Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn relied on his Life Bank ability to survive while investing days of his life in Xia Qin and Lei Huo Ren for their skills and experience. As he grew closer to becoming a Professional, he considered finding more targets before his approaching college entrance exam.

• Lu PingAn woke with 4965 Life Points, still owing the Life Bank and facing a monthly repayment.
• Xia Qin returned from an overnight assignment, and Lu PingAn used his ability to restore her energy while losing a Life Point.
• Lu PingAn settled the returns from investing in Xia Qin and gained combat fighting and firearm experience from her memories.
• Lu PingAn received returns from Lei Huo Ren, gaining running and breathing skills, Space Perception, and progress toward the Ground Shrinking spell.
• With fifteen days left until the college entrance exam, Lu PingAn decided he needed more investment targets despite the cost to his lifespan.

Lu PingAn recalled how his parents fought to save him from terminal cancer and how he became a Night Walker after conventional treatment failed. He survived a god-level secret realm with a life-extending ability and gained control of Secluded Courtyard and its captive demigod, Kerdales, leaving him to taunt her while seeking a way to survive.

• Lu PingAn remembered his parents selling their possessions and borrowing money to pay for his cancer treatment, which ultimately failed to save him.
• With only half a month to live, Lu PingAn became a Night Walker and survived a secret realm, awakening the Life Bank ability and gaining a bound Secret Realm Key.
• Lu PingAn opened Secluded Courtyard, where Kerdales, the Saint Beast of Life, was bound by his rules and forced to clean.
• Kerdales threatened to break free and devour Lu PingAn's soul, while he dismissed the danger because he had only months to live.
• Lu PingAn ordered Kerdales to take human form and wear a Maid Outfit, then teased her and tried to photograph her as she angrily resisted.

Lu PingAn ignored Chris’s offers to save his life and treated her as a captive spirit, then decided to prepare for the Keeper entrance exam despite having only fifteen days. He ended the chapter planning to find experienced supernatural practitioners who could teach him quickly.

• Chris offered Lu PingAn power, wealth, and charm in exchange for his release, but he refused and kept asking whether any offer could keep her alive until next year.
• Lu PingAn shut himself in to play games, eat, and enjoy the things he had abstained from, then asked Chris to look away while he read hentai doujinshi, prompting her to disconnect in anger.
• Lu PingAn considered Chris’s dangerous advice and decided to wear her down before trusting her as a guide, while concealing his own needs to maintain leverage.
• Lu PingAn reviewed the entrance exam materials Xia Qin had obtained and realized he had only fifteen days to catch up on the Keeper curriculum.
• Lu PingAn decided to find experienced supernatural practitioners who could help him prepare faster.

Lu PingAn met Lei Huo Ren and his younger sister Lei Shui Yun, then offered her a discounted trial of his Life Enhancement ability. Lei Shui Yun accepted, each expecting to outsmart the other, as Lu PingAn prepared to turn her into a new regular customer.

• Lu PingAn arrived at Chaser Gymnasium and used his investment ability on Lei Huo Ren, who immediately raced off to train and left Lei Shui Yun behind.
• Lei Shui Yun introduced herself as a student preparing for the college entrance exams and questioned Lu PingAn about his ability and prices.
• Lu PingAn raised Lei Shui Yun's daily price to twelve hundred, then demonstrated his Life Enhancement ability and revealed a clear Voice of Rules to her.
• Lei Shui Yun recognized the ability as a powerful rule-type talent and tried to get free guidance, but Lu PingAn pressed her to decide whether to make the deal.
• Lei Shui Yun agreed to a one-day trial for six hundred, planning not to renew, while Lu PingAn expected the experience to persuade her to keep paying.

Lu PingAn completed the Chaser’s demanding Runner job-change ceremony after using his ability to defer the cost of his exhaustion. He unlocked the Runner profession and learned that focused training could let him master Ground Shrinking and become a Tier 1 Professional within fifteen days.

• Lu PingAn struggled through running practice and worried that his slow gains would keep him from changing jobs before the college entrance exam.
• Lu PingAn deferred three days of stamina costs with Life’s Deferred Payment, reducing his fatigue and accelerating his run.
• Lu PingAn used his professional running and breathing techniques to complete the five-kilometer ceremony and become a Tier 0 Runner.
• Lu PingAn’s panel revealed that Ground Shrinking required his two profession skills at Lv4, Spatial Perception Lv1, and full insights.
• Lu PingAn looked at the two clients running on the field and encouraged them to keep working so he could collect more shared gains.

Lu PingAn chose the Runner profession and observed how his ability helped Lei Huo Ren and Lei Shui Yun train, while learning that Lei Shui Yun’s innate ability was Cat. Shui Yun ate cat food after running short of money, and a group of Cat Lovers gathered to investigate the disappearance of their Sacred Beast.

• Lu PingAn took the Runner profession, decided against taking more part-time professions, and watched Lei Huo Ren and Lei Shui Yun train using his ability.
• Lu PingAn noticed Lei Shui Yun’s cat ears and tail and realized her innate ability was Cat, which enhanced her strength and speed.
• Lei Shui Yun returned home and wrestled with Xiao Bai over Cat Biscuit, eating some before her brother’s meal-ticket offer arrived.
• A group of Cat Lovers gathered at a pet shop where the Sacred Beast had disappeared and examined drawings of its cat-headed, tiger-striped, snake-tailed emblem.

After burying thirteen fallen Secret Keepers, newly promoted Captain Xia Qin defended her decision to supervise Lu PingAn despite Lei Huo Ren’s fears about his unsettling nature. As pollution incidents worsened and the Bureau faced a severe personnel shortage, Xia Qin hoped Lu PingAn would grow strong while holding on to the family and home that gave him a reason to return.

• Xia Qin attended the burial of thirteen empty coffins, including four for Zion District’s Third Squad, and remembered how Lu PingAn had challenged the demigod behind the Tier ZZZ incident.
• Lei Huo Ren warned Xia Qin that Lu PingAn’s joy in the face of death and his dangerous potential made him more frightening than the Sophist.
• Xia Qin told Lei Huo Ren that pollution incidents and staff shortages were worsening, and that Gu Da students, including Lu PingAn and Lei Huo Ren’s younger sister, might join the Bureau as interns.
• An old acquaintance left a pet shop and wondered whether his former captain and colleagues would kill him if he contacted them.
• Xia Qin heard Lu PingAn cheerfully promise his family that he would repay their debts, and concluded that his attachment to them would bring him home even if he grew powerful and reckless.

Lu PingAn accompanied Xia Qin on a night patrol, learning about Keeper work while she arranged a manageable repayment plan for his debts. After they found three missing patrol cars and their officers arranged into a bloody display, the voice of Big Cat called Lu PingAn to talk.

• Lu PingAn complained about the patrol and his debts as Xia Qin explained his internship, the Keeper's pay, and the repayment plan she had arranged.
• Xia Qin took Lu PingAn across the city while she handled Pollution Items, supernatural criminals, and ordinary police cases, showing him how Keepers fought.
• Xia Qin noticed that three patrol cars had missed their check-in and tracked them down.
• Lu PingAn and Xia Qin found the officers' remains arranged as a bloody traffic light beside graffiti depicting a masked figure marked with a question mark.
• Xia Qin identified the figure as Sophist, while Big Cat spoke to Lu PingAn and offered to tell him which path suited him best.

Lu PingAn learned that Chris's followers might be searching for her through two holy relics, so they needed him to grow stronger and enter Gu University for safety. Chris judged that the Gardener path suited him, but Lu PingAn found it listed as the weakest path, the Logistics Department path.

• Xia Qin sent Lu PingAn home and ordered him not to go out or answer the door.
• Lu PingAn confronted Chris, who revealed that her followers could find her through holy relics and that hiding would not work.
• Chris explained that entering a secret realm like Gu University could block the relics' resonance, making Lu PingAn's safety and strength important to her.
• Lu PingAn asked Chris which path suited him, and she answered, "Gardener" before disappearing.
• Lu PingAn checked his reference book and discovered that the Gardener was the Logistics Department path, considered the weakest.

Lu PingAn secured a confidentiality contract with Lei Shui Yun and sent her to buy Demonic Plants and catnip while concealing his plans. When he checked the results of his daily harvesting, he discovered that she had become a Professional and gained progress in the Black Iron Grade curse art Spiderwalk.

• Lei Shui Yun brought Lu PingAn breakfast, and he teased her about catnip while confirming that they would work together.
• Lei Shui Yun presented a confidentiality contract covering both their abilities, and Lu PingAn checked it and signed.
• Lu PingAn offered Lei Shui Yun money to buy Demonic Plants from his list, then added catnip to the errand and asked her for receipts.
• After Lei Shui Yun left, Lu PingAn checked his harvesting results and discovered that he had gained insight into Spiderwalk, a curse art she had awakened as a Professional.

Lu PingAn reviewed the skills and memories he gained by investing in Xia Qin and the Lei Family Siblings, including his sister’s Spider Walk insights. After discovering that shared experiences could affect his impulses and tastes, he gave the Cat Biscuits he had bought to a junior schoolmate.

• Lu PingAn gained combat and firearm experience from Xia Qin, but noted that she still had not used her sword or found the cultist.
• Lu PingAn received substantial Runner training experience and Ground Shrinking insights from Lei Huo Ren, leveling up his Light Chasing Running Method and Swift Flash Breathing Method.
• Lu PingAn gained Spider Walk insights from Lei Huo Ren’s younger sister and learned that the spell required high levels of breathing, spatial perception, and reflexes.
• Lu PingAn realized that sharing could transmit everyday sensations, including his sister’s enjoyment of Cat Biscuits, and resolved to limit his investment targets to the Lei Family Siblings and Xia-jie.
• Lu PingAn tried the Cat Biscuits but spat them out because their taste differed from the memory he had received.
• Lu PingAn offered the Cat Biscuits to Big Cat, who angrily refused, so he gave them to a junior schoolmate instead.

Lu PingAn decided to complete the gardener profession’s alignment ritual in the Maiden of the Forest’s secret realm, with Cat Cat accompanying him. After learning that the realm was a slaughter game where the dead revived at the entrance, he became eager to go.

• Xia Qin approved Lu PingAn’s plan to become a gardener and arranged permits for him to enter the Forest Secret Realm near Lin Ci Hospital.
• Lu PingAn asked how secret realms were managed, and Xia Qin explained that Keepers of Secrets used divine pollution to reshape them into stable, useful places.
• Lu PingAn hired Cat Cat to accompany him into the secret realm, and she agreed while saying she had planned to go soon anyway.
• Cat Cat explained that the Maiden of the Forest’s realm rewarded people for killing pollution and Polluted Ones, while anyone killed there revived at the entrance.
• Lu PingAn realized he could practice fighting in the realm and eagerly set off with Cat Cat.

Lu PingAn visited the Lin Ci Secret Realm market with Lei Shui Yun, bought guides to prepare for becoming a Gardener, and offered Senior Sister Zhao Ying a trial of his support ability. His ability cleared Zhao Ying’s accumulated pollution instantly, leaving her stunned and eager for more.

• Lu PingAn explored the secret realm market and declined to buy a standard longsword and protective gear.
• Lei Shui Yun introduced Lu PingAn to Senior Sister Zhao Ying and the other university interns, who gave him a warning wristband and explained how it measured pollution.
• Zhao Ying pitched Lu PingAn a Plant Guide, a survival manual, and a costly six-month employment package, and he bought the two guides.
• Lu PingAn offered Zhao Ying a half-price trial of his support ability, and she agreed after Lei Shui Yun encouraged her.
• Lu PingAn’s Voice of Rules changed Zhao Ying’s wristband from red to white and instantly cleared the pollution she had been processing for days.
• Zhao Ying concealed her wristband and stared at Lu PingAn with fear and greed as he warned that his limited slots would soon cost more.

Lu PingAn discovered that his ability, Life Bank, let him treat life as a currency to trade and use efficiently, replacing Chris's truth in the secret realm. He immediately completed the Gardener Job Change by planting a Demonic Ancient Pine seed as he and Lei Shui Yun continued their journey.

• Lu PingAn realized his Life Points represented life itself and identified his truth as “Life can be traded.”
• His truth transformed the secret realm into the Life Bank, replacing Chris's Land of Life Gladiators.
• Lu PingAn understood that his upgraded Life Bank ability came from the Mother Goddess's Gift of Life and that the Gardener sequence suited him.
• Lu PingAn planted a Demonic Ancient Pine seed, which rapidly grew into an ancient tree.
• Lu PingAn received confirmation that his Job Change Ceremony was complete and he had obtained the Gardener class.

Lu PingAn completed his job change and became a Gardener, gaining two level-zero skills for cultivating and grafting polluted plants. He entered a vast secret realm to gather demonized plant seeds, where Lei Shui Yun warned that the forest was safe near the road unless they encountered robbers.

• Lu PingAn mocked Big Cat’s naïve reasoning, admitted he envied her and her world, and cut off their communication.
• Lu PingAn’s job-change ceremony granted him the Gardener profession and the skills Planting (Taboo) and Grafting (Pollution), both at level zero.
• Lu PingAn deduced that Gardeners depended on demonized plants for combat and learned from Chris that high-tier Gardeners could ripen plants directly.
• Lu PingAn entered a secret realm to collect demonized plant seeds and saw Gardeners seeking teams or bodyguards near the main road.
• Lei Shui Yun said the group would be safe near the road unless they ran into robbers, and Lu PingAn joked that she could become a jinx.

Lu PingAn used demonic plants and a ruthless bluff to ambush the Wasteland Four Wolves, a group targeting newcomers in the secret realm. After Cat Cat helped finish the fight, the surviving wolves revived at the entrance, where their boss claimed he had resisted Lu PingAn to the end.

• Lu PingAn spotted at least three cloaked stalkers and sent Lei Shui Yun away before luring them deeper into the forest.
• Lu PingAn trapped two members of the Wasteland Four Wolves with a supposed Baqilia Bloodsucking Vine and killed another with a Touch-Me-Not Mine.
• Lu PingAn questioned the surviving wolves about Purple Half-Dragon Grass, then used mines and a fake Blood-Sucking Vine threat to kill or incapacitate them.
• Cat Cat arrived and crushed one wolf, while Lu PingAn infected the last wolf with a supposedly lethal vine and killed him with a mine.
• The wolves revived at the secret realm's entrance, and their boss told his brothers he had kept Lu PingAn from learning anything.

Lu PingAn used his plant-ripening ability to kill four Professionals and collected their valuable gear, then headed for the forest exit with Cat Cat. After the Dragon Snake Group extorted them at a toll checkpoint, Lu PingAn left calmly and detonated the Touch-Me-Not Mines he had planted there.

• Lu PingAn explained to Cat Cat that his ability could mature plants, and the System's failed investment had mutated a Demonic Impatiens Balsamina Thunder into a Mature Body.
• Lu PingAn assessed the four Professionals' equipment and supplies as worth over ten thousand, despite costing him less than forty bucks to obtain.
• Lu PingAn and Cat Cat headed back toward the forest exit, where the Dragon Snake Group demanded a toll from lower-tier travelers.
• Lu PingAn handed over some seeds and left the checkpoint without resisting, while Cat Cat was angered by the extortion.
• After they passed the checkpoint, Lu PingAn's planted mines exploded among the Dragon Snake Group, and he smiled as he walked away.

Lu PingAn reviewed the dangers and timing of his installment ability while approaching the exit from the Three Ring Forest. There, System Master analyzed the Secret Realm’s feedback and offered him a choice of rewards, leaving him undecided.

• Lu PingAn calculated his upcoming installment deductions and noted that he needed to prepare medicine and avoid injuries around the payment times.
• Lei Shui Yun explained how to check pollution levels and described the strange rewards Professionals could receive when leaving a Secret Realm.
• Lu PingAn discovered that his Gift and Feedback of Life ability had prompted System Master to analyze the Secret Realm’s reward.
• The Three Ring Forest gave Lu PingAn an overall evaluation of B, and its master praised his kills through a message.
• System Master offered Lu PingAn four feedback options, but he hesitated over which one to choose.

After leaving the Secret Realm, Lu PingAn received a polluted Gardener Shovel and sold it for Credit Coins, then passed along a buff and called his father. He left with money, a purchase catalog to consider, and growing suspicion that the Secret Realm Master had deliberately rewarded him.

• Lu PingAn chose to pollute one of his items, and the reward settled on his Gardener Shovel as a useful Cursed Item.
• Lu PingAn sold the Rebirth Gardener Shovel to a Gardener Senior Brother for 700 Credit Coins, with 200 exchanged for cash.
• Lu PingAn learned why the shovel was valuable and suspected the Secret Realm Master had offered it as bait to bring him back.
• Lu PingAn failed to sell his other loot at Zhao Ying's stall, gave Senior Apprentice Li a free BUFF, and transferred money to his father.

Lu PingAn reflected on the violent nature of the Maiden of the Forest and headed home after Xia Qin called. At a fencing shop, he sold the Wilderness Four Wolves’ stolen equipment and silently warned them to keep quiet about his connection to the Dragon Snake Gang attack.

• Lu PingAn compared the Maiden of the Forest to Earth’s Diana and reconsidered the reputation of the Life Gods.
• Xia Qin called Lu PingAn, and he told her he was heading home while Cat Cat went to train.
• Lu PingAn encountered the Wilderness Four Wolves at a fencing shop and sold their equipment for ten thousand.
• The eldest wolf considered confronting Lu PingAn, but his brothers repeatedly restrained him.
• New arrivals discussed the Dragon Snake Gang attack and plant-type explosives, prompting the Wilderness Four Wolves to realize Lu PingAn was involved.
• Lu PingAn made a zipping gesture at the Wilderness Four Wolves, took his money, and left.