Cultivation: I Can Steal Lifespan from Spirit Beasts

“Senior Brother wants to establish a Spirit Plant farm here?”

Bu Chan walked a wide circle around the designated plot, repeatedly thrusting her fingers deep into the soil to test its quality. When she returned, she shook her head.

“The Spiritual Qi here is too thin. It cannot support a Spirit Field. Without the nourishment of enriched soil, Spirit Plants will struggle to survive, let alone thrive. Even if they reach maturity, their potency will be negligible—barely distinguishable from mortal crops.”

Wang Ba’s expression darkened.

“If it’s just a matter of soil quality, I have a solution,” Su Lingling interjected. “If we condense a Spirit Vein here, the land will transform into a Spirit Field naturally.”

Bu Chan’s eyes lit up. “Right! Lingling is a geomancer. Even the lowest grade of Spirit Vein would be sufficient to terraform this plot.”

Su Lingling hesitated. “However, I will need Shen Fu’s assistance. The ambient qi is so sparse that any vein I condense will dissipate rapidly unless it’s locked down by a Spirit Gathering Array. Shen Fu, do you know how to set one up?”

She shot a skeptical glance at the formation specialist.

“That is a Novice-level array!” Shen Fu glared back, insulted. “You just focus on pulling the vein. I’ll lock it down!”

Watching them brainstorm a solution in seconds, Wang Ba felt a surge of satisfaction.

Best thirty Spirit Stones I ever spent.

He left the team to plan the specifics and headed straight to the Heavenly Gate Sect’s patrol office. He paid a hefty sum to officially lease the surrounding wasteland. He wasn’t about to do all this work only for some bureaucrat to confiscate his new farm on a technicality.

By the time he returned, the team was already in motion.

Cultivators were efficient. Once the plan was greenlit, they worked like a well-oiled machine.

Su Lingling stood in the center of the field, holding a geomancy compass—a magical artifact that mapped the flow of energy. She calculated the ley lines of the surrounding hills and the lake, then began to draw the scattered qi toward the farm.

Wang Ba could feel the shift. The air grew heavy and sweet as the concentration of Spiritual Qi spiked, quickly surpassing the density of his Stone Cave Dwelling.

Su Lingling began to weave hand seals. She chanted a low incantation, extending her palm toward the earth.

Visible wisps of qi swirled into her hand, compressing into a glowing thread the thickness of an earthworm.

Her face went pale with effort. With agonizing slowness, she pushed the tiny Spirit Vein into the soil. It vanished instantly upon contact, merging with the earth, but Wang Ba could sense it pulsing beneath his feet like a heartbeat.

“Now! The array!” Su Lingling gasped.

Shen Fu moved instantly. He threw several small flags into the air. His technique was a bit raw, but his placement was precise. The flags sank into the ground and disappeared.

Hum.

The erratic energy in the air suddenly stabilized, pulled downward into the soil by an invisible gravity.

“Done!” Shen Fu wiped sweat from his forehead, looking smug.

“The vein is weak—barely First-Rank Low Grade,” Su Lingling warned, catching her breath. “Do not try to cultivate here. If you drain too much qi, the vein will degrade and collapse.”

Wang Ba nodded. “Understood. I have no intention of cultivating here.”

“Senior Brother,” Bu Chan spoke up. “Since you raise chickens… do you have manure?”

Wang Ba blinked. “Yes.”

“Please bring me some. While the vein is settling, I can use the manure to enrich the soil structure…”

Wang Ba didn’t need to be asked twice. He ordered the Human Puppet to haul the massive stockpile of manure from the Black Crystal Peach Tree. Within minutes, a mountain of dung weighing thousands of pounds was piled next to the field.

Bu Chan didn’t flinch at the smell. She grabbed a handful of the manure, rubbing it between her fingers. Her eyes widened.

“This… the Spiritual Qi content in this manure is incredible!”

“Is that bad?” Wang Ba asked, worried.

“No, it’s excellent!” Bu Chan looked at the pile of dung as if it were gold dust. “With fertilizer of this quality, I can grow almost any First-Rank Low Grade crop without issue!”

She wiped her hands. “By the way, Senior Brother, what exactly did you want to plant?”

Wang Ba considered his needs. “Is there a high-yield Spirit Plant that is rich in qi and… suitable for turtle consumption?”

“You’re not planting cash crops to sell?” The group looked confused.

Wang Ba didn’t elaborate.

Bu Chan thought for a moment. “High yield, qi-rich, edible for beasts… I actually know of one. And I happen to have the seeds.”

She produced a small packet and opened it, revealing tiny, fiery-red seeds that looked like sesame.

“Azure Fire Spirit Berries. With sufficient nutrients, they mature in one year. Each bush yields hundreds of pounds of fruit annually. The plant lives for twenty years before needing replanting.”

“Azure Fire Spirit Berries?” Yun Caixiang, the herbalist, perked up. “That’s an auxiliary ingredient for the Qi Refining Pill.”

“It’s also edible raw,” Bu Chan added.

Wang Ba slapped his thigh. “Perfect. We’ll plant that.”

He handed full control of the field to the team, though he quietly ordered the Human Puppet to monitor them from the shadows. Trust was good; oversight was better.

Back at the chicken farm.

Two months later, the Black Crystal Peach Tree was covered in over a hundred flower buds. The resurrection was a success.

Meanwhile, the Yellow-Throated Stone Turtle eggs had finally hatched. The incubation had taken four months instead of the expected three, but the results were worth the wait.

The hatchlings looked nothing like their parents. They were small, black, and endearingly clumsy—”han tou han nao.” They waddled around the sand, white egg teeth still stuck to their beaks, looking utterly harmless.

Until a bug flew by.

Snap.

The hatchlings would freeze, coil their necks, and strike with terrifying speed.

Wang Ba scanned them. Their auras were gray with a distinct white fringe—borderline Middle Grade.

He grinned. Once they grew a bit larger, a small infusion of Lifespan would push them over the edge into true Middle Grade status.

With two more batches of eggs discovered near the pond, he was looking at a future herd of over 140 Middle Grade Spirit Turtles.

It’s a shame I can’t buy more stock, he lamented. The market for these turtles was nonexistent, and the shopkeepers were too snobbish to deal with him.

But the biggest surprise came from the coop.

The mutated Middle Grade hen had started laying. And all the eggs were fertilized.

The father was likely her brother, but Wang Ba couldn’t blame the rooster. The hen was simply too beautiful.

She was the “Fairy of Chickens.” Her plumage was a breathtaking gradient of seven colors, culminating in a peacock-like tail. In a yard full of mud-colored birds, she looked like a phoenix that had taken a wrong turn.

Even Alpha-Five and Alpha-Seven looked like trash next to her.

“She’s basically an ornamental bird,” Wang Ba mused, watching her preen on her nest.

Her beauty was so transcendent that it seemed to be warping the sexuality of the flock. Even the “lifelong sword-wielding” roosters—the ones who usually only had eyes for other roosters—were giving her longing glances.

“Alpha-Eight is too generic. I’ll call you Alpha-Nine.”

Wang Ba stroked her head. Alpha-Nine blinked her beautiful, vacant eyes and nuzzled his palm. A ripple of jealous agitation swept through the roosters in the yard.

Wang Ba chuckled.

A few days later.

Yu Changchun arrived at the farm. He glanced at the new Spirit Field with mild surprise but didn’t comment.

Instead, he handed Wang Ba a formation disk.

“This is the Minor Golden Bell Array. I just… acquired it from a Senior Brother. If you power it with your own Spiritual Power, it can block attacks from anyone under the Eighth Layer of Qi Refining. Using Spirit Stones weakens it to the Sixth Layer, but it consumes a lot of energy. It should be enough to secure this farm.”

Wang Ba took the disk, a strange sense of déjà vu washing over him.

If he wasn’t mistaken, this was the prized defense of Cultivator Shi from Dingjiu Village. Months ago, Tao Yi had backstabbed Shi to shatter this very array.

Now, through the twisted currents of fate, it had landed in Wang Ba’s hands.

Yu Changchun inspected the twelve Spirit Poultry Wang Ba had prepared. “Fellow Daoist’s skills have improved again,” he praised, genuinely impressed by the qi density of the birds.

He silently congratulated himself for not refining Wang Ba into a puppet back at the sect. A dead puppet could never produce results like this.

Feeling generous, Yu Changchun smiled mysteriously and tossed a Storage Bag to Wang Ba.

“A gift. Take a look.”

Puzzled, Wang Ba opened the bag.

Inside lay a mutilated corpse wearing the robes of the Eastern Sage Sect.

“This…” Wang Ba feigned a look of shock and joy. “Could it be…”

“Haha! I was busy before, but I finally found time to hunt,” Yu Changchun gloated. “He was only at the Third Layer of Qi Refining, but it’s enough to clear your mandatory mission. Consider it a bonus for your hard work.”

Wang Ba bowed deeply, expressing profuse gratitude. He insisted on gifting Yu Changchun an extra 500 Spirit Poultry eggs as a token of thanks.

Yu Changchun left, beaming.

Wang Ba stood alone in the yard, holding the bag containing the corpse.

He stared at it, pondering his options.

I already bought a corpse to clear my mission. So… do I sell this one?