Under the meticulous care of Bu Chan and her team, the one-acre plot of spirit soil adjacent to the chicken farm had undergone a transformation. The air above it hummed with rich, revitalized Spiritual Qi.

The Green Fire Spirit Berry seeds, planted only days ago, had already taken root. The once barren, pitch-black earth was now carpeted with lush, vibrant green seedlings. Their growth was aggressive, promising a heavy yield.

Wang Ba inspected the perimeter daily. Paranoia was his primary survival trait, after all. To prevent prying eyes from gauging his assets, he erected a tall fence around the field. Furthermore, he expanded the coverage of the Minor Golden Bell Array, stretching the shimmering, invisible barrier to encompass both the chicken farm and the new agricultural zone.

With the ecosystem stabilized, the visits from the consulting team dwindled. Wang Ba had authorized this; efficiency was key, and loitering was a security risk.

Now, apart from Bu Chan—who tended the crops with obsessive dedication—the others only appeared for scheduled maintenance: reinforcing the Spirit Vein, tweaking the array, or weeding out invasive non-spiritual flora.

Despite the transactional nature of their arrangement, the trio insisted on sharing a cut of their market earnings with Bu Chan to offset the time she spent away from her own cultivation. It was a display of genuine camaraderie.

Watching them, Wang Ba felt a foreign twinge in his chest. Envy.

Risk assessment: Emotional attachments create vulnerabilities, he reminded himself, crushing the sentiment before it could take root. He knew that path was closed to him. His secrets were too heavy to share.

Suppressing the complex emotions, Wang Ba stuck to his routine, heading to the Stone Cave Dwelling every day for his meditation sessions.

The Spiritual Qi there was becoming a bottleneck. It could barely keep up with his current absorption rate, but it was still superior to the thin atmosphere of the chicken farm.

Just a little longer, he calculated. Sell the next batch of Spirit Poultry, liquidate the assets, then upgrade to the Wood Tower Dwelling.

As he passed the very building he coveted, however, two familiar figures descended the stairs.

“Fellow Daoist Chen, Fellow Daoist Xu. Heading out?” Wang Ba stopped, cupping his hands in a posture of harmless respect.

Chen Mian paused. His eyes swept over Wang Ba with a look of detached indifference, a stark contrast to his previous warmth. He offered a barely perceptible nod.

His Dao Companion, Madam Xu, was more gracious. “Good morning, Fellow Daoist Wang. Off to cultivate again? You really are diligent.”

“Haha.” Wang Ba offered a self-deprecating smile. “When one’s talent is low, one has no choice but to work harder.”

Hearing this, Chen Mian scoffed. He glanced sideways at Wang Ba, hands clasped behind his back in a pose of superior wisdom.

“Fellow Daoist, you are far too cautious,” Chen Mian lectured, shaking his head. “Relying solely on the thin Qi of the Stone Cave Dwelling? Without a benefactor to pull you up, or a sudden windfall of fortune, when will you ever glimpse the path to longevity?”

He took a step closer, his voice dropping to a patronizing tone. “You must understand, the Dao is not walked alone.”

“Look at me. If not for Senior Brother Jing Kuang taking me under his wing, I’d still be rotting in some damp cave. Would I be standing here today?” Chen Mian sneered softly. “That is all I have to say. Weigh it carefully yourself.”

“Haha… Fellow Daoist speaks words of gold.” Wang Ba lowered his head, feigning embarrassment to mask his indifference.

Analysis: Ego trip. Threat level: Zero.

Madam Xu shot her husband a reproachful glare. She turned to Wang Ba, her expression apologetic. “Don’t listen to him. He’s let recent successes go to his head. He just loves the sound of his own voice lately.”

“No harm done, truly. Fellow Daoist Chen makes a valid point. I have learned much,” Wang Ba replied, his tone dripping with practiced humility. He bowed again, prepared to make his exit.

He turned to leave, intent on reaching his cave, when a voice rang out like a silver bell shattering the morning calm.

“Wang Ba!”

The shout was loud, crisp, and undeniably delighted.

Chen Mian and his wife, who had only taken a few steps, froze. Instinctively, they turned toward the source.

A figure emerged from the high-security Spirit Water Courtyard nearby. Dressed in striking robes of red and black, she was a vision of cold, dazzling beauty. Her presence alone commanded attention, radiating an aura of nobility that belonged to a different world.

“A Heavenly Gate Sect disciple?!”

Chen Mian’s pupils constricted.

Madam Xu covered her mouth in shock.

Their gaze snapped back to Wang Ba. The humble chicken farmer stood there, looking momentarily stunned before a genuine smile broke his mask. He raised a hand in a casual wave.

“Haha, I haven’t seen you around lately.”

What happened next nearly dislocated Chen Mian’s jaw. The icy, high-status female cultivator lifted the hem of her expensive robes and ran toward Wang Ba. She moved with a skip in her step, closing the distance with eager familiarity.

It wasn’t just a polite greeting. It was intimacy.

Chen Mian’s face burned. The memory of his lecture—You need a benefactor, you can’t go it alone—echoed in his mind like a slap.

A benefactor?

In the entire Heavenly Gate Sect, who was a “nobler” benefactor than a true inner sect disciple? His own patron, Senior Brother Jing Kuang, was merely a Level 2 Outer Sect Left-Path Cultivator. Compared to this woman, Jing Kuang was a nobody.

Panic and shame mixed in his gut. Chen Mian walked faster, desperate to flee the scene of his humiliation.

Madam Xu, ever the gossip, slowed down, her ears perked up to catch the conversation, but Chen Mian yanked her arm, dragging her away.

“I never expected Fellow Daoist Wang to have such… terrifying connections,” Madam Xu whispered, still reeling as they put distance between themselves and the courtyard. “Why hasn’t he used them?”

Chen Mian’s face was a mask of dark clouds. “Hmph. Maybe it’s just surface level. If they were truly close, why would a man surnamed Wang still be living in a Stone Cave?”

“True…” Madam Xu mused. “Or maybe Fellow Daoist Wang is just thin-skinned. He might be too proud to ask a woman for help… Ugh! It’s all your fault! If you hadn’t run your mouth, we could have gone up and introduced ourselves. We missed a chance to make a powerful acquaintance!”

Chen Mian sighed, his arrogance deflating into regret. “How was I to know the little chicken farmer knew people in high places? But… speaking of faces, I feel like I’ve seen that female cultivator somewhere before.”

Madam Xu’s eyes narrowed into dangerous slits. “Have you been messing around with female cultivators behind my back again?!”

Chen Mian shrank into his collar like a turtle. “No! Absolutely not!”

“Haha, Master ordered me to focus on cultivation. He grounded me! Said I couldn’t step one foot outside until I hit the sixth layer of Qi Refining.”

Lin Yu explained her absence with a bubbly laugh, completely unaware of the devastating social blow she had just dealt to the onlookers.

Wang Ba’s eyes widened. “You’re already at the sixth layer?”

“No, not yet!” Lin Yu rolled her eyes playfully. “It’s not that easy! Plus, I switched to the Sect’s core cultivation method. I’m only at the fifth layer right now.”

She grinned, a dimple showing on her cheek. “Hehe, Master dotes on me. I begged and begged until he finally let me out for a breather.”

Her face fell slightly. “But only for a little while. I have to go back to secluded cultivation soon… You know, back in the Eastern Sage Sect, I used to complain that the spirit veins were too weak. Now I have a premium vein all to myself every day, and I’m bored to death! Ugh!”

Listening to Lin Yu’s “problems,” Wang Ba felt a rare twitch of irritation.

Comparison is the thief of joy, he thought dryly. And right now, joy is being mugged in a dark alley.

He was scraping together coins to rent a drafty tower, while she was sick of living in a luxury villa. She had rocketed from the third to the fifth layer in months—a speed that made his own progress look like a crawl.

Even with his daily diet of Spirit Poultry and constant grinding, he was only just touching the ceiling of the second layer.

They chatted for a few more minutes, but the conversation quickly ran dry.

The gap was simply too wide. One was struggling to survive in the mud at the bottom of the Heavenly Gate Sect hierarchy; the other was a princess in an ivory tower. Their only common ground was a dead sect they had both left behind.

Sensing the encroaching silence, Wang Ba cut the cord before things got awkward.

“Well, I should let you get back to it. Until next time.”

“See you!” Lin Yu beamed, her smile radiant enough to blind a lesser man.

Wang Ba nodded, his expression polite. Even facing such devastating beauty, his heart rate didn’t spike by a single beat.

Status: Irrelevant. Focus: Survival.

He bid her farewell and returned to the damp gloom of the Stone Cave Dwelling to resume his dull, repetitive, yet essential cultivation.

Half a month later.

Inside the Stone Cave Dwelling.

[Current Lifespan: -8.7 Years] [Current Remaining Lifespan: 3,891.5 Years]

“Qi Refining… Third Layer.”

Wang Ba opened his eyes. In the darkness of the meditation chamber, his pupils seemed to flash with an internal light.

The efficiency of his Four Spiritual Roots was better than anticipated. Of course, “talent” was a generous word for it. His progress was fueled by a diet that would bankrupt a normal cultivator. No one else could afford to eat Spirit Poultry like popcorn.

More importantly, the bottleneck that usually stalled cultivators for months or years was non-existent for him. He didn’t use insight or luck; he used brute force. He burned his own lifespan to smash through the barrier.

This “pay-to-win” strategy allowed him to keep pace with those possessing Three Spiritual Roots. In fact, compared to those who got stuck at bottlenecks, he was actually faster.

But Wang Ba didn’t let himself get cocky.

He attempted to cycle his Qi again, but stopped almost immediately, frowning.

“I really need to move. The ambient Qi here is too thin to support the Third Layer efficiently.”

Decision made. He stood up, scanned the cave to ensure no traces were left behind, and walked out. He went straight to the management office and terminated his lease early. The remaining days on his rent were a sunk cost he didn’t care to recover.

Back at the farm, he paused by the spiritual field.

The Green Fire Spirit Berry trees had entered a stable growth phase. Rows of saplings stood like disciplined soldiers. Bu Chan’s visits had become infrequent; her systems were self-sustaining, requiring only basic watering and fertilization with his proprietary chicken manure compost.

Wang Ba had picked up a few tricks watching her, learning the basics of soil enrichment, but he had no intention of pivoting careers.

System Limitation: His ability to transfer lifespan did not work on plants. That was a hard cap on his potential as a farmer. Animals were his domain.

“Huh? How did Alpha-Nine get out?”

Stepping into the coop, Wang Ba was immediately assaulted by a riot of color. Alpha-Nine, the mutant hen, was strutting around with tail feathers that would make a peacock feel inadequate.

Usually, hens were drab compared to roosters. Alpha-Nine, however, seemed to have evolved into a different species entirely.

The “Fairy Among Chickens” spotted Wang Ba and immediately launched herself into the air, her rainbow wings fluttering as she landed beside him. She rubbed her dainty, feathered head against his leg, cooing softly.

“Cluck~”

The sound sent a wave of jealous agitation through the roosters in the yard.

Wang Ba ignored the affection. He sidestepped the bird and hurried behind the coop. Sure enough, the four eggs Alpha-Nine had been brooding were cracked open. Four fluffy, stumbling chicks were chirping, looking for their mother.

Their mother, meanwhile, was busy preening her iridescent feathers, completely oblivious to her biological duties.

Wang Ba sighed. He pulled out a Spirit Light Talisman and tested the chicks one by one.

The results were consistent. All four were Middle Grade Spirit Poultry.

“Good genes,” Wang Ba muttered. “I’ll bank some lifespan into them in a few days.”

He grabbed Alpha-Nine and forcibly introduced her to her children, trying to get her to demonstrate how to eat. Alpha-Nine looked at the chicks, then at the food, then back at her own reflection in a water trough. She had zero maternal instinct.

Assessment: Physiological maturity does not equal mental maturity. She was, after all, only six months old—a child in a super-soldier’s body.

Resigned, Wang Ba played the role of mother hen, tapping the ground until the chicks mimicked him. Surprisingly, they were quick learners.

After tidying up the coop, he rounded up a batch of Low Grade Spirit Poultry—birds he had already drained of their surplus lifespan—and hauled them to the market. He liquidated the stock for 30 Spirit Stones.

Combined with his savings, he now sat on a nest egg of nearly sixty stones.

Liquidity secured. He marched straight to the Wood Tower Dwelling.

But as he approached the steward’s office, he stopped. Standing there, looking as ancient and withered as ever, was the old woman who called herself ‘Long’er’.