Mo Fan was jolted awake by a gnawing hunger so fierce it felt like his stomach lining was being ground away from the inside.
When he finally pried his eyelids open, he was greeted by the familiar sight of cobweb-draped ceiling beams. Outside the window, the light was dim—whether dawn or dusk, he couldn't tell.
"Brother Seven! You're finally awake!"
A delighted voice exploded beside his ear.
Mo Fan turned his head to see a little girl with twin buns leaning over the edge of his bed, clutching a damp cloth in her hand. It was Er Ya, the granddaughter of Old Lü from next door.
"How long... was I out?" Mo Fan's voice came out like sandpaper scraped over gravel.
"Two whole days and nights!"
Er Ya tossed the cloth into a basin, her eyes rimmed red. "Grandpa said you'd damaged your vital essence. If you didn't wake up soon, they were going to carry you off to the mass grave."
Two days and nights?
A chill ran through Mo Fan's chest. He hadn't expected the aftereffects of that [Soul Overload] and his broken leg to hit him this hard.
"What about... the overseer...?"
"Grandpa covered for you."
Er Ya brought over a chipped ceramic bowl from the table, containing two stone-cold wild vegetable dumplings.
"He didn't say you fell while gathering herbs on the back mountain. These past few days, Grandpa helped hide it from the overseer and turned in those spirit herbs for you, so that stinking bastard didn't give you trouble. As for your firewood-chopping quota, Da Hu and the others took turns finishing it for you."
Mo Fan stared at the shriveled, blackened vegetable dumpling in silence.
Here at the bottom rung of the cultivation world, where human lives were worth less than weeds, everyone struggled just to survive.
Old Lü, advanced in years, still had to perform heavy labor. Those half-grown kids couldn't even fill their own bellies.
Yet somehow, this ragtag group had scraped together time and rations to keep a "cripple" like him alive.
"Thanks."
Mo Fan accepted the dumpling and bit into it slowly, methodically.
Cold. Bitter. Gritty with sand. But it tasted better than any delicacy he'd ever known. Mo Fan ate with absolute focus, as if committing every detail of this dark, misshapen lump to memory.
This debt—it was massive. And Mo Fan hated owing debts.
After Er Ya left, the small room sank back into deathly silence.
Mo Fan forced himself to sit upright and summoned the long-absent System Panel.
[ HP: 35/50 (Recovering) ]
[ Status: Left Leg Fractured (Healing Progress: 30%) ]
"Not bad. Didn't die after all."
Truth be told, that inferior Spring Recovery Pill might have been trash-tier, but for a mortal body, it did the job.
Full stomach, thirst quenched—but Mo Fan didn't immediately lie back down.
Three days had passed since his transmigration. Now that his body had barely recovered, it was time to properly familiarize himself with this world.
He crossed his legs, positioned his palms and feet in the Five Hearts to Heaven formation, and attempted to follow the generic mass-produced cultivation manual distributed uniformly by the Azure Cloud Sect—the one stored in the original owner's memories.
"Azure Cloud Formula (Qi Condensation Volume)"
Time for a legitimate attempt at cultivation.
Even though the System had diagnosed him with "Impure Spirit Roots," he refused to give up. What if? What if a transmigrator's soul could trigger a miracle?
Mo Fan closed his eyes, regulated his breathing, and tried to sense the ambient Qi drifting through heaven and earth.
Ten minutes later, he actually felt it. Faint motes of light like fireflies were drawn into his body, flowing along his meridians.
But just as they were about to converge in his dantian...
Poof.
Like a sieve riddled with holes. Like a plastic bag with its bottom torn open.
The Qi he'd painstakingly inhaled leaked out through every pore of his body in an instant. Not a trace remained.
[ System Alert: Qi Retention Rate: 0.01% ]
Mo Fan opened his eyes, expression blank, and exhaled a heavy breath of turbid air.
"Fine. You win."
The facts were clear: his trash-grade hybrid spirit roots lived up to their reputation. At this leakage rate, unless his lifespan rivaled a tortoise's, he could cultivate until he croaked and still barely reach mid-Qi Condensation—never even touching the threshold of Foundation Establishment.
Still, Mo Fan didn't feel discouraged. After all, in the Mystic Realm, there was more than one path forward.
Since the "software upgrade" route (traditional Qi cultivation) was blocked, he'd just have to see if the "hardware modification" route (body cultivation) had any potential.
Mo Fan reached into the gap beneath his bed bricks and pulled out the storage pouch, retrieving the jade slip he'd stripped from a corpse—"Iron Bone Technique (Fragment)".
"The System rated it as garbage, but at least it's a body cultivation method. Doesn't require spirit roots..."
Mo Fan pressed the jade slip to his forehead and extended his consciousness inside.
A few minutes later, his expression turned blacker than a wok bottom.
This wasn't a cultivation manual—this was a goddamn "Suicide Madhouse Instruction Guide"!
Just look at the opening line:
"To cultivate Iron Skin, mix coarse iron sand with venomous ant venom, rub over entire body for two hours daily until skin splits and flesh tears, then soak in medicinal bath. Repeat scabbing process until mastery."
Further down, it got even more outrageous:
"To cultivate Iron Groin, strike lower body with heavy punches daily using this method..."
Smack!
Mo Fan hurled the jade slip onto the table corner, goosebumps erupting across his skin.
"This is cultivation? This is a death wish!"
He was an efficiency-focused Necromancer, not a masochist.
This type of "killing a thousand enemies while losing eight hundred of your own" folk-science training method? Only brain-damaged idiots would attempt it.
"Garbage is garbage, after all."
Mo Fan cursed under his breath and temporarily abandoned the idea of achieving sainthood through physical cultivation.
He was about to get out of bed when the bone-deep pain in his leg reminded him to stay put.
Looked like he'd be bedridden for a few more days.
Left with no choice, Mo Fan groaned miserably and rolled over, falling back into sleep.
Just as he was about to lie down, his gaze swept across the jade slip discarded on the table corner.
After two seconds of silence, Mo Fan still reached out, picked it up, and stuffed it under his pillow.
"Just in case... if my life's ever truly on the line, forget punching my groin—I'll punch my own face if I have to."
Night deepened.
Wind howled outside the window. Mo Fan lay in bed, having slept too much during the day to fall asleep now, tossing and turning restlessly.
Cultivation was impossible. Body training was a no-go. His leg was broken, trapping him inside. This "imprisonment" feeling was torture for someone with his hyperactive disposition.
"Might as well take the dog for a walk."
Mo Fan's thoughts stirred as he patted the storage pouch at his waist.
With a ripple of spatial distortion, Summon No. 001—already folded into "briefcase mode"—was released.
It obediently unfolded its own arms and leg bones, producing a series of crisp crack-crack-crack sounds. The two-meter-tall horrific abomination stood upright in the cramped room, nearly scraping the ceiling beams.
"Go. Run toward the back mountain."
Mo Fan issued the command to No. 001.
He wanted to test exactly how far his control range over summoned creatures extended.
No. 001 received the order. Its elongated arm—reinforced with beast sinew and rat-tooth knuckles—gently pushed open the window. Like an enormous spider, it silently climbed out and vanished into the night.
Mo Fan closed his eyes and linked his consciousness to No. 001's soulfire.
Distance: 100 meters.
The feed was crystal clear, like 4K video. He could even feel the night breeze whistling through the gaps in its bones.
Distance: 500 meters.
No. 001 had already vaulted over the servant quarters' wall and entered the wilderness. Mo Fan could still precisely control each individual finger.
Distance: 1,000 meters.
According to common knowledge in the cultivation world, an ordinary Qi Condensation cultivator's Spirit Sense extended barely ten meters. Foundation Establishment? Maybe a hundred meters.
Even a Golden Core ancestor's Spirit Sense coverage topped out at a few kilometers.
One thousand meters—this was already the Spirit Sense range of a high-tier monster.
Yet Mo Fan discovered with shock that his [Soul Link] remained rock-solid stable, with only the slightest hint of negligible latency.
No. 001 kept running. That feral dog hind leg granted it impressive stamina, allowing it to traverse the forest as if on flat ground.
Distance: 3,000 meters.
Finally, as it neared the cliff where he'd fallen before, the feed began showing faint snow-like static. Command response lagged by half a beat.
"Three kilometers..."
Mo Fan opened his eyes, shock flooding his gaze.
"This isn't Spirit Sense—this is fucking satellite GPS!"
In this Mystic Realm where low-level cultivators communicated basically by shouting and only high-level cultivators had access to Spirit Sense transmission, his "Undead Broadband" was straight-up dimensional suppression.
Normal cultivators' flying swords lost connection beyond a certain range. He was controlling drones with 5G—as long as the base station (The System) was active, he could conduct beyond-visual-range warfare.
"Wait..."
Mo Fan stared at the pitch-black night outside, a lightning bolt of realization crackling through his mind.
Since he himself was immobile and squishy, unable to go out and take risks—
While No. 001 was thick-skinned (literally an abomination), tireless, and could operate freely several kilometers away...
An extremely audacious yet extremely "cowardly" tactical concept crystallized in his brain.
"Can I... have No. 001 solo-grind demon beasts on its own?"
"I stay home lying down while the skeleton works outside. It kills monsters, I collect experience. If there's danger, only it dies—I just sever the connection and walk away clean."
Wasn't this just a gaming "AFK script"?
The corner of Mo Fan's mouth gradually curved upward into a sinister smile unique to "high-IQ lazy people."
Who said cultivation required personally risking your life?
As a qualified capitalist—ahem, Necromancer—understanding how to extract surplus value from employees was the core competitive advantage.
"No. 001, new orders."
Mo Fan issued fresh commands through their mental link, this time laced with greed.
"Target: isolated small wild beasts."
"Mission: free hunt."
"Activating... Auto-Grind Mode."