Chapter 1: The Starving Hunter and the Blood Harvest
Pain. A throbbing, relentless agony pounded against the inside of his skull, accompanied by a gnawing, acidic emptiness in his abdomen. It felt as though a nest of starved rats was desperately devouring the lining of his stomach, clawing at his very life force.
Li Han gasped, his eyes flying open to stare at a rotting, thatched wooden ceiling. Frost clung to the gaps in the roof, tiny crystalline structures that mocked the freezing temperature of the dilapidated cabin. His breath plumed in the frigid air, a thick white vapor that quickly dissipated into the gloom. He tried to sit up, but a wave of dizziness slammed him back against the hard, uneven wooden planks that served as his bed.
"Where..." His voice was barely a raspy croak, his throat parched and raw.
Suddenly, a flood of memories tore through his mind, an avalanche of foreign experiences, faces, and emotions violently merging with his own. He was Li Han, a thirty-two-year-old actuary from Earth who had died in a mundane, tragic traffic accident. But he was also Li Han, a seventeen-year-old hunter in Blackwood Village, located in the remote Northern Wastes of the Great Yan Dynasty.
He clutched his head as the memories synthesized. The Great Yan Dynasty was not a simple historical era from his past life. It was a terrifying, sprawling feudal empire where martial arts were not merely flowery dances or myths, but terrifying tools of destruction and authority. High-level martial artists could shatter boulders with a single strike, leap over towering city walls, and slaughter armies of regular men without breaking a sweat. It was a world where strength dictated the right to breathe.
Worse yet, there were myths—whispers among the highest echelons of martial masters—of "Immortals." Cultivators who rode on swords, commanded the elements, and lived for millennia.
But for the current Li Han, martial artists and Immortals were problems for another day. His immediate, pressing problem was death by starvation.
The Great Yan Dynasty was currently suffering through the third year of a catastrophic drought, followed by a winter so severe it had frozen the very rivers that usually sustained the Northern Wastes. The crops had failed. The granaries were empty. The local magistrates, rather than opening emergency reserves, had doubled the grain tax to fund the ongoing border wars and satisfy the greed of the martial sects that protected the region.
Blackwood Village was dying. Over half the population had already succumbed to the famine or the biting cold. The original owner of this body, a young, solitary hunter whose parents had died to a wild beast years ago, had spent the last three days curled in his unheated cabin, succumbing to a severe fever and severe malnutrition. He had ultimately died in his sleep, allowing the soul of the Earthling Li Han to take the reins.
"Transmigration," Li Han muttered, the reality of his situation settling over him like a suffocating blanket. He didn't feel the sudden elation or arrogant excitement described in the web novels he used to read. He only felt the terrifying, absolute fragility of his current existence.
He looked down at his body. He was nothing but skin and bones. His ribs jutted out beneath his pale skin, and his limbs felt as weak as wet paper. If he didn't eat something within the next few hours, his second life would end just as pathetically as the first, making him a fleeting joke in the grand cosmos.
Forcing himself to ignore the screaming protests of his muscles, Li Han rolled off the bed. His bare feet hit the freezing dirt floor, sending a shock of cold up his spine. He stumbled toward the corner of the small, one-room cabin. There, resting against the wall, was the original owner's livelihood: a worn, recurve hunting bow crafted from black-iron wood, a quiver containing five crude, iron-tipped arrows, and a rusted hunting knife.
He picked up the bow. It felt heavy, much heavier than it should, a testament to his severe physical decline. The original Li Han had been a decent hunter, possessing a robust physique and keen eyes, but months of slow starvation had withered his muscles.
"I need food. Now."
He dressed in the thickest layers he could find—patched animal skins and a tattered, coarse linen coat that smelled of old blood and sweat. He strapped the quiver to his back, secured the hunting knife to his hip, and grabbed the bow.
Stepping out of the cabin, the biting wind immediately assaulted him, cutting through his layers like a thousand icy blades. Blackwood Village was a depressing sight. Around fifty dilapidated cabins were clustered together at the foot of the imposing Blackwood Mountain range. There was no smoke rising from the chimneys; no one had firewood or food to cook. The dirt paths were empty, save for the frozen, snow-covered corpses of two villagers who had collapsed in the night, entirely ignored by the few remaining survivors who lacked the energy to bury them.
Li Han kept his head down, pulling his fur collar over his nose. He didn't look at the bodies. Empathy was a luxury of the well-fed. Right now, he was a starving animal operating on base survival instincts.
He headed toward the treeline of the Blackwood Forest. The forest was infamous in the region. The outer periphery housed mundane game—rabbits, deer, wild boars—but the deeper one ventured, the more dangerous it became. There were rumors of demonic beasts in the inner ring, creatures that had absorbed the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, possessing intelligence and terrifying power. Even seasoned martial artists from the nearby towns hesitated to enter the deep woods.
Li Han had no intention of going deep. He just needed a rabbit. A squirrel. Anything with meat.
Entering the forest, the canopy of massive, dark-barked trees blocked out the weak winter sun, plunging the woods into a gloomy twilight. The snow was thick here, crunching softly under his boots. Li Han relied on the muscle memory and tracking knowledge of his predecessor. He moved slowly, conserving what little energy he had left, his eyes scanning the snow for tracks.
An hour passed. Every step was agony. His vision occasionally blurred, black spots dancing at the edges of his sight. The cold was seeping into his marrow.
Am I going to die again? he thought, a sense of deep despair threatening to overwhelm him. Is this it? Transmigrated just to freeze to death in a forest?
Just as he was about to collapse against a tree trunk to rest—a rest he knew he likely wouldn't wake up from—he saw it.
Fresh tracks.
They were small, distinct indentations in the powdery snow. A snow-hare. And judging by the lack of frost in the deeper parts of the print, they were extremely fresh.
Adrenaline, the body's final, desperate reserve, flooded Li Han's system. His hands stopped shaking. His eyes sharpened. He followed the tracks with the utmost caution, making sure to step lightly, avoiding dry twigs hidden beneath the snow.
Fifty yards ahead, near the exposed roots of a massive black-iron tree, he spotted movement. It was a snow-hare, but it was enormous—easily the size of a medium dog. Its fur was pure white, blending perfectly with the environment, and it was currently nibbling on a patch of hardy, frost-resistant lichen.
This wasn't a normal earth rabbit. This was a wild beast of the Great Yan Dynasty, possessing thicker skin and faster reflexes.
Li Han slowly, painstakingly raised his bow. His arms trembled under the tension of the draw string. The draw weight was at least sixty pounds, a massive strain for his starving, weakened body. He gritted his teeth, tasting the metallic tang of blood as he bit the inside of his cheek to maintain focus. He anchored the string near his jaw, aligning the crude iron tip of the arrow with the hare's chest cavity.
Breathe in. Hold.
The world seemed to slow down. The howling wind faded into a distant hum. It was just him, the arrow, and the prey. He couldn't afford to miss. A miss meant death.
Release.
Thwack!
The bowstring snapped forward. The arrow tore through the frigid air with a sharp whistle.
Thud.
A direct hit. The iron tip pierced the snow-hare right behind its front shoulder, burying itself deep into its vital organs. The massive hare let out a shrill, almost human-like shriek of agony. It thrashed violently in the snow, kicking up flurries of white powder, its blood spraying a brilliant, steaming crimson across the pristine ground.
Li Han didn't wait. He dropped the bow and drew his hunting knife, rushing forward with a burst of frantic speed. The hare was still kicking, desperately trying to pull the arrow out. Li Han threw himself onto the creature, pinning it down with his body weight. The hare's powerful hind legs raked against his thick leather trousers, bruising his legs, but he ignored the pain.
He brought the knife down, plunging it into the back of the hare's neck, severing the spinal cord.
The creature gave one final, violent shudder and then went completely limp.
Li Han collapsed next to the carcass, his chest heaving, his lungs burning as they sucked in the freezing air. He had done it. He had food. He was going to live.
But before he could even process the relief, an anomaly occurred.
A sudden, warm sensation blossomed from the bloody knife still embedded in the hare's neck. It traveled up his arm, bypassing his physical flesh and sinking directly into his soul. It was a sensation entirely alien to his human experience—like drinking a cup of hot, spiced wine on a freezing night, but a thousand times more profound.
A translucent, glowing interface—similar to a minimalist digital screen from his past life—suddenly projected itself directly onto his retinas.
[Target Killed: Snow-Hare (Mundane Beast)]
[Extracting Feedback...]
[Harvested: 1/2 of target's remaining lifespan (4 years, 2 months)]
[Harvested: 1/2 of target's physiological essence (Agility +0.2, Vitality +0.1)]
[Harvested: Skill Fragment - Minor Frost Resistance (Passive)]
Li Han's eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock.
What... what is this?
Before he could articulate the thought, the harvested energy forcefully injected itself into his body.
First came the lifespan. The deep, pervasive sense of dying, the slow ticking clock of his mortal coil, suddenly felt incredibly distant. He felt... younger. More vibrant. The fundamental decay of his cells seemed to halt and reverse ever so slightly.
Then came the physiological essence. The agonizing weakness in his muscles vanished. The gnawing emptiness in his stomach didn't disappear—he was still physically hungry—but the life-threatening starvation that had been cannibalizing his organs halted. He felt a sudden surge of physical strength. His legs, which moments ago felt like jelly, now felt sturdy. His vision, previously blurred by malnutrition, sharpened to an incredible degree. He could see the individual flakes of snow settling on the hare's fur. He felt lighter, faster, more coordinated.
Finally, the skill fragment. A cooling sensation washed over his skin. The biting, agonizing chill of the winter wind suddenly felt... bearable. It wasn't that he couldn't feel the cold; rather, his body's threshold for enduring it had fundamentally shifted. The frostbite that had begun to nip at his fingers and toes retreated.
Li Han sat up slowly, staring at his hands. He clenched them into fists, feeling the newfound strength coursing through his veins.
"A Gold Finger," he whispered, a hysterical, disbelieving laugh escaping his lips. "A cheat."
He looked down at the dead snow-hare. The interface had vanished, but the implications of what had just happened were echoing through his mind like thunder.
He received feedback from what he killed. Half of their remaining lifespan. Half of their cultivation or physical essence. Their skills.
This wasn't just a survival tool. This was a path to absolute, unfettered godhood.
If he killed a martial artist who had cultivated for twenty years, he would instantly gain ten years of their hard-earned internal energy. If he killed an Immortal who had a lifespan of a thousand years, he would instantly gain five hundred years of life. He didn't need rare medicinal herbs, he didn't need heaven-defying cultivation manuals, he didn't need natural talent or spiritual roots.
He only needed to kill.
The realization was intoxicating. For a brief, dizzying moment, visions of grandeur flashed through his mind. He imagined himself standing atop the corpses of emperors and immortal sect masters, an invincible god of death ruling over the Great Yan Dynasty and beyond. He imagined wielding power that could split the heavens, living forever, beholden to no one.
But then, the cold reality of his actuary mindset from his past life kicked in like a bucket of ice water.
No. He forcibly clamped down on the rising arrogance.
Think, Li Han. Think.
This world was ruthless. High martial artists had senses sharp enough to hear a pin drop from a mile away. Immortals possessed divine sense that could scan entire cities, reading the energy signatures of living beings. If anyone—anyone—discovered that a random, backwater hunter possessed an ability that allowed him to steal lifespan and cultivation through murder, what would happen?
They wouldn't revere him. They wouldn't bow to him.
They would hunt him down like a dog.
Powerful sects would capture him. They would chain him in a dark dungeon, study him, dissect him alive to uncover the secrets of his soul. Desperate, aging Immortals nearing the end of their lifespans would treat him as a living panacea, tearing his soul apart to find a way to harvest his stolen lifespan. He would become the most prized, tragic resource in the entire cultivation world. A walking treasure chest with a target painted on his back visible from the heavens.
"I am weak," Li Han muttered to himself, the mantra cementing itself into his very core. "I am incredibly, pathetically weak."
Despite the minor boost from the snow-hare, he was still just a mortal with slightly better-than-average agility. A single low-level martial artist could snap his neck before he could even blink. His 'cheat' was a double-edged sword of the highest order. It guaranteed infinite potential, but it also painted a massive, invisible bullseye on his existence if he ever slipped up.
He needed a strategy. A philosophy for survival.
First: Absolute secrecy. No one must ever know. He would never show off his true strength. If he possessed the strength to lift a thousand pounds, he would only ever show the strength to lift a hundred. He would be the unremarkable, average hunter. The background character.
Second: Caution above all. He would not engage in fights where he didn't have a guaranteed, overwhelming advantage. There would be no heroic standoffs, no arrogant challenges to young masters, no fighting across cultivation realms. If he encountered someone stronger, he would run, hide, or grovel. Pride was the currency of fools and corpses. He would only strike from the shadows, ensuring his targets were dead with absolute certainty, leaving no witnesses.
Third: Gradual, hidden accumulation. He would farm the weak. Animals, beasts, outlaws, dying men. He would slowly, meticulously build his lifespan and base physical attributes. He would accumulate decades, then centuries, then millennia of life. Time was his ultimate weapon. An Immortal might cultivate for a hundred years to break through a realm; Li Han could simply live out those hundred years in complete obscurity, safely killing thousands of wild beasts until his physical essence naturally breached that same realm.
Why risk his life competing for ancient artifacts in dangerous ruins when he could just outlive the ruins themselves?
"Lowkey," he whispered, wiping the snow from his knees. "I will be a ghost. A shadow. I will outlive the heavens, and I will do it by being the most cowardly, cautious man in existence."
His resolve hardened, Li Han turned his attention back to the massive snow-hare. It was a windfall. At least thirty pounds of good meat, plus a thick pelt that could be sold or used for warmth.
However, carrying a thirty-pound mutated snow-hare back to a starving village was tantamount to suicide. Hunger stripped humans of their morality. If the desperate villagers saw him with this much food, they wouldn't congratulate him. They would swarm him. They would bash his head in with rocks and tear the meat from the carcass with their bare hands. Even with his slight physical enhancement, he couldn't fight off fifty desperate, starving adults.
He drew his knife and began the bloody work of field dressing the animal. He worked quickly, relying on his predecessor's muscle memory. He removed the internal organs, leaving them in the snow for the scavengers. He then carefully skinned the beast.
He cut off a large hind leg—about five pounds of meat. He wrapped this securely in a spare piece of linen cloth and hid it deep within his coarse coat. This would be his public harvest. Enough to justify going into the woods, enough to keep him fed for a few days, but not enough to trigger a frenzied mob.
As for the rest of the carcass—over twenty pounds of prime meat and the valuable pelt—he carried it deeper into the treeline. He found a hollow hollow beneath the thick, frozen roots of an ancient tree, a spot well-hidden from casual observation. He packed the meat tightly, covering it with snow and heavy rocks to deter smaller scavengers. The freezing temperatures would act as a natural icebox, preserving the meat perfectly. He could sneak out at night to retrieve portions as needed.
With his secret stash secured and the hind leg hidden in his coat, Li Han picked up his bow and began the trek back to Blackwood Village.
The walk back was significantly easier. His body, fueled by the hare's physiological essence, handled the cold and the exertion with newfound resilience. The 'Minor Frost Resistance' passive skill was working wonders, keeping his core temperature stable despite the biting wind.
As he approached the outskirts of the village, he deliberately altered his posture. He slumped his shoulders, dragged his feet slightly, and allowed his face to adopt an expression of profound, exhausting despair. He was no longer the empowered transmigrator; he was just Li Han, the starving, pathetic orphan hunter.
The village was quiet, the silence broken only by the howling wind and the occasional coughing fit from a nearby cabin.
As Li Han walked down the main dirt path toward his home, a harsh, grating voice called out to him.
"Well, well. If it isn't little Li Han. I thought you died in your shack, boy."
Li Han paused, keeping his head down. He recognized the voice immediately from his memories. It was Zhao Mang.
Zhao Mang was the village bully, a massive, muscular brute of a man in his late twenties. Before the famine, Zhao Mang had been a butcher. When the food ran out, he became a thug. He had somehow managed to cultivate a rudimentary, incomplete body-refining technique—likely stolen or bought off a dying mercenary. It barely qualified as martial arts, but in a mortal village, it made him a tyrant. He had survived the famine by extorting the weaker villagers, stealing their meager rations, and occasionally dealing with traveling merchants.
Zhao Mang stepped out from the shadow of a neighboring cabin. He was bundled in thick, relatively clean furs. He looked entirely unaffected by the starvation ravaging the rest of the village. His face was fleshy, his eyes cruel and calculating. He held a thick wooden cudgel resting casually on his shoulder.
Behind him stood two lackeys, equally thuggish but noticeably thinner than their boss.
"I went looking for food, Boss Zhao," Li Han said, his voice deliberately weak and trembling, playing the role of the terrified orphan perfectly.
"In the Blackwood?" Zhao Mang sneered, stepping closer. He looked Li Han up and down. His eyes narrowed slightly as he noticed the absence of an arrow in Li Han's quiver. "You fired a shot. Did you hit anything?"
Li Han knew he couldn't hide the fact that he had hunted something entirely. If he claimed he missed, Zhao Mang might search him anyway just out of cruelty. The key to lying was wrapping it in a believable truth.
Li Han slowly, hesitantly reached into his coat and pulled out the wrapped hind leg of the snow-hare. He unwrapped it just enough to show the raw, bloody meat.
"I... I found a sick, half-dead rabbit near the edge of the woods," Li Han stammered, holding the meat tightly against his chest as if terrified it would be snatched. "It barely put up a fight. This is all I could salvage after the wolves got the rest."
Zhao Mang's eyes locked onto the meat. A greedy gleam appeared in his pupils. Fresh meat was an absolute luxury. Even he had been surviving on stale grain and dried, salted rat meat for the past month.
"A rabbit, huh?" Zhao Mang stepped forward, looming over Li Han. He reached out with a massive, calloused hand. "Hand it over, boy. You know the rules. Protection tax. The village guard requires sustenance to keep the peace."
The "village guard" consisted entirely of Zhao Mang and his two cronies beating up anyone who complained.
Internal fury flared within Li Han. This was his hard-earned food. But his newly adopted philosophy immediately suppressed the anger.
Caution. Lowkey. Do not engage unless victory is absolute.
Could he kill Zhao Mang? With his newfound agility and the hunting knife, if he struck with lethal intent, maybe. But Zhao Mang had body-refining martial arts. His skin was tough. If Li Han failed to kill him in one strike, Zhao Mang would crush his skull with that cudgel. Furthermore, killing the village bully in broad daylight, in the middle of the street, would attract massive attention. The village elder might report it to the nearby town's magistrate, bringing true martial artists to investigate.
It wasn't worth the risk. Not over five pounds of meat. He had twenty more pounds hidden in the forest.
Li Han forced his hands to tremble violently. He looked up at Zhao Mang with wide, fearful eyes.
"P-please, Boss Zhao," Li Han begged, his voice cracking perfectly. "I haven't eaten in four days. I'll die. Please, just let me keep half. Just a little piece to make broth..."
"I said, hand it over!" Zhao Mang barked, stepping forward and snatching the wrapped meat from Li Han's hands with brutal force. The sudden jerk threw Li Han off balance, and he intentionally allowed himself to fall backward into the snow, looking as pathetic and helpless as possible.
Zhao Mang unrolled the cloth, inspecting the leg. He sniffed it, a cruel smile spreading across his face. "Good quality. You did well, boy. Since you've been so cooperative, I'll let you live." He kicked a small handful of snow onto Li Han's prone body. "Be grateful."
Zhao Mang laughed loudly, a booming, obnoxious sound, and turned away, walking back down the path with his lackeys, eagerly discussing how they were going to roast the meat.
Li Han remained lying in the snow for a long moment, watching them leave. He kept the expression of terror plastered on his face until they rounded a corner and disappeared from sight.
Slowly, the fear drained from his features, replaced by an absolute, icy calm. He stood up, brushing the snow from his clothes. He didn't feel angry. He didn't feel humiliated. He felt incredibly rational.
Zhao Mang was a problem. A variable that could disrupt Li Han's peaceful accumulation of power. The thug had seen that Li Han could successfully hunt. When Zhao Mang finished that meat, he would come looking for Li Han again, expecting more. He would become a parasite. And in this harsh world, parasites needed to be excised before they caused an infection.
I cannot fight him in the light, Li Han thought, walking calmly back to his dilapidated cabin. But the night is long, and a man who thinks he is untouchable is a man who sleeps deeply.
He entered his cold, empty shack and closed the door. He sat on his wooden bed in the darkness, pulling out his hunting knife. He began to meticulously sharpen the blade against a smooth river stone.
The rhythmic shhhk, shhhk of the metal against stone filled the silent cabin.
His cheat allowed him to harvest half the cultivation, lifespan, and skills of his kills. Zhao Mang was a mortal, but he possessed a rudimentary body-refining technique. That meant he possessed physiological essence far superior to a snow-hare. He likely had a decent lifespan left as well.
Li Han's eyes glinted in the darkness. He had wanted to farm wild beasts, to stay completely away from human conflict. But the world, it seemed, would not allow him complete pacifism. If he had to kill to protect his lowkey lifestyle, he would do so with absolute, terrifying efficiency.
"Zhao Mang," Li Han whispered into the void, his voice devoid of any emotion. "Thank you in advance for your lifespan. I will put it to good use."
He continued sharpening his knife, waiting patiently for the sun to set. The path to immortality was paved with corpses, and the cautious reaper was about to claim his first human harvest.