### Chapter 1: The Withered Wood Tries to Sprout in Spring
The smell of damp earth, decaying wood, and the faint, bitter tang of cheap, poorly refined medicinal pills hung heavy in the stifling air of the dilapidated shack. Outside, the howling winds of the Azure Cloud Mountain Range whipped against the thin, talisman-reinforced wooden walls, threatening to tear the meager shelter apart at any given moment.
Within this bleak environment, on a ragged futon woven from the lowest grade of Spirit-Gathering Grass, sat an old man. His skin was like the bark of an ancient, dying tree—deeply wrinkled, covered in age spots, and stretched precariously thin over frail, protruding bones. His hair was a sparse, unruly bird's nest of stark white, and his breathing was shallow, a raspy wheeze that sounded akin to a broken bellows struggling to fan a dying ember.
Suddenly, the old man's body convulsed violently. His sunken eyes, previously clouded with the milky film of impending death, snapped open. For a brief, terrifying moment, a profound emptiness resided within those pupils, followed by a violent storm of confusion, panic, and sheer, unadulterated terror.
"Ah..." a dry, cracked voice escaped his throat, sounding like grinding stones.
He clutched his chest, feeling the erratic, weak thumping of a heart that was at the very end of its natural lifespan.
*Where am I? What is this smell? Why does my entire body feel like it has been run over by a freight train, pieced back together with rusty wire, and then left out to rust in the rain?*
These were the first coherent thoughts of Li Han. Not the Li Han of the Azure Cloud Continent, a lowly, struggling loose cultivator, but Li Han, a thirty-five-year-old accountant from modern Earth who had just suffered a massive, fatal heart attack after working seventy-two hours straight during tax season.
Before the modern Li Han could even begin to process the absurdity of his situation, a torrential flood of foreign memories smashed into his fragile consciousness like a tidal wave of shattered glass. He let out a muffled groan, biting down on his own parched lip until a drop of dark, foul-tasting blood welled up, just to keep himself from screaming and alerting whoever—or whatever—might be outside.
For what felt like an eternity, but was perhaps only the span of an incense stick burning, Li Han weathered the agonizing fusion of two souls. When the tempest in his mind finally settled, he slumped back against the cold, damp wall of the shack, panting heavily, his chest heaving with exertion.
He had transmigrated.
He was in a world of immortal cultivation, a realm where men and women flew on swords, split mountains with a single palm, and chased the illusory dream of eternal life. It was a world of magic, mystery, and infinite possibilities.
However, any excitement a typical transmigrator might feel was instantly crushed under the suffocating weight of reality.
He had not transmigrated into the body of a young, arrogant young master of a wealthy clan. He had not taken over the body of a peerless genius whose spiritual roots had been temporarily crippled.
He was Li Han, an eighty-year-old loose cultivator. A *Sanxiu*. The absolute lowest rung of the cultivation world's unforgiving ladder.
The original owner of this body shared his name, but not his relatively peaceful, albeit overworked, modern life. The original Li Han was born a mortal peasant. At the age of twenty, a passing, half-crazed wandering cultivator had noticed he possessed a mottled, inferior five-element spiritual root. In exchange for all the silver Li Han's mortal family owned, the cultivator tossed him a basic, widely circulated breathing manual called the *Evergreen Breath Art* and left him to his fate.
For sixty grueling years, the original Li Han had struggled. Without a sect to provide resources, without a master to guide his path, and burdened by a terrible aptitude, he had clawed his way up from the dirt. He farmed spiritual rice for exploitative landlords, hunted low-level demonic beasts in the perilous outskirts of the mountains, and scavenged the scraps left behind by the arrogant sect disciples.
Sixty years of blood, sweat, and unspeakable humiliations. Sixty years of eating inferior, toxin-filled pills just to scrape together enough spiritual energy to advance.
And the result?
He was stuck at the third layer of the Qi Condensation Realm.
In the cultivation world, the Qi Condensation Realm was merely the entry point, the stage of gathering ambient spiritual energy to temper the mortal body. Typically, a cultivator in the Qi Condensation realm could expect to live to be about a hundred or perhaps a hundred and twenty years old if they were healthy.
But the original Li Han was far from healthy. His meridians were clogged with the pill toxins accumulated over decades of consuming cheap resources. His internal organs were failing due to a myriad of hidden injuries sustained in skirmishes over paltry spirit stones. His foundation was not just unstable; it was crumbling.
Just yesterday, the original Li Han had spent his last ten low-grade spirit stones—his life savings—on a 'Miracle Lifespan Extension Pill' sold by a shady merchant in the Black Market. Desperate to buy himself a few more years to attempt a breakthrough to the fourth layer, he swallowed it.
It was a fake. It was worse than a fake; it was a highly toxic amalgamation of demonic beast blood and rotting spiritual herbs. The poison had violently ravaged his already fragile internal organs, shattering his remaining life force and extinguishing his soul.
And that was exactly when the modern Li Han arrived to take over the empty shell.
"Eighty years old..." Li Han muttered, looking down at his trembling, liver-spotted hands. He flexed his gnarled fingers, feeling the arthritis gnawing at his joints. "I died of overwork at thirty-five, only to be reborn as an eighty-year-old man who is quite literally hours away from dying of poison and organ failure."
A bitter, self-deprecating laugh escaped his lips, quickly turning into a harsh, rattling cough that brought up a glob of black, foul-smelling phlegm.
He carefully wiped his mouth with the coarse sleeve of his grey robe. Panic, the natural human response to impending death, threatened to rise in his chest, but he forced it down. As an accountant, Li Han was inherently a man of logic, numbers, and steady nerves. Panicking wouldn't balance the books, and it certainly wouldn't save his life now.
He closed his eyes and tried to sense the so-called 'Spiritual Energy' detailed in the original host's memories. He guided his consciousness inward, looking into his Dantian—the energy center located just below his navel.
What he saw was a scene of utter devastation. His Dantian, which should have been a swirling vortex of bright, vital energy, resembled a dried-up, cracked puddle in the middle of a desert. Only a few pathetic, murky wisps of spiritual Qi floated aimlessly within it. His meridians, the pathways through which energy flowed, were narrow, brittle, and blocked by dark, sludge-like impurities.
"The situation is worse than dire," Li Han analyzed with grim objectivity. "The poison from that fake pill has settled in my liver and lungs. My Qi is dispersing. My life force is like a candle in a hurricane. I have, at best, maybe three days to live. Perhaps less if I exert myself."
He opened his eyes and looked around the miserable shack. There were no hidden treasures, no jade slips containing peerless inheritances, and certainly no magical elixirs hidden under the floorboards.
Was this it? Was his second chance at life just a brief, agonizing layover before he truly passed into the void?
*No,* Li Han thought, a spark of stubborn defiance igniting in his chest. *I refuse. I did not work myself to death in my first life just to die a miserable, poisoned old beggar in my second.*
He needed strength. In his previous life, wealth and status provided security. In this brutal, dog-eat-dog world of cultivation, the original host's memories made one thing abundantly clear: Without strength, you were nothing but livestock waiting to be slaughtered. Safety, dignity, and life itself were luxuries afforded only to the powerful.
But how could an eighty-year-old man with crippled meridians, zero resources, and inferior talent gain strength?
As if responding to his sheer will to survive, a soft, ethereal *ding* chimed directly within the center of his mind.
Suddenly, a semi-transparent, pale blue panel materialized in the air directly in front of his eyes. Li Han flinched, instinctively raising a frail arm to defend himself, but his hand passed right through the light.
He blinked, rubbing his eyes, but the glowing text remained, hovering steadily in his field of vision.
**[Name]:** Li Han
**[Lifespan]:** 80 / 80 years (Estimated Time of Death: 72 hours due to severe organ toxicity and life force depletion)
**[Cultivation Base]:** Qi Condensation Realm - Layer 3
**[Spiritual Roots]:** Five-Element Mottled Root (Inferior Grade)
**[Cultivation Methods]:**
* *Evergreen Breath Art* (Yellow-Grade Low-Tier) - Mastery: Competent (98/100)
**[Spells/Skills]:**
* *Spirit Rain Technique* - Mastery: Proficient (210/500)
* *Earth Spike* - Mastery: Beginner (45/100)
**[Innate Trait]:** Heaven Rewards Diligence
Li Han stared at the floating blue screen, his breath catching in his throat. A system panel. A cheat. The standard issue equipment for a transmigrator had arrived!
His eyes rapidly scanned the information. The lifespan section confirmed his grim diagnosis—he had exactly three days left. His cultivation was pitiful, and his skills were few.
However, his gaze locked onto the final line.
**[Innate Trait]: Heaven Rewards Diligence.**
He focused his consciousness on that specific line of text, and immediately, an expanded description unfurled before him.
**Heaven Rewards Diligence:** *The Heavenly Dao is impartial; those who toil shall harvest. The host is utterly free from all cultivation bottlenecks. Every single instance of practice, study, or effort will yield guaranteed, quantifiable progress. True mastery is achieved through relentless repetition. Effort will never betray you.*
Li Han read the description once, twice, and then a third time. A profound, almost overwhelming sense of shock washed over him, followed by a surge of pure, unadulterated ecstasy.
In the cultivation world, the greatest enemy of a cultivator was not demonic beasts, hostile cultivators, or even a lack of resources. It was the dreaded *bottleneck*.
A cultivator could have abundant spirit stones, a supreme spiritual root, and the best cultivation manuals, yet still remain stuck at the peak of a realm for decades, centuries, or even their entire life, unable to break through the invisible barrier separating them from the next stage. Enlightenment, state of mind, and sheer luck were required to shatter a bottleneck.
But with "Heaven Rewards Diligence," the concept of a bottleneck simply did not exist for him.
If a technique required one hundred practice sessions to master, he only needed to do it one hundred times. If breaking through to the next realm required accumulating ten thousand units of Qi, he just needed to absorb ten thousand units. There would be no walls, no stagnation, no sudden loss of inspiration. It was purely a numbers game. And if there was one thing Li Han, the former senior accountant, understood and excelled at, it was a numbers game.
"As long as I practice, I will improve," Li Han whispered, his voice trembling slightly. "No matter how bad my spiritual roots are, no matter how old I am, I just need to put in the time and effort."
However, the cold reality of his situation immediately poured a bucket of ice water over his rising hopes.
He looked back at his lifespan. *72 hours.* He had the ultimate cheat for steady, guaranteed growth, but he had absolutely no time to use it. Breaking through to the fourth layer of Qi Condensation would require an immense amount of spiritual energy and time to cycle the *Evergreen Breath Art*. With his crippled, pain-riddled body, attempting to cultivate now might just kill him faster.
"Damn it," he cursed softly. "Heaven gives me a path to the peak, but places me one step away from the cliff's edge."
He refused to give up. He wracked his brain, sorting through the original host's memories with meticulous detail, searching for anything, any forgotten item or hidden trick that could prolong his life even by a few weeks.
His eyes darted around the room. A cracked teapot. A pile of soiled clothing. A few rusty farming implements. Nothing of value.
Frustrated, Li Han ran his hand through his sparse white hair. As he did, his rough fingers brushed against something cold and hard hanging from a cheap, frayed string around his neck.
He paused. He pulled the object out from under his robes.
It was a bead. It was roughly the size of a thumbnail, completely perfectly spherical, and utterly unremarkable. It looked like a piece of dull, grey river stone. The original Li Han had found it while digging a trench in a spiritual rice field forty years ago. Thinking it might be a rare material, he had taken it to several appraisers, all of whom laughed at him and told him it was just a regular, worthless piece of gravel. Out of sheer stubbornness, and perhaps a touch of sentimentality for his lost youth, the original host had strung it on a cord and worn it ever since.
For some inexplicable reason, as Li Han stared at the dull grey bead, he felt a strange, subtle resonance. It was a faint, almost imperceptible tug at his soul, something the original host had never felt in forty years of wearing it.
*Could it be...?*
In many of the web novels he had read in his past life, mysterious beads found by the protagonist were never just beads.
Operating on pure instinct and desperate hope, Li Han bit the tip of his right index finger. It took considerable effort to pierce the tough, calloused skin, but eventually, a single drop of dark, sluggish blood welled up.
With trembling hands, he pressed the drop of blood onto the surface of the grey bead.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Li Han let out a sigh, feeling foolish. His modern rationality mocked him for believing in such tropes.
But just as he was about to tuck the bead back into his robes, the drop of blood suddenly vanished. It wasn't wiped away; it was absorbed directly into the stone, as if the bead were an unquenchable sponge.
A blinding, silvery-white light erupted from the bead, illuminating the dark, dingy shack with the brilliance of a midday sun. Li Han squeezed his eyes shut, throwing his arms up to shield his face.
He felt a sudden, violent sensation of weightlessness, as if the ground had vanished beneath his feet. The air pressure shifted dramatically, popping his ears, and a wave of vertigo washed over him, making his already weak stomach churn.
The sensation lasted only a second. When Li Han hesitantly opened his eyes, the dilapidated wooden walls of his shack were gone.
He was no longer in the slums of the Azure Cloud Mountain Range.
He was standing in the center of an empty, alien landscape.
Li Han spun around, his breath catching in his throat. He was standing on a perfectly square plot of rich, dark, loamy soil. He estimated the area to be exactly one Mu (about one-sixth of an acre).
The soil was incredibly fertile, radiating a faint, earthly aroma that smelled of pure vitality. Surrounding this perfectly square plot of land was a dense, impenetrable wall of swirling, thick grey mist. The mist churned slowly, silently, acting as an absolute boundary. Li Han could not see through it, and his instincts screamed at him that stepping into that grey void would mean instant obliteration.
Looking up, there was no sun, no moon, and no stars. Just a luminous, pearlescent sky that provided a soft, shadowless light over the entire area.
"A spatial artifact..." Li Han breathed, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. "A portable personal dimension."
He knelt down and scooped up a handful of the black soil. It was damp, rich, and hummed with a subtle, pure spiritual energy. It was vastly superior to the low-grade spiritual fields he had broken his back farming for the last sixty years.
But a personal farming space, while incredibly valuable, did not solve his immediate problem. He was still dying. Growing spiritual herbs took months, if not years. He didn't have years. He had seventy-two hours.
As he stood up, dusting the rich soil from his hands, he noticed something peculiar about the air in this space. It wasn't just the ambient spiritual energy; there was a strange, heavy quality to it. It felt... slow.
An idea, wild and terrifying in its implications, flashed through his mind.
To test his theory, he needed a baseline. He focused his mind, willing himself to leave the space. Instantly, the vertigo returned, and he found himself sitting back on his ragged futon in the dark shack. The howling wind outside was just as loud as before.
He looked around the room and spotted a small, half-burned incense stick resting in a cracked bowl on a rickety wooden table. The original host used it to track time during meditation.
Li Han lit the incense. He watched the thin trail of smoke rise, observing the slow, steady burn. He took a deep breath, gripped the grey bead—which now looked perfectly ordinary again—and willed himself back into the space.
*Whoosh.* He was back on the black soil.
He sat down in the center of the one-mu plot, crossing his legs as best as his arthritic joints would allow. He began to count. He didn't cultivate; he just sat in silence, counting the seconds, the minutes, the hours.
His mind was disciplined. He counted for what he felt was a full twenty-four hours. He experienced the hunger, the stiffness, and the passing of a full day in this silent, unchanging realm.
When he reached the end of his mental twenty-four-hour cycle, he willed himself out.
He materialized back on the futon. His eyes immediately darted to the table.
The incense stick was still burning. In fact, the ash had barely lengthened by a fraction of a millimeter. It looked as though he had only blinked.
Li Han stared at the incense, his mind racing, performing complex calculations with the speed of the master accountant he once was. He watched the incense for a few more minutes to confirm its burn rate, comparing it to the passage of time he had experienced inside.
He did the math. He did it again to be absolutely sure.
The result sent a tremor of awe and terrifying joy through his entire frail body.
"One day outside..." he whispered, his voice cracking with emotion. "...is one year inside."
A temporal spatial realm. A one-to-three-hundred-and-sixty-five time dilation.
He fell back onto the futon, staring up at the rotting wooden ceiling, tears pricking the corners of his cloudy eyes.
He wasn't going to die.
If he had seventy-two hours left in the outside world—three days—that meant he had three entire *years* of time inside the temporal space before his physical body reached its absolute limit!
Three years of uninterrupted time. Combined with the "Heaven Rewards Diligence" panel that guaranteed progress without any bottlenecks...
Li Han closed his eyes, a profound sense of calm washing over his chaotic mind. The despair of his impending death evaporated, replaced by an iron-clad resolve.
He opened his eyes, and they no longer looked like the eyes of a defeated, dying eighty-year-old man. They were sharp, focused, and burned with the steady, calculating light of a man who had just been handed the keys to the universe.
"I need to plan," he muttered to himself, his mind shifting into a highly analytical mode.
He categorized his assets and liabilities.
**Liabilities:**
1. Old, frail body (80 years old).
2. Meridians clogged with impurities and pill toxins.
3. Severe internal organ damage from the fake pill.
4. Extremely poor spiritual roots (Inferior Five-Element).
5. Absolutely zero wealth (no spirit stones, no pills, no weapons).
6. Lowest tier cultivation method (*Evergreen Breath Art*).
**Assets:**
1. *Heaven Rewards Diligence Panel*: Guarantees progression, negates all bottlenecks.
2. *Temporal Space*: 1 Day Outside = 1 Year Inside. 1 Mu of highly fertile spiritual soil.
3. *Experience/Mindset*: 80 years of local knowledge from the original host (knows the dangers, the scams, the geography) combined with the logical, steady, calculating mind of a modern adult.
"The immediate goal is survival," Li Han reasoned. "To survive, I must repair my body and extend my lifespan. To do that, I must break through from the third layer of Qi Condensation to the fourth layer, and eventually reach Foundation Establishment. Reaching the Foundation Establishment realm increases a cultivator's lifespan to over two hundred years. That is the true starting line."
But he couldn't just sit in the space and cultivate for three years straight. His body needed sustenance. He was only at the third layer of Qi Condensation; he had not achieved *Bigu* (the ability to sustain oneself entirely on spiritual energy without eating mortal food). If he stayed in the space for a year, he would starve to death in a matter of weeks.
He needed supplies. He needed food, water, and if possible, low-grade spirit stones or unrefined spiritual herbs to aid his initial cultivation and repair his damaged foundation.
He checked the original host's memories again regarding his immediate surroundings. He lived in the outer ring of a sprawling shantytown known as Muddy Water Alley, located at the very edge of the territory controlled by the Azure Cloud Sect. It was a place for the destitute, the failed, and the desperate.
He had no money to buy food. But he did have something else: time, and the panel.
He pulled up the blue screen again.
**[Spells/Skills]:**
* *Spirit Rain Technique* - Mastery: Proficient (210/500)
* *Earth Spike* - Mastery: Beginner (45/100)
The *Spirit Rain Technique* was a fundamental spell for spiritual farmers. It gathered ambient water-attribute spiritual Qi and formed a nourishing rain over a specific area. It was essential for growing spiritual crops. The original host was quite good at it, having farmed for decades.
"If I can elevate the mastery of the *Spirit Rain Technique*, its effectiveness will increase, and the spiritual energy cost to cast it will decrease. In this shantytown, water is cheap, but *pure spiritual water* is a commodity."
Li Han formulated a strategy. It was a slow, cautious, and incredibly steady plan. A 'Gou' plan.
*Gou*. It was a slang term from his past life, meaning to stay hidden, avoid trouble, play it safe, and build up strength quietly until you were invincible.
In a world where cultivators murdered each other over a single spirit stone, where powerful sects crushed loose cultivators like ants, and where arrogant geniuses treated commoners as mere stepping stones, 'Gou' was the absolute best philosophy.
"I will not fight for treasures. I will not enter ancient ruins. I will not provoke young masters. I will not try to be a hero," Li Han swore a solemn oath to himself in the quiet of the shack. "I will hide here. I will farm my space. I will cultivate quietly. If someone threatens me, I will run. If I cannot run, I will strike with overwhelming, lethal force to ensure no retaliation, and then I will run and hide again."
He knew that without strength, there was no safety. He had to become powerful, not to rule the world, but simply to guarantee his right to exist peacefully within it.
He carefully pushed himself off the futon. His joints popped, and a wave of dizziness hit him, reminding him of his poisoned state. He had to move fast.
He grabbed the cracked teapot and staggered out of the shack. The cold wind bit through his thin robes, making him shiver violently. He navigated the muddy, garbage-strewn alleys of the shantytown, keeping his head down and avoiding eye contact with the few other desperate-looking loose cultivators scurrying about.
He made his way to the communal well. The water here was murky and contained barely any spiritual energy, but it was free. He filled his teapot and a large, wooden bucket he had brought along. It took nearly all his remaining strength to carry the heavy bucket back to his shack.
Once inside, he bolted the flimsy door, applied his only remaining low-grade security talisman to the frame to detect intruders, and gripped the grey bead.
With a thought, he, the teapot, and the bucket of water were transported into the temporal space.
The serene, silent environment of the spatial realm instantly soothed his frayed nerves. He placed the bucket and teapot near the edge of the black soil.
He then walked to the exact center of the one-mu plot. He sat down heavily, crossing his legs into a meditative lotus position.
It was time to begin.
He closed his eyes and began to circulate the *Evergreen Breath Art*.
It was a terrible cultivation method. It was slow, inefficient, and rough on the meridians. As Li Han dragged the meager ambient spiritual energy of the space into his body, it felt like he was pulling broken glass through his veins. The energy clashed violently with the pill toxins in his system.
Agony flared in his chest, and he nearly coughed up blood again.
*Endure it,* he commanded himself. *If you stop, you die.*
He forced his mind to focus, separating the physical pain from his conscious will. He visualized the spiritual energy, a faint green mist, slowly navigating the tortuous, blocked pathways of his meridians, inching its way toward his dried-up Dantian.
One complete cycle, known as a Great Zhoutian, usually took the original host three hours to complete, yielding only a minuscule drop of usable Qi.
Li Han gritted his teeth and pushed through the pain. He focused entirely on the technique, ignoring the decay of his body.
Three hours passed in the quiet space.
Finally, he completed one full circulation. A single, tiny drop of refined green Qi trickled into his Dantian.
Immediately, the blue panel flashed before his eyes.
[Cultivation: *Evergreen Breath Art* completed one cycle.]
[Experience +1]
[Technique: *Evergreen Breath Art* (Beginner: 46/100)]
Li Han let out a long, shuddering breath, opening his eyes. A weak, exhausted smile spread across his wrinkled face.
The pain was excruciating, and the progress was agonizingly slow, but it was *real*. It was quantifiable. There was no bottleneck to stop him.
He picked up the teapot, took a small sip of the mundane water to wet his throat, closed his eyes again, and immediately began the second cycle.
Thus began the arduous, monotonous, and incredibly steady cultivation journey of an eighty-year-old man.
While the outside world remained completely static, frozen in the span of a single afternoon, Li Han sat in his lonely, grey-misted realm. He circulated his energy, endured the pain, drank water when his throat parched, and rested only when his mental exhaustion threatened to make him pass out.
He watched the numbers on his panel tick up, one agonizing point at a time.
[Experience +1]
...
[Experience +1]
Days turned into weeks inside the space. The mundane water supply dwindled. His stomach gnawed at him with a ravenous hunger, but the continuous influx of spiritual Qi, however small, managed to sustain his life force just enough to keep him from starving. The *Evergreen Breath Art*, true to its name, was known for its slight healing properties and its ability to sustain vitality.
After what felt like an eternity, but was perhaps a month of continuous, unbroken cultivation inside the space, a significant shift occurred.
As he completed another cycle, the blue panel flashed with a golden light.
[Technique: *Evergreen Breath Art* has broken through!]
[Mastery Level: Advanced (1/500)]
Instantly, the profound knowledge regarding the intricacies of the breathing technique flooded his mind. The obscure passages of the manual that the original host had never understood suddenly became crystal clear.
Li Han didn't pause to celebrate. He immediately began the next cycle using his newfound, deeper understanding of the technique.
The difference was staggering.
The spiritual energy no longer felt like broken glass. It felt like a smooth, flowing stream. He could guide the Qi to bypass the worst of the toxic blockages in his meridians, extracting a purer form of energy. A cycle that used to take three hours now only took one.
His efficiency had tripled.
"Heaven Rewards Diligence," Li Han murmured, his voice echoing in the silent space. "It truly does."
He redoubled his efforts. He was a withered piece of wood, buried deep in the earth, refusing to rot, desperately drawing in whatever moisture it could find, waiting for the inevitable arrival of spring.
And in this silent, timeless space, spring was solely a matter of time and effort. He had plenty of both. He would cultivate his way to the heavens, one steady breath at a time.