All Life in the World is Nourishment, Should Old Sixth Be?

"Foraging, avoiding enemies, hiding, disguising..."

"How to spread my wings and fly with less effort, how to find places with insects..."

"If I were a bird, these memories and experiences might indeed still be of some use to me."

Jiang Lan shook his head slightly.

The brief life of a sparrow flickered through his mind like passing shadows.

He had come to understand some of the peculiarities of the Life Dao Fruit. Manipulating life did not merely mean manipulating his own life; within a certain range, he could even control the lives of external things.

For instance, with but a thought, he could absorb the life force of the willow tree outside the window lattice and obtain its corresponding memories, experiences, talents, and so on.

Rather than acquisition, such a method was more like outright plunder.

So long as he wished it, among all things in the world and the myriad races of living beings, so long as an individual possessed life, what was there that he could not plunder?

If there was any restriction, it was perhaps the range and the vast disparity in strength between the two sides.

"In other words, from now on, any living individual is equivalent to nourishment for me and can help me grow rapidly."

"This really is a test of my heart."

If such a method fell into the hands of someone with a wicked heart, it would likely bring about boundless calamity. But was his own heart truly righteous?

Jiang Lan did not consider himself a good person, but neither did he wish to become someone who committed evil simply for evil's sake.

His consciousness sank into the Mud Pill Palace.

The Life Dao Fruit remained verdant and lush, crystalline and flawless. Dense, surging life force coiled around its surface, mysterious and profound, without much change.

At present, this was only the first stage of the Life Dao Fruit. He still did not know what extent it would grow to later on.

Manipulating lifespans? Truly reviving the dead and regenerating flesh upon white bones? Or attaining true immortality, never to die? Bestowing immortality?

He did not know how long it would take for it to grow to the second stage, nor how much qi luck power it would require.

Once the Life Dao Fruit fully matured, what new Dao Fruit would grow from it?

Jiang Lan's gaze fell beside the end of that vine. A tiny bud was being nurtured there, faintly showing signs of breaking through.

Clearly, a second Qi Luck Dao Fruit would grow there. After it fused later on, he did not know what kind of Dao Fruit it would evolve into.

Jiang Lan could not help but feel some anticipation.

The emergence of the Life Dao Fruit could be said to have resolved his pressing problem with his physique.

With that powerful, surging life force, Jiang Lan even felt that digging out the Seven-Orifice Exquisite Immortal Heart would not have much impact on him.

His current source of life came from the Life Dao Fruit.

So long as the speed was fast enough, that terrifying self-healing ability could completely allow him to reach a state of undying and indestructible immortality, with an eternal physical body.

The only thing he needed to consider was whether his life force would be exhausted.

While healing and recovering just now, Jiang Lan had clearly sensed that some of his life force had diminished.

Although the Life Dao Fruit quickly replenished it, if his injuries became severe later on and the replenishment rate lagged far behind the rate of consumption, he could still be worn to death alive.

If he wanted to achieve the effect of an Immortal Body, he still had to strengthen himself.

In this world, for those with profound cultivation, regenerating severed limbs and reviving from a drop of blood were not difficult.

There were even those whose heads had been severed, whose limbs had been torn apart by carts, who had been buried in the four corners of heaven and earth and sealed for tens of thousands of years, yet could still revive.

Not to mention those existences whose souls had been extinguished and bodies annihilated, yet who could awaken once more from the River of Time so long as their true names remained in the world...

With his current bit of ability, he could only be said to have relieved an urgent crisis. There was no longer any pressing need to obtain the Immortal Embryo Creation Dew to reshape his roots, bones, and flesh.

"Strength and cultivation come first; talent and methods are secondary. I cannot rely too heavily on the Life Dao Fruit and put the cart before the horse..."

"For now, I still need to raise my cultivation as much as possible and increase my life force. No matter what I plan, having cultivation will make things more convenient."

Jiang Lan remembered clearly that in the original plot, there happened to be a legacy record of a cultivation technique that fit his current Life Dao Fruit exceptionally well.

As for the Immortal Embryo Creation Dew, once he dealt with Lin Fan, he would find a way to obtain it as well.

The matter of the Qi Luck Dao Fruit was his greatest secret. It was impossible for him to let a second person learn of it.

Once he had the Immortal Embryo Creation Dew, even if his cultivation and strength were exposed in the future, he would have a reason to conceal the truth.

Jiang Lan then rose and left the side room. Once outside, he instructed the servants to prepare medicinal cuisine.

He also wanted to test whether relying solely on meat and the like could increase his qi, blood, and life force.

The Life Dao Fruit was also extraordinary in that it allowed his control over his own life force or that of external objects to reach an exquisitely minute, seamless level.

Under such circumstances, even if the qi and blood within his body were as vast and surging as the sea, he would still appear much the same on the outside—pale and thin, as though a slightly stronger wind could blow him away.

With the way of lying low so popular these days, was this really planning to turn him into an Old Sixth?

Jiang Lan actually felt that after obtaining absolute strength, openly and uprightly displaying one's talent and cultivation would make it easier to acquire resources and all kinds of connections.

Still, he had no use for those things at present.

Before long, the City Lord's Mansion became busy.

City Lord Wang Anming personally gave the order, instructing the steward to purchase all kinds of spirit fowl and Fierce Beast meat from the major shops and markets throughout the city to prepare medicinal cuisine for Jiang Lan.

As for Jiang Lan's "Heart-Devouring Sickness," even Uncle Ying, who was responsible for protecting him, did not know much about it.

He only knew that Jiang Lan had been frail and sickly since childhood, and that it flared up every so often.

As for the exact cause, he did not know, nor did he dare ask.

Even in Jingyang City, the Imperial Capital, there were rarely any rumors concerning Jiang Lan's illness.

The world believed that his physical constitution was the reason he could not cultivate.

Even those aristocratic clans who knew that Jiang Lan seemed to have cultivated before kept silent, not daring to speak carelessly. By unspoken mutual understanding, it had become a certain "taboo" that could not be discussed.

Meanwhile, in Yuyi City, Su Manor.

A broad, exquisite redwood plaque embossed in gold hung high above the courtyard gates, with stone lions standing on either side, lending the place an exceedingly imposing air.

News that, after the City Lord had invited all parties to a night banquet that day, the Su Family's eldest daughter, Su Qinghan, had not returned to Su Manor but remained behind alone—and had not come home for two days—had long since spread rapidly through the deliberate efforts of Yuyi City's major families.

In pavilions and teahouses everywhere, it had become the topic of countless conversations before tea and after meals.

Some spoke of it with great relish, clicking their tongues in wonder. Some beat their chests in grief. Others voiced their envy outright, saying that the Su Family was surely about to climb a lofty branch.

Naturally, some were jealous as well, sneering that the Su Family's eldest daughter was one to chase power and favor, clinging to dragons and phoenixes.

Others called her a beautiful viper with a vicious heart, claiming that she and the Prime Minister's son had long been carrying on in secret. Dissatisfied with her engagement to Lin Fan, she supposedly wanted to use the Prime Minister's son to get rid of Lin Fan.

That was why she had secretly met with the Prime Minister's son at Snow Moon Pavilion, only to be discovered by Lin Fan. Consumed by rage, Lin Fan had then ended up bearing the charge of assassinating the Prime Minister's son...

Of course, those who said such things were found by the City Lord's Mansion patrol guards before long. Their tongues were cut out in public, and on charges of colluding with assassins and slandering the Prime Minister's Manor, they were thrown into prison.