“Huh? My Lifespan… it went up?”
Wang Ba’s sharp eyes caught the discrepancy immediately.
After spending lifespan on the Physique Strengthening Scripture, he had had 125.1 years left.
But after a single night, the counter now read 125.3 years.
The increase was only 0.2 years, but it still caught his attention.
“I didn’t do anything last night except read the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture.”
“Reading doesn’t extend your life. So it must be from before… The Spirit Poultry?”
He turned the thought over in his mind. Only the Spirit Poultry meat and the Spirit Rice could possess such miraculous effects. It made sense; food rich in spiritual energy nourishing a mortal body would naturally extend one’s longevity.
It wasn’t a massive gain, but it was a pleasant surprise.
No one would object to more lifespan, least of all Wang Ba, who spent so much of it.
Even 0.2 years was something. Every little bit counted.
“And that was just from a single drumstick. If I eat the whole bird, the effect should be even better.”
Eating Spirit Poultry as a mortal was not such a waste after all. Feeling a little better, he turned his attention to the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture.
After a night of intensive study, he hadn’t fully comprehended every esoteric nuance, nor had he begun actual cultivation, but he had grasped the fundamentals.
“This technique requires visualizing a ‘Yin Spirit’ within the mind’s eye, right at the center of the brow. Day after day, for a hundred years of diligent cultivation, until one finally opens the ‘Yin Spirit Abode.'”
“That is only the First Layer.”
“Once the Yin Spirit Abode is opened, it nurtures the power of the Yin Spirit.”
“With this power, one can hide their presence from the world. At high levels, one can deceive the heavens themselves, inverting reality and illusion!”
“It has no offensive power, but it is an excellent way to protect oneself.”
“Learning this gives me a trump card for staying alive. The only problem is… what exactly is a ‘Yin Spirit’? The golden page didn’t have an illustration. What am I supposed to visualize?”
Wang Ba stroked the stubble on his chin, lost in thought.
After pondering for a long while, his gaze drifted back to his system panel.
“Forget it. Since the technique is listed on the panel, it means I can brute-force it with Lifespan.”
“This method seems to suit me. Unlike the ninefold time needed for the Physique Strengthening Scripture, it only needs 113.7 years.”
113.7 years sounded like an eternity. But to cultivate the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture manually required a century of hard labor.
An ordinary person could master the first layer of the Physique Strengthening Scripture in one year, but he needed to spend nine.
Nine times the cost versus a near-standard rate. The choice was obvious.
Wang Ba hesitated no longer. He focused on the button.
[Consume.]
[Lifespan -113.7 years!]
He felt a sudden weakness, as though his body had been drained.
The next second, his eyes snapped open.
A crimson lotus mark abruptly appeared between his brows.
The moment the mark appeared, it began to twist and writhe. It expanded wildly, lashing out like a demon baring its fangs, yet it remained anchored to his forehead.
It became a crimson figure. Its face was blurred and indistinct, its body seated in a meditative lotus position.
The figure turned into a crimson ray of light and entered the space between Wang Ba’s brows.
A sudden chill pierced his mind.
In his consciousness, the crimson figure reappeared, sitting silent and imposing.
Wang Ba’s mind instinctively locked onto the image. He began to visualize it.
He dimly felt that space swell and expand rapidly, growing until it could grow no more.
Then a clear crack sounded between his brows.
It was a sound like the separation of heaven and earth amidst primordial chaos.
The pressure vanished. His mind’s eye burst open.
Without any guidance, Wang Ba understood.
A hundred years of bitter cultivation, condensed into a single instant.
The Yin Spirit Abode was open.
And with its opening, the world changed.
Everything was sharper. Vivid. Alive.
He saw an ant crawling on the window lattice, the hairs moving on its legs, and the many tiny pores on those hairs.
He saw a male Spirit Poultry outside. Its scent seemed different from that of the other roosters, carrying a trace of longing, especially when it looked at the hens.
He saw the air itself.
Faint mists filled the air: red, white, green, and countless other colors. They were so thin and transparent that they did not obscure his view, passing freely through the windowsill, the table, and his body.
Looking down, he saw the mist condensing around the little-finger-sized stone in his palm: a piece worth four-tenths of a low-grade Spirit Stone.
“This… this is Spiritual Energy?!”
Wang Ba understood at once.
“I can see Qi?”
According to what he had heard, people with Spiritual Roots could sense spiritual energy and draw it into their bodies, gradually strengthening themselves and laying a foundation for immortality.
But he wasn’t just sensing it. He was watching it.
Wang Ba’s eyes went wide. Without thinking, he snatched at the mist floating in front of him.
His hand passed through it as if clutching at smoke.
“No, not grab. Attract.”
He pulled his hand back and tried to mentally pull the Qi toward him.
He strained his will, focusing entirely on the drifting lights. But the Qi ignored him completely. It was as if they existed in parallel dimensions, passing through his flesh without a single mote sticking.
Frustrated, he scratched his head, unwilling to watch the energy slip away.
Then, an idea struck him.
He scrambled to the clay pot he had used to stew the chicken. To his new eyes, dense plumes of pure white Qi were billowing out of the pot like steam.
He chewed, swallowed, and immediately looked down at his stomach.
As expected.
His belly was like a leaking chimney. The white Qi he had just swallowed was pouring out of his abdomen, dispersing back into the air.
It passed right through his flesh.
However, amidst the waste, Wang Ba noticed something.
A tiny fraction of the Qi didn’t escape.
It was caught by invisible threads within his body—his meridians. The energy flowed along these channels, traveling to his limbs and organs. A portion was absorbed by his flesh, strengthening him. Another portion gathered in his lower abdomen—the Dantian—where it lingered for a moment before surging upward, straight to the space between his eyebrows.
The Yin Spirit Abode.
The Yin Spirit Abode could barely absorb the spiritual energy circulating inside him. It could do nothing about the energy drifting through the air.
“I still need a Spirit Root,” Wang Ba sighed, shaking his head.
If he had a Spirit Root, he could probably have absorbed most of the energy from that Spirit Poultry. As it stood, he was likely retaining less than one percent.
Perhaps because the energy inside him now had somewhere to go, he soon began to feel a little hungry.
Delighted rather than surprised, he lit a fire and reheated last night’s leftovers.
He ate more than half the Spirit Poultry and finished the porridge made from the leftover rice.
Watching the energy escape from his belly, he decided simply to let it be.
After breakfast, Wang Ba began his daily chores.
With twenty-two secret Spirit Poultry hiding in his manor, he didn’t dare let the feed delivery man inside. He walked down to the estate entrance to intercept him.
Perhaps thanks to his progress in the Physique Strengthening Scripture, he did not even feel tired carrying a bucket of feed weighing forty or fifty jin.
“Old Hou! Just two buckets today,” Wang Ba called out, smiling as he slipped a Rare Fowl egg into the old man’s hand.
All twenty-two Rare Fowl had completed their transformation, so their appetites had dropped sharply. He no longer needed so much feed; two buckets would suffice.
“You got it! Let me know if you need more next time,” Old Hou said, beaming as he pocketed the egg. “The ‘Clean Mountain Department’ has so much excess stock lately they can’t get rid of it. Old Yang over there is cursing up a storm every day!”
Delivering feed was hard work with few perks. Chicken keepers had tight budgets too, but could supplement their income by selling manure and, if lucky, a few eggs.
Wang Ba’s ears perked up. He asked, feigning casual curiosity, “What kind of excess stock?”
“Oh, you know. Spirit Stone powder, slag from pill refining, Discarded Spirit Worms… it’s a mountain of trash,” Old Hou said, counting on his fingers.
“Sounds like the Immortals are making big moves in their cultivation,” Wang Ba joked.
Old Hou curled his lip and lowered his voice. “I don’t know about cultivation, but they’re definitely busy. Rumor has it the young Immortals are preparing for some ‘Grand Gathering.’ The stewards at the Outer Sect’s ‘Merit Hall’ are running around like headless chickens.”
Wang Ba opened his mouth to ask more, but Old Hou shook his head vigorously and pointed a finger toward the sky.
Don’t ask. They might be listening.
Wang Ba took the hint and dropped the subject. The methods of Immortals were unfathomable; it was best not to court trouble.
An idea stirred in Wang Ba’s mind.
The Immortals were distracted?
Could there be an opportunity for him in this?
Unable to think of one for the moment, he continued killing and eating chickens every day.
A few days later, however, two pieces of good news landed in his lap.