Ten days later, Lin Feng stood at his window watching the city guards collect the third cart of dead dogs from the alley below. The entire outer district was in chaos.
"Unprecedented outbreak," one guard muttered to another. "Every stray in District 7 dead in three days. Now it's spreading to Districts 6 and 8."
"City Lord says it's natural. Some kind of rabies mutation."
"Natural my ass. I've never seen anything kill this fast."
Lin Feng suppressed a smile as the guards departed. Natural. Of course they'd think it was natural. Who would suspect that a trash-tier awakener could engineer a perfect killing plague?
[CURRENT STATISTICS:]
[TOTAL KILLS: 847]
[CULTIVATION GAINED: 84.7 STAGES]
[CURRENT REALM: BODY TEMPERING STAGE 9 (PEAK)]
[NEXT BREAKTHROUGH: SPIRIT GATHERING REALM - REQUIRES 1000 KILLS OR 10 SPIRIT GATHERING STAGE EQUIVALENTS]
In ten days, he'd gone from stage 1 to stage 9. Most cultivators in the outer districts never reached stage 5 in their entire lives. At stage 9, Lin Feng was now stronger than ninety percent of the outer city population.
And no one knew.
He'd been careful, leaving his room only for necessities, avoiding attention. His neighbors assumed he was depressed about his trash talent awakening. They had no idea that the skinny young man they pitied could now crush bricks with his bare hands.
But stage 9 was a bottleneck. The system had made it clear—to break through to Spirit Gathering Realm, he needed either a thousand more weak creatures or ten Spirit Gathering stage cultivators.
"Animals won't be enough anymore," Lin Feng muttered, examining his Dimensional Mark. The three spirit stones he'd been given were still unused. "System, what can you tell me about dimensional travel?"
[DIMENSIONAL MARK ALLOWS TRAVEL TO INFINITE PARALLEL WORLDS.]
[SPIRIT STONE COST VARIES BY WORLD DIFFICULTY AND DANGER LEVEL.]
[LOWEST TIER WORLDS: 1-5 SPIRIT STONES]
[MID TIER WORLDS: 10-100 SPIRIT STONES]
[HIGH TIER WORLDS: 1,000+ SPIRIT STONES]
"And these lowest tier worlds have what kind of creatures?"
[PRIMARILY BODY TEMPERING TO FOUNDATION ESTABLISHMENT LEVEL BEASTS.]
[RECOMMENDATION: AT YOUR CURRENT STRENGTH, LOWEST TIER WORLDS ARE OPTIMAL HUNTING GROUNDS.]
Lin Feng retrieved his three spirit stones from their hiding place under a loose floorboard. They were small, roughly spherical crystals that glowed with a faint internal light. Each contained concentrated spiritual energy.
He pressed one against his Dimensional Mark. The mark flared to life, and suddenly information flooded his mind—a list of accessible worlds, each with a brief description:
[REALM OF PRIMAL BEASTS - 1 SPIRIT STONE]Savage world of low-intelligence creatures. Beast herds number in thousands. Dangerous for weak travelers.
[CRIMSON FUNGAL CAVERNS - 2 SPIRIT STONES]Underground ecosystem of mushroom forests and poisonous spores. Difficult breathing environment.
[SHALLOW SEA DIMENSION - 1 SPIRIT STONE]Coastal world with abundant aquatic life. Limited land mass.
Lin Feng's eyes gleamed as he focused on the Realm of Primal Beasts. Herds numbering in thousands? And they were low intelligence, meaning they'd be easy to infect and wouldn't think to run until it was too late.
"Perfect."
He pressed harder on the stone, and the world around him dissolved.
Reality twisted. Lin Feng felt his body being pulled through impossible space, colors bleeding together, sounds merging into a cacophony. Then, with a jarring snap, everything solidified.
He stood in tall grass under an orange sky.
The Realm of Primal Beasts stretched before him—endless savanna dotted with strange trees that twisted like spirals. In the distance, he could see herds of creatures grazing, hundreds of them moving together. They looked like a cross between deer and buffalo, with six legs and bony plates covering their backs.
[ENTERING DIMENSIONAL REALM: PRIMAL BEASTS]
[TIME DILATION: 10:1 - TEN DAYS HERE EQUALS ONE DAY IN MAIN WORLD]
[DIMENSIONAL ANCHOR ESTABLISHED - CAN RETURN AT WILL]
[WARNING: DEATH HERE IS PERMANENT. NO RESPAWN.]
Lin Feng took a deep breath. The air was clean, almost intoxicatingly pure compared to the outer district's pollution. He could feel the spiritual energy here was denser too—cultivating in this world would be several times faster than in his own.
But he wasn't here to cultivate normally.
He was here to kill.
Lin Feng knelt and pressed his hand to the ground, extending his talent's range as far as it would go. Immediately, he sensed the teeming microscopic life in the soil—bacteria, fungi, tiny organisms he had no name for. And more importantly, he could sense the larger creatures in the distance.
The herd was massive. At least three hundred beasts, all Body Tempering stage 3 to 5. Each one would give him significantly more cultivation than a rat or dog.
"System, if I kill all of them, will it be enough for Spirit Gathering breakthrough?"
[NEGATIVE. APPROXIMATELY 400 SUCH CREATURES REQUIRED.]
[HOWEVER, MULTIPLE HERDS EXIST IN THIS DIMENSION.]
"Then I'll need to work efficiently."
Lin Feng began his approach, staying downwind and moving slowly through the tall grass. The beasts were grazing peacefully, completely unaware of the extinction event approaching them.
When he was within fifty meters—his current talent range—Lin Feng closed his eyes and reached out. He could feel the bacteria in the water hole the herd had drunk from. Perfect.
With delicate precision, he began mutating a waterborne bacterium. This one needed to be fast-acting—the time dilation meant he only had the equivalent of a day in the main world, and he wanted to harvest multiple herds. But it also needed to be lethal enough to kill Body Tempering stage beasts.
The bacteria shifted under his will, becoming something new. Something deadly.
Lin Feng opened his eyes and smiled.
"Let's call you... Beast Plague Alpha."
He released his creation into the water hole. The invisible bacteria began multiplying immediately, spreading through the water at exponential rates. The beasts drinking showed no reaction—the incubation period would last just two hours.
Lin Feng retreated to a safe distance and waited.
Two hours later, the first beast collapsed.
Then another. And another.
Within minutes, the entire herd was dying. They bellowed and thrashed, their powerful bodies no defense against the invisible enemy ravaging them from within. Some tried to run, but the infection had already progressed too far.
[KILL REGISTERED: PRIMAL BEAST (BODY TEMPERING STAGE 4)]
[KILL REGISTERED: PRIMAL BEAST (BODY TEMPERING STAGE 3)]
[KILL REGISTERED: PRIMAL BEAST (BODY TEMPERING STAGE 5)]
The notifications flooded in so fast they became a blur. Lin Feng watched with cold satisfaction as three hundred beasts died in less than thirty minutes.
[MASS KILL EVENT DETECTED]
[BONUS CALCULATION IN PROGRESS...]
[TOTAL KILLS: 312 PRIMAL BEASTS]
[TOTAL CULTIVATION GAINED: 124.8 STAGES]
[BREAKTHROUGH! SPIRIT GATHERING REALM STAGE 1!]
[MERIDIANS OPENED: 12/108]
[SPIRITUAL ENERGY WHIRLPOOL FORMED IN DANTIAN]
[TALENT EVOLUTION UNLOCKED]
Power exploded through Lin Feng's body. He gasped as spiritual energy flooded his meridians, carving new pathways through his flesh. His dantian—previously a small, dormant organ below his navel—suddenly ignited with power, forming a swirling vortex of energy.
This was Spirit Gathering Realm. True cultivation. The realm where humans stopped being mortals and began their ascension.
But Lin Feng had reached it in ten days instead of ten years.
[TALENT EVOLUTION AVAILABLE]
[PRIMORDIAL PATHOGEN GENESIS → PLAGUE DOMAIN GENESIS]
[NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED:]
[1. CREATE CUSTOM PATHOGENS FROM SCRATCH]
[2. RANGE INCREASED TO 500 METERS]
[3. CAN NOW INFECT SPIRITUAL ENERGY ITSELF]
Lin Feng laughed, the sound echoing across the savanna full of corpses. Infect spiritual energy? That meant he could potentially create plagues that targeted cultivation bases directly.
"Show me where the next herd is."
He spent the next nine days—equivalent to less than a day in the main world—systematically hunting every beast herd in his range. The Realm of Primal Beasts had dozens of species, and Lin Feng infected them all.
Six-legged deer. Massive boar-like creatures with tusks. Flocks of flightless birds that traveled in thousands. Packs of predator beasts. He even found a creature similar to a rhinoceros sleeping alone—a Foundation Establishment stage beast that gave him an entire stage worth of cultivation from a single kill.
By the time his spirit stone's power waned and began pulling him back, Lin Feng had broken through to Spirit Gathering Stage 6.
[DIMENSIONAL TRIP SUMMARY:]
[TOTAL KILLS: 1,847 BEASTS]
[CULTIVATION GAINED: 738.8 STAGES]
[CURRENT REALM: SPIRIT GATHERING STAGE 6]
[COLLECTED RESOURCES: 23 BEAST CORES, 156 KG BEAST MEAT, 47 HIDES]
Reality twisted again, and Lin Feng found himself back in his tenement room. It was dark—only a few hours had passed in the main world. He collapsed on his bed, exhausted but triumphant.
Spirit Gathering Stage 6. In the outer districts, that made him equivalent to a district gang leader or outer sect disciple.
And he'd achieved it in less than two weeks.
Lin Feng looked at his remaining two spirit stones. He could make another trip, hunt more beasts. But something the system had shown him stuck in his mind.
"System, you said I can infect spiritual energy now. Does that mean I can infect cultivators' dantians?"
[AFFIRMATIVE. AT SPIRIT GATHERING REALM, YOU CAN CREATE SPIRITUAL PLAGUES.]
[THESE PLAGUES WILL DRAIN CULTIVATION, CORRUPT MERIDIANS, AND EVENTUALLY KILL THE HOST.]
[WARNING: HUMAN KILLS WILL ATTRACT INVESTIGATION. RECOMMEND CAUTION.]
Lin Feng stood and walked to his window. The outer districts sprawled below him, hundreds of thousands of people crammed into poverty and despair. Among them were the cultivators—the gangs who extorted protection money, the thugs who beat people for entertainment, the minor nobles who came slumming for cheap thrills.
The same people who had laughed at him during the awakening.
"I'm not ready for the nobles yet," Lin Feng murmured. "But the gangs..."
He knew exactly where to start. Three days ago, before his dimensional trip, he'd been shaken down by the Iron Fist Gang for "territory fees." They'd taken his last copper coins and roughed him up when he tried to protest.
Their hideout was six blocks away.
"System, help me design a spiritual plague. Something that spreads through shared air, targets cultivation bases, and kills slowly enough to spread to everyone in an enclosed space before anyone realizes what's happening."
[DESIGNING OPTIMAL PATHOGEN...]
[CREATION COMPLETE: SPIRIT DEVOURING MIST]
[PROPERTIES: AIRBORNE, SPIRITUAL ENERGY BASED, 6-HOUR INCUBATION, 24-HOUR MORTALITY]
[SYMPTOMS: CULTIVATION BASE DEGRADATION, MERIDIAN RUPTURE, DANTIAN COLLAPSE, DEATH]
[SPREAD RATE: EXTREMELY HIGH IN ENCLOSED SPACES]
[DETECTION DIFFICULTY: VERY HIGH - WILL APPEAR AS CULTIVATION DEVIATION]
Lin Feng smiled coldly. Cultivation deviation—the nightmare of every cultivator, when their own spiritual energy turned against them. The investigators would never suspect plague. They'd think the entire gang had somehow managed to collectively fail their cultivation.
"Perfect."
He waited until midnight, then made his way through the dark streets to the Iron Fist Gang's headquarters—a two-story building that had once been a warehouse. Guards stood at the entrance, both Spirit Gathering Stage 2 or 3.
Lin Feng didn't approach. He simply stopped fifty meters away, within range of his evolved talent, and reached out.
He could feel the spiritual energy inside the building. Twenty-three people, all cultivators, all with energy swirling in their dantians. The boss was probably Spirit Gathering Stage 7 or 8—strong enough to rule a few outer district blocks, but nothing special.
With careful precision, Lin Feng began creating his Spirit Devouring Mist. It formed in the air inside the building, invisible and odorless, a creation of pure spiritual energy infected with his plague intent.
The cultivators inside noticed nothing. They continued their gambling, drinking, and counting their extorted profits, completely unaware that death was already spreading through their lungs with every breath.
Lin Feng turned and walked away.
By tomorrow night, the Iron Fist Gang would be dead. And he would harvest fifty-plus Spirit Gathering stage cultivators' worth of cultivation.
"This is just the beginning," he whispered to the night. "I'll take everything from this city. Everyone who looked down on me, everyone who called me trash, everyone who stood in my way."
[HOST MENTALITY EVOLUTION DETECTED]
[PATH ALIGNMENT: DEMONIC SLAUGHTER SOVEREIGN]
[SYSTEM APPROVAL: MAXIMUM]
Lin Feng returned to his room and sat cross-legged to meditate. Twenty-four hours until the gang died. Another few days to infect more gangs. A week until he was strong enough to start targeting the lower-ranking nobles.
A month until he was ready to enter the inner city.
And when he did, the real slaughter would begin.
The outer districts had taught him only one lesson: the strong devoured the weak. Well, he was getting stronger by the hour.
Soon, he'd be strong enough to devour everyone.
The plague rat was evolving.
And the world had no idea what was coming.