Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 160: Probing

“Zhu Jianyi? What are you doing here?”

The sudden voice struck like a thunderclap, freezing both Wang Ba and Zhu Jianyi in their tracks.

However, compared to Zhu Jianyi’s sheer, wide-eyed panic, Wang Ba remained a picture of absolute calm. Having weathered far more harrowing life-and-death encounters, he seamlessly slipped a telepathic message into Zhu Jianyi’s mind, his tone flat and unyielding.

“Improvise. And don’t do anything stupid.”

Anchored by Wang Ba’s chilling warning, Zhu Jianyi fought a vicious internal battle before finally forcing his clenched fists to relax. He plastered a mask of joyous surprise onto his face and hurried forward.

“Senior Uncle Gao! You’re here as well? Are you looking to purchase some Pills?”

The speaker was a portly elder. Hearing the greeting, a subtle flicker passed through his eyes, though his face remained placid. He offered a polite nod. “Indeed, my stock was running low. And your Master? Is he with you?”

“No, Master should still be in Golden River City,” Zhu Jianyi answered smoothly, not missing a beat. “He emerged from Secluded Cultivation only recently. Were you planning to visit him, Senior Uncle Gao?”

After a brief, superficial exchange of pleasantries, the portly elder shifted his gaze to Wang Ba, a polite question in his eyes. “And this is…?”

“A friend I met during my travels, Junior,” Zhu Jianyi replied instantly.

“I see.” The elder showed no further interest in making introductions. He merely nodded amiably at Wang Ba before brushing past them.

Wang Ba returned the courteous nod.

The two quickly parted ways with the elder, stepping onto the glowing runes of the teleportation array.

As the flash of spiritual light swallowed them whole, the portly elder watched the empty space, his pleasant expression darkening into a frown.

Senior Uncle Gao? My surname isn’t Gao.

Zhu Jianyi knows exactly who I am. Calling me that was a deliberate signal—a plea to find Lin Xiwen in Golden River City. It seems the boy has landed himself in deep water.

He stroked his beard, though he made no immediate move to rush to the rescue. Instead, he took his time strolling through the underground bazaar. After thoroughly haggling for a batch of Pills, he finally stepped onto the array and departed.

Once back on the surface, he flew toward Golden River City at a leisurely, unhurried pace. He was acquainted with True Cultivator Lin, certainly, but their bond wasn’t deep enough to risk his neck for the man’s disciple. Besides, if Lin Xiwen himself wasn’t tearing the region apart looking for the boy, why should he?

Soon, the towering silhouette of Golden River City pierced the horizon.

The return journey lacked the disorienting, claustrophobic wonder of their descent into the market.

When Wang Ba stepped out of the spatial distortion, he found himself standing at the bottom of a riverbed. Beyond the shimmering membrane of the water-repelling barrier, schools of silver fish darted lazily through the murky currents.

The two men shot out of the water like arrows. Guided by Zhu Jianyi, they flew for over an hour before returning to their temporary sanctuary deep in the wilderness.

Only upon arriving did Zhu Jianyi realize that the other low-level disciple who had accompanied them was still alive, bound and gagged beneath the hollowed-out tree.

Under Zhu Jianyi’s increasingly nervous gaze, Wang Ba hauled the terrified captive into the dark recesses of the tree hollow.

Moments later, a series of blood-curdling, agonizing screams tore through the quiet woods. Zhu Jianyi shuddered, his complexion turning a sickly shade of green. Finally, Wang Ba emerged from the shadows, wiping his hands. His expression was as cold as frost.

“S-Senior…” Zhu Jianyi stammered, his heart hammering against his ribs.

Wang Ba ignored his panic, his voice mild. “Are there any other Ghost Markets currently operating in the area?”

Hearing the mundane question, a wave of relief washed over Zhu Jianyi. He eagerly replied, “There are none nearby, Senior. As for the second tier of the Exquisite Ghost Market, it only opens once every six months. We still have over a month to go before the next gathering.”

“The second tier?” Wang Ba repeated, intrigued.

“Yes. You must have noticed, Senior, that the Exquisite Ghost Market is backed by a Golden Core True Person. The subterranean cavern we visited today was merely the outer layer, designed mostly for Qi Refining cultivators with a sprinkling of Foundation Establishment seniors. The second tier is strictly for Foundation Establishment and above… Junior is only at the Qi Refining realm, so I’ve never been permitted entry. But someone of your caliber would certainly be welcome.”

Perhaps driven by a guilty conscience, Zhu Jianyi spilled everything he knew like a ruptured dam.

Wang Ba fell into thoughtful silence. He had found it strange that a market utilizing expensive teleportation arrays and boasting such extreme secrecy was dealing in copper-coin trinkets for low-level Rogue Cultivators. It seemed the true wealth lay hidden deeper within. Exquisite indeed.

“What about markets further out?” Wang Ba pressed.

Zhu Jianyi frowned in thought before his eyes lit up. “Right! If you aren’t looking to forcibly hijack a Rogue Cultivator market, you could travel south to Xuli County. The Xuli Sect runs an open bazaar there. The prices are exorbitant compared to the underground markets, but they have a complete catalog of resources, and it is entirely safe.”

“The Xuli Sect?” Wang Ba murmured.

He recalled Song Buping mentioning them. They were one of the major Sects in the State of Yan, boasting several Golden Core True Persons.

However, according to Song Buping’s cynical evaluation, the Xuli Sect’s ‘generosity’ was a gilded cage. To the public, they offered Rogue Cultivators a safe haven from the viciousness of the wild. In reality, they were no different from the Heavenly Gate Sect. They bled the desperate dry with steep prices.

Timid Rogue Cultivators, terrified of being ambushed in the unregulated Ghost Markets, willingly submitted to this daylight robbery. Once these cultivators were drained of their wealth and could offer no more value, the Xuli Sect would secretly bundle them up and sell them to the Heavenly Gate Sect, feeding the very demonic practitioners they claimed to protect against.

Though the Sect had officially halted these transactions in recent years—realizing they were fattening a tiger that might one day bite them—corrupt elders still ran the human trafficking rings in the shadows.

“Xuli Sect is out of the question,” Wang Ba rejected flatly. “Do you know of the Canglan Ghost Market?”

Canglan was the small, localized market secretly fostered by Song Buping. Wang Ba had suddenly remembered the Market Entry Token the garrison commander had given him.

Zhu Jianyi blinked in astonishment. “Canglan? How do you know of that place, Senior?”

Catching the sudden chill in Wang Ba’s eyes, he frantically waved his hands. “I only ask because it’s quite far from here, and very few know it exists! I only stumbled across it while scouting locations to plant my Master’s parasitic worms. I was just shocked you knew of it.”

He quickly elaborated. “It’s situated in Canglan City, far upstream to the north of Golden River City. If you follow the Golden Billow River north, you’ll hit it right near the border between the States of Yan and Song.”

“There is also a much larger Ghost Market nearby that is rumored to open soon,” Zhu Jianyi added cautiously, “but it draws a chaotic crowd of foreign cultivators. It isn’t very safe.”

“Then we will go to Canglan,” Wang Ba decided.

“Canglan?” Zhu Jianyi froze, his eyes widening.

“Why? Is there a problem?” Wang Ba asked, his gaze turning razor-sharp.

Zhu Jianyi hurriedly lowered his head. “N-No, Senior. I will lead the way at once. It’s just… I am not entirely familiar with the layout there…”

“That doesn’t matter,” Wang Ba dismissed with a wave of his hand. “I have a Market Entry Token.”

A brief, venomous flash of reluctance flared in Zhu Jianyi’s eyes before he buried it beneath a mask of obedience.

Wang Ba declared they would rest for an incense stick’s worth of time to recover their Magic Power before the long flight. He turned and stepped back into the dark tree hollow. Instantly, the horrific, marrow-chilling screams of the captive resumed.

Sweat beaded on Zhu Jianyi’s forehead. Gritting his teeth, he waited until Wang Ba was thoroughly distracted by the torture. Slowly, agonizingly carefully, he extended a finger and traced four characters into the dirt beneath his crossed legs:

Canglan Ghost Market.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he looked up—and nearly stopped his own heart.

Wang Ba was standing directly in front of him.

His eyes were dark, his lips curled into a faint, mocking smile. He was just standing there, staring down at him in total silence.

The blood froze in Zhu Jianyi’s veins. He realized with mounting horror that the agonizing screams were still echoing from the empty tree hollow.

An illusion?! Since when?!

Trembling violently, Zhu Jianyi looked down at his lap. The dirt beneath him was perfectly undisturbed. But there, scrawled clearly across the hem of his own robe, were the four characters he thought he had carved into the earth.

A profound, suffocating terror gripped his throat. When? How long has he known?!

His unvoiced questions would never be answered.

Wang Ba’s hand blurred, slamming a palm directly onto Zhu Jianyi’s chest.

And then… nothing happened.

Zhu Jianyi looked up, blinking in pure bewilderment. Was the man trying to kill him, or spare him?

But a split second later, a bizarre sensation bloomed within his chest. A torrential, primal energy flooded his system. It felt like the very essence of heaven and earth was pouring into him, forcibly drawing the ambient Spiritual Qi from the air directly into his body.

Yet, to his utter confusion, the Spiritual Qi wasn’t sinking into his Dantian. It was surging directly into his muscle, blood, and bone.

Wait… this feeling… Zhu Jianyi’s eyes widened. This is exactly what Master described when he broke through to Foundation Establishment!

A manic thrill of joy and terror seized him. Was he breaking through?! But he hadn’t even consumed a Foundation Establishment Pill!

Unlike the ignorant low-level disciple who had died gleefully drowning in the illusion of absolute power, Zhu Jianyi was an elite at the eighth layer of Qi Refining. His experience immediately screamed that something was catastrophically wrong.

His flesh was expanding too fast. The sheer density of the physical power was eclipsing the Magic Power in his Dantian, violently throwing his internal equilibrium out of balance. The two forces began to clash wildly inside his meridians.

He frantically tried to sever the connection, to stop his flesh from absorbing any more energy, but the Spiritual Qi in the air raged toward him like a ravenous beast.

His despair deepened as Wang Ba, acting with the clinical precision of an alchemist, shoved a massive clump of condensed, frozen essence directly down his throat. The biological material was instantly absorbed by his starving cells. His Dantian desperately cannibalized a portion of the energy, temporarily stabilizing the internal collapse.

Just as a desperate sob of relief caught in Zhu Jianyi’s throat, he watched in abject horror as Wang Ba retrieved a pile of Spirit Stones and casually drove a set of Spirit Gathering Array flags into the soil around him.

Whoosh!

A localized hurricane of Spiritual Qi descended upon him.

Nourished by the absurdly rich energy, the strength of his mortal shell skyrocketed past its absolute limits. Zhu Jianyi felt his own body betray him, an uncontrollable, tyrannical force swelling from the marrow outward.

Crack.

A jagged fissure split across his cheek like broken porcelain.

Anticipating the critical failure, Wang Ba blurred backward, instantly putting fifty meters between them.

Zhu Jianyi reached out a trembling, fracturing hand, his eyes overflowing with regret and bottomless despair.

“S-Save… me! Save—!”

BOOM!

When the bloody mist finally settled, Wang Ba strolled back into the crater. Because Zhu Jianyi’s cultivation base was significantly higher than the previous subject’s, the detonation was absolute. There wasn’t a single recognizable piece of flesh left.

However, the data Wang Ba gleaned was invaluable.

“Just as I hypothesized. The forced injection of Lifespan behaves similarly to a prion—it cannibalizes the host’s existing lifespan. But it does trigger a physical breakthrough.”

Wang Ba mentally recorded the variables. “The failure here was a lack of synchronization. His Qi Refining realm was too weak to anchor the physical evolution, leading to critical cellular collapse and Magic Power destabilization.”

“Extrapolating from this… if I inject Lifespan into a cultivator at the Perfection of the tenth layer of Qi Refining, the physical and spiritual realms might synchronize. It could theoretically bypass the need for a pill and force a Foundation Establishment breakthrough. But that requires further testing.”

Filing the macabre research away, Wang Ba glanced at the scorch marks on the earth. He remembered the profound confusion in Zhu Jianyi’s eyes before he detonated and shook his head slightly.

Zhu Jianyi probably died never realizing that Wang Ba had seen through his act the moment they were in the Exquisite Ghost Market.

He hadn’t been entirely certain then, but after using Soul Searching on the captive disciple in the tree hollow, Wang Ba had learned that True Cultivator Lin’s associate, ‘Senior Uncle Gao,’ was famously bald. Not a portly man with a full head of hair.

Zhu Jianyi had tried to play him from the start.

Still, Wang Ba had wrung the location of the Canglan Ghost Market out of the boy, mitigating the loss. He had even given Zhu Jianyi one final chance to come clean, intentionally revealing his destination to gauge the boy’s loyalty. After all, a guide who intimately understood the underground economy was an asset Wang Ba sorely needed.

Unfortunately, the boy chose betrayal.

Left with no other options, Wang Ba simply extracted the last ounce of his utility: raw material for his Lifespan-infusion experiments.

“A pity,” Wang Ba murmured.

Turning his back on the crater, he took to the sky, flying solitary toward the north.

His route took him directly over Li Three Bays. He had no intention of stopping, but as he glided high above the familiar butcher’s courtyard, his Divine Sense casually swept over Wu Hai below.

Wang Ba suddenly halted in mid-air, a sharp gasp escaping his lips.

“Wu Hai’s soul…”

He stared down at the oblivious butcher chopping meat.

“Where did it go?”