Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

Chapter 193: Qianyu Lake Chess Player!

Staring at the Withered Soul Seeding Method in his hands, a terrifying idea sparked in Wang Ba’s mind.

What if I used this spell on my own Spirit Poultry?

He possessed a massive flock of combat-capable spirit beasts—Spirit Poultry, spirit turtles, and Psychic Ghost Loaches. However, as their biological grades increased, pushing them to the next evolutionary tier required exponential amounts of time and resources. If he repurposed them as disposable, single-use kamikaze shock troops, it would maximize their immediate tactical value.

Except for highly intelligent creatures like the Mountain Moving Apes—whom he couldn’t stomach sacrificing—he felt absolutely zero psychological burden detonating a chicken or a loach.

However, looking down at the black jars containing the faint, smoky wisps of Soul Seeds, Wang Ba realized his idea was slightly too optimistic.

The biological law of the spell was absolute: the higher the inherent grade of the host creature, the higher the required quality of the Soul Seed.

And the Soul Seeds in the square-faced zealot’s jars were garbage.

According to the manual, Soul Seeds were classified into three major tiers and twelve sub-grades, perfectly aligning with the Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, and Golden Core realms. The spell’s creator had apparently lacked the cultivation base to research anything beyond the third tier.

In theory, a third-grade Top Grade Soul Seed could hijack the biology of any creature below the fourth grade, forcing it to briefly output power massively exceeding its natural limits. It was functionally identical to the life-burning, suicidal secret arts utilized by Demonic Cultivators.

The only catch was that the biological burnout was completely irreversible.

Naturally, to maximize the violent mutation, a cultivator had to match the grade of the Soul Seed to the grade of the host. Wang Ba owned dozens of second-grade High Grade spirit beasts. To force them into an overdrive state, he would need at least a second-grade High Grade Soul Seed.

But the square-faced zealot’s entire inventory consisted of first-grade seeds. The absolute best one in the jar was merely first-grade High Grade.

Wait… the manual says these Soul Seeds can cannibalize each other to artificially increase their grade! Wang Ba read further down the golden parchment, his eyes lighting up. Otherwise, the only way to upgrade them is to bury this ‘Soul Summoning Altar’ in a mass grave and let it passively absorb Yin Souls for decades.

A glimmer of predatory hope flared in his chest.

Before he could calculate the logistics of cannibalizing the seeds, the ‘Spirit Ear’ artifact in his hand violently buzzed, transmitting a frantic, panicked broadcast that made his blood run cold.

“Attention! All units! A squad of Qi Refining natives just crossed Bear Tiger Mountain! They’re routing south! Is there a second-grade Emissary in the sector?! Intercept and capture them immediately! Do NOT let them disturb ‘that place’!”

“Attention! I repeat, is anyone near Bear Tiger Mountain?! We cannot let them breach ‘that place’! If they disrupt the operation, the third-grade Divine Envoys will skin us alive!”

Someone quickly keyed into the comms:

“Query the Master Ear! Have the Master Ear run a localized trace to see which patrol is closest!”

“Copy that! Master Ear, do you copy?”

“Master Ear, please respond…”

Hearing the frantic chatter, Wang Ba’s stomach plummeted into his boots.

Bear Tiger Mountain?!

The name was incredibly familiar. He violently yanked his map from his Storage Bag, tracing the topography.

His eyes widened in sheer horror.

He was currently hiding in a ravine directly south of Bear Tiger Mountain!

Instantly, his Divine Sense spiked with a blaring proximity warning.

Sweeping his awareness outward, he detected a ragged squad of Heavenly Gate Sect cultivators screaming through the sky in a blind panic. They were all high-level grunts, hovering around the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refining.

Wang Ba recognized their tattered robes. They were the survivors of the vanguard that had charged Li Canghai.

As his Divine Sense washed over them, he locked onto a familiar, terrified face.

Meng?

Simultaneously, a cruel, arrogant voice crackled through the Spirit Ear.

“I’m currently sweeping Bear Tiger Mountain. Stand down, boys. It’s just a flock of first-grade sheep. Consider them caught!”

A collective sigh of relief washed over the Incense Burner Path network.

“Thank the gods. Do not let a single one slip the net. If they stumble into the Divine Envoys’ staging ground, we’ll all swing from the gallows!”

“Relax. I hear the Envoys are almost finished anyway. Once the array activates, our single lineage will swallow this entire country whole! We’ll see who calls us toothless tigers then!”

“Speaking of the Envoys… why is the Master Ear ghosting us? I needed to request clearance for the ‘Qianyu Lake’ sector. I heard we lost an entire patrol out there.”

“Qianyu Lake? Are you suicidal? Stay the hell away from there. A cabal of Golden Core Rogue Cultivators recently claimed the lake. Even if you need fresh meat to refine Yin Ghosts, it’s not worth throwing your life away!”

“Fair point. But seriously, why is the Master Ear so sluggish today…”

The idle chatter was meant for the zealots, but Wang Ba absorbed every single syllable.

Qianyu Lake. He burned the name into his memory.

Suddenly, the ambient pressure in the sky shifted. Wang Ba squinted through the canopy.

A cultivator draped entirely in crimson shot across the clouds like a cruise missile!

An Incense Burner Path hunter! He’s going to slaughter Meng’s squad.

Wang Ba’s grip tightened on the branch. A sharp impulse to intervene flared in his chest, but he ruthlessly crushed it down.

Those Heavenly Gate Sect cultivators meant absolutely nothing to him. To risk exposing his position to save a pack of strangers was tactical suicide.

The only variable that made him hesitate was Meng. The man had been pragmatic, respectful, and genuinely useful. He was the kind of subordinate worth keeping alive. But their relationship was strictly professional; they hadn’t sworn blood oaths. Wang Ba wasn’t about to throw his life away for a competent lieutenant.

Gritting his teeth, Wang Ba chose to stay hidden.

He had the Spirit Ear. He could map the enemy’s blind spots and navigate his way to safety. For instance, Qianyu Lake—a zone so dangerous it terrified the Incense Burner Path—sounded like the perfect place to lay low. Curiously, he couldn’t recall seeing a ‘Qianyu Lake’ on his topographical map, but he assumed he had just missed it in his frantic scan.

The Spirit Ear continued to buzz with chaotic chatter.

Through the gaps in the leaves, Wang Ba watched the crimson hunter easily overtake the exhausted Heavenly Gate Sect grunts. The squad screamed and scattered, but the hunter simply laughed, unleashing a swarm of shrieking Yin Ghosts…

Agonized screams began to rain from the sky.

Watching the cultivators violently wither and plummet to the earth like discarded husks, Wang Ba felt a cold, bitter knot form in his stomach.

When the rabbit dies, the fox grieves.

Despite his Lifespan panel, the cultivation world was a meat-grinder. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t be the one running for his life tomorrow, screaming as a predator tore him apart. Some of those men dying above him likely wanted nothing more than a quiet life, just like him.

But in the chaotic meat-grinder of war, the heavens were utterly indifferent, treating all living things as expendable straw dogs. Good, evil, brilliant, or foolish—the slaughter made no distinction.

In the distance, Meng and a handful of survivors were burning the last dregs of their Magic Power in a desperate, futile struggle for survival.

Suddenly, a voice colder than the absolute void shattered the chatter inside the Spirit Ear, instantly silencing the network.

“I am the Master Ear.”

The voice was a low, terrifying rumble that vibrated directly against Wang Ba’s skull.

“You hold Tian Yi’s Spirit Ear… Tian Yi was executed in Gaodao City an hour ago. Yet his ear is currently broadcasting from the southern ravine of Bear Tiger Mountain.”

“To the friend holding Tian Yi’s ear… who are you?”

The entire Incense Burner Path comms network plunged into a terrifying, breathless silence!

Wang Ba’s blood turned to ice!

South of Bear Tiger Mountain… aside from the hunter slaughtering Meng’s squad, there was only one person in this grid…

Me!

The low, abyssal voice echoed from the artifact again. “Whoever you are, you have stolen our artifact and eavesdropped on our logistics. I offer you a singular choice. Take the ear, proceed to the coordinates I am transmitting, and submit yourself as a servant to the Yin Spirit lineage…”

“Or, I will come find you.”

Wang Ba’s heart violently seized!

He instantly ripped the artifact from his ear and severed his soul tether.

Yet, defying all logic, the abyssal voice continued to emanate from the disconnected artifact, echoing clearly in the quiet ravine.

“Do not bother running. The Spirit Ear permanently logs the unique soul signature of every user. I can track your scent for exactly three days… Heh. I am coming for you.”

CRACK!

Wang Ba violently crushed the artifact into dust, his face twisting into a mask of pure, unadulterated terror.

He had genuinely believed the artifact was a tactical godsend, a loophole in the enemy’s radar. He had no idea the network was actively monitored by a ‘Master Ear’ capable of triangulating a localized ping! He had barely listened to the chatter for five minutes and had effectively painted a massive, glowing target on his own back!

Worse, the monster operating the Master Ear was personally hunting him down!

“Damn it! I have to move! Now!”

But where?!

“South… the zealots on the comms said the third-grade Envoys were massing south for a massive operation…” Wang Ba’s mind raced at lightspeed.

He instantly vetoed the southern route. If the Golden Core commanders were staging an operation there, the entire sector would be crawling with elite kill-teams. Flying south was literal suicide.

“Qianyu Lake…”

Wang Ba hesitated, his eyes darting back to the sky.

Under the relentless assault of the second-grade hunter, only three Heavenly Gate Sect cultivators remained. Meng, having maintained a wider distance, was still alive, but his defensive Talismans were violently flickering. He had seconds left.

Wang Ba weighed the absolute necessity of a guide who knew the geography against the risk of exposure.

His eyes hardened. He made his choice.

BANG!

Another Heavenly Gate Sect cultivator’s defensive Talisman violently shattered. In the next microsecond, an invisible Yin Ghost slammed directly into his chest. His physical body rapidly withered, shrinking against his bones at a sickening speed.

“Damn the heavens!” the man roared, his voice cracking with infinite despair and bottomless rage!

A second later, the Yin Ghost phased back out of his chest, its spectral face licking its lips in horrific satisfaction. The cultivator, reduced to a hollow, leathery skin-suit, fluttered down from the sky…

“Brother Liu!” Meng screamed.

He didn’t even have time to grieve. A Yin Ghost was already clinging to his own back, frantically tearing at his final defensive Talisman.

The shimmering barrier groaned, its light rapidly bleeding out.

Ten breaths, Meng calculated, absolute despair crushing his soul. Ten breaths, and the Talisman fails. As a Left Path conscript, he had always known he would die in a ditch. He just hadn’t expected the ditch to be so close to home.

And he was nowhere near as brave as he had always pretended to be.

I really, really don’t want to die, Meng thought, watching the cracks spiderweb across his barrier.

Strangely, in the face of absolute, unavoidable death, a bizarre sense of peace washed over him.

It’s just a shame… I never got to see the view from the Foundation Establishment stage…

At that exact microsecond.

BOOM!

In the dense forest directly below them, the earth violently ruptured! Hundreds of massive, emerald bamboo stalks exploded toward the sky, rapidly twisting and braiding together like the fingers of a colossal, terrestrial god! Moving at an astonishing, hypersonic speed, the bamboo hand lunged directly for the crimson hunter!

Meng gasped in shock.

The Incense Burner Path hunter blinked in surprise, before a sneer of absolute disdain twisted his lips.

“Pathetic, mundane elemental magic…”

With a single thought, he condensed his soul force into a razor-sharp guillotine and violently slashed downward from his Spiritual Terrace!

The invisible soul-blade sheared cleanly through the air, instantly decapitating the massive bamboo stalks!

“A pathetic clown dares to challenge me?! Show yourself!” the hunter roared, locking onto the magical signature in the forest, ready to dive down and execute the ambusher.

But the arrogant sneer froze on his face.

“Wh-What is—?!”

From the exact center of the severed bamboo stalks, a tidal wave of glacial ice violently erupted, roaring into the sky!

And behind the ice came a roaring inferno of fire, then a barrage of jagged boulders, then a storm of spinning wind-blades!

Wave after wave! Spell after spell!

It was an apocalyptic, overlapping cascade of absolute destruction! The ultimate, theoretical peak of a Qi Refining cultivator’s elemental manipulation was weaponized into a singular, unstoppable meat-grinder!

The early Foundation Establishment hunter didn’t even have the time to raise his arms before he was completely and violently submerged in the cataclysmic barrage…

WHOOSH!

Meng blinked as a blur of light shot past him, solidifying into a terrifyingly familiar figure.

Seeing the plain, tranquil face, Meng stammered, “S-Senior Wang?!”

Wang Ba didn’t waste a millisecond on pleasantries. Snatching the hunter’s plummeting Storage Bag out of the air, he swept his cold gaze over the three survivors.

“Move!”

Without another word, Wang Ba grabbed Meng by the collar and shot into the horizon at maximum velocity. The entire rescue and execution had taken less than five seconds!

Meanwhile.

South of the Eastern Sage garrison.

Mount Yutang.

Deep within a hidden mountain valley, a massive, imperceptible Formation concealed a sprawling staging ground from the outside world.

The valley floor was lined with strange, squat trees. Resting gently upon the leaves of the highest branches were perfectly spherical, colorless droplets of water.

A middle-aged cultivator stood quietly before the grove. He was dressed entirely in crimson robes, a wicked, crescent-shaped Magical Artifact hanging from his belt. He radiated an aura so profound and utterly terrifying it felt alien to the mortal world.

In his hand, he held a Magical Artifact identical to the Spirit Ear Wang Ba had crushed, save for a few intricate, golden runes etched into the cartilage. His expression was dangerously cold.

“Liu Yazi’s signal just flatlined.”

“It seems the rat holding Tian Yi’s ear decided to bite. He was the only anomaly in Liu Yazi’s sector.”

“How utterly suicidal.”

Beside him, a zealot draped in ochre robes stepped forward, bowing deeply. “Divine Envoy Zheng, allow me to deploy a hunter-killer squad. We will drag him back in chains and flay him alive.”

The middle-aged cultivator slowly shook his head.

“This Master Ear is the only artifact capable of tracking his unique soul signature. At this critical juncture in the operation, I will not entrust it to a subordinate.”

“Furthermore, this rat is highly likely the anomalous swordsman who nearly executed Li Canghai an hour ago. Allowing a rogue element of that caliber to operate behind our lines is a catastrophic tactical risk. A standard kill-squad would likely just feed him more kills.”

“What?!” The ochre-robed zealot gasped in sheer horror. “The one who injured Divine Envoy Li?!”

To the Foundation Establishment zealots, Li Canghai was a god of war, second only to the man standing before them. In a straight duel, even with the Yin Spirit lineage currently starved of external buffs, Li Canghai was one of the few second-grade combatants whose name commanded respect across the entire Myriad God Kingdom.

For a nameless rogue to critically injure Li Canghai and successfully retreat meant the rat was, at the very least, operating at the exact same tier of power.

Swallowing hard, the ochre-robed zealot voiced his dread.

“Divine Envoy Zheng, I would never question your supreme authority, but… if Divine Envoy Li was nearly killed by this man, are you certain that you—”

“Heh. Do not compare me to a brute like Li Canghai,” the middle-aged cultivator chuckled, not offended in the slightest. “Li Canghai is a generalist. He has mastered a vast array of techniques and wields third-grade armaments. That versatility ensures he is rarely defeated. However, a generalist is utterly useless against one specific type of enemy.”

“What type?” the zealot asked, genuinely curious.

“A fanatic who pushes a single, isolated path to absolute perfection,” the middle-aged cultivator said smoothly. “The rat who cleaved Li Canghai’s skull is likely a Sword Dao fanatic. The Sword Dao is exclusively engineered for slaughter. A cultivator who achieves perfection in the sword will always butcher a generalist who merely achieves ‘mastery’ of the elements.”

“However, such fanatics rarely leave themselves an exit strategy. This nameless cultivator unleashed a strike capable of maiming Li Canghai, yet he immediately fled the battlefield instead of finishing the job. This tells me two things: either that singular strike completely drained his core, leaving him defenseless… or the strike didn’t belong to him at all. It was a one-time protective charm gifted to him by a true master.”

The ochre-robed zealot’s eyes widened in sheer, paralyzing awe.

If a mere charm gifted by a master could blow a hole through Li Canghai’s skull, what would happen if the master actually took the field? Would he be an invincible god beneath the Golden Core realm?!

“Relax. You worry too much. Even if he is a Sword Dao fanatic, as long as he hasn’t formed a Golden Core, I will crush him like an insect,” the middle-aged cultivator laughed softly.

The zealot blinked in confusion, before a sudden, ecstatic realization hit him. “Divine Envoy Zheng… does this mean you have successfully nurtured a third-grade Yin Ghost?!”

“You have a sharp mind,” the middle-aged cultivator smirked, stroking his beard. He didn’t boast. To him, the nameless swordsman was merely a minor skin rash.

The true war the Yin Spirit lineage was staging here was aimed at a Sect commanded by a fourth-grade demigod… and beyond that…

The entire State of Chen!

They weren’t just here to recover the stolen Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture. They were here to swallow the continent.

According to the latest intelligence from the third-grade Envoys, the Myriad God Kingdom’s vanguard had already shattered the defenses of the neighboring State of Wei. Once the Yin Spirit lineage conquered Chen, they would link up with the ‘Serpent God’ lineage occupying Wei. Striking from both sides, they would effortlessly crush the remaining kingdoms caught in the crossfire.

“Hah. These arrogant sects of the State of Chen truly believe we are mindless savages. They think they can use the Yin Spirit lineage as pawns on their political board?” the middle-aged cultivator sneered, his eyes flashing with apocalyptic ambition.

“Soon, they will learn who the true chess player is.”