Feral Gaze (Passive Mode: Spirit Sense)

"Alex!"

Just then, Uncle John's booming voice from the kitchen made Alex jump so hard his skin tingled.

"Yeah? Coming!" Alex yelled back, his voice cracking slightly.

He quickly buttoned his shirt all the way to the top, checking the mirror to make sure no pale patches were visible on his neck.

He looked tired. There were dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep, fearing that Elena might creep into his room again.

He opened the door and walked into the kitchen.

The smell of bacon and burnt toast filled the air.

Uncle John was at the stove, wrestling with a frying pan, while Marcus was shoveling eggs into his mouth at the table.

Elena was there, too.

She was sitting opposite Marcus, sipping a mug of coffee. As Alex walked in, the room didn't go silent, but the temperature seemed to drop a few degrees for him.

"Finally," Marcus grunted with a mouthful of food. "Thought you died in there. You've been acting weird lately, Alex. Are you sick or something?"

"Just... tired," Alex mumbled, pulling out a chair as far away from Elena as possible. He sat down carefully, trying not to let his clothes rub too hard against his sensitive stomach.

Alex reached for a fork, but his hand trembled slightly.

"Pass the salt," Alex said, keeping his eyes glued to his scrambled eggs.

"Here," Elena muttered, sliding the shaker across the wooden table without looking up. Her face was buried in a book she definitely wasn't reading, her ears burning a bright, tell-tale pink.

"You two are quiet today," Marcus grunted, chewing loudly. "Usually you're fighting over the last piece of bacon."

"Not hungry," Elena squeaked, standing up abruptly. "I have... patrol duty. Bye, Dad. Bye, Alex."

She practically sprinted out the door.

Alex let out a long breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

"Are you heading out, kid?" John asked, snapping Alex out of his thoughts.

"Yeah," Alex said, standing up and grabbing his canvas gear bag. "I need to hit the outskirts. I need a Gene Core to break through to F-Rank properly."

John frowned. "Be careful. The beasts have been restless lately. Don't go too deep."

"I won't. Just the Mist Hollow."

Two hours later, Alex was deep within the outer circle of the mountains, navigating the jagged, slippery terrain of the Mist Hollow.

Usually, a trek like this would have drained him.

He would be panting, sweating buckets, and begging for a water break every ten minutes.

But today, he wasn't even tired. In fact, the deeper he went into the humid, shaded forest, the more alive he felt.

It was a bizarre, almost intoxicating sensation.

The damp, heavy air, which usually felt suffocating to humans, felt like a soft, hydrating caress against his sensitive, new skin.

The clothes he wore, the oversized shirt and loose trousers, still felt a bit rough, but the moist air created a soothing buffer that eased the constant, low-level itch of his shedding phase.

The smell of rotting leaves, damp earth, and decaying wood wasn't gross at all. It was rich, textured, and full of information.

"Sniff..." Alex inhaled deeply, his nostrils flaring slightly.

The scents unraveled in his mind like a detailed mini-map, overlaying his vision with invisible data.

"A Needle-Back Rat... about three hundred meters north, hiding in a burrow... nursing a brood," Alex whispered, surprising himself. "And something acidic... an Acid-Spitter Beetle, crawling through the mud to the east."

The knowledge just popped into his head, instinctive and sharp.

These weren't the harmless animals of Earth; they were low-level monsters, creatures slowly mutating under the influence of the world's recovering Mana.

Yet, Alex didn't feel fear. He felt... hungry.

"Your senses are sharpening," the Empress's voice purred in the back of his mind, sounding pleased. "But you're still relying on your clumsy human eyes. You're looking, but you aren't seeing."

Alex hesitated, leaning his shoulder against a mossy rock to cool his heating skin. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Stop squinting like a blind mole," she teased. "The mist is only a barrier to those who rely on light. A true predator sees the heat. Sees the life force. Use your Feral Gaze, little vessel."

"I thought Feral Gaze was just for... you know... making people stun or charm them," Alex muttered, his face flushing slightly as he remembered the incident with Elena.

"That's just one use," the Empress corrected, her voice dripping with amusement. "Close your eyes. Focus on the heat behind your eyelids. Then, open them."

Alex took a deep breath. He closed his eyes, blocking out the gray swirling mist. He focused on the strange, warm energy coiled in his chest, the Naagin bloodline.

His eyelids fluttered. When he snapped them open again, the world had changed.

A sharp, stinging sensation washed over his corneas, followed by a rush of cool clarity. His pupils contracted violently, snapping from round human circles into sharp, vertical slits that glowed with a faint, predatory golden hue.

[Skill Activated: Feral Gaze (Passive Mode: Spirit Sense)]

"Whoa..." Alex breathed out.

The thick, blinding mist that had obscured his vision moments ago was now... translucent. It didn't disappear, but he could see through it.

The forest was no longer a wash of gray and green. It was a canvas of temperatures and energy flows.

The trees pulsed with a faint, cool blue light. The ground was a patchwork of dark purples and cold shadows.

But amidst the cold, bright spots of color stood out like beacons.

To his left, hidden completely behind a thicket of ferns, he saw a glowing, orange-red silhouette.

It was small, hunched, and shivering, the Needle-Back Rat he had smelled earlier.

He could see the rapid flutter of its heart, a bright pulse of light in the center of its chest.

To his right, clinging to the underside of a branch twenty feet up, was a chillier, greenish-yellow shape.

It was long, segmented, a Shadow Mantis.

"I can see them," Alex whispered, a grin spreading across his face.

"Good," the Empress commanded. "Now, stop gawking and move. With your current strength, you won't be able to maintain it longer."

"Whoa," Alex breathed.

He didn't want to disturb those monsters, especially not in his current state and moved slowly, stepping with a deliberation he had never possessed before.

On his way, he saw a cluster of Acid-Spitter Beetles marching in a line up a tree trunk, their acidic sacs glowing a sickly, pulsating yellow in his vision. He ducked under a low-hanging branch, missing their patrol by inches.

Minutes passed by, stretching into a tense half-hour.

The strain on his eyes was beginning to mount. The golden vertical slits were burning, tears pricking at the corners of his vision.

The world began to blur, the sharp thermal outlines fuzzing into static.

"I can't... hold it much longer," Alex thought, gritting his teeth.

Just when he thought he found nothing and was about to release the Spirit Sense to save his energy, a faint, rhythmic pulse caught his attention.

"There," he muttered.