Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 179: The Hundred Questions Tower

Standing before the stall, Wang Ba stared at Tang Ji’s cryptic smile. A sudden, jolting realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.

Could he be…

He stole a glance at Tang Ji’s youthful features, then turned back toward the palace where the brocade-robed elder stood. The more he looked, the more the resemblance became uncanny.

Tang Ji, unable to read the frantic gears turning in Wang Ba’s head, chuckled softly. Seeing that Wang Ba had reached a point of understanding, he stopped playing coy. He pointed toward the elder at the palace gates. “When you arrive, simply tell him you wish to ascend the Hundred Questions Tower. He will know what to do.”

“I see…” Wang Ba muttered, realizing he might have misinterpreted the exact nature of their relationship, but his confidence grew nonetheless.

Throughout their brief exchange, Wang Ba had sensed that Tang Ji’s breadth of knowledge was vast—far beyond anything a common merchant should possess. A man of such standing had no reason to trifle with a lowly cultivator. In the cultivation world, one could spend a century with a neighbor and never know their heart, yet some people felt like kindred spirits within minutes of meeting. Tang Ji was the latter.

“Of course, this is merely an opportunity to earn a slot on the third floor,” Tang Ji reminded him, his tone returning to its casual baseline. “Whether you can seize it depends entirely on your own capabilities.”

Wang Ba stood and performed a deep, respectful bow. “Thank you, Fellow Daoist!”

He began packing his wares with renewed purpose. However, when he looked up to offer a final word of parting, Tang Ji was gone. There was no ripple in the air, no sound of footsteps—just an empty space where a master had once stood.

A true expert, Wang Ba sighed inwardly.

If not for such guidance, Wang Ba would have been wandering the Exquisite Ghost Market like a blind man. Regardless of Tang Ji’s motives, this was a rare providence he could not afford to squander. He strode toward the palace.

The brocade-robed elder remained at his post. As Wang Ba approached, the man’s eyes narrowed with cold indifference. “You again? What is it now?”

The elder’s frostiness made Wang Ba hesitate. Was Tang Ji just playing a prank on me? But he had come too far to retreat. He clasped his fists. “Greetings, Fellow Daoist. I wish to ascend the Hundred Questions Tower.”

“Hmm?” The elder blinked, his dismissive aura flickering. He scrutinized Wang Ba, and a sharp, spiritual glow ignited in his pupils—a powerful spirit-eye technique.

Even after the scan, the elder looked skeptical. “I wasn’t mistaken; you are indeed only in the early stage of Foundation Establishment. This… this is against the regulations.” He paused, his gaze sharpening. “Who told you about the tower?”

“It was Fellow Daoist Tang,” Wang Ba replied truthfully.

“Tang… ah, I see.” The elder’s expression softened instantly. He nodded to himself and began chanting an incantation. Within moments, the heavy palace doors groaned open. “Enter.”

“Much obliged, Fellow Daoist!” Wang Ba bowed.

The elder stepped aside, though his tone remained lukewarm. “Just ensure you do not disappoint his expectations.”

Wang Ba didn’t linger to fish for compliments. He stepped into the cool shadows of the palace. Outside, the long-eared cultivator caught a glimpse of Wang Ba’s disappearing silhouette and gasped in shock. Before he could process the sight, the doors slammed shut, leaving him wondering if he’d seen a ghost.

The doors sealed with a heavy thud.

Wang Ba stood in the center of a vast, echoing hall. To his surprise, the interior was barren save for a single teleportation Formation in the center. Beside it stood a stone tablet engraved with three words: Hundred Refinements Tower.

A young cultivator approached him with a professional air. “Are you prepared, sir?”

“Wait,” Wang Ba interjected quickly. “I am not here for the Hundred Refinements Tower. I seek the Hundred Questions Tower.”

The youth’s eyebrows shot up. He gave Wang Ba a long, curious look before gesturing toward the rear of the hall. “Then follow me.”

They walked deep into the palace to a secluded side hall. Here sat a second teleportation Formation, flanked by a sign that read: Hundred Questions Tower.

“May I ask,” Wang Ba said, unable to suppress his curiosity, “what is the difference between the two?”

“Those who excel in slaughter and combat go to the Hundred Refinements,” the youth replied flatly. “Those who excel in the myriad scholarly arts of cultivation go to the Hundred Questions.”

“I see. Thank you for the enlightenment.”

“Are you certain of your choice?”

“Certain,” Wang Ba said without a second thought. Even without Tang Ji’s advice, he wasn’t suicidal. As an early Foundation Establishment cultivator, he knew he was no combat specialist.

He stepped onto the array. The world blurred into a nauseating swirl of light. When his vision cleared, he found himself standing before a literal tower. It was seven stories tall, radiating a soft, ethereal glow against a backdrop of absolute, crushing darkness—as if the building were floating in the middle of a void.

Sensing his presence, the tower’s doors creaked open on phantom hinges. Wang Ba checked his Storage Bag and spirit beast bags. Finding his connection to his items intact, he let out a breath and stepped inside.

The first floor was minimalist to the point of being eerie. Two meditation cushions sat in the center of the room. There were no stairs, no furniture, and no decorations—just a plain ceiling above. Wang Ba took a seat on the empty cushion.

The moment he sat, a shimmering projection of an old man manifested on the opposite cushion. Despite being a mere phantom, the old man’s eyes contained the swirling depth of a galaxy. When he spoke, his voice resonated with the weight of the Dao.

“The Hundred Questions Tower. Each floor consists of one hundred inquiries. You must answer ninety percent correctly to proceed. Pass the first two floors, and you shall earn entry to the third tier of the Exquisite Ghost Market.”

Two hundred questions? And I need a ninety percent score? Wang Ba’s brow furrowed. “What is the nature of these questions?”

The phantom’s voice echoed again. “This tower encompasses the Dao of Alchemy, Talismans, Artifacts, Puppetry… Beast Taming, and Spiritual Plants. Choose your path.”

Wang Ba finally understood Tang Ji’s confidence in him. He didn’t hesitate. “I choose the Dao of Beast Taming.”

“Excellent.”

The phantom nodded, and a shimmering curtain of water rose between them. On the screen, a bird’s nest appeared. A mother bird sat on her eggs while the father tirelessly foraged for food. The scene sped up; suns rose and fell in a blur of seasonal change.

Wang Ba watched the loop repeat, his frown deepening with every cycle. Finally, seeing the eggs fail to hatch yet again, he couldn’t help himself. “They’ll never hatch like that.”

The image froze. The old man’s phantom turned its star-filled gaze toward him. Suddenly, Wang Ba felt as if the entire firmament were pressing down on his shoulders.

“Why will they not hatch?” the old man asked.

“The environment is too arid!” Wang Ba gasped, fighting the pressure to point at the nest. “Look at the soil—it’s a parched red. This is likely due to a long-term buildup of fire-attribute Spiritual Qi. In these conditions, the chicks become dehydrated inside the shell, causing their bodies to fuse with the egg membrane. They lack the strength to tear free. The only solution is to intervene and manually crack the shells.”

The phantom nodded slowly. “Question one: Correct.”

The water screen flickered and reset. Wang Ba blinked. The test had already started? It wasn’t a written exam; it was a series of practical observations. He cleared his mind, focusing every ounce of his soul.

Next, a wolf appeared on the screen…

Question after question followed. Some were blatant, others required spotting a minute defect in a creature’s gait or a subtle discoloration in its fur. Wang Ba answered them all with surgical precision. He had spent years devouring every “useless” miscellaneous scroll and beast-taming log he could find. What he once read as entertainment now served as an encyclopedic database of bizarre biological anomalies.

Time lost all meaning. Eventually, the water screen vanished and did not return.

“Congratulations,” the phantom said, a faint, almost imperceptible smile touching his lips. “You answered every inquiry correctly. The first floor is passed.”

Wang Ba sat in a daze. All of them? Not a single mistake? He felt like a student who had accidentally aced a final exam by sheer luck, yet the knowledge felt solid in his mind. He looked around, expecting to be teleported to the second floor.

“The examiner for the second floor is also me,” the old man said, reading his thoughts. “There is no need to move.”

Wang Ba felt a bit cheated by the tower’s seven-story design if everything happened on the ground floor, but he didn’t complain. He realized that perhaps his mastery of the Dao of Beast Taming was higher than he had given himself credit for.

However, that confidence was short-lived. The old man posed the first question of the second floor, and Wang Ba’s mind hit a brick wall.

“When a Wind Heron undergoes a Bloodline Breakthrough to reach the third rank, what specific method must be employed to dampen the intensity of the impending lightning tribulation?”