Four years.
Four years of the same monotonous, grinding routine. Every day was a carbon copy of the last. Wake before dawn, perform his grueling physical exercises until his young muscles screamed in protest, attend the mind-numbingly basic classes at Nuoding Academy, and then spend every remaining hour of light in his secluded meadow, meditating.
He was a ghost in Dormitory 7, a silent, handsome boy who kept to himself. Tang San and Xiao Wu, now inseparable, had long since stopped paying him any mind. They were the rising stars, the celebrated geniuses, while he was the polite eccentric with the trash spirit.
The slow, agonizing drip of spirit power had, over the last few years, filled his metaphorical cup. On a quiet evening, as the crickets began their nightly chorus, he felt the barrier break. A warmth spread through him as his spirit power finally, painstakingly, reached the threshold.
Level 10.
'It took four years to go from 0.5 to 10,' he thought, a grim satisfaction settling over him. 'That's faster than it should have been. The Blue Silver Grass valley was the key.'
He knew this was just the first, and perhaps easiest, hurdle. Without a spirit ring, he was capped. And his next leap in power depended entirely on the nature of that first ring.
'After I get this ring, my progress will plummet unless I make the right choice. I can't afford a mistake.'
His plan, conceived years ago, had not changed. He needed a spirit beast that embodied corruption and consumption. In the academy's library, he had devoured every book, every scroll, every dusty tome on the spirit beasts native to the surrounding forests. He knew of the Spirit Hunting Forest, the one managed by Spirit Hall just outside Nuoding City, where Tang San had famously acquired his ring from a 423-year-old Datura Snake. But his target was far humbler.
'Earth-Corrupting Blood Vine,' he recalled the entry. 'A plant-type spirit beast. Possesses no direct offensive capabilities. Its sole function is to drain nutrients and life essence from the soil and surrounding flora, corrupting the land and converting the energy for its own growth.'
The books described it as a pest. It was weak, slow, and regularly eaten by herbivorous spirit beasts for the concentrated energy it held. Finding one over a hundred years old was considered a stroke of luck; a thousand-year-old one was a myth. Most Spirit Masters considered it utterly useless, its spirit ring granting no tangible combat abilities.
'They see trash. I see a foundation,' Zhang Tian mused. 'My Blue Silver Grass is weak, a blank slate. Its innate power of 0.5 means it's incredibly malleable. A powerful, mismatched ring might just overwhelm it. But a weak, thematically perfect ring… that could induce the mutation I need.'
He didn't need a hundred-year ring. He didn't even need a fifty-year ring. A ten-year-old specimen would suffice. The influence was what mattered, not the raw power.
He had spent the last two years not just cultivating, but preparing. Using his knowledge of chemistry from a past life, he had meticulously experimented. He found substitutes for charcoal, sulfur, and potassium nitrate, identifying minerals and plant ashes with similar properties. He'd created a stable, potent form of gunpowder.
The result was a dozen small, ceramic spheres packed with his homemade explosive and shrapnel of sharp rocks. Grenades. Crude, but powerful enough to be a lethal surprise for any unsuspecting hundred-year beast that got in his way.
His preparations were complete. He formally applied for a hunting permit at the Nuoding City Spirit Hall branch, paying the fee from his meager savings. He received a small, iron token. With his pack filled with dried rations, a waterskin, a sharpened spear he had forged himself, and his precious grenades, he left the academy without a word to anyone.
At the entrance to the Spirit Hunting Forest, two Spirit Hall guards took his token, gave him a once-over, and waved him in with bored expressions. They didn't offer advice or warnings. A lone work-study student entering the forest was usually just a fool looking to get himself killed. It wasn't their problem.
The forest was a different world. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the cacophony of unseen creatures. Zhang Tian moved with a practiced silence, his senses on high alert.
He encountered a ten-year Ghost Wolf, its eyes gleaming with hunger. A swift, precise thrust of his spear to its eye socket sent it yelping back into the undergrowth. He didn't pursue. He wasn't here for sport.
Later, a hundred-year Cave Demon Spider descended from its web, its venomous fangs dripping. Zhang Tian didn't hesitate. He lit the fuse of a grenade and tossed it. The resulting explosion ripped through the air, shredding the spider's web and sending it screeching away with a mangled leg. He didn't kill it. He just needed to clear a path.
He followed the descriptions from the book, heading towards a marshy, low-lying area where the vegetation seemed sickly and sparse. It took him two days of careful travel, but he finally found it.
There, in a clearing of blighted, grey earth, was a single, pulsating vine. It was a deep, unsettling crimson, covered in small, throbbing nodules. It snaked across the ground, and the very soil around it seemed dead. An Earth-Corrupting Blood Vine. Based on its size, he estimated its age to be around twenty-three years.
Perfect.
He approached cautiously. The vine sensed him, a single tendril twitching in his direction, but it was too slow. With a single, powerful chop of his spear, he severed it from its roots. It writhed for a moment, then went still.
A faint white ring of light, the symbol of a ten-year spirit ring, rose from its corpse.
Without hesitation, Zhang Tian sat down and began the absorption process. He guided the white ring into his body. It was a weak, gentle energy, and his physically conditioned body handled the influx with ease.
Then, the change began.
He felt a searing heat spread from his dantian through his meridians. He could suddenly perceive his own inner workings with perfect clarity, a strange new sense opening up to him. He watched, fascinated, as the gentle, blue energy of his Martial Spirit was assaulted by the crimson energy of the spirit ring.
But it wasn't a battle. It was a transformation.
The blue was consumed, dyed, and irrevocably altered. The very essence of his spirit shifted. When the process was over, he summoned it.
In his palm floated a single blade of grass. It was no longer blue. It was a stark, vivid blood-red, and it seemed to thrum with a faint, eerie hunger.
'It's not Dark Blue Silver Grass,' he realized. 'It's something new.' He felt his spirit power settle. He had barely broken through. Level 11.
He focused on the new information embedded in his soul. His first spirit ability.
'Devour.'
A cold smile touched Zhang Tian's lips. It had worked. It was a ten-year ring, the weakest possible, yet it had granted him the core ability he had gambled everything on.
He tested it. He extended a strand of his new, blood-red grass and touched a nearby weed. Instantly, he felt a trickle of energy flow from the weed, through the grass, and into him. It was a mix of life force and a minuscule amount of ambient spirit power.
The ability was twofold. The absorbed spirit power could be used to directly increase his own cultivation. The life force could either be absorbed to strengthen his physique or channeled into his spirit ring to increase its age.
'But the efficiency… it's only about 10%.'
Still, it was a monumental success. He could now actively fuel his own growth. His Blood Silver Grass, as he decided to name it, could extend up to four meters, controlled with a thought. He could use it to bind opponents, but it was incredibly fragile. Tang San's Datura Snake ring had granted toughness, a quality his own ring lacked.
'But Tang San's choice was shortsighted,' Zhang Tian analyzed coldly. 'Bind? That's a waste of a spirit ring slot. It's a skill that can be developed through practice and control. My ring granted a fundamental concept. It changed the nature of my spirit. That buffoon Yu Xiaogang is truly ruining a good prodigy.'
He didn't care. Tang San's loss was his potential gain.
'Eight Spider Lances… Immortal Herbs… All of it will be mine. But I have time. Two more years before they leave for Shrek. For now, I consolidate my power.'
He returned to Nuoding Academy. At the administration office, he filed his report.
"Zhang Tian, work-study student. Reporting the successful acquisition of a first spirit ring."
The clerk barely looked up from his paperwork. "Age of the ring?"
"Ten years," Zhang Tian said.
The clerk scribbled a note. "A ten-year ring. Noted. You are dismissed."
They didn't ask to see it. They didn't care. Who would bother inspecting a trash spirit that had absorbed a trash ring? His anonymity remained perfectly intact.
Back in the familiar seclusion of his valley, he began his new training regimen. He sat amidst the sea of blue, and his Blood Silver Grass danced, its red tendrils reaching out, touching the healthy plants around him. He activated 'Devour'.
He felt the familiar trickle of energy, but multiplied a thousandfold. The life force and spirit power from the entire meadow began to flow into him. His cultivation speed, which had been a slow crawl, suddenly became a steady jog. The age of his white spirit ring began to slowly, but visibly, increase.
One day, after a long session of devouring, he felt a pang of something akin to guilt. This meadow was his golden goose; he couldn't drain it to death. On an impulse, he reversed the flow. He infused a small amount of his own, mutated spirit power back into the drained Blue Silver Grass surrounding him.
Something unexpected happened.
The Blue Silver Grasses he infused his power into began to tremble. Their healthy blue color warped, bled out, and was replaced by the same stark, blood-red as his own spirit.
They had been corrupted. Mutated.
And then he felt it. A new connection was forged. These newly created Blood Silver Grasses weren't just plants anymore. They were extensions of him. They began to 'Devour' on their own, pulling nutrients from the soil, life from insects, and ambient energy from the air, and actively channeled a portion of it back to him. They saw him as their sovereign, their creator.
Zhang Tian's eyes widened. A plan, audacious and grand, clicked into place in his mind.
'This corruption… if I can do it to a field of common grass… could I do it to an Emperor?'
He thought of the stories. He thought of Tang Hao, Tang San, and the secret that lay hidden near his old home. The Blue Silver Emperor, Ah Yin. And more importantly, the spirit bone she had left behind. Her right leg bone.
He rushed to Nuoding City and purchased every regional map he could find of the area around the Holy Spirit Village. He cross-referenced the terrain features he remembered from the novel's descriptions.
'Mountain range… cliffs almost 90 degrees… a journey of half a day… a waterfall 20 meters wide and 200 meters high…'
It didn't take him long to pinpoint a potential location. A remote, inaccessible mountain range with a river system that matched the description.
'But getting there is one thing. The cave is a hundred meters up a slippery cliff face, behind a waterfall with terrifying force.'
He knew raw power wasn't the answer. Tang Hao had reversed the waterfall. Tang San, at level 59, had needed special tools just to climb. He, at a mere level 11, stood no chance against it directly.
'I am not a Spirit Master in the traditional sense,' he thought, his mind racing, his past life's knowledge surging to the forefront. 'I am an engineer.'
He began to sketch, his hand flying across a piece of parchment. He wasn't thinking about spirit abilities. He was thinking about physics. Torque. Mechanical advantage. Projectile motion.
'I can't go through the waterfall. So I'll go around it. Or rather, in front of it.'
His plan was multi-staged.
First, the ascent. A simple grappling hook wouldn't work on the slippery, water-eroded rock. He needed something that could bite deep. He would design a powerful, compact crossbow mechanism. Not to fire bolts, but to fire a specially designed, hardened steel claw attached to a thin but strong silk rope. He would aim for a spot high above the cave entrance.
Second, the climb. He wouldn't climb hand over hand. That was inefficient and dangerous. He would attach a hand-cranked pulley system to his belt. Once the claw was secure, he would simply winch himself up. It would be slow, but it would be safe and require far less stamina.
Third, and most crucial, bypassing the waterfall. Once he was level with the cave entrance, trying to swing through the torrent of water would be suicide. So, he would create a traverse line. He'd use his crossbow again, firing a second claw from his position on the rope to a point on the cliff face on the other side of the waterfall. He would then pull this second rope taut, creating a horizontal bridge in front of the waterfall. Attaching himself to this line with a simple rolling carabiner, he could pull himself across, suspended in the air, safely past the deadly curtain of water.
He would need multiple sets. Fail-safes. Redundancies. But the principle was sound.
He looked at his designs, then thought of the goal. The Blue Silver Emperor's Right Leg Bone. An item left by a mother for her son.
'Stealing it is a despicable act,' he admitted to himself without a shred of remorse. 'I am not a good person. I don't pretend to be. In this world, you are either a wolf or a sheep. You are either powerful or you are trash.'
He looked down at his blood-red spirit grass.
'And I refuse to be trash.'