Despite his burning curiosity about what exactly Zhao Feng had hidden inside his body, Wang Ba forced himself to prioritize survival.

He stowed the Yellow-Throated Stone Turtles safely into his Spirit Beast Bag and began scouting the area.

It didn’t take long to find a suitable location—a wide, well-ventilated clearing right on the edge of South Lake.

“This will do.”

Wang Ba paced around the perimeter. The location was strategic; not only was it good for the chickens, but the proximity to water was ideal for the semi-aquatic turtles he planned to breed.

Lacking proper tools, Wang Ba had to rely on brute force and Spiritual Power. He approached the century-old trees bordering the clearing, channeling energy into his hands to chop them down like a human axe. Then came the grueling work of splitting the trunks and driving them into the earth to form a crude perimeter fence.

” These trees are saturated with vitality… they’re almost Spirit Plants,” he muttered, running a hand over the rough bark. “Pity. Touching them feels no different than touching a weed; no Lifespan values appear. I wonder… if a plant became a demon, would it show a number then?”

He shook off the idle thought and returned to the grind.

He had only entered the Qi Refining stage a few days ago. His reservoir of Spiritual Power was shallow. After felling a few trees, he would run dry, forcing him to sit cross-legged and meditate. He would painstakingly draw in the thin ambient Spiritual Qi, refine it into Spiritual Power, and then stand up to work until he was empty again.

Work. Deplete. Meditate. Repeat.

“If I ever get the chance, I have to rent a proper Cultivation Room at the market,” he grumbled, wiping sweat from his brow. “Cultivating out here in the wild is torture. It’s like trying to fill a bucket with dew.”

He checked his pockets—empty. Not a single Spirit Stone to his name. He had the Rare Fowl and Spirit Poultry, but those were his capital; he couldn’t sell them yet.

By the time night fell, turning the sky into a bruised purple, Wang Ba had managed to complete the outer fence. Inside, he slapped together a wooden hut that was simple to the point of being dilapidated.

It leaked wind and probably rain, but it was a roof.

He sat in the doorway, facing South Lake. The moonlight danced across the water, creating a shimmering path of silver. It was a rare moment of tranquility, quickly shattered by the growl of his empty stomach.

Wang Ba sighed, stripped off his clothes, and dove into the lake.

His swimming skills were average, but his cultivator physique allowed him to hold his breath for minutes at a time. He moved through the dark water like a predator, snatching several large fish with his bare hands before hauling himself back onto the bank.

Shivering slightly in the night air, he looked down at his torso.

The skin on his flank was smooth and unbroken. There was no scar, no bump, no sign that anything had been inserted there.

The curiosity he had bottled up all day finally exploded.

He ran his fingers over the spot.

“Strange… I can feel it. It’s round, smooth… but it feels prickly to the touch.”

He pressed harder, digging his fingers in, but the object wouldn’t budge. It was as if it had fused with his flesh.

“Why did Senior Brother Zhao give me this?”

Wang Ba’s mind drifted back to the previous night. The moment the black-robed cultivator—Lu Yuansheng—had appeared, Zhao Feng’s demeanor had shifted. That slap hadn’t been an attack; it was a final act of entrustment. Like a man on his deathbed handing over his legacy.

He thought of the light that entered Zhao Feng’s eyes whenever he spoke of Lu Yuansheng.

Wang Ba felt a complicated knot of emotions tighten in his chest. Perhaps, for Zhao Feng, believing his friend was dead would have been a kinder fate than facing the monster he had become.

He shook his head, physically tossing the sentimental thoughts aside. He was alive; Zhao Feng was dead. He needed to focus on the object.

“If Zhao Feng knew he was going to die, this object must be incredibly important. Either to him… or to me.”

“Let’s see if I can activate it.”

Wang Ba focused. He mobilized the scant Spiritual Power remaining in his Dantian, guiding it to his palm, and pressed it against his flank.

Nothing happened. He could feel the object, but he couldn’t interact with it.

“Maybe from the inside?”

He changed tactics, guiding a thread of Spiritual Power through his meridians directly to the location of the object in his flank.

His expression changed instantly.

The moment his Spiritual Power touched the spot, it was as if he had opened a floodgate into a deep-sea vortex.

Whoosh!

A terrifying suction force erupted. In a heartbeat, his meager reserve of Spiritual Power was drained dry, swallowed whole without a single drop remaining.

But in that split second of contact, the object flashed.

Wang Ba saw it.

It was a bead. A dark, iron-like bead, embedded in his flesh like a raised birthmark.

It sat there, silent and unassuming, yet Wang Ba sensed a terrifying, dormant Sword Intent pulsing within it. Just looking at it with his spiritual sense made his eyes sting.

“A Magical Artifact? Or something else entirely?”

Wang Ba gasped for breath, shaken. Whatever it was, it was hungry. With his current pathetic cultivation base, he couldn’t hope to feed it.

“Forget it. I can’t use it yet.”

He pushed the mystery aside and turned his attention to the fish flapping on the grass. Using a sharp stone shard, he gutted them, rinsed the meat in the lake, and ate the raw fillets. The flesh was sweet and tender, melting in his mouth.

“Hope there aren’t any parasites,” he muttered between bites. “Though, these fish didn’t show any Lifespan numbers… My theory holds.”

Under the moonlight, chewing on raw fish, he reviewed his greatest secret: the ability to see and manipulate Lifespan.

Why hadn’t he discovered it before entering the Eastern Sage Sect? He had lived a rich life as a mortal, interacting with plenty of animals. He wasn’t some spoiled young master who never touched spring water.

The answer had to be Spiritual Qi.

The fish in the lake were mundane. The Rare Fowl, while physically ordinary, contained trace amounts of Spiritual Qi, making them ‘Spirit Chow.’

To confirm, he wiped his hands and pulled a few Yellow-Throated Stone Turtles from his bag.

[Target Lifespan: 46.1 Years] [Target Lifespan: 39.6 Years] [Target Lifespan: 47.3 Years]

The numbers floated in his vision. They hovered between 45 and 55 years.

“Not the thousand-year lifespan people expect from turtles,” he mused. “But consistent with Notes on Avian Husbandry. Forty years is double the lifespan of a chicken. That’s efficient.”

He recalled the details from Daoist Horn-Pot’s book. Yellow-Throated Stone Turtles were dumber than chickens, driven purely by instinct, which made them easier to manage. The downside was their slow reproduction—four clutches a year, three months to hatch.

“If I can buy them in bulk, they’ll be an excellent secondary battery for Lifespan.”

He finished the fish, then systematically deposited his excess Lifespan points into the turtles for safe-keeping. The exchange ratio was similar to the chickens.

Finally, he dug a shallow pit, filled it with lake water, and fenced the turtles in. Exhaustion hit him like a physical blow. He crawled into his leaky hut and fell into a dead sleep.

Early the next morning, Wang Ba used a Sound Transmission Talisman to send his coordinates to Yu Changchun.

He winced as he burned it. Yu Changchun had given it to him, claiming it was worth three Spirit Stones, and the pained look on the older man’s face when handing it over was burned into Wang Ba’s memory.

A late-stage Qi Refining cultivator, yet so stingy, Wang Ba thought, shaking his head.

Not long after, Yu Changchun arrived. He dumped a mountain of chicken feed from his Storage Bag onto the grass.

“I hauled all this from the Clean Mountain Department!” Yu Changchun announced proudly. “Hardly anyone in the Heavenly Gate Sect knows how to raise these things. This should last you a while!”

Wang Ba stared at the pile. “Uh… Senior, some of this is perishable. It’s going to rot if left out like this.”

Yu Changchun blinked, looking genuinely confused. “It will? What do we do then?”

“Nothing we can do now. I’ll just use what I can.”

Wang Ba sighed internally. The Eastern Sage Sect had a sophisticated supply chain for agriculture. The Heavenly Gate Sect? They knew how to strip flesh from bone and refine souls, but asking them to farm was like asking a butcher to perform embroidery.

Yu Changchun seemed to realize his lack of utility. Embarrassed, he fumbled in his Storage Bag and produced five Low Grade Spirit Stones.

“Here. If you need tools or supplies… go to the market and buy them yourself.”

He dropped the stones in Wang Ba’s hand, chatted awkwardly for a moment, and then fled.

Wang Ba looked at the five stones in his palm and shook his head.

He expects the horse to run but won’t feed it grass.

Still, five stones were better than nothing. It solved his immediate poverty.

He hiked to the South Lake Market and bought a full set of supplies: pots, a stove, bedding, knives, axes, and a sack of Spirit Rice. Since he was barely a cultivator, mortal tools sufficed, and they were dirt cheap.

After stocking up, he still had four Spirit Stones left.

On his way out, he passed the ‘Human Puppet Shop.’

Rows of figures stood inside, eyes closed, motionless.

Wang Ba stopped. Temptation gnawed at him.

These ‘puppets’ were made from living people. They retained their consciousness but were bound to obey every command of their master. They could fight, they could work, and they never tired.

Wang Ba looked at them and thought of his farm. If he had a puppet to handle the manual labor—cleaning coops, feeding the birds—he could focus entirely on cultivation and managing his Lifespan economy.

But then he looked at the prices.

Too expensive.

Even a puppet made from a mortal cost ten Spirit Stones. The activation technique cost another five.

Wang Ba walked away, shaking his head. The Heavenly Gate Sect really knew how to bleed their workers dry.

Yu Changchun is from the Profound Puppet Path, he thought. * maybe I can squeeze a puppet out of him next time.*

As he neared the market exit, a face in the crowd caught his eye.

Wang Ba froze.

“Her? She’s actually still alive?”