“Huh? My Lifespan… it went up?”

Wang Ba’s sharp eyes caught the discrepancy immediately.

Before he had considered upgrading the Physique Strengthening Scripture, his remaining Lifespan had been exactly 125.1 years.

But after a single night, the counter now read 125.3 years.

It was a minuscule increase—merely 0.2 years—but it screamed for attention.

“I didn’t do anything last night except read the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture.”

“Reading doesn’t extend your life. So it must be from before… The Spirit Poultry?”

He turned the thought over in his mind. Only the Spirit Poultry meat and the Spirit Rice could possess such miraculous effects. It made sense; food rich in spiritual energy nourishing a mortal body would naturally extend one’s longevity.

It wasn’t a massive gain, but it was a pleasant surprise.

No one complained about living too long. Especially not Wang Ba, who burned through his lifespan like coal in a furnace. 0.2 years was nothing to an Immortal, but to him?

“Even a mosquito’s leg is meat,” he muttered. “Every little bit counts.”

“And that was just from a single drumstick. If I eat the whole bird, the effect should be even better.”

Comforted by this discovery, Wang Ba finally turned his full attention to the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture.

After a night of intensive study, he hadn’t fully comprehended every esoteric nuance, nor had he begun actual cultivation, but he had grasped the fundamentals.

“This technique requires visualizing a ‘Yin Spirit’ within the mind’s eye, right at the center of the brow. Day after day, for a hundred years of diligent cultivation, until one finally opens the ‘Yin Spirit Abode.'”

“That is only the First Layer.”

“Once the Yin Spirit Abode is opened, it nurtures the power of the Yin Spirit.”

“With this power, one can hide their presence from the world. At high levels, one can deceive the heavens themselves, inverting reality and illusion!”

“It has absolutely no offensive power,” Wang Ba noted, “but as a survival mechanism, it is peerless.”

“Learning this gives me a trump card for staying alive. The only problem is… what exactly is a ‘Yin Spirit’? The golden page didn’t have an illustration. What am I supposed to visualize?”

Wang Ba stroked the stubble on his chin, lost in thought.

After pondering for a long while, his gaze drifted back to his system panel.

“Forget it. Since the technique is listed on the panel, it means I can brute-force it with Lifespan.”

“And honestly, it’s a bargain. Unlike the Physique Strengthening Scripture, which demands a nine-fold penalty because of my poor aptitude, this one is almost a one-to-one conversion. It only asks for 113.7 years.”

113.7 years sounded like an eternity. But to cultivate the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture manually required a century of hard labor.

In comparison, the Physique Strengthening Scripture—something a normal disciple could master in a year—demanded nine years of his life per layer.

Nine times the cost versus a near-standard rate. The choice was obvious.

Wang Ba hesitated no longer. He focused on the button.

[Consume.]

[Lifespan -113.7 years!]

Instantly, a wave of hollowness washed over him, as if his soul had been scooped out with a spoon.

The next second, his eyes snapped open.

A burning sensation flared at the center of his brow. A crimson lotus mark surfaced on his skin, glowing with an eerie, bloody light.

The moment the mark appeared, it began to twist and writhe. It expanded wildly, lashing out like a demon baring its fangs, yet it remained anchored to his forehead.

Slowly, the chaotic red lines coalesced. They wove together, tightening and forming a shape.

It became a crimson figure. Its face was blurred and indistinct, its body seated in a meditative lotus position.

The moment the figure solidified, it dissolved into a beam of red light and drilled straight into Wang Ba’s skull.

A sudden chill pierced his mind.

In his consciousness, the crimson figure reappeared, sitting silent and imposing.

Wang Ba’s mind instinctively locked onto the image. He began to visualize it.

Pressure built behind his forehead. It swelled rapidly, expanding, stretching, pushing against the boundaries of his mortal shell until it felt like his skull would split.

Just when he thought he couldn’t take it anymore, a crisp crack echoed inside his head.

It was a sound like the separation of heaven and earth amidst primordial chaos.

The pressure vanished. His mind’s eye burst open.

Without any guidance, Wang Ba understood.

A hundred years of bitter cultivation, condensed into a single instant.

The Yin Spirit Abode was open.

And with its opening, the world changed.

Everything was sharper. Vivid. Alive.

He looked at the window lattice and saw an ant crawling across the wood. He didn’t just see the ant; he saw the trembling hairs on its legs, the microscopic pores on its carapace.

He looked out the window at the Spirit Poultry in the yard—a rooster. But now, he saw more than feathers and beak. He saw a faint aura radiating from it, a scent of primal desire drifting from its body as it eyed the hens.

He saw the air itself.

Faint mists permeated the room. Red, white, green… a kaleidoscope of colors drifting like ghost smoke. They were transparent and intangible, passing through the table, the walls, and his own body without resistance.

He looked down at his hand. The mist was condensing around the small, thumb-sized rock he was holding—the four-point Spirit Stone.

“This… this is Spiritual Energy?!”

Realization struck Wang Ba like a lightning bolt.

“I can see Qi?”

Rumors said that those with Spirit Roots could sense Qi, drawing it into their bodies to build their Immortal Foundation.

But he wasn’t just sensing it. He was watching it.

Wang Ba’s eyes went wide. Without thinking, he snatched at the mist floating in front of him.

His hand passed through it as if clutching at smoke.

“No, not grab. Attract.”

He pulled his hand back and tried to mentally pull the Qi toward him.

He strained his will, focusing entirely on the drifting lights. But the Qi ignored him completely. It was as if they existed in parallel dimensions, passing through his flesh without a single mote sticking.

He sat there, scratching his head in frustration, watching the precious energy slip through his fingers. It was torture.

Then, an idea struck him.

He scrambled to the clay pot he had used to stew the chicken. To his new eyes, dense plumes of pure white Qi were billowing out of the pot like steam.

Ignoring the heat, he grabbed a chunk of chicken meat and shoved it into his mouth.

He chewed, swallowed, and immediately looked down at his stomach.

As expected.

His belly was like a leaking chimney. The white Qi he had just swallowed was pouring out of his abdomen, dispersing back into the air.

It passed right through his flesh.

However, amidst the waste, Wang Ba noticed something.

A tiny fraction of the Qi didn’t escape.

It was caught by invisible threads within his body—his meridians. The energy flowed along these channels, traveling to his limbs and organs. A portion was absorbed by his flesh, strengthening him. Another portion gathered in his lower abdomen—the Dantian—where it lingered for a moment before surging upward, straight to the space between his eyebrows.

The Yin Spirit Abode.

The Abode greedily sucked in the Qi that reached it. But without a Spirit Root to trap the energy in his Dantian, the vast majority of it simply leaked away before it could be harvested.

“I still need a Spirit Root,” Wang Ba sighed, shaking his head.

If he had a Spirit Root, he could probably have absorbed most of the energy from that Spirit Poultry. As it stood, he was likely retaining less than one percent.

Still, the wasted energy wasn’t completely useless. As the Qi flowed through him, he felt a sudden, ravenous hunger.

He didn’t panic; he rejoiced. He lit the fire, reheated the leftover porridge and scraps from the night before, and shoveled them into his mouth.

He ate half the Spirit Poultry and polished off the porridge.

He watched the Qi leak out of his stomach with a stoic heart. Let it leak. He would keep eating until something stuck.

After breakfast, Wang Ba began his daily chores.

With twenty-two secret Spirit Poultry hiding in his manor, he didn’t dare let the feed delivery man inside. He walked down to the estate entrance to intercept him.

His physical strength had improved significantly thanks to the Physique Strengthening Scripture. Even carrying a heavy bucket containing fifty catties of feed, he barely broke a sweat.

“Old Hou! Just two buckets today,” Wang Ba called out, smiling as he slipped a Rare Fowl egg into the old man’s hand.

He had fabricated a cover story: the twenty-two Rare Fowl he was raising for the Sect had completed their transformation, so their appetites had dropped. Two buckets were enough to maintain appearances.

“You got it! Let me know if you need more next time,” Old Hou said, beaming as he pocketed the egg. “The ‘Clean Mountain Department’ has so much excess stock lately they can’t get rid of it. Old Yang over there is cursing up a storm every day!”

Delivering feed was grueling, thankless work with no perks. Unlike Wang Ba, who could sell chicken manure or the occasional egg to supplement his income, Old Hou lived on a fixed wage. A single egg was a genuine treat.

Wang Ba’s ears perked up. He asked, feigning casual curiosity, “What kind of excess stock?”

“Oh, you know. Spirit Stone powder, slag from pill refining, Discarded Spirit Worms… it’s a mountain of trash,” Old Hou said, counting on his fingers.

“Sounds like the Immortals are making big moves in their cultivation,” Wang Ba joked.

Old Hou curled his lip and lowered his voice. “I don’t know about cultivation, but they’re definitely busy. Rumor has it the young Immortals are preparing for some ‘Grand Gathering.’ The stewards at the Outer Sect’s ‘Merit Hall’ are running around like headless chickens.”

Wang Ba opened his mouth to ask more, but Old Hou shook his head vigorously and pointed a finger toward the sky.

Don’t ask. They might be listening.

Wang Ba took the hint and dropped the subject. The methods of Immortals were unfathomable; it was best not to court trouble.

But as he hauled the buckets back up the hill, his mind began to race.

The Immortals were distracted?

The Clean Mountain Department was drowning in waste materials?

Chaos usually meant danger, but to a scavenger, chaos meant opportunity.

He couldn’t see a clear path yet, so he stuck to his routine: kill a chicken, eat a chicken, cultivate.

A few days later, however, two pieces of good news landed in his lap.