“Ding! Your cheat has arrived!”
“Every day at midnight, as long as you remain alive, your physical condition will be forcibly refreshed.”
Chu Ran stopped what he was doing. He froze for a moment as those two sentences echoed repeatedly through his mind.
“Hahaha! I knew I couldn’t possibly be without a cheat!”
Chu Ran threw his head back and laughed wildly.
That’s right. Chu Ran was a transmigrator.
Thirty years ago, he had died in an accidental fall while hiking. When he opened his eyes again, he had been reborn in this world with all his memories from his previous life.
This place was known as the Tiannan Continent, a world of cultivation where cultivators flew through the skies and burrowed beneath the earth.
At first, he had thought himself the chosen child of destiny.
Unfortunately, Heaven had given him the fate of a transmigrator without giving him the aptitude for cultivation. He possessed only a low-grade spirit root.
Spirit roots were divided into six grades: low, middle, high, supreme, earth, and heavenly. Anyone with a spirit root could cultivate.
A low-grade spirit root was just barely enough to step onto the path of cultivation.
At the age of ten, he had joined the Heavenly Demon Sect. After cultivating for twenty years, he had only just reached the fourth level of Qi Refining.
And even among fourth-level Qi Refiners, he was on the weaker side. Some descendants and disciples of the elders of the Heavenly Demon Sect could cross realms and kill him despite being only at the third level of Qi Refining.
Chu Ran finally understood how those minor characters in the novels and television dramas of his previous life felt when they were defeated by the protagonist despite having a higher cultivation realm.
Fortunately, he had a good eye for potential. He had a childhood sweetheart named Liu Mei, who had joined the Heavenly Demon Sect alongside him.
At first, Liu Mei had also possessed a low-grade spirit root, and her cultivation progressed just as slowly as his.
She was timid by nature, unwilling to take risks or fight for opportunities. At one point, her cultivation had even fallen a full realm behind Chu Ran’s.
But Liu Mei had a secret.
Every night, deep into the darkness, an inexplicable chill would radiate from within her body. It would leave her trembling violently, suffering unbearable pain.
As a transmigrator who had read countless novels in his previous life, Chu Ran naturally knew that this was most likely some kind of mysterious physique or Dao body that had yet to reveal itself.
Since his own aptitude was poor, he decided to become an angel investor.
He took meticulous care of Liu Mei, even giving half of his cultivation resources to her. All he hoped was that one day, when Liu Mei rose to prominence, she would lend him a hand.
Although he was willing to fight and take risks, his cultivation had only reached the fourth level of Qi Refining by now, and this was partly because of the resources he had given her.
Sure enough, three years ago, Liu Mei was discovered by Mo Yinzi, an elder of the sect at the Golden Core stage. He immediately recognized that she possessed a Profound Yin Physique.
Mo Yinzi took her as a personal disciple on the spot.
With the guidance and resources of a Golden Core elder, Liu Mei had advanced from the fourth level of Qi Refining to the ninth level in just three years. She was now only one step away from Foundation Establishment.
After Liu Mei entered the inner sect, she became somewhat distant toward Chu Ran. Still, remembering their past relationship, she sent him quite a few spirit stones.
Two months ago, news spread through the inner sect that Liu Mei was preparing to establish her foundation and needed a Wind Spirit Grass to refine a Foundation Establishment Pill.
Although Wind Spirit Grass was not particularly high-grade, it took a very long time to cultivate—ten full years.
For some unknown reason, there was no stock left near the Heavenly Demon Sect. The next batch would not mature for another three years.
As it happened, Chu Ran had once discovered a wild Wind Spirit Grass during a sect mission. However, it was guarded by a demonic serpent, so he had not dared to act rashly.
For Liu Mei’s sake, and so that she could establish her foundation as soon as possible, Chu Ran exchanged all his belongings for talismans. He bombarded the serpent with firepower, killed it, and seized the Wind Spirit Grass.
He had never expected that the demonic serpent had planted a poisonous substance near the Wind Spirit Grass. Chu Ran was careless, and the serpent’s venom entered his body.
By the time he noticed, the venom had already invaded his heart meridian. It was not something he could easily force out.
The venom acted slowly, but without a high-grade Detoxification Pill or the intervention of a Golden Core cultivator, he would be dead within a month.
After handing the Wind Spirit Grass to Liu Mei, he had intended to ask her to get her Golden Core master to save him.
He had never expected Liu Mei to refuse.
She had only given him twenty spirit stones before saying coldly, “Chu Ran, we shouldn’t contact each other anymore. I’m worried Senior Brother Li will misunderstand.”
He had become Yuan Hua!
A single high-grade Detoxification Pill cost two hundred spirit stones. Twenty spirit stones could not even buy its dregs.
Now, he had less than half a month left to live.
“Senior Brother Chu, are you done?”
A sweet, coquettish voice came from beneath him, tinged with a hint of dissatisfaction.
Only then did Chu Ran come back to his senses. A graceful woman was still lying beneath him, gazing up at him with limpid eyes.
He rolled off the bed. With a hook of his finger, his robe flew onto his body. He casually tossed out a spirit stone.
“That’s all for today.”
“What a letdown!” Guo Ling muttered unhappily as she accepted the spirit stone, though her face still blossomed into a smile.
For a servant disciple like her, working hard for an entire month did not necessarily earn her even one spirit stone. Yet here, she had made a month’s income from Chu Ran in less than the time it took to burn half an incense stick.
It wasn’t that Chu Ran was incapable. He simply wasn’t in the mood.
Ever since he had been poisoned and abandoned, Chu Ran had completely given up on life.
With the last twenty spirit stones in his pocket, he spent each day with a different servant disciple, living one day at a time.
“Senior Brother Chu, call me again next time!”
After getting dressed, Guo Ling walked to the door. She turned back to throw him a flirtatious glance before leaving with a grin.
The fact that Chu Ran had been poisoned had already spread among the outer sect.
By now, who knew how many servant disciples were eyeing the last few spirit stones in his pocket, wishing they could come three times a day.
Chu Ran ignored her. He sat cross-legged on the bed, closed his eyes, and began pondering his cheat.
“System?”
“Status panel?”
“Cheat?”
“...”
He called out every name he could think of in his mind, but there was no response.
“Could I have imagined it in my final moments?”
“No, that doesn’t seem right. I was having a pretty good time then. How could I have hallucinated?”
Those two sentences continued to echo in Chu Ran’s mind.
“Every day at midnight, my physical condition will be forcibly refreshed as long as I’m alive... What does that mean?”
Chu Ran calculated the time.
“There’s only half an incense stick left until midnight. I’ll know what it does when the time comes.”
He closed his eyes and tried to enter meditation.
Normally, for a cultivator, half an incense stick was no more than the time it took to close and open one’s eyes.
But at that moment, Chu Ran felt that half an incense stick lasted longer than a century.
At last, he suddenly opened his eyes.
“It’s midnight.”
The moment he finished speaking, a tremor surged from deep within his body.
“My serpent venom... is gone?”
Chu Ran was overjoyed to discover that the serpent venom which had constantly threatened his life had vanished without a trace.
Not only that, but the wounds he had suffered during his fierce battle with the demonic serpent had healed completely. Not even a scar or bruise remained.
“So this is what it means for my physical condition to be completely refreshed. No matter how badly I’m injured or how potent the poison is, as long as I’m not dead, I’ll be restored to full health once midnight passes!”
“Even the stamina I just expended and the spiritual energy I was too lazy to replenish have been completely restored!”
He lowered his head and looked at his palm, which was as good as new. The corners of his mouth slowly curled upward, and at last, he couldn’t help but laugh aloud.