Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 183: “Hundred Lives Soul-Desecrating Curse”

At the entrance of the bookstore.

Wang Ba stood perfectly still, his gaze dark and unfathomable as it locked onto Bao An.

Standing between them was Alpha-Fifteen. Though the rooster was noticeably leaner than a few days prior, its second-grade High Grade aura had only intensified. The beast radiated a suffocating pressure. Its beak was a razor-sharp hook, and its talons dug into the floorboards like serrated iron spikes. It was merely the most common breed of Spirit Poultry, yet its sheer presence made the blood in the onlookers’ veins run cold.

Beside Bao An, Manager Lao was sweating through his silken robes.

He had only intended to play along with the chief manager to bleed a naive mark dry. Who could have anticipated the situation violently escalating into a life-or-death standoff?

A sudden calamity! An unmitigated disaster! Manager Lao wept internally, his knees trembling. If a battle erupted here, two Foundation Establishment cultivators clashing might not level the entire Xuli Market, but his bookstore would be instantly obliterated. And his insignificant life along with it.

Bao An was equally trapped, riding a tiger he couldn’t dismount.

He had assumed this seemingly honest cultivator would be as easily cowed as the rest, obediently coughing up Spirit Stones to buy his safety. It was that assumption that had stoked his greed. He never imagined that a mere early Foundation Establishment Rogue Cultivator would casually summon a second-grade High Grade spirit beast!

A beast of that caliber rivaled a late Foundation Establishment expert!

While it was true that spirit beasts lacked the versatility of cultivators—unable to wield spells, Magical Artifacts, or Talismans—their raw physical power was devastating. Even at a disadvantage, a second-grade High Grade monster could easily tear a mid Foundation Establishment cultivator like him to pieces.

Damn it! Aren’t beasts of this tier strictly regulated? Which imbecile sold this to a rogue?! Bao An cursed furiously in his mind.

In the Great Yan Kingdom, the absolute ceiling for publicly traded spirit beasts was second-grade Middle Grade. Higher-tier beasts were either hunted to extinction in the wild or strictly hoarded by the major Sects. Unless a Golden Core True Person intervened, a High Grade beast with combat capabilities was an apex asset. Sects monopolized them by an unspoken rule, ensuring Rogue Cultivators never got their hands on such uncontrollable, highly mobile threats.

Bao An had struck the worst kind of lottery.

However, he was a veteran survivor of the Xuli Market. Forcing his stiff facial muscles to cooperate, he squeezed out a rigid, placating smile.

“Fellow Daoist… if I said this was all a massive misunderstanding, you surely wouldn’t believe me…”

Wang Ba’s eyes remained icy and unblinking.

Bao An swallowed hard. “But I swear to you, it truly is a misunderstanding!”

“…Since it is a misunderstanding,” Wang Ba said, his voice dropping to a low, dangerous gravel, “may I leave?”

“Of course! Please, Fellow Daoist, come and go as you please.”

Bao An was seething with reluctance, but an overwhelming wave of relief washed over him. He could have utilized the market’s defensive Formation to suppress the beast, but if the battle spiraled out of control and damaged the infrastructure, the Xuli Sect would execute him. The risks vastly outweighed the rewards. He had survived this long in a seat of power by knowing exactly when to retract his claws. The Sect permitted him to skim profits, but they would not forgive outright incompetence.

Wang Ba offered no further words. With a casual flick of his sleeve, Alpha-Fifteen dissolved into a stream of light, vanishing into the spirit beast bag. In the next breath, Wang Ba stepped out of the bookstore and melted into the crowds.

Manager Lao scrambled to the doorway, peering frantically down the street before rushing back. “Martial Uncle! He’s gone!” Manager Lao hissed. “Should we alert the Sect? If we track down where this Rogue Cultivator nests, we can—”

Smack!

A brutal backhand sent Manager Lao spinning to the floor, his vision swimming with stars.

“If I hear a single whisper of what happened today leak outside these walls…” Bao An glared down at him, his vision swimming with red as his jaw clenched.

An honest man was easy to bully. But a rogue who casually unleashed apex predators without batting an eye? That was a walking death sentence. Did this fat idiot think Bao An owned the Xuli Sect?

Manager Lao cradled his swelling cheek, drowning in grievance. You’re the one who dragged him in here! he screamed internally. But faced with Bao An’s murderous glare, he frantically nodded. “Yes! I understand! Not a word!”

Sword Billow Garrison.

Under the dense shade of ancient trees, Wang Ba descended from the sky. He swept his Divine Sense over his territory. The defensive Formation was pristine, and the flock of Spirit Poultry scratched at the dirt, entirely undisturbed.

Nodding in satisfaction, he released the Earth Ape King, Alpha-Fifteen, and the other beasts to roam the enclosure before stepping into his wooden hut.

Only then did the adrenaline bleed from his system.

I was too conspicuous, Wang Ba reflected coldly. I knew the Xuli Market was a viper’s nest, yet I flew in on a Top Grade Magical Artifact. For a supposedly unaffiliated early Foundation Establishment cultivator, I made myself a beacon for greed. I must tighten my discipline.

Furthermore, the moment I sensed Bao An’s trap closing, I should have aborted the transaction immediately. Yet, beneath his ruthless self-critique, a strange, electric thrill hummed in his veins.

I’ve been playing the coward for too long, he realized, shaking his head with a weary, cynical smirk. He was human, after all. He couldn’t simulate perfect, emotionless caution forever. Bao An had barely been stronger than the mediocre Rogue Cultivators he’d slain in the past, yet the man had tried to squeeze him for 500 Spirit Stones.

Wang Ba had run the tactical calculus in his head before striking. Bao An was a Sect dog, reliant on his home turf. The Xuli Market was both his shield and his leash. As long as Bao An wasn’t suicidally greedy, he would never risk destroying his own territory. Wang Ba had wagered on the manager’s self-preservation, and the gamble had paid off beautifully.

Still, this is the brutal reality of the cultivation world. It’s even more nakedly parasitic than the mortal realm. The encounter solidified his resolve. Once I leave the Heavenly Gate Sect, I must embed myself within a major power. A Rogue Cultivator’s path is too brittle, especially with the Cult of Incense creeping closer.

Pushing the regrets aside, Wang Ba focused on his spoils. Thanks to Bao An’s aggressive “bargaining,” he had secured copies of over a dozen spells. Discarding the useless filler, he had acquired seven or eight genuinely valuable arts.

This included the Cloud Water Six Miasmas, a formidable second-grade defensive spell, and Sparse Shadows Slanting, a standard second-grade movement technique.

Except for the Cloud Water Six Miasmas—which required the physical harvesting of six distinct toxic water miasmas to initiate—Wang Ba spent a little over a century of his accumulated Lifespan to instantaneously master the rest. Combined with the obscure spells he had purchased from the Exquisite Ghost Market, his arsenal had expanded by nearly twenty techniques in a matter of days.

Naturally, none of them were ultimate, heaven-defying arts like his Golden Wind Jade Dew Art. Truly devastating spells were fiercely monopolized by Sects, their required resources hoarded to prevent outsiders from learning them. But standard spells had their utility. They didn’t alter the fundamental nature of his Magic Power, and replenishing the energy required to cast them was significantly faster.

While Wang Ba drowned himself in spellcraft, Alpha-Fifteen and Alpha-Sixteen’s clutch finally hatched.

Wang Ba immediately injected the sole viable chick with a Lifespan breakthrough.

The results delivered both a shock and a bitter disappointment.

The good news: the breakthrough was flawlessly successful, violently mutating the second-grade High Grade chick into a true second-grade Top Grade entity!

The bad news: the bird was a male, and tragically, a mundane meat breed, lacking the innate combat and stealth abilities of a Phantom Chicken. It couldn’t breed with Alpha-Fifteen, nor could it fight. It was essentially a ticking bomb of hyper-dense Spiritual Qi. Without a second-grade spirit chef’s Magical Artifact to properly refine its flesh, butchering it would waste ninety percent of its medicinal value.

It was an apex treasure reduced to a useless paperweight.

Alpha-Fifteen, however, didn’t care about logistics. Seeing his ‘son’ eclipse him in grade in less than two weeks turned the rooster’s eyes bloodshot with intense, seething jealousy.

Wang Ba made a mental note. Helping Alpha-Fifteen achieve a Bloodline Breakthrough was his next primary objective.

Elsewhere, the turtle breeding was proceeding smoothly. The second-grade Low Grade Emerald Water Spirit Turtles were about to hatch their clutches, opening the door for Middle Grade mutations.

But it was the Psychic Ghost Loaches that truly delivered.

The ten High Grade loaches had spawned a massive cluster of eggs, swelling the population of second-grade Low Grade loaches to over three hundred.

Wang Ba’s eyes gleamed with a cold, predatory light. He isolated exactly one hundred of the squirming, spectral fish.

“Take one hundred creatures of the equivalent realm… the stronger their vitality, the more potent the curse… engrave the Formation in blood… sacrifice…” Following the profane tenets of the Hundred Lives Soul-Desecrating Curse, Wang Ba channeled his Magic Power, his fingers tracing jagged, bleeding runes directly into the void. This forbidden art served a dual purpose: it could inflict a horrific hex upon an enemy, or it could be inverted to form a parasitic armor around one’s own soul.

An invisible, suffocating pressure seized the hundred Psychic Ghost Loaches, suspending them mid-air in violently contorted postures.

Then, the horror began.

The void surrounding the loaches fractured. Phantoms of roaring flames, cascading frost, and descending executioner’s blades engulfed the array, tearing into the spectral fish.

The loaches withered at a sickening speed. Their flesh shrank aggressively against their bones, moisture evaporating in seconds. Their cold, bulging eyes collapsed inwards, leaving hollow, dark sockets that uniformly snapped to fixate on Wang Ba. It was a stare of pure, unadulterated hatred—as if they were desperately trying to carve their murderer’s face into their decaying minds before plunging into the abyss.

In utter silence, the hundred loaches crumbled into pale, dry ash, drifting to the floorboards.

“It’s done.”

The moment the curse finalized, a wave of unspeakable terror violently crashed against Wang Ba’s mind.

He felt as though a supreme, primordial malice had just opened its eyes and locked onto his soul. It was a sensation so profoundly evil, so steeped in cruelty and decay, that human language failed to capture its depravity.

Plunging his Divine Sense into his spiritual platform, Wang Ba observed his Yin Spirit Abode. The pristine, ethereal temple was now coated in a thick, pulsating layer of pitch-black grime, radiating an aura of condensed suffering and negative emotion. The malice was so dense it felt as if the temple itself was cowering, shrinking away from the profane sludge coating its walls.

This curse… it’s genuine nightmare fuel. Wang Ba stared at the blackened temple, his heart hammering with deep apprehension. This was his first foray into the dark arts, and it wildly deviated from orthodox cultivation. He hadn’t even comprehended the mechanism that actually killed the loaches.

Yet, beneath the revulsion, a cold sense of security settled over him. The Cult of Incense specialized in insidious soul attacks. Coating his own mind in a layer of condensed, parasitic malice was the perfect toxic armor.

With his soul fortified, Wang Ba spent the remaining days violently drilling his new spells, syncing his Magical Artifacts, and coordinating with his beasts until they moved as one lethal unit.

The month expired. The day to deploy to the Eastern Sage Garrison had finally arrived.

A note to everyone: I’ll be traveling for the next couple of days, so updates might be irregular. However, by the 13th, things will definitely return to normal. Thank you for your understanding.

(End of Chapter)