Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

The reproductive rate of the Shield-Armored Giant-Headed Turtles was abysmal.

Four females had produced a grand total of ten eggs.

Worse, the incubation period was excessive. A standard Yellow-Throated Spirit Turtle took roughly three months to hatch. These had taken far longer.

A universal trade-off, Wang Ba noted internally. The higher the biological grade, the lower the fertility rate. Nature demands balance.

However, his clinical detachment wavered when he watched the shells crack.

Tiny black claws struggled to push through the fragments. Small, beady eyes peered cautiously through the gaps, taking in the world for the first time. Seeing them, a rare warmth surged in Wang Ba’s chest.

It was one of the few moments he allowed himself to relax.

Watching new life struggle into existence—tender, vibrant, and untainted—was a balm for his nerves. It healed something in him that the sect’s grim reality constantly eroded.

Slowly, laboriously, the eggshells were pushed aside.

At first glance, the hatchlings were indistinguishable from ordinary Yellow-Throated Stone Turtles. They were weak, their movements sluggish and clumsy.

But as they metabolized the yolk sacs on their bellies, the differences manifested.

These hybrids were pitch black, but distinct patterns began to etch themselves across their shells. Wang Ba reached out and applied gentle pressure to one of the hatchlings.

It didn’t yield.

Despite its size, the shell felt solid and cold, like a lump of iron.

Astonishing hardness.

Suddenly, one of the hatchlings opened its beak and spat a thin, weak jet of water.

“Hybrid vigor?” Wang Ba’s eyes lit up. “Have they inherited the best traits of both parents?”

He continued his observation. Not every turtle could release these water arrows. After checking all ten, he found that only the three males possessed this ability.

He pulled out a Spirit Light Talisman for a test.

As expected: High Grade.

Wang Ba waited patiently for a few days to monitor their growth curves.

Fed a steady diet of Azure Fire Spirit Berries and Spirit Poultry meat, the hatchlings grew at a terrifying speed. In no time, they expanded from the size of a finger to half the size of a palm.

Their coloration shifted as well. The charcoal black faded, replaced by deep, oceanic hues. The males turned a deep blue, while the females settled into a verdant green.

Wang Ba systematically injected Lifespan into each of them.

The results were surprising. Their maturation period was significantly longer than any other turtle or chicken he had bred.

It took a full month of ravenous eating.

By the time the month ended, even the smallest male hybrid was the size of a large round table. They sat in the enclosure like boulders, radiating a heavy, intimidating pressure even when motionless.

However, subsequent field tests revealed a sharp contrast between their terrifying appearance and their actual combat utility.

Beyond biting, tearing, and ramming, they had no offensive techniques.

While their explosive speed over short distances was decent, they were fundamentally clumsy compared to agile predators.

Their defense, however, was absurd.

Wang Ba had Alpha-Thirteen peck at them. The bird’s beak, capable of shattering stone, didn’t leave a scratch.

Analysis: Wang Ba mused, A fresh Foundation Establishment cultivator might struggle to break this shell.

Further testing brought a mix of regret and delight.

Regretfully, after the Lifespan breakthrough, the female hybrids remained at High Grade.

The males, however, were a different story. Without exception, every male broke through to Top Grade.

Unlike the females, the males were born with an innate mastery of water-attribute spells. In fact, their control seemed even more refined than their father, Rice Bucket. They could manipulate currents to lift their massive bodies into the air, riding waves of water to gain short-term flight.

This drastically patched their mobility weakness.

Wang Ba was ecstatic. He opened his notebook and formally logged the new entry:

[Species: Azure Water Spirit Turtle]

Grade: High Grade (Female) / Top Grade (Male)

Lifespan: Approx. 200 – 240 years.

Traits: Males possess innate water spell mastery. Extreme physical defense. Males rank one grade higher than females.

Other Abilities: Unknown…

It was a preliminary log. He would flesh it out as his sample size increased.

Meanwhile, the second batch of purebred Shield-Armored Giant-Headed Turtles had adapted to the climate and begun mating behaviors.

To accommodate the population boom, Wang Ba was forced to expand the farm again. He widened the pond, built artificial rockeries and basking platforms, and stocked it with fish to simulate a wild ecosystem.

Standing by the edge of the water, watching his “turtle sons” swimming freely in the expanded pool, Wang Ba felt a deep, resonant satisfaction.

If I weren’t trapped in the Heavenly Gate Sect… just raising chickens and turtles, living simply and letting nature take its course… that would be the dream.

Beside the pond, the Black Crystal Peach tree had borne fruit again. He harvested every last one, sealing them away to brew Black Crystal Peach Spirit Wine. It would be ready in six months.

Unfortunately, the good news ended there.

The economic crisis Wang Ba had been dreading—and actively ignoring—finally arrived at his doorstep.

Spirit Poultry was no longer selling.

The signs had been there for six months. Foot traffic to the farm had trickled to a halt.

It wasn’t just the price. The market demographics had shifted fundamentally. There were simply fewer cultivators practicing orthodox techniques.

The majority of the outer sect had switched to the techniques circulated by the Heavenly Gate Sect.

These techniques were often sinister, unorthodox, or cruel, but they possessed one overwhelming advantage: Speed.

They were fast. Addictively fast.

And if one was ruthless enough, resources were easy to come by.

Take the female cultivators in the Wood Tower Dwelling. Operating on the principle of “small profits, quick turnover,” their cultivation speed had eclipsed those who trained earnestly.

Was their reputation ruined? Yes. But in the cultivation world, people mocked the weak, not the method.

With the masses turning to the Demonic Path, Spirit Poultry—a resource that was expensive and slow to yield benefits—became obsolete.

For months, even his VIP client, Cultivator Yan, hadn’t shown his face. Occasional small-fry cultivators stopped by to barter, but selling five or ten birds yielded peanuts.

“I can’t afford the trip to the Sword Billow Garrison this month,” Wang Ba sighed, checking his dwindling pouch of Spirit Stones.

He had enough for the teleportation fee, but not enough to bribe the Spirit Chef. Going without the bribe was pointless.

His only consolation was his paranoia. Anticipating this crash, he had stockpiled nearly a year’s worth of Spirit Poultry essence. He had enough raw fuel to push himself to Qi Refining 9th Layer.

But sitting idly while the mountain hollows out is suicide, he thought grimly. I need to diversify my revenue stream.

The market is a dead end.

He had already tried the official Spirit Beast shops. He was willing to take a cut on profits for volume, but the shopkeeper had shut him down.

“Limit of 150 birds a month,” the man had said. “Any more and they rot in the cages. No one is buying.”

Even for that quota, they lowballed him: 100 Spirit Stones for 150 Low Grade chickens.

Wang Ba had accepted through gritted teeth.

During this slump, Dong Qiyu had sniffed out the situation and returned to the farm. He demanded two hundred chickens.

Wang Ba refused him. Again.

He could feel the suppressed rage radiating off Dong Qiyu as the man left. But Wang Ba stood firm.

Risk Assessment: Entanglement with Dong Qiyu equals high probability of political fallout. Conclusion: Eat the financial loss. Maintain neutrality.

At least the “Face Monster” hadn’t reappeared.

On the flip side, the Heavenly Gate Order board was flooded with bounties: ‘Kill Incense Path Cultivator’, ‘Kill Incense Path Believer’.

The rewards were lucrative. A single head fetched at least two hundred Spirit Stones.

Wang Ba looked at the bounties with naked envy.

Easy money.

Dangerous money.

He suppressed the greed. Slow is fine. Safe is better. Even without the essence, the ambient Qi in the Spirit Water Courtyard was sufficient for steady progress.

Speaking of the courtyard, he hadn’t been there lately. Instead, he spent his days hunched over in the spirit fields, pulling weeds.

Bu Chan was on the verge of breaking through to Qi Refining 4th Layer. She had informed him days ago and gone into Secluded Cultivation at the Spirit Water Courtyard.

Without her, the farm work piled up. The spirit field was rich in Qi, which meant the weeds grew aggressively, stealing nutrients from the Azure Fire Spirit Berry trees. Constant vigilance was required.

With Bu Chan in seclusion and Shen Fu out frantically doing missions to recover his lost time, the manual labor fell squarely on Wang Ba’s shoulders.

He finished the last row of weeding and collapsed in front of his wooden hut. Despite his cultivator physique, he massaged his sore legs and rubbed his waist.

“How does that girl Bu Chan do this every day?” he groaned. “It’s exhausting.”

He sat there, looking out over the farm.

The view was the same, but without that familiar figure moving through the fields, the place felt… hollow.

In the past, she would be out there at dawn. She would feed the turtles. She would cook for him—using the Spirit Poultry he was sick of eating—but somehow making it palatable.

It wasn’t Michelin-star dining. It wasn’t a soul-stirring romance.

It was just plain, uneventful living.

But now that she had been gone for a few days, Wang Ba felt an itch under his skin. A subtle wrongness.

He didn’t even want to go to the Spirit Water Courtyard to cultivate.

He stood up to go inside, intending to nap, but stopped at the door. His room was a disaster zone. Clothes piled up, dust settling.

Irritation flared in his chest.

“Bu Chan hasn’t cleaned my room in five days…” he muttered instinctively.

The words hung in the air.

Wang Ba froze.

He stood there in a daze for a long moment, then vigorously rubbed his face with both hands, trying to scrub away the realization.

My mind is a mess.

It was the first time he felt truly disoriented.

Without meaning to, his eyes kept drifting to the main gate of the poultry farm.

And whenever he did go to the Spirit Water Courtyard, he found himself staring at the tightly closed door of the neighboring cultivation room.

“Eight days…”

“Ten days… ten and a half days…”

His usually vague sense of time had sharpened into agonizing clarity.

In the midst of this silent counting, a knock finally sounded at the farm gate.

Wang Ba’s heart jumped. He rushed to open it.

But as the heavy wooden door swung wide, disappointment crashed over him.

It wasn’t her.

“Fellow Daoist Yan?”