Su Changsheng

Biodata

Power Progression

Technique-tier terminology varies between panels. Experience caps distinguish the two documented Green Snake Breathing upgrades.

By his second shedding’s aftermath, cultivation yields two realm-experience points every two hours. He continues working toward level four, but no level-four breakthrough is documented 39 46.

Background / History

Su Changsheng was an ordinary office worker on Earth before abruptly transmigrating into a Green Snake Half-Demon in the Black Mountain Demon Stockade. He inherited fragmented memories from the body’s previous owner, whose knowledge was largely limited to the stockade 1 2.

His parents in his previous life were farmers. During his impoverished childhood, the family sold most of its slaughtered pig and kept the blood and tail; his parents reserved the tail for him. He remembers those meals fondly and connects his present determination to cultivate with the relentless studying that once offered him a way out of poverty 21 32.

Appearance

• Build: Half-human, half-snake, with a large serpentine tail used for movement and combat 1 30 40.
• Scales: Originally green; after his second shedding, they become green tinged with black and acquire a deep, dark luster 25 36.
• Protective scales: His largest post-shedding scale covers his spine and the area behind his heart. Later cultivation makes his scales ring with a metallic clang when struck 36 41.
• Reverse scales: Located near his neck and capable of storing demon power. Their number and size increase as he grows stronger 11 27 36.
• Disguises: Can turn his scales and tail white, though concealing his increasing body size remains difficult 11 36.

Personality

Su Changsheng values survival over prestige or rapid advancement. He deliberately appears weak, rehearses negotiations, delays breakthroughs until conditions are safer, and repeatedly changes disguises to shake off pursuers. He is willing to postpone shedding rather than attempt it without sufficient preparations 1 4 15 24 30.

His submissiveness toward stronger yao is calculated rather than sincere. He flatters Black Tiger while privately resenting his exploitation, then publicly exaggerates the tiger’s favor to discourage attacks from other half-demons. Nevertheless, he recognizes that Black Tiger’s continued rule can offer more stability than an unknown replacement 5 6 15.

Patient and industrious, he maintains a demanding routine of cultivation, rune study, and crafting despite repeated failures. Poor aptitude frustrates him, but he does not treat his survival-point advantage as a substitute for effort 7 15 21 34.

Abilities & Skills

Survival Game Interface

An interface appears in his mind at midnight and awards points according to his survival-related conduct 1.

• Point expenditure: Improves cultivation methods, demon arts, rune methods, and innate talents; his realm cannot be raised directly with points 1 11 22 33.
• Reward sources: Include avoiding danger, securing food, learning skills, and completing long-term preparations 11 12 16.
• Evaluations: Receives a Good rating worth 52 points for his Black Tiger scheme and 400 points for the successful second shedding 7 39.
• Quiet accumulation: Even uneventful days provide small settlements. Nearly a month of modest rewards brings his stored total to 987 points 47.

Green Snake Breathing Method

His principal cultivation method draws in spiritual energy and converts available bodily resources into demon power and realm progress 1 17 25.

• Works best at midnight; blood food enables additional daytime cultivation 1 6 15.
• Higher-tier practice creates a faint spiritual-energy vortex and restores demon power efficiently 17.
• Consumes substantial food, vitality, and energy. His poor natural aptitude keeps resources a persistent bottleneck 2 25.
• Each realm breakthrough can sharply reduce his experience-gain rate until further improvements compensate 12 25 39.

Turtle Breath Art

A concealment technique that regulates breathing, blood flow, heart rate, and demon power 11.

• Suppresses his presence as effectively as a Concealment Rune, with greater stability and duration 11.
• Conceals breakthrough surges and allows him to display a lower cultivation level 11 27.
• Alters aspects of his appearance and aura, including changing his green scales to white and replacing an icy aura with apparent warmth 11.
• Cannot readily disguise the full extent of his physical growth 36.

Snake Saliva Ice / Minor Poison Breath

His original innate talent produces freezing material that he trades to Black Tiger. Following his second shedding, it evolves into Minor Poison Breath 4 5 35.

• Freezing attack: Before evolution, a sufficiently prepared breath can freeze everything within one meter almost instantly 27.
• Original limitation: Requires lengthy preparation and cannot be used repeatedly within a short period, making it best suited to ambushes 27.
• Poison evolution: Adds corrosion to the freezing effect, demonstrated against an invading Mutant Rat Demon 35.
• Poison control: Can regulate the poison content to reproduce ordinary-looking snake saliva ice and conceal his talent’s evolution 36.
• Trace suppression: Uses freezing breath to seal blood, supplies, and scents against ordinary tracking methods 30.

Stone-Shattering Art

A Stone Demon-derived technique that uses controlled vibrations of demon power to resonate with external spiritual energy 21.

• Excavates tunnels and underground chambers; its upgraded form pulverizes stone rather than merely cracking it 21 22 40.
• Can strike without contact at a documented range of one meter after its practiced-tier upgrade 22.
• Can be transmitted through weapons or his tail. Channeling it through a stone club increases power by 30% but destroys the club 22 30.
• At level three, permits about twenty uses, with roughly two and a half minutes between attacks 25.
• Stone-Forging training later reduces the interval to approximately two minutes and allows a concentrated strike to bore more than five meters into rock 46.

Stone-Forging Art

A body-tempering technique that draws stone onto selected body parts and extracts its essence to strengthen them 45.

• Shares principles with Stone-Shattering Art, making the two techniques mutually reinforcing 46.
• Its first successful session nearly doubles his strength, enabling seven- or eight-meter leaps and the lifting of several-tonne boulders 46.
• Improves defense and resistance to Stone-Shattering Art’s backlash 46.
• At his documented level, insufficient demon power, blood qi, and control prevent simultaneous whole-body tempering 46.

Talisman Crafting

Rune crafting is his strongest demonstrated aptitude and a major source of food, survival points, and defensive preparations 11 15 32.

• Intermediate runes remain difficult to manufacture even after point-assisted advancement: documented success rates are approximately one in thirty to one in fifty 34.
• Advancing intermediate rune methods produces runic traces in his scales and slight improvements to strength, flexibility, defense, agility, and healing 33.

Equipment / Items

• Black snow — Snow altered by prolonged exposure to Black Tiger’s demon power. He hangs it beneath his eaves and displays it as evidence of the tiger’s protection 5 6.
• Stone club / spiked club — An improvised weapon; a Stone-Shattering test destroys the spiked club 12 22.
• Blood food stores — Carefully rationed provisions for cultivation and recovery. Later consumption reaches at least ten jin per day 25 41.
• Wraith Eye and Wraith Beast flesh — Acquired from the Eagle Yao; the purified blood food is consumed after his second shedding 19 34.
• Toad Oil — Buys ten jars for five Concealment Runes, intending to combine them with body tempering 45.
• Underground refuge — A spiraling tunnel more than fifty meters beneath the surface, protected by numerous rune traps. He avoids lighting fires because heat-seeking Wraith Beasts may penetrate rock 40.

Relationships

• Black Tiger Yao — Tribute collector, exploiter, and conditional protector. Su Changsheng supplies snake saliva ice, uses the tiger’s reputation to deter robbers, and conceals his progress from its surveillance 1 5 6 7.
• Little Four / Fox Woman — Talisman agent and wary business partner. They arrange half-monthly trades of seven to ten runes; she later abandons an ambush plan and orders an investigation aimed at recruiting him into her organization 28 37.
• Eagle Yao — Blood-food supplier and intermediary. Trades Wraith Beast material and a Purification Talisman method to him; also serves Little Four 18 19 37.
• Turtle Yao — Source of the Turtle Breath Art. Regards a half-snake cultivating a turtle technique as an ill-fitting combination 10.
• Wu Niao / Bird Yao and Bird Woman — Neighbors and information contacts. Su Changsheng reassures Bird Woman about her absent husband and pays Bird Yao with a Hair-Shedding Rune for useful news 24 32 47.
• Male Fox — Neighbor whose unwanted invitations give way to hostility. His uncanny transformation creates an early crisis that Su Changsheng survives through concealment and hibernation 8 9 15.
• Wolf Yao — Replaces Black Tiger as the area’s ruler. Its subordinates’ violent collection practices deepen Su Changsheng’s concern about the stockade’s instability 24 32.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Establishing a Livelihood

• Survives Black Tiger’s initial threats by paying tribute, including two reverse scales, before discovering the survival interface 1.
• Turns snake saliva ice production into a food supply and borrows Black Tiger’s apparent protection to discourage local predation 4 5 6.
• Survives the Male Fox’s uncanny attacks, obtains Turtle Breath Art, and secretly reaches level two 8 9 10 11.

Market Trading and Secret Advancement

• Expands his rune repertoire and trades Concealment Runes for food as unrest drives prices upward 14 15 18 19.
• Excavates a hidden breakthrough chamber and reaches level three without publicly revealing it 21 22 24 25.
• Establishes the White Snake identity’s trading arrangement with Little Four, then kills an underground pursuer and meticulously erases the encounter’s traces 28 30.

Second Shedding and Public Misdirection

• Prepares talismans, traps, and purified Wraith Beast blood food for his second shedding; the resulting transformation evolves his freezing talent 33 34 35.
• Acknowledges level three to Little Four under his White Snake identity, while presenting his ordinary Green Snake identity as newly advanced to level two 37 39.
• Sells more than two hundred shedding-related talismans. Reports of other yao advancing with the runes bury attention to his own apparent breakthrough 39 40.

Stronghold Crisis

• Moves into a deeper refuge and pursues body tempering as refugees from the collapsed Left Stronghold worsen local tensions 40 45 46 47.
• Refuses suspicious arts and blood food rather than accepting uncertain risks for faster progress 42 43.
• When Black Tiger returns and fights Wolf Yao, avoids the deadly fleeing crowd and retreats farther beneath the mountain 49.

Notable Quotes

“Being human is hard. Being a demon is hard. Being a human-demon hybrid is harder still.” 1

“Staying alive was the foundation of everything!” 7

“I suppose this is life...”

“This... is civilization!” 31