Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 177: On Beast Taming

“Great Yan… Great Jin…”

Wang Ba murmured the names under his breath, the syllables heavy with implications he was only beginning to grasp.

His knowledge of these realms was sparse, limited to their status as two of the five undisputed overlords of the Wind Descending Continent. The State of Chen, where he had spent so much of his life, fell under the sprawling jurisdiction of the Great Jin Dynasty. Meanwhile, the Great Chu Dynasty stood as the suzerain power over the State of Yan.

For centuries, these five powers had maintained a precarious equilibrium, each carving out a corner of the continent. But that balance had clearly shattered. With the relentless expansion of the Myriad God Kingdom, the scales were tipping toward chaos.

It meant the Wind Descending Continent was on the precipice of a cataclysmic upheaval—one that would swallow the five powers whole. In the face of such a storm, the Heavenly Gate Sect, a behemoth in Wang Ba’s eyes, seemed no more significant than a lone leaf in a gale.

A sense of displacement washed over him. Even if he schemed his way out of the Heavenly Gate Sect’s clutches, where could he go? The continent was vast, yet safety felt like a disappearing horizon.

“Go to Great Yan, or Great Jin!” the young cultivator beside him said, his eyes burning with resolve. “Before we were scattered, the Sect Leader commanded us to flee to one of the two.”

He leaned in, his voice dropping. “Great Yan is a true bastion of the demonic path. They treat mortals like cattle, enslaving or slaughtering them on a whim, but they treat us cultivators with immense respect. That is my first choice. My second is Great Jin.”

“Great Jin has its merits,” the youth continued, “but they are obsessed with rules and place an absurd amount of importance on mortals. Years ago, a cultivator performed a blood sacrifice in their territory. When the Longevity Sect found out, they hunted down every single member of that man’s sect and boiled them alive. Their justice is a special kind of cruelty—even more terrifying than the Primordial Demon Sect of Great Yan.”

Wang Ba etched the names into his mind. If he ever managed to break his chains, these were the sanctuaries he would have to consider.

The two chatted for a while longer, but business remained stagnant. Very few customers spared a glance for the Spirit Poultry Essence.

“Fellow Daoist,” the young cultivator noted, glancing at the sparse display. “Your stall is a bit… monotonous. How do you expect to draw a crowd with just one item?”

Wang Ba sighed. “I had a few Magical Artifacts earlier, but they sold out instantly. I’m afraid I’ve run out of variety.”

“Why not follow that fellow’s lead?” The youth pointed toward a distant stall.

Wang Ba looked over and saw a merchant selling Talismans. To draw attention, the man had a monkey-like spirit beast performing elaborate bows and flips. The creature’s antics had successfully charmed a group of female cultivators into browsing the wares.

A monkey? Wang Ba thought. I have one of those.

After a moment’s hesitation, he summoned the Mountain Moving Ape. He was careful to use the token provided by the Exquisite Ghost Market to shroud the beast, masking its true grade from prying eyes.

Even with its power suppressed, the Ape King was a sight to behold. Its silver fur shimmered under the market’s artificial glow, and occasional sparks of lightning danced across its powerful frame. The spectacle worked; a small crowd gathered, and Wang Ba quickly offloaded two more basins of essence.

Encouraged, he decided to bring out the rest of the menagerie. He summoned the Emerald Water Spirit Turtle, a Second-Grade Low-Grade Phoenix Feather Chicken (Yi Er), and a Second-Grade Low-Grade Black Feather Chicken (Bing Yi).

Most of these were either direct mutations or the elite offspring of his breeding experiments. Even for seasoned beast tamers, these specimens were unheard of. The stall was soon swamped with curious onlookers.

One cultivator, hidden beneath the deep folds of a black Daoist robe, traded a Second-Grade Spirit Fire: ‘Fire Within Wood’ for three basins of essence. The flame was fueled by wood-attribute Spiritual Energy—gentle, steady, and perfect for the delicate process of refining poultry. Wang Ba was more than satisfied.

With the essence sold out, only two basins of Spirit Turtle Essence remained. Wang Ba decided to hold onto them; he needed a high-value bargaining chip for the second Dantian cultivation technique. He wiped his sign and replaced the text, stating he would only trade for that specific manual.

As the niche requirement drove away the casual shoppers, the stall grew quiet again. Wang Ba took the Little Weak Bird from his spirit beast bag and fed it a few drops of milk. The tiny creature chirped, tilted its head, and fell into a deep slumber.

He looked up to find a new guest standing before him.

The man was of indeterminate age, with handsome features and a neatly trimmed beard. He wore an unassuming light blue robe and stood with his hands behind his back. There was a profound serenity about him, an air of “nothing in this world can disturb me.”

Wang Ba was unsettled to find he couldn’t gauge the man’s cultivation at all. Even with a deliberate suppression of aura, most cultivators left a trail; this man was a void.

“Fellow Daoist,” the stranger said, a pleasant smile playing on his lips. “You’ve cultivated these beasts quite well.”

“Just average,” Wang Ba replied politely, standing up. “Do you happen to have the second Dantian manual I’m looking for?”

The man blinked, finally noticing the sign. He gave an apologetic chuckle. “Ah, forgive me. I don’t. I was simply walking by when I spotted this Mountain Moving Ape. To see one that has undergone three bloodline breakthroughs… I couldn’t help but stop.”

Wang Ba’s heart skipped a beat. After three evolutions, the Ape King looked nothing like its common kin. Its height, fur texture, and skeletal structure had all shifted. For a stranger to identify its base species and the exact number of its breakthroughs at a glance was extraordinary.

He had encountered a true master.

“You have a sharp eye, Senior,” Wang Ba said, his tone shifting to one of genuine respect.

The man waved it off. “Just a bit of hobbyist knowledge.” His gaze then drifted to the Emerald Water Spirit Turtle, and he paused. “Wait… this turtle. The carapace suggests a Shield-Armored Giant-Headed Turtle, but the head markings are those of a Yellow-Throated Stone Turtle. A hybrid? No, the color is wrong. A hybrid wouldn’t produce this emerald hue, nor would the grades align. A Yellow-Throated Stone Turtle is a common beast, and the Shield-Armored variety is only Middle-Grade, yet this specimen has the aura of a Second-Grade Low-Grade beast…”

Wang Ba was floored. The man was terrifyingly accurate. He had missed only one detail: the turtle wasn’t a direct hybrid, but the offspring of Rice Bucket—a mutated variant—and the Shield-Armored species.

However, when the stranger looked at the Phoenix Feather and Black Feather Chickens, he finally looked stumped. He searched his memory for a match and came up empty.

“Fellow Daoist,” he asked with humble curiosity, “might I ask the lineage of these three?”

Wang Ba remained silent. These were his trade secrets, the foundation of his power. He wasn’t about to give them away to a stranger, no matter how polite.

The man realized his gaffe and slapped his forehead. “My apologies! I let my excitement get the better of me. It was inappropriate to ask.”

He took a moment to compose himself. “My name is Tang Ji. I am a wanderer with a passing interest in the art of beast taming. Your specimens are unlike anything I have seen in my travels. If you are willing to satisfy my curiosity, I would be honored to gift you this.”

He reached into his sleeve and produced a scroll made of a strange, shimmering material.

Wang Ba prepared to decline until he saw the title: 《Beast Taming Scroll · Volume I》.

His interest spiked. The archives at the Myriad Beast Department were a mess of scattered notes and anecdotal journals. There was no system, no foundation. To find a numbered volume implied a complete, structured methodology—a rarity in a world where such secrets were guarded by master-disciple lineages.

Wang Ba took the scroll and flipped through the first few pages. His eyes widened. This is high-level theory.

“Ahem. Fellow Daoist?” Tang Ji prompted.

“Right, yes,” Wang Ba said, snapping the scroll shut. “I’ll tell you.”

He kept the descriptions strictly to the breeding process, carefully omitting the specific combat abilities or the involvement of his lifespan interface.

“Mutations! Of course,” Tang Ji sighed in relief. He looked at Wang Ba with newfound appreciation. “Mutations are one-in-a-million occurrences. To have cultivated so many… you have incredible talent, Fellow Daoist.”

“Mostly luck,” Wang Ba demurred.

“Luck is the shadow of effort,” Tang Ji countered. Then, his expression turned serious, as if testing a peer. “Tell me, if a spirit beast was not raised by its master from birth and lacks compatibility, how would you bridge the gap?”

Wang Ba didn’t even have to pause. “It depends on the species. Generally, one uses Spirit Beast Collars, dietary control, and the establishment of a strict hierarchy through long-term exposure…”

Tang Ji nodded. “And if a White-Browed Bird seeks to break through to the second grade but lacks Yellow Copper Powder, what would you substitute?”

“Simple,” Wang Ba replied. “Yellow Copper Powder is only meant to irritate the bloodline to trigger a fluctuation. You can achieve the same result with Charcoal Pulp Fruit or Great Stink—anything the bird viscerally detests.”

“The three-year ailment of a Six-Eyed Pig-Dragon?”

“A matter of blocked meridians. Use…”

The questions came faster—some basic, some incredibly obscure. Wang Ba answered them all with the ease of someone who had spent years buried in a library of filth, sifting for golden truths.

Tang Ji’s eyebrows climbed higher with every answer. Finally, he posed a challenge. “If a Leopard Print Giant Mountain Turtle—an innate earth-attribute beast—wished to master metal-element arts, what is the path?”

Wang Ba went quiet, pondering the elemental cycle. “One could keep it in constant contact with Mixed Gold Sand…”

“To force an attribute change?” Tang Ji frowned. “That would muddy its essence and lower its value.”

“No,” Wang Ba corrected, shaking his head. “The key is to place the turtle near underground magma and scour it with Earth Fiend Fire Qi.”

Tang Ji froze. He began to mumble to himself. “Fire generates earth… earth generates metal. The fire qi pushes the earth attribute to its absolute limit… when the earth reaches its extreme, metal is born. Then, use the Mixed Gold Sand as a conductive bridge to guide the transition… brilliant! Absolutely brilliant!”

He looked at Wang Ba as if seeing him for the first time. “With this insight alone, I dare say that among Foundation Establishment cultivators outside the Five Great Dynasties, there are few who can rival your mastery of this Dao.”

“You overpraise me, Senior,” Wang Ba said, feeling a bit sheepish. He didn’t feel like a master; he just felt like someone who had read a lot of books and bred a lot of turtles.

“I do not speak falsely,” Tang Ji insisted. “I have traveled far, and those with your depth of understanding are few and far between.”

Before Wang Ba could respond, a low rumble echoed through the market. The massive doors of the central palace began to groan open.

The crowd’s idle chatter died instantly, replaced by a frantic energy.

“Move! We have to get there now!” someone shouted. “The screening for the Third Level of the Ghost Market is starting!”