Chapter 3: The Caloric Cost of Murder and the Scavenger's Trap
The village bell, a cracked bronze monstrosity hanging from a dead pine tree in the village square, clanged with a frantic, off-beat rhythm. Clang! Clang-clang! Clang!
It was the universal sound of disaster in Blackwood Village.
Li Han waited precisely three minutes after the bell began ringing before making his move. Any sooner, and he would appear suspiciously alert for a starving, freezing teenager. Any later, and he would draw attention by being the only one absent from the mandatory gathering.
He stumbled out of his dilapidated shack, violently shivering, pulling his tattered linen coat tightly around his scrawny frame. He hunched his shoulders, making himself look as small and pathetic as physically possible. His face, smeared with a bit of ash from his cold hearth to simulate the grime of despair, was a mask of wide-eyed terror.
The scene in the village square was one of utter pandemonium.
Over forty surviving villagers—walking skeletons draped in rags and animal skins—were clustered near the center of the village, kept at a distance from the former elder's sturdy pine house by a few men holding crude pitchforks and axes.
The heavy oak door of the house had been thrown wide open. The coppery, sickening stench of vast quantities of spilled blood hung heavily in the freezing morning air, completely overpowering the smell of woodsmoke.
Standing on the porch was Village Headman Wang. Wang was a frail, stooped man in his late fifties who had technically run the village on paper, but in reality, had spent the last year cowering under Zhao Mang's boot. Right now, Wang's face was the color of old parchment. He was shaking so hard his teeth were audibly chattering, and it wasn't from the cold.
"Bandits," Wang croaked, his voice carrying over the murmuring crowd. "Mountain bandits. They... they came in the night."
A collective gasp of horror rippled through the gathered villagers. In the Great Yan Dynasty, famine was a slow, agonizing killer. But mountain bandits were a swift, brutal plague. They swept down from the Northern Wastes, slaughtering the men, taking the women, and burning everything else to the ground.
Li Han pushed his way to the middle of the crowd, allowing himself to be jostled. He whimpered softly, perfectly mirroring the sheer panic radiating from the people around him. Internally, however, his mind was entirely calm, analyzing the situation with the cold detachment of a man reviewing an insurance claim.
Variable Check: The narrative has been successfully planted. The villagers have accepted the bandit theory. No suspicion is directed inward.
"Are you sure it was bandits, Headman?" a raspy voice called out. It was Old Man Chen, the village's former hunter, now crippled by a bear attack years ago. "Zhao Mang was strong. He had the Skin Refining technique. Bandits usually target weak caravans, not a martial artist in a fortified house."
Headman Wang swallowed hard, gesturing weakly toward the snow. "Look at the tracks, Chen. Deep, heavy boots. At least a half-dozen sets of overlapping prints, stamping in and out of the house, heading south toward the main road. And... and the state of the bodies inside. It wasn't a fight. It was a butchery. They hacked them to pieces. Only desperate men do that."
Li Han kept his head down to hide the ghost of a smirk. The erratic, heavy footprints he had stomped out using Zhao Mang's oversized boots had worked flawlessly. Furthermore, the chaotic, post-mortem mutilation he had inflicted on the corpses had successfully masked the clean, surgical, single-strike assassinations that had actually killed the three men.
To these uneducated, terrified peasants, the chaotic scene inside the house looked like the work of a frenzied mob of killers, not a single, calculating assassin.
"They took everything," Wang continued, wringing his bony hands. "The silver Zhao Mang hoarded. The salted meats. They even smashed the furniture. The heavens have no mercy. If they come back tonight..."
Panic erupted. Villagers began shouting over one another, voices shrill with hysteria. Some fell to their knees in the snow, praying to indifferent gods. Others began talking wildly about fleeing into the Blackwood Forest, an act of sheer suicide given the demonic beasts that roamed the inner ring.
"Quiet!" Wang shouted, his voice cracking. He coughed violently into his sleeve. "They won't come back. There's nothing left to take! Zhao Mang hoarded the village's wealth, and now it's gone. We... we just have to survive the winter. We bury the bodies today. Quickly. Before the smell attracts wolves."
As the crowd slowly dispersed, ordered by Wang to fetch shovels and picks to hack at the frozen earth, Li Han turned and shuffled back toward his shack.
The operation was a complete, unmitigated success. The liability had been liquidated. The cover-up was perfect. He had absorbed nearly thirty years of lifespan, significantly boosted his physical attributes to the Initial Skin Refining stage, and acquired a martial arts technique. All without a single soul suspecting a thing.
However, as he locked the flimsy door of his shack behind him and dropped his pathetic facade, a new, massive problem presented itself.
Hunger.
It wasn't the slow, gnawing, wasting hunger of starvation he had experienced yesterday. This was a violent, predatory, agonizingly sharp hunger. It felt as though a furnace had been ignited in the pit of his stomach, and it was desperately screaming for fuel.
Li Han stumbled, catching himself on the edge of his wooden bed. His newly dense muscles trembled. He had forcibly evolved his body overnight. He now possessed the hyper-efficient, dense musculature of an Initial Skin Refining martial artist. His heart was pumping more blood, his lungs were drawing in more oxygen, and his cells were vibrating with a new, intense energy.
Calculated Error, Li Han thought, clutching his abdomen. I acquired the engine of a war chariot, but I only have the fuel tank of a rusted wheelbarrow.
His baseline metabolism had skyrocketed. The Iron Bark Physique was a passive drain on his body's resources. If he didn't consume massive amounts of protein and calories soon, his newly enhanced body would begin cannibalizing its own muscles to sustain the martial arts state, undoing all the progress he had just harvested.
He pulled out the stolen lockbox contents from his coat and placed them on the bed.
Twenty silver taels. A fortune. In a prosperous city, twenty taels could buy a small house, fine clothes, and enough high-quality rice and pork to last a family for a year.
But in Blackwood Village, during a three-year famine and a frozen winter? It was worthless metal. He couldn't eat silver. If he tried to buy food from a traveling merchant, assuming one even braved the weather to come here, producing a silver tael would be an instant death sentence. The merchant's guards would simply kill him and take it.
He pushed the silver aside.
He looked at the small, bloodstained leather pouch. He carefully untied the drawstrings and peered inside. It contained a coarse, dark-red powder that smelled faintly of copper and rust.
Li Han sifted through the memories of his predecessor, searching for any rumor or snippet of knowledge about such a substance. Nothing. He then focused on the knowledge he had ripped from Zhao Mang's mind regarding the Iron Bark Physique. A faint connection sparked.
Blood-Boiling Powder.
It was a crude, highly dangerous stimulant used by desperate, low-level mercenaries and bandits. When ingested or rubbed into the gums, it forced the heart to beat at an insane rate, flushing the muscles with oxygen and temporarily overriding the body's pain receptors. It gave a mortal the strength to fight like a madman for about a incense stick's worth of time (roughly fifteen minutes).
The cost, however, was immense. Once the powder wore off, the user would experience severe muscle tearing, internal bleeding, and extreme exhaustion. Use it too many times, and the heart would simply detonate under the pressure.
"A liability multiplier," Li Han muttered, immediately tying the pouch shut and shoving it into the deepest pocket of his coat. It was a trump card of absolute last resort. He would only use it if he were cornered by something significantly stronger than him, where the alternative to bursting his own heart was immediate death.
He picked up the manual next. Iron Bark Physique - Skin Refining Chapter.
He leafed through the fragile, yellowed pages. It was full of crude anatomical drawings and cryptic poems about "hardening the flesh like ancient wood" and "drawing the cold iron into the pores." Because he had already harvested the Initial Mastery of the skill directly into his soul, reading the book felt like reviewing the alphabet after already knowing how to read. He understood the mechanics perfectly.
To progress from Initial Mastery to Minor Success, and eventually Major Success in the Skin Refining stage, he needed two things: relentless physical conditioning (essentially beating his skin with wooden rods and iron sand until it calloused permanently) and massive amounts of spiritual meat or medicinal baths to heal the micro-tears and reinforce the dermis.
He had neither the iron sand nor the medicinal baths.
"The calculus of cultivation," Li Han whispered, his breath pluming in the freezing room. "To gain strength, you must expend resources. To gain resources, you must expend strength. A vicious cycle."
His stomach let out a thunderous growl, so loud it startled him.
He needed to eat. Now.
Thirty minutes later, Li Han was deep within the Blackwood Forest.
The village was preoccupied with digging frozen graves, giving him the perfect window to slip away unnoticed. He moved through the snow with a newfound, terrifying grace. Before, he had trudged, dragging his feet to conserve energy. Now, his enhanced Agility and Strength allowed him to glide over the snow. He consciously suppressed the heavy, thudding steps typical of a body-refining martial artist, forcing his new muscles to adopt the silent, rolling gait of a seasoned hunter.
He reached the hollow beneath the frozen roots of the ancient tree where he had stashed the remaining twenty pounds of the mutant snow-hare yesterday.
He dug away the snow and rocks. The meat was perfectly preserved, frozen solid by the ambient temperature.
He didn't have time or the safety to build a fire and roast it. The smoke would be a beacon.
Li Han drew his rusted hunting knife. With a sharp, controlled flick of his wrist, fueled by his +1.8 Strength, the dull blade sheared through the frozen meat and bone as if it were soft clay.
He cut a massive, three-pound chunk of raw, frozen rabbit meat.
He stared at the bloody, icy lump. The civilized actuary from Earth gagged at the thought of eating raw, frozen wild game. The risk of parasites, bacteria, and severe gastrointestinal distress was astronomical.
But the starving, transmigrated hunter in the Great Yan Dynasty, possessing a body fortified by martial arts and a stomach screaming for sustenance, didn't care.
Li Han brought the meat to his mouth and tore into it.
His enhanced jaw muscles ripped the tough, frozen fibers apart. He chewed mechanically, ignoring the metallic taste of raw blood and the brain-freezing chill of the meat. He swallowed hard.
As the dense, protein-rich meat hit his stomach, his hyper-active metabolism instantly went to work. He could physically feel his body breaking down the meat, converting it into raw caloric energy and funneling it directly into his aching muscles. It was an incredibly bizarre sensation, a testament to how far he had deviated from baseline humanity in just twenty-four hours.
He ate the entire three-pound chunk in less than ten minutes.
The desperate, burning hunger subsided, replaced by a heavy, comforting warmth in his core. His muscles stopped trembling. The Iron Bark Physique, which had been precariously close to cannibalizing his tissues, settled into a stable, passive hum beneath his skin.
He buried the rest of the meat carefully. Twenty pounds wouldn't last him long at this new rate of consumption. Maybe three days, if he strictly rationed it. He needed more. He needed a sustainable source of high-quality protein, and he needed targets to harvest to continue his progression.
He picked up his black-iron wood recurve bow. Yesterday, the sixty-pound draw weight had felt like trying to bend a steel girder.
Today, Li Han gripped the riser, hooked two fingers around the coarse string, and pulled.
The bow flexed smoothly, the limbs bending with a satisfying groan. He drew it back to his ear with almost casual ease. He held it there for a full minute, his arm perfectly still, not a single tremor in his bicep or shoulder.
"The variables have shifted dramatically in my favor," he murmured, gently easing the bowstring back to its resting position. "But I am still completely blind to the upper limits of this ecosystem."
He began to venture deeper into the forest. Not into the inner ring where the rumored demonic beasts lived—that was a death wish—but further into the periphery than his predecessor had ever dared to go.
He needed to test his new capabilities in a controlled environment, away from prying eyes. He needed to understand the exact parameters of his Iron Bark Physique and his enhanced stats.
For the next two hours, Li Han turned the freezing forest into his personal testing ground.
He tested his speed. He found a straight, relatively clear path between two massive pines, roughly fifty yards apart. He sprinted. The wind whipped past his face, stinging his eyes. His legs pumped with mechanical, terrifying power, propelling him forward in long, bounding strides. He covered the distance in roughly five seconds. He was easily twice as fast as an Olympic sprinter from Earth, and he wasn't even winded.
He tested his strength. He found a fallen, rotting log, roughly the thickness of a grown man's torso. He gripped one end, rooted his feet into the snow, and hoisted it upward. It weighed at least two hundred pounds, but to him, it felt like lifting a heavy sack of groceries. He hefted it over his head and tossed it several feet away.
Finally, he needed to test his defense.
This was the most crucial variable. He needed to know exactly how much punishment his Initial Mastery of the Iron Bark Physique could take.
He approached a mature pine tree. Its bark was thick and covered in sharp, frozen sap.
He took a deep breath and activated the technique. He focused his mind, visualizing the heavy, dense energy in his blood rushing toward his skin. He felt his pores tighten violently. His skin tingled, losing its softness and adopting a rigid, tough texture. The faint grayish hue spread across his forearms.
He pulled back his right fist and punched the tree trunk.
He didn't use full force—he wasn't suicidal—but he struck it with enough power to shatter a normal man's knuckles.
Thud.
A dull, heavy impact echoed through the silent woods. The frozen bark of the pine tree splintered, a small indentation appearing in the wood.
Li Han pulled his fist back and examined it. His knuckles were slightly red, but the skin wasn't broken. The bones beneath felt perfectly solid. There was no pain, only a dull, lingering pressure.
"Incredible," he whispered, awe briefly piercing his clinical demeanor. "It works exactly as the manual described. My dermis has essentially adopted the tensile strength of cured rhino hide. Glancing blows from crude weapons, low-velocity projectiles, and blunt force trauma from ordinary mortals are no longer viable threats."
But the actuary immediately calculated the counter-argument.
However, a direct thrust from a sharpened steel blade wielded by a competent martial artist will still pierce. A direct hit from a crushing weapon will bypass the skin and shatter the bones beneath, as my Bone Refining is non-existent. Overconfidence in defense is a fatal liability.
He deactivated the technique. The grayish hue faded, and his skin returned to normal, though the heavy, dense feeling in his muscles remained.
He continued his patrol, moving silently through the snowy landscape. His eyes scanned the environment, his enhanced senses picking up the subtle details of the forest. He heard the faint scuttling of a squirrel high in the canopy. He smelled the sharp, acidic tang of fox urine on a nearby bush.
Then, his enhanced hearing picked up something else.
A low, guttural growl, followed by the wet sound of tearing flesh.
Li Han froze instantly. He dropped into a deep crouch, blending his silhouette with the snow-covered brush. He carefully, silently notched an iron-tipped arrow onto his bowstring.
He crept forward, utilizing the thick trunks of the black-iron trees for cover. He moved with agonizing slowness, ensuring not a single twig snapped beneath his boots.
Fifty yards ahead, in a small clearing stained with fresh, steaming blood, he found his target.
It was a Grey Wolf. But like the snow-hare, this was a mutated beast of the Great Yan Dynasty. It was massive, standing nearly three feet tall at the shoulder, its fur a thick, matted mix of silver and charcoal. Its muscles rippled beneath its coat with terrifying power.
It was currently tearing into the carcass of a small deer, its jaws crushing through bone with sickening, effortless crunches.
This was a predator. A significant step up from the herbivorous snow-hare. In a head-on fight, a mundane mortal would be ripped to shreds in seconds. Even Zhao Mang would have struggled against a beast of this size, relying entirely on his tough skin to outlast the wolf's fangs.
Li Han assessed the variables.
Enemy: Grey Wolf (Mutated Mundane Beast). High agility, high attack power (bite/claws), pack mentality.
Advantage: The wolf was distracted by its meal. The wind was blowing toward Li Han, masking his scent. He possessed the high ground and the element of surprise.
Risk: If he failed to kill it instantly, it would howl. Wolves rarely hunted alone in the Blackwood Forest. If a pack arrived, his Iron Bark Physique would eventually be overwhelmed, and he would be torn apart.
Conclusion: A direct engagement, even an ambush with the bow, carried an unacceptable margin of error. If his arrow hit a rib and failed to pierce the heart or lungs, the wolf would counterattack.
He needed a guarantee. He needed an execution.
Li Han slowly backed away, retreating twenty yards down the trail he had just walked. He found a narrow chokepoint between two massive boulders, a natural path any pursuing creature would be forced to take.
He slung his bow over his shoulder and drew his rusted hunting knife.
He was going to set a trap. Not a complex snare requiring rope and time, but a brutal, calculated leverage trap utilizing his own enhanced physical capabilities.
He found a sturdy, relatively straight branch from a fallen black-iron tree, roughly the thickness of his wrist and four feet long. He jammed one end of the branch deep into the frozen earth at the base of one of the boulders, wedging it securely beneath a heavy stone. He positioned the branch so it angled upward, pointing directly toward the center of the chokepoint, roughly at the height of a massive wolf's chest.
He then took his hunting knife and, using two strips of tough leather torn from his own coat, lashed the hilt of the knife securely to the top of the angled branch. The rusted, but razor-sharp iron blade pointed forward, a deadly, stationary spear.
He tested the stability. He pushed against the makeshift spear with considerable force. The branch flexed slightly, but the base held firm. It was solid.
Now, he needed the bait.
Li Han moved back up the trail until he was thirty yards away from the feeding wolf. He didn't hide this time.
He picked up a heavy rock from the snow, roughly the size of a grapefruit. He weighed it in his hand, feeling his newly acquired strength.
He took aim at a tree trunk directly behind the wolf.
With a vicious, whip-like motion, he hurled the rock.
SMASH!
The rock struck the tree trunk with the force of a cannonball, exploding into fragments and tearing a massive chunk of bark away. The sound echoed like a thunderclap in the quiet forest.
The Grey Wolf instantly snapped its head up, dropping the deer carcass. Its ears swiveled, its yellow eyes locking precisely onto Li Han's position. It bared its fangs, letting out a deep, chest-rattling snarl that vibrated through the snow.
Li Han didn't flinch. He simply turned his back on the apex predator and ran.
He didn't sprint at his maximum speed. If he did, he would leave the wolf behind. He ran just fast enough to look like fleeing prey, his boots kicking up snow, his breath coming in deliberately loud, ragged gasps.
Behind him, he heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of massive paws hitting the snow. The wolf had taken the bait. It was charging.
Li Han focused entirely on his footing, counting his strides. Ten yards. Twenty yards. He reached the chokepoint between the boulders. He darted through the narrow gap, intentionally brushing his shoulder against the stone to simulate panic.
As soon as he cleared the boulders, he abruptly halted his momentum, dropping to one knee directly behind the stationary, knife-tipped spear he had constructed. He engaged his Iron Bark Physique, his skin hardening instantly, bracing both hands firmly against the base of the wooden shaft to reinforce it.
He didn't have to wait long.
The Grey Wolf, fueled by predatory rage and the instinct to chase fleeing prey, didn't bother to slow down or assess the chokepoint. It simply hurled its massive body through the gap between the boulders, its jaws snapping open, fully expecting to land squarely on Li Han's back.
Instead, it met the trap.
The wolf's own massive forward momentum—hundreds of pounds of muscle traveling at over thirty miles an hour—did all the work.
The stationary hunting knife, braced by Li Han's enhanced strength and the frozen earth, acted as an immovable object.
SHHHHK!
The rusted iron blade plunged directly into the center of the wolf's chest, sinking deep between the ribs and piercing the heart and lungs in a single, catastrophic impact. The force of the collision was staggering. The thick wooden branch groaned and splintered under the weight, but it held long enough.
The wolf didn't even have time to whimper. Its eyes bulged in shock, a geyser of hot, dark blood erupting from its mouth and chest. Its momentum carried it forward, but the spear ripped through its vitals, arresting its charge violently.
The massive beast collapsed a mere two feet away from Li Han, thrashing weakly for exactly five seconds before going completely still.
Li Han exhaled slowly, releasing his grip on the splintered shaft. He deactivated his physique, his muscles aching slightly from the sudden, massive expenditure of force.
He stood up, looking down at the dead predator.
Calculated execution. Zero margin of error. Zero damage sustained.
Suddenly, the familiar, ethereal blue interface projected itself across his vision, casting a ghostly light over the bloody snow.
[Target Killed: Grey Wolf (Mutated Mundane Beast)]
[Extracting Feedback...]
[Harvested: 1/2 of target's remaining lifespan (6 years, 3 months)]
[Harvested: 1/2 of target's physiological essence (Agility +0.3, Perception +0.2)]
[Harvested: Skill Fragment - Minor Night Vision (Passive)]
Li Han watched the text with clinical detachment. The warmth flowed into him, adding another six years to his growing lifespan. The slight boost to Agility and Perception sharpened his senses and lightened his step. The new skill, Minor Night Vision, instantly caused his pupils to dilate and contract rapidly, the gloomy, shadowed corners of the forest suddenly appearing as clear as day.
It was a good haul.
But as the interface faded, his analytical mind immediately spotted the discrepancy.
"The dividend yield is dropping," he muttered, frowning at the corpse.
When he had killed the snow-hare, he had gained +0.2 Agility. The hare was an incredibly weak creature. The Grey Wolf was exponentially faster, stronger, and more lethal than the hare. By all logical metrics, harvesting half of the wolf's physiological essence should have provided a massive boost to his stats, perhaps +1.0 or more.
Instead, he only received +0.3 Agility and +0.2 Perception. No Strength. No Vitality.
He knelt beside the wolf, tracing the bloodstained fur with a gloved finger.
The realization hit him like a bucket of ice water. The "Gold Finger" wasn't a flat, additive cheat. It was relative to his own current state of existence.
When he was a starving, weak mortal, even the essence of a snow-hare was a massive upgrade to his system. But now? Now he possessed the physiology of an Initial Skin Refining martial artist. His base stats were incredibly high for a mortal.
The essence of mundane beasts, even mutated ones like this wolf, was no longer dense enough or potent enough to significantly alter his body. It was like trying to fill a massive, roaring furnace with handfuls of dry grass. It burned up instantly, providing almost no substantial heat or lasting fuel.
To progress further, to push his stats high enough to naturally break through from Skin Refining to Flesh Refining without a cultivation manual, he couldn't just farm wolves and rabbits. He would need to slaughter thousands of them, a process that would take years and expose him to unnecessary risks in the forest.
He needed denser fuel. He needed higher-quality assets.
He needed to hunt things that were stronger than him. He needed to hunt martial artists, demonic beasts, or eventually... Immortals.
"The risk profile just increased exponentially," Li Han sighed, the heavy weight of his reality settling firmly upon his shoulders.
Remaining in Blackwood Village long-term was no longer a viable strategy for accumulation. The village offered no resources, no information, and no high-value targets. If he stayed here, hiding in his shack, he would stagnate. He would outlive everyone, yes, but he would remain an Initial Skin Refining martial artist forever. If a wandering cultivator or a high-level bandit troop ever passed through, his minor strength and extended lifespan wouldn't save him from a casual slaughter.
He needed to migrate to a hub of civilization. A place with a larger population, where martial artists congregated, where corruption and death were common enough to hide his activities.
He remembered Ironridge Town from his predecessor's memories. A sprawling, fortified trading hub three days south of Blackwood. It was controlled by a minor martial sect and was a den of mercenaries, merchants, and crime.
It was dangerous. It was chaotic. It was the perfect hunting ground for a cautious reaper.
"Ironridge Town," Li Han decided, his eyes hardening with cold resolve. "But not yet."
He looked at the massive wolf corpse, and then toward the south, where the storm clouds were gathering over the mountain peaks.
Leaving now, in the dead of winter, without adequate supplies, was a statistical suicide mission. He would freeze or starve on the road before he ever reached the town.
His new short-term plan solidified: He would spend the rest of the winter in Blackwood Village. He would act as the terrified, surviving orphan. He would secretly hunt the periphery of the forest, stockpiling dried meat and pelts, hoarding every ounce of caloric energy he could find. He would train his newly acquired stats in the shadows, mastering his body and the Iron Bark Physique.
He would accumulate resources and eliminate any variables that threatened his lowkey existence.
When the spring thaw finally came, and the roads opened up, he would take his silver, his meat, and his secrets, and he would disappear from this dying village forever.
Li Han grabbed the wolf by its hind legs. It was heavy, but his enhanced strength handled it easily. He began the arduous process of dragging the massive carcass back toward his hidden stash. He would butcher it, freeze the meat, and cure the pelt. Nothing would be wasted.
The wind howled through the black-iron trees, sweeping snow over the bloody tracks he left behind, erasing the evidence of the slaughter. The forest returned to its cold, indifferent silence, oblivious to the fact that a new apex predator had just begun its slow, meticulous ascent up the food chain.