Chapter 63

His sense of touch was overly sensitive; the moment he ingested the herbs, his stomach reacted, and he ended up with diarrhea.

However, he had finally come up with this idea and was naturally unwilling to give it up. Afterward, he continued to study the herbs like Shen Nong, identifying their medicinal properties.

Although his sense of touch was sensitive, it had not yet reached the point of spiritual sensitivity. Without any injury or need for the herbs, it was indeed not easy to discern their medicinal properties from the nature of the plants.

Moreover, most of the plants in the valley were just ordinary grass and trees. While they could generally be used as medicine, there were not many true medicinal herbs. The natural properties of the plants far outweighed their medicinal properties, masking the latter. He had to taste a large amount to discern the extremely weak medicinal properties.

Thus, he suffered a lot. He secretly worried and couldn't help but think, "If only I could further enhance my five senses. If one day my sense of touch becomes powerful enough to reach the point of spiritual sensitivity, I would only need to taste a tiny bit of the stem, leaf, seed, root, or any other part to completely distinguish all the components within, even clearly identifying the specific effects and functions of each component without any confusion. If my sense of taste were to reach the point of spiritual sensitivity, I wouldn't need to swallow them; I could just taste them in my mouth to distinguish them. If my sense of smell were to reach the point of spiritual sensitivity, I would only need to sniff them with my nose..."

Following this line of thought, he continued to ponder, "To achieve this, I must first enhance my five senses. But what method can I use to enhance my five senses?"

He was well aware that the reason his five senses were so powerful was due to the control of his body through static breathing and his ethereal state of mind.

However, at this point, his static breathing and state of mind had already reached their limits and were difficult to improve further. Therefore, it was unrealistic to expect further enhancement of his five senses through static breathing and mental state.

Since that was the case, he had to find a way to achieve this through training.

His five senses were already ten to several dozen times stronger than those of a normal person, giving him a much higher starting point. With such a foundation, the effects of training would be more noticeable.

But what method should he use to train? And what should he train?

After careful consideration, he quickly realized that among the five senses, the most fundamental was the sense of touch. Touch refers to the reactions produced when various parts of the body come into contact with external objects or stimuli. It is the foundation of the other four senses.

While the five senses are called five senses, in a broad sense, the other four senses can also be considered a form of touch. For example, vision is the contact between the eyes and light, hearing is the contact between the ears and sound, taste is the contact between the tongue and flavor, and smell is the contact between the nose and odor.

To improve his five senses, he must first strengthen his sense of touch.

Therefore, he decided to start by training his sense of touch.

But what method should he use to train his sense of touch to make it even more sensitive?

Obviously, since it was touch, he had to come into contact with various external objects or stimuli and seek insights during the contact.

However, ordinary stimuli were no longer effective for him. So he closed his eyes and calmly felt the subtle touches of the air on his body. He climbed to the top of the mountain, lay down, and quietly felt the changes as the sunlight fell on his body.

He was like a man possessed, always thinking about the contact between his body and the external environment, releasing his mind to experience the constant changes in the external environment. Gradually, his mind merged with nature, and he seemed to become a part of the vast universe.

Sometimes, when his mind merged with the universe, he would become so confused that he couldn't distinguish between himself and the universe. His mind had completely merged with the universe.

He lay in the forest, sat on the mountaintop, closed his eyes, and released his thoughts, merging with the trees, rocks, morning dew, and the breeze. Sometimes, he would be unaware for several days.

At this point, his state of mind had changed, and he had unknowingly achieved the unity of man and nature.

His sense of touch had improved, but it had also reached its limit. He finally realized that although his sense of touch was powerful, he still couldn't discern the feeling of sunlight on his body or the contact of the air with his body.

What he could feel was the same as a normal person: the warmth of the sunlight on his body or the breeze on his skin when the wind blew.

But he was not discouraged.

One morning, he woke up and felt that his body, as usual, was covered with dew. He lay still, feeling the changes in the dew on his body. Soon, the sun came up, and the sunlight and the morning breeze quickly evaporated the dew.

He suddenly had an epiphany and couldn't help but laugh. The evaporation of the dew finally gave him an idea of how to train his sense of touch.

So, he dripped a drop of water on his body and focused on the sensation of the wind.

By "the sensation of the wind," he actually meant the feeling of the water evaporating and the sensation of the water leaving his body. This sensation was extremely subtle, but compared to the feeling of sunlight on his body or the contact of the air with his body, it was much stronger.

Xu Mo immediately began to implement this method. However, this method produced significant interference, affecting his judgment.

Everyone knows that when water evaporates and leaves the body, it takes away some of the body's heat, causing a feeling of coolness. Although this coolness is also a sensation perceived by the sense of touch, it is a very simple part of touch that everyone can feel, which was not what Xu Mo wanted.

What he wanted was to distinguish the changes in the sensation of the water leaving his body due to the reduction of water and the direct contact with his body.

He thought for a moment and then walked towards the lake. The lake was in the center of the valley, and he had to pass through a wild mango forest to get there.

But he had only taken a few steps into the mango forest when he heard a faint sound. Looking around, he saw a small monkey in the forest.

It was an ordinary monkey, small in size, and apparently not yet an adult. The little monkey was holding several mangoes in its left arm and was desperately trying to pick up more from the ground. However, every time it picked up more, the ones in its arms would fall, and it couldn't carry any more, causing it to make distressed sounds.

Xu Mo, fearing that he would disturb it, stopped in the distance and didn't move forward. He had lived in the valley for almost half a year and had never known that there were monkeys here.

The valley was lonely, and he was glad to have a neighbor, so he had no ill intentions towards the little monkey.

However, the little monkey eventually noticed him, turned around, and looked at Xu Mo, frightened. It didn't dare to pick up more mangoes and fled, dropping most of the mangoes it was holding in its panic.

Xu Mo shook his head and smiled wryly, then continued towards the lake.

The cave where he lived was shallow and couldn't block the wind. If there was wind, it would interfere with his training when he dripped water on his body to exercise his sense of touch.

The soil by the lake was soft, so he planned to dig a pit by the lake to block the wind. This way, the sensation of the water leaving his body would be clearer.

He walked around the lake to survey the terrain and finally found a suitable spot. However, after examining it closely, he frowned.

This area was relatively low and downstream from the lake. If it rained and the lake water rose, it could flood this place.

Xu Mo hesitated, unsure whether to dig the pit here. But after checking other areas by the lake, he found that they were either too rocky or had trees, making it much more difficult to dig a pit. Without proper tools, the work would be several times or even ten times more difficult.

After some thought, he decided not to change the location and thought, "I won't be training here all the time. If the water rises and floods this place, I'll just do something else. Although a powerful sense of touch makes it easier to identify herbs, I haven't given up tasting herbs just because of the difficulties. If I can't train my sense of touch, I'll just identify herbs."

With that, he found a few hard stones nearby and started digging the pit.

The soil by the lake was soft compared to other areas in the valley. However, since the lake was in the mountains, the soil, though soft, was not as soft as the soil in the plains. Using only a few stones, it was not easy to dig a large pit big enough for a person to lie in. It took him five days to barely complete it.

The pit was about two meters long, one meter wide, and one meter and twenty centimeters deep, more than enough to block the wind.

After digging, he piled the excavated soil between the pit and the lake, forming a makeshift embankment. If the lake water rose slightly, it would be blocked and not flow into the pit.

He then laid some dry grass at the bottom of the pit, lay down to test it, and couldn't help but laugh. The pit looked more like a grave for a live burial than a place for training his sense of touch.

But he only cared about its practicality and didn't mind this. He spat on his navel and began to focus on the sensation of the water leaving his body, bit by bit.