The morning light did not so much break over the Azure Ridge Market as it did lazily seep through the thick, eternal layer of grey smog that blanketed the shantytown.
Lu Chen woke with a start, his eyes snapping open. For a fraction of a second, his brain expected the white stucco ceiling of his city apartment, the muffled sounds of traffic, and the dread of an upcoming audit at the accounting firm. Instead, his gaze met the rotting, water-stained bark of his shack's roof.
The memories of the previous night—the excruciating headache of transmigration, the terrifying blue panel, Old Sun's grotesque corpse, and the silent, horrific process of devouring his essence—crashed down on him like a physical weight.
He bolted upright, his breathing ragged. He immediately looked at his right hand, half-expecting it to be stained black with venom or coated in grave dirt. It was just his hand. Thin, calloused, and perfectly normal.
He then looked down at his right calf. The dirty rag he had wrapped around it last night had slipped down. The angry, swollen purple flesh that had threatened to rot his leg off entirely was gone. In its place was a patch of raw, pink skin, tender to the touch but entirely free of infection.
"It wasn't a dream," Lu Chen whispered, his voice raspy.
He closed his eyes and looked inward, finding the newly expanded reservoir of spiritual energy resting in his lower abdomen—his dantian. Where there had once been a stagnant, murky puddle of Qi, there was now a clear, swirling pool, pulsing with the steady rhythm of a Third Layer Qi Condensation cultivator. It felt incredibly real. It felt like a part of his body he had simply never noticed before, like discovering a second heart beating in his chest.
A loud rumble interrupted his awe. His stomach cramped violently, a sharp, gnawing pain that made him double over. Breaking through a cultivation layer, even through a shortcut like the *Corpse Devourer* system, consumed a massive amount of physical energy. The original Lu Chen was already half-starved; the current Lu Chen felt like he could eat an entire cow.
He scrambled to his feet. He felt lighter, faster, more grounded than the day before. The familiar lethargy of malnourishment was temporarily masked by the vibrant hum of his refined Qi.
He moved to the corner of the room where a chipped earthen jar sat. He lifted the heavy wooden lid and peered inside. Lying at the bottom, looking impossibly pitiful, were a few handfuls of dull, greyish grains. Low-grade Spirit Rice. It was the absolute bottom-of-the-barrel harvest, the broken grains he wasn't allowed to hand over for taxes.
Normally, cooking Spirit Rice required a specific spiritual flame, but beggars couldn't be choosers. Lu Chen scooped a handful of the grains into a small, dented iron pot, added water from his leaky rain-catcher bowl, and set it over a simple hearth made of stacked stones in the center of the shack.
He didn't have flint, and the damp wood he scavenged wouldn't catch easily.
He hesitated, then raised his right index finger. He tapped into the flow of his dantian, channeling a minuscule sliver of Qi through the newly acquired pathways of the *Fireball Technique*. He didn't form the full spell; he just forced the raw, heated element to the surface.
A small, intensely hot spark flared from his fingertip, landing squarely on the dried tinder beneath the wood. It caught instantly, billowing a small cloud of acrid smoke before settling into a steady fire.
Lu Chen stared at the flames, mesmerized. He, an ordinary accountant from Earth, had just started a fire with magic. It was a terrifying, exhilarating realization.
While the thin rice gruel boiled, Lu Chen pulled out the loot he had taken from Old Sun's shack: the cheap Langhao brush, the half-empty pot of dark red cinnabar ink, and a stack of about thirty sheets of blank, yellow talisman paper.
He arranged them carefully on the uneven floorboards, treating them like fragile glass. According to the memories he had digested, this small pile of materials was worth at least five low-grade spirit stones. To him, it was a fortune.
"Rent is three spirit stones," Lu Chen muttered to himself, doing the math automatically. "I have one stone and seven fragments. I need one stone and three fragments to break even. But I also need food. I need to replace this ruined door latch. I need a real healing pill just in case the rat venom isn't completely purged."
He needed money. Fast. And the only way to get it was right in front of him.
He brought up his system panel with a thought.
**Name:** Lu Chen
**Cultivation:** Qi Condensation Layer 3 (4/100)
**Professions:** - Spirit Farmer (Novice: 45/100)
* Talisman Maker (Apprentice: 25/100)
*Apprentice Talisman Maker.* The knowledge was in his head, a dense knot of specific brushstrokes, Qi flow patterns, and timing. But knowing how to do something and actually doing it were two different things. He knew how a bicycle worked conceptually before he ever rode one, and his first time on a bike had still resulted in scraped knees.
He drank the bland, watery rice gruel straight from the pot, relishing the slight warmth and the faint, almost imperceptible trace of spiritual energy the grains provided. It barely took the edge off his hunger, but it was enough to stop the cramping.
He wiped his mouth, sat cross-legged in front of the talisman materials, and picked up the brush.
The moment his fingers closed around the bamboo handle, a strange sensation washed over him. The awkwardness of holding a calligraphy brush faded, replaced by a phantom muscle memory. His grip adjusted automatically, finding the perfect balance point.
He dipped the tip of the brush into the thick, metallic-smelling cinnabar ink.
"Start small," he whispered. "Lesser Warding Talisman."
It was the most basic talisman in Old Sun's repertoire, designed to emit a minor shock of spiritual energy to deter low-level pests or weak demonic beasts. It was cheap, high in demand among the mortal servants and lowest-tier cultivators, and relatively easy to draw.
Lu Chen took a deep breath, centering himself. He focused on the pool of Qi in his dantian, drawing a thin, thread-like stream of energy up through his chest, down his arm, and directly into the brush.
The tip of the brush began to glow with a very faint, white light.
He lowered the brush to the coarse yellow paper. The moment the wet ink touched the paper, Lu Chen felt a sharp drag, as if the paper was actively resisting the flow of his Qi.
He gritted his teeth and pushed through, his hand moving in sharp, deliberate strokes. The knowledge from Old Sun guided his hand—a curve here, a sharp angle there, ensuring the spiritual energy was trapped evenly within the lines of the cinnabar.
Halfway through the drawing, his focus wavered. A stray thought about his unpaid rent broke his concentration for a microsecond. The flow of Qi from his finger to the brush sputtered.
*Crack!*
The half-drawn talisman flared brightly, emitting a sharp smell of ozone, and then the paper simply disintegrated into a pile of useless black ash.
Lu Chen coughed, waving away the smoke. He stared at the ash, his heart sinking. That piece of paper cost two spirit fragments. He had just burned money.
"Focus," he berated himself, slapping his own cheeks lightly. "You're not doing a spreadsheet. If you mess up a spreadsheet, you hit Ctrl-Z. If you mess up here, you starve. Try again."
He pulled out a fresh sheet. He dipped the brush. He breathed in, holding the breath in his chest, and began again.
This time, he emptied his mind entirely. He didn't think about the rent, or the Black Tiger Gang, or the terrifying reality of the cultivation world. He just became the brush.
Stroke, hook, curve, dot.
The red lines shimmered slightly as they dried, sealing the spiritual energy within the paper. With a final, sharp flick of his wrist, he completed the intricate seal at the bottom of the paper.
A brief, warm pulse of light washed over the yellow paper, settling deep into the fibers.
Lu Chen let out a long, shaky exhale, lowering the brush. His hand was trembling from the intense concentration. He picked up the talisman. It felt slightly warm to the touch, carrying a faint, static charge.
He had done it. He had crafted his first magical item.
But there was no time to celebrate. He felt the drain on his dantian. Drawing that single Lesser Warding Talisman had consumed roughly ten percent of his total Qi capacity. If he kept going, he would exhaust himself quickly.
He spent the next two hours locked in a grueling cycle of concentration, drawing, failing, and succeeding. By the time the ink pot was practically scraped clean and his head was pounding with a dull ache, he had used up twenty sheets of paper.
The results lay before him: nine ruined piles of ash, eight functioning Lesser Warding Talismans, and three highly volatile, successfully crafted Fireball Talismans.
He was completely drained. His spiritual reservoir was practically empty, leaving him feeling hollow and fragile. But as he looked at the eleven completed talismans, a fierce, protective pride swelled in his chest. This was survival.
He carefully folded the talismans and tucked them into the inner pocket of his roughspun robe, alongside his meager spirit stones. He tied his long, unkempt hair back with a piece of string, rubbed some dirt on his face to maintain the pathetic, destitute appearance of the original Lu Chen, and unlatched his door.
It was time to face the market.
Stepping out into the Azure Ridge Market during the day did nothing to improve its appearance. In fact, the daylight only highlighted the squalor.
The narrow, winding alleyways were a sea of ankle-deep mud, rotting garbage, and the unwashed masses of the cultivation world's underbelly. Ramshackle stalls made of scavenged wood and torn canvas lined the main thoroughfare, selling everything from mysterious, foul-smelling beast meat to rusted, chipped flying swords that looked more likely to tetanize an enemy than cut them.
Everywhere Lu Chen looked, he saw desperation. He saw gaunt, hollow-eyed men and women haggling aggressively over single spirit fragments. He saw cultivators missing limbs, bearing horrific scars, sitting in the mud begging for medicinal pills. The air was thick with the smell of sweat, unwashed bodies, exotic spices, and the metallic tang of blood.
Lu Chen kept his head down, hunching his shoulders to make himself look smaller. He adopted the shuffling, nervous gait that the original owner had perfected over six years of bullying. If you looked strong here, you were a target. If you looked too weak, you were prey. The goal was to look so pathetic and devoid of value that you weren't worth the effort to rob.
He navigated the crowd, heading toward the central square of the market, where the more established merchants operated. He needed to sell his talismans, but he couldn't just walk up to anyone. He was Lu Chen, the useless Spirit Farmer stuck at Layer 2. If he suddenly started selling potent talismans, questions would be asked. People would wonder where he got them. People would wonder who he killed.
He found his target: a cluttered, somewhat reputable-looking stall called "Auspicious Cloud Sundries," run by a morbidly obese man named Shopkeeper Wu. Wu was known to be a tightwad, a swindler who bought low and sold high, but he was also known to keep his mouth shut if the profit margin was good enough.
Lu Chen waited until the stall was mostly clear of customers before shuffling up to the wooden counter.
Shopkeeper Wu didn't even look up from the abacus he was lazily flicking. "We don't give handouts, beggar. Clear off before I have the guards break your legs."
"Shopkeeper Wu," Lu Chen said, his voice appropriately meek, pitching it slightly higher to sound nervous. "I... I have items to sell."
Wu paused, finally glancing up. His small, beady eyes swept over Lu Chen's ragged clothes, the dirt on his face, and his bare, mud-caked feet. He let out a derisive snort. "Lu Chen. The useless farmer. What could you possibly have to sell? Did you find a shiny rock in the mud?"
Lu Chen swallowed his pride. He reached into his robe and, with trembling hands, pulled out the stack of talismans, placing them softly on the counter.
"Talismans," Lu Chen murmured, keeping his eyes on the wood grain of the counter. "I... I found them."
Shopkeeper Wu's demeanor changed instantly. The arrogant sneer vanished, replaced by the sharp, predatory focus of a seasoned merchant. His pudgy hands darted out, snatching up the stack of yellow paper.
He inspected them closely, bringing them up to his nose to smell the cinnabar, running a thick thumb over the brushstrokes to feel the embedded Qi.
"Lesser Warding Talismans. And... Fireball Talismans," Wu muttered, his brow furrowing. He looked sharply at Lu Chen. "These are fresh. The ink was applied within the last day. Where did you get these, trash?"
Lu Chen visibly flinched, taking a half-step back, playing the terrified victim perfectly. "I... I didn't steal them! I swear on my Dao heart! I found Old Sun's bag dropped in the alley last night. He must have lost it while running from something. I just picked it up. Please, Shopkeeper Wu, I just need to pay my rent to the Black Tiger Gang today. If I don't pay, they'll kill me."
It was a plausible lie. Old Sun was a known talisman maker. The brushstrokes matched his style perfectly, thanks to the *Corpse Devourer* system transferring his exact technique. Loose cultivators dropping things while fleeing demonic beasts or muggers was a daily occurrence.
Wu stared at him for a long, agonizing moment. His eyes bore into Lu Chen, searching for a lie. Lu Chen kept his face pale, his body trembling, projecting nothing but absolute, pathetic terror.
Finally, Wu laughed, a wet, wheezing sound. "Found it, did you? You opportunistic little rat. Sun was always a careless old fool."
Wu tossed the talismans back onto the counter, looking dismissive, though Lu Chen saw the greed in his eyes. "They're amateurish. The Qi flow is erratic. The Fireball talismans look like they might blow off the user's hand before hitting the enemy."
Lu Chen remained silent. He knew exactly what this was. The haggling had begun.
"I'll give you one low-grade spirit stone for the lot," Wu said, leaning back, crossing his arms over his massive belly.
Lu Chen's heart hammered. One stone. That was outright robbery. The market value for a Lesser Warding Talisman was three fragments. Eight of them meant twenty-four fragments, or two full stones and four fragments. A Fireball Talisman was worth at least five fragments each. The whole stack was easily worth four spirit stones on the open market.
"Shopkeeper Wu... please," Lu Chen begged, pouring genuine desperation into his voice. "My rent is three stones. I only have one stone. I need two more. If I take one stone, I'm still short. I'm a dead man. Please, have mercy."
"Mercy doesn't keep my shelves stocked, boy," Wu sneered. "One stone and five fragments. That's my final offer. Take it, or I yell for the Black Tiger enforcers right now and tell them you robbed Old Sun. Who do you think they'll believe?"
Cold fury flared in Lu Chen's chest, but he ruthlessly crushed it down. Emotion was a luxury he couldn't afford. Wu had him backed into a corner, and they both knew it.
"Two stones," Lu Chen whispered, looking up, letting a tear of sheer panic well up in his eye. "Please, just two stones. I'll never bother you again. I'll owe you my life."
Wu stared at the crying, pathetic man before him. He weighed the profit margin against the risk of the transaction falling through. Finally, he clicked his tongue in annoyance.
"Fine. Two stones. But if anyone asks, you never saw me, and I never saw you. Understand?"
"Yes, yes, thank you, Shopkeeper Wu!" Lu Chen bowed repeatedly, wiping his face.
Wu reached under the counter and tossed two dull, slightly chipped low-grade spirit stones onto the wood. Lu Chen snatched them up as if they were burning coals, shoved them deep into his robes, and practically sprinted away from the stall, leaving the talismans behind.
As soon as he was out of sight of the stall, ducking into a dark, reeking alleyway, Lu Chen dropped the pathetic facade. His posture straightened, his trembling stopped, and his eyes grew cold.
He leaned against the damp wall, letting out a long, slow breath. He reached into his robe and counted his wealth by touch. Three whole low-grade spirit stones. Seven fragments.
He had the rent. He was going to live.
The relief was a physical weight lifting off his shoulders, but it was short-lived. Paying the rent was only half the battle; surviving the encounter with the Black Tiger Gang was the other.
He made his way toward the northern edge of the market, where the tightly packed shacks gave way to the slightly more open, but utterly exhausted, plots of spiritual soil. This was the farming district, a miserable expanse of mud and struggling crops bordering the protective array.
Just as he neared the entrance to the farming district, he saw them.
Three men wearing matching black robes adorned with a crude, roaring tiger emblem on the chest stood aggressively at the intersection, blocking the path. They were the tax collectors for the Black Tiger Gang.
The leader was a hulking brute of a man named Wang, known for his violent temper and his heavy, iron-ringed broadsword. He was at the peak of the Fourth Layer of Qi Condensation, a veritable god among the starving farmers of the market.
Lu Chen felt a spike of genuine fear. He slowed his pace, hunching his shoulders again, preparing to run the gauntlet.
"Next!" Wang bellowed, his voice echoing over the murmur of the crowd. He kicked a kneeling, weeping farmer in the chest, sending the man sprawling into the mud. "Pathetic trash. Throw him out of the array tonight. Let the corpse-dogs feast."
The two cronies beside Wang laughed, grabbing the sobbing farmer by the hair and dragging him away.
Lu Chen forced his legs to keep moving. He shuffled forward until he stood before Wang, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the man's mud-splattered boots.
"Lu Chen," Wang grunted, looking down at the ledger in his hand. He sneered, revealing yellowed, rotting teeth. "I'm surprised you're still breathing. I heard you got bit by a Scavenger Rat. Hoped I wouldn't have to look at your ugly face this month."
"My luck was good, Boss Wang," Lu Chen muttered submissively, keeping his voice a raspy whisper. "The heavens showed mercy."
"The heavens don't care about you, dirt-grubber," Wang spat, aiming a thick glob of phlegm that landed inches from Lu Chen's bare foot. "Rent. Three stones. Now."
Lu Chen reached into his robe, his hand trembling perfectly on cue. He pulled out the three low-grade spirit stones and held them out in his open palms, presenting them like an offering to a deity.
Wang snatched the stones, his thick fingers brushing roughly against Lu Chen's palms. He inspected the stones, biting one to test its density, before tossing them into a heavy leather pouch at his waist.
"Barely scraping by, as usual," Wang scoffed. He looked up, his gaze suddenly narrowing as he peered past Lu Chen, down the winding alley that led back toward Lu Chen's shack. "Hey. Have you seen that old croak, Sun? The talisman maker? He lives next to you, doesn't he? His rent is due today too, and he hasn't shown his miserable face."
Lu Chen's heart skipped a beat, but his face remained a mask of dull confusion. He had practiced this exact scenario in his head a dozen times since waking up.
"Old Sun?" Lu Chen blinked, looking up briefly before lowering his eyes again. "I... I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon, Boss Wang. I thought I heard him coughing really badly last night, but when I woke up this morning, his door was swinging open. I didn't dare look inside. I thought maybe he... moved out."
"Moved out," Wang sneered, clearly not believing it, but not caring enough to investigate deeply. "More likely the old fool ran off to avoid paying me, or a beast dragged him out of his bed. If he ran, he's dead anyway. The woods don't forgive."
Wang looked back at Lu Chen, waving his hand dismissively. "Get out of my sight, farmer. Make sure your crop isn't garbage this season, or I'll take your legs instead of stones next month."
"Yes, Boss Wang. Thank you, Boss Wang." Lu Chen bowed deeply and scurried past the enforcers, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird.
He had done it. He had paid the rent. He had deflected suspicion. He was safe for another thirty days.
Lu Chen walked until his legs trembled with exhaustion, finally reaching his assigned half-acre plot of spiritual soil at the very edge of the array.
The term 'spiritual soil' was a generous exaggeration. It was hard, cracked dirt, the spiritual energy having been violently sucked out of it by generations of desperate over-farming. Sparse, pathetic stalks of Azure Spirit Rice grew in uneven rows, their leaves drooping and yellowish.
Lu Chen stood at the edge of the field, the oppressive gloom of the market behind him, the terrifying, untamed wilderness of the Miasma Woods looming like a dark wall just beyond the shimmering, translucent barrier of the protective array a few hundred yards away.
This was his life now. He owned nothing but the clothes on his back, a few spirit fragments, and a terrifying secret hidden in his soul.
He walked into the center of his struggling crop. He needed to tend to it, not just to maintain his cover, but because the rice was his only consistent food source.
He closed his eyes, raising both hands, and initiated the *Spiritual Rain Technique*.
As a Layer 3 cultivator, the process was significantly easier than the memories of the original owner suggested. Instead of a grueling mental battle to squeeze moisture from the air, Lu Chen felt his Qi flow smoothly outward.
A small, dark cloud, no larger than a dining table, rapidly formed directly above his head. A moment later, a gentle, shimmering rain began to fall over the parched stalks. The water wasn't ordinary; it carried a minuscule trace of his own refined Qi, feeding the starving plants.
He guided the cloud over the half-acre, walking slowly up and down the rows. As he walked, his newly enhanced eyesight caught a glint of abnormal color near the roots of a particularly withered rice stalk.
He knelt down, pushing the dirt aside.
It was a Spirit-Eating Locust. It was dead, likely having succumbed to the harsh environment or perhaps starvation after the rice proved too lacking in energy. It was the size of a thumb, its carapace a dull, metallic green.
Lu Chen stared at the dead insect. An idea, cold and pragmatic, sparked in his mind.
The panel said *Corpse Devourer*. It didn't specify *human* corpses. The description said, *The host may extract the lingering essence of the recently deceased.*
A locust was a beast, even if a pitifully weak one.
He glanced around. The surrounding fields were empty. The other farmers were either dead, hiding, or working plots further inward.
Lu Chen reached out, pressing the tip of his index finger against the hard carapace of the dead locust.
"Devour," he thought, focusing his will.
Instantly, the familiar, chilling sensation of suction activated at his fingertip. It was incredibly weak compared to the massive vortex that had consumed Old Sun, but it was there.
A tiny, almost invisible wisp of grey energy spiraled out of the dead insect and absorbed into his finger. The locust's body immediately crumbled into a speck of grey dust, blending instantly with the dirt.
A soft chime sounded in his mind.
**[Devour Complete!]**
**[Target: Deceased Low-Tier Insect (Time of Death: Approx. 4 Hours)]**
**[Extraction Results:]**
* **Cultivation:** + 0.01 Days of refined Qi.
Lu Chen stared at the spot where the locust had been, a slow, wide smile spreading across his dirt-streaked face.
The amount of Qi was completely negligible. It wouldn't even register as a drop in the bucket of his dantian. But the amount didn't matter. The *proof of concept* was what mattered.
The system worked on beasts.
He stood up, looking out past the protective array toward the dense, sprawling darkness of the Miasma Woods. The forest was infamous. It was a place of nightmare, filled with demonic beasts, poisonous miasma, and the bones of ten thousand foolish cultivators. People went in to find fortune, and most never came out.
To the rest of the Azure Ridge Market, the Miasma Woods was a graveyard.
But as Lu Chen looked at the imposing tree line, his perspective fundamentally shifted. He wasn't looking at a graveyard anymore.
He was looking at an all-you-can-eat buffet.
The sun, unseen behind the smog, began its descent, casting the shantytown into a deeper, grittier twilight. Lu Chen finished watering his plot and began the long trudge back to his shack.
His body ached with a deep, satisfying exhaustion. The hunger had returned, but it was manageable. The phantom pains of the rat bite were entirely gone, his leg bearing his weight without complaint.
He entered his shack, securely sliding the heavy wooden latch into place. He pulled a heavy wooden crate he used as a table directly in front of the door for added security. It wouldn't stop a determined cultivator, but it would make enough noise to wake him.
He sat down on his straw mat, the absolute silence of the room washing over him. Yesterday, this silence was terrifying. It was the silence of a tomb.
Today, it was peaceful.
He took out the seven remaining spirit fragments from his robe, lining them up on his palm in the dim light. It was a pitiful sum, not even enough to buy a single decent talisman blank, let alone a cultivation pill or a new spell manual.
But he had his life. He had his foundation.
Lu Chen closed his eyes, settling into a meditative lotus position. He didn't actively try to cultivate; drawing ambient Qi with his Five-Element Mixed Spiritual Root was still like trying to fill a bathtub with a leaky thimble. Instead, he simply focused on breathing, letting his newly expanded Qi pool settle and stabilize within his meridians.
He began to formulate a plan.
*Step one: Lay low.* He could not show his Layer 3 cultivation to anyone. To the Black Tiger Gang, Shopkeeper Wu, and everyone else, he was still the pathetic, Layer 2 trash. Any sudden leap in power would invite scrutiny, torture, and death to discover his "secret."
*Step two: Secure a steady income.* He needed to practice talisman making. He would use the remaining fragments to buy the cheapest, lowest-grade materials he could find. He would practice at night, behind locked doors, and sell them piecemeal to different merchants across the market to avoid drawing suspicion to a single source.
*Step three: Scavenge.* The Miasma Woods were too dangerous for him right now. Even with Layer 3 Qi and a Fireball spell, a single Blood-Winged Bat could tear his throat out before he could cast. But the edges of the woods... the places where the weak cultivators fought and died, where the low-level beasts clashed... that was his hunting ground. He would become a ghost on the perimeter, cleaning up the dead.
He opened his eyes, the faint glow of the protective array casting a pale light across the rotting floorboards.
He was no longer just an accountant struggling to pay rent in a modern city. He was Lu Chen, a loose cultivator in a world where the strong devoured the weak.
He looked at his right hand, the hand that had turned a human being into ash, the hand that held the key to defying the heavens themselves.
"I didn't choose this world," Lu Chen whispered to the empty room, his voice steady, devoid of the panic that had consumed him twenty-four hours ago. "But since I'm here... I'm going to survive it. No matter what it takes."
He closed his eyes again, sinking deep into meditation, letting the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing synchronize with the harsh, unforgiving pulse of the Azure Ridge Market. The night was cold, the future was utterly terrifying, but for the first time since his transmigration, Lu Chen felt a profound, unshakable certainty that he was not going to die tomorrow.