Crow Immortal: I Can Duplicate Infinite Resources

“An opportunity to earn Spirit Stones?”

Han Yu looked at him, puzzled.

Old Daoist Li leaned in close, his long, mule-like face contorted with conspiracy. He lowered his voice to a raspy whisper. “Those damned beasts are strutting around right under our noses. During the day, we can’t do much without drawing attention. But at night? When no one’s watching? Why shouldn’t we slaughter them?”

“I asked around the market,” Li continued, his eyes gleaming. “These Spirit-Stealing Rats aren’t ordinary vermin. A single carcass can fetch two jin of Green Grain Spirit Rice! If we each use our Blood Droplets to kill a few, we can trade them for rice—maybe even Spirit Stones. That’s our chance for cultivation resources right there.”

“And it stops the bastards from ruining our fields. Two birds, one stone.”

Han Yu’s eyes widened. It was a solid plan. They couldn’t just sit idly by while the beasts destroyed their harvest, only to be punished by Steward Wang later.

The two quietly crept into the Spirit Field Department.

The sound of gnawing was distinct in the silence—a steady crunch, crunch, crunch that grated on their nerves. Seeing the rats destroying the crops they had painstakingly nurtured ignited a fresh wave of anger in both of them.

Under the night sky, the rats’ eyes glowed with an eerie, phosphorescent green light, making them easy targets. They hadn’t feared the two cultivators during the day, and they were even bolder in the dark.

Old Daoist Li whispered his strategy. “There are five rats in our combined fields. Tonight, I have enough energy to fire three Blood Droplets. You can probably manage one. With luck, we kill four. Bad luck, maybe two or three. We can finish the rest over two nights…”

Han Yu listened, inwardly surprised.

The Old Daoist has consumed so much Blood Food, yet his Blood Essence reserves are only equal to mine? I can also condense three drops easily.

Has my progress in the Blood Refining Art already caught up to his?

“Let’s try to finish it tonight, Master Daoist,” Han Yu whispered after a pause. “I think… I can barely squeeze out a second shot.”

Old Daoist Li turned, his ugly face twisting in surprise. “You Little Brat… you really have a lot of vitality. I don’t know how you cultivate, but it’s impressive.”

He didn’t probe further. He quietly condensed a Blood Droplet, aiming it at the nearest rodent.

The Blood Droplet, a condensed projectile capable of cracking stone, obeyed his will. It streaked through the darkness, silent and deadly, and pierced the thick hide of a Spirit-Stealing Rat.

The two points of green light in the rat’s eyes instantly extinguished. A thick scent of blood began to drift through the air.

Old Daoist Li’s face lit up with delight. “Two jin of Spirit Rice!”

Then, he caught the scent of the fresh blood. He swallowed audibly, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He muttered to himself, “This blood… it’s rich in spiritual energy. If used as Blood Food… wouldn’t it be far superior to the blood of livestock?”

“Master Daoist,” Han Yu warned softly from the side. “Kill them all first. Before the others notice.”

Old Daoist Li snapped out of his trance, suppressing his hunger. The two moved stealthily through the stalks, hunting for the next target.

Moments later, they found a second rat. Li dropped it with another Blood Droplet.

After killing a third, the Old Daoist whispered, “These three are mine. You handle the remaining two. Bring them to me tomorrow, and I’ll take them all to the market to exchange.”

“I… I need to go back and cultivate. Now.”

He didn’t wait for a reply. Clutching the three fresh carcasses, he practically ran back to his stone hut, swallowing saliva greedily as he went.

Han Yu watched him go, slightly taken aback by the haste. But he felt a sense of relief.

With the Old Daoist gone, he didn’t have to hold back. If he missed a shot while Li was watching, it would be suspicious if he easily condensed more. In reality, Han Yu could easily form three drops, push for a fourth, and with his replication ability, he could fire the Blood Droplet five times.

Such abnormal capacity had to be kept secret, even from his partner.

Han Yu patrolled both fields. To his surprise, he found that there weren’t two rats left—there were four. The total hadn’t been five; it was seven.

Whether they were new arrivals or just well-hidden, it didn’t matter.

The Blood Droplet proved terrifyingly effective. Once condensed, it tracked his intent with lethal precision. The Spirit-Stealing Rats, who had mocked Han Yu’s powerlessness during the day, never expected the weak cultivator to possess a spell that could pierce their iron-like hides.

Han Yu fired four times. Four rats died instantly.

He gathered the bodies and brought them back to his hut, facing a new dilemma. If he gave them all to Li, he’d expose his strength. If he didn’t, he had no way to sell them.

Do I have to go to the market myself?

As he pondered, he inspected his kills. He noticed something odd about one of the rats. On its abdomen, the fur was shaved into a distinct circular pattern. The skin beneath was clean and well-tended.

This… this is a pet?

Han Yu’s heart skipped a beat.

Spirit-Stealing Rats can be domesticated? Someone raised this thing?

Who would raise a rat to steal nearly mature Spirit Rice?

Whoever was behind this was definitely not a good person.

Han Yu grabbed the marked rat and hurried to Old Daoist Li’s hut. He knocked, and the door cracked open.

He was met with a terrifying stare. Old Daoist Li stood there, clutching the doorframe with a white-knuckled grip, veins bulging on his forehead. His eyes were bloodshot, radiating a savage, suppressed hunger.

“Did you kill them?” Li rasped, struggling against the urge to feed.

“Master Daoist, look!” Han Yu shoved the marked rat forward. “Something is wrong!”

Li looked down. Seeing the clear pattern on the rat’s belly, his bloodthirsty haze instantly vanished, replaced by shock and anger.

“Someone raised this! Someone is deliberately stealing our rice!”

He turned and frantically rummaged through his own pile of three carcasses. He pulled one out—it, too, had the circular pattern on its belly.

“Two of them. Raised by the same person. And we killed them both!”

“We’re in trouble,” Li hissed through gritted teeth. “We’ve offended someone, and we don’t even know who! What if they track us down?”

Han Yu took a breath and spoke calmly. “Master Daoist, panic is useless. Think about it. In the Spirit Field Department, the only people above us are Steward Wang and the two Outer Disciples.”

“If these rats belonged to them, they wouldn’t need to be so sneaky. They have plenty of ways to exploit us openly. And if they do come for us, we’re dead anyway, so worrying changes nothing.”

Old Daoist Li paused, thinking it over. He shook his head. “You’re right. Those three are rolling in wealth. They wouldn’t care about the scraps in a rat’s mouth. It’s not them.”

“If it’s not them,” Han Yu continued, “then we have even less to fear. The Laborer Disciples here are at the third layer of Qi Refining at best. Anyone at the fourth layer leaves for the Outer Sect. A fellow Laborer Disciple won’t have many powerful spells. We can handle them.”

“At worst, we report this to Steward Wang. He’d be more than happy to catch a thief stealing his Spirit Rice tribute.”

Li’s shoulders relaxed. He looked at Han Yu with admiration. “You Little Brat… you really keep your head in a crisis. I was nearly scared witless, but you thought it through.”

“However,” Li added darkly, “we can’t report this. Our method of killing the rats—the Blood Droplet—cannot be seen by the sect. If we expose our cultivation of the blood arts, we’re dead men walking.”

Han Yu nodded. “Then what do we do with the bodies?”

“The two marked ones… I’ll keep them,” Li decided, his eyes flickering with a grim light. “I’ll use their blood for cultivation. That destroys the evidence. I won’t sell them.”

He gritted his teeth. “The rest? We sell them. The market is huge, and plenty of people are hunting rats these days. It shouldn’t raise any flags.”

“Agreed.”

Han Yu retrieved another rat corpse from his stash and handed it over, keeping his secret safe.

Old Daoist Li nodded, satisfied. “Good. All five rats are dead. Our fields are clean.”

“And the owner of these beasts can’t blame us,” Li sneered. “If his pets didn’t raid our fields, we wouldn’t have killed them. He brought this upon himself!”