched the mole bury itself again after a failed attack, Hugh suddenly felt the strength in his eyes disappear. He was forced to close his eyes, and after he opened them back up, he saw no longer had the eagle eyes.
Hugh tried to activate the eagle eyes back again, but he could not do it. It was the same feeling as when his armor is on cooldown, which meant that his eagle eyes also had a cooldown.
Hugh had been counting down the seconds that he could use his eagle eyes, and he figured out that his eagle eyes could only be used for ten seconds.
Without his eagle eyes, Hugh was forced to hung on the wall to dodge the mole's attacks. Even though he was facing against a C-rank creature, Hugh was not alarmed.
If one was to look at his face, there was a sense of curiosity plastered in his smile. He treated the fight with the mole as a learning experience for his newfound power.
After five seconds, he was able to use his eagle eyes again. While fighting the dangerous creature, Hugh wanted to experiment more on his power.
If he could use the eagle eyes, couldn't he use other parts of the eagle?
With this question in mind, Hugh concentrated all of his power on his arms and watched as it mutated and transformed in a split second.
His fat arms suddenly became skinny and grew ligaments underneath. More skin grew, and feathers seemed to have appeared instantly.
Hugh looked at himself and saw that his arms had now become eagle wings. With one strong flap of his wings, Hugh was able to soar into the air and go above the mole.
He was too enamored into this discovery that he forgot one simple thing; he did not know how to fly. He flew off without any control and bumped into the wall face first.
Hugh slid from the wall and dropped onto the ground. He rubbed his head in pain until he felt a disturbance underneath his feet.
His instincts took over, and he rolled away from the mole's attacks. He was not able to dodge away unscathed as an extended cut appeared on his leg.
He could not see the minute displacements in the ground, so he could not dodge the mole's attack entirely. Seeing that the mole disappeared into the ground again, Hugh activated his eagle eyes.
He closed his eyes and tried to activate his eagle eyes, but it was to no avail. It was then that he realized he still had his eagle wings on his arms.
It turned out that he could only use one eagle part at a time. Since it was already ten seconds of use, Hugh's wings transformed back into his arms.
Hugh spent the time experimenting with his new power. He would limit test his eagle parts as he fought the mole until it died. It was only recently that he had trouble dealing with C-rank creatures, but now he was toying with one of them.
As he was fighting the mole, a possibility came up into his mind. Could he use his armor while in a partial transformation?
He could not wait to try it out, so Hugh activated his eagle claws into his fist. His fingernails started to grow and sharpen until it was a weapon used for tearing flesh apart.
With these claws, Hugh activated his armor on his fist. Hugh watched as the silver and brown liquid envelop his right fist and continued to reach the nails.
His claws were now colored silver, and its sharpness seemed to have increased. With this weapon of destruction, Hugh sliced and shredded the mole's body after some time.
With the threat killed and consumed, Hugh started to think about what had happened. He had suddenly gained a new power to transform into an eagle.
It was easy to guess that it was because of the giant statue-like eagle he consumed while he was nauseous.
It made Hugh think. If he had consumed the squirrel or the caterpillar, would he have transformed into those creatures?
The answer was probably yes, which meant that Hugh got lucky in choosing the eagle as his food. An eagle had many more useful parts than the other two, which Hugh could use to his advantage.
The three creatures probably appeared because of his Fat God System. He had heard a complete mission notification when his nausea started.
Those three creatures were all beasts that he ate. It was only those three, even though he had eaten another mutated smile, the armored armadillo.
The common similarity among the three beasts that he consumed was that he encountered them at a dungeon and consumed many of them.
He did not think it was because he encountered them at a dungeon. After all, that would not make sense. There were other beasts in the real world that were fiercer than these creatures.
Hugh concluded that he could transform into the eagle because he had eaten a lot of eagles. This discovery gave him a lot of possibilities that made him drool for power.
If he could somehow eat more mutated animals, he could transform into them and use them for his fighting power. His body trembled as he thought about the possibility.
This trip into the dungeon was nothing but a fruitful one. He had gained a lot of time for his armor, and he had gained the ability to transform into an eagle.
With the day coming to an end, Hugh started to feel sleepy. His eyes slowly closed as he felt like he had accomplished what he went in the dungeon for.
As his consciousness faded into the night, he heard a notification in his mind.
'CONGRATULATIONS! You have ranked up!'
'Unadvanced'
'F-rank -] D-RANK'