No Money to Cultivate Immortality?

No Money to Cultivate Immortality?

Li Xuelian: A few Civil Engineering jobs—want them? Might run into someone you know.

Yu Xinghan: I'll take them.

Li Xuelian: You wouldn’t want your classmates finding out you’re running an underground massage parlor, would you?

Yu Xinghan: Got it. I’ll go in disguise.

Looking at Li Xuelian’s messages, Yu Xinghan couldn’t help but think: the Civil Engineering Department held massive potential for massage gigs. No way he was letting that market slip away.

He recalled practicing the Appearance-Shifting Technique under Xinghuo Zhenren’s guidance back on the first floor with Zhang Yu. At that time, he hadn’t understood the urgency. Now he sighed inwardly, “Master really was farsighted—he knew we’d end up doing shady stuff up here.”

He couldn’t help but wonder, “Maybe Master started out giving massages too.”

As the order details came in from Li Xuelian, Yu Xinghan’s body rippled and shifted, transforming into a completely unfamiliar face.

“Sigh… such a pity that Senior Sister doesn’t like massages.”

Back in his training days at the massage parlor, all he ever dreamed about was having Senior Sister massage him.

Now that he was an underground massage therapist, all he wanted was to give her a massage—to repay her kindness.

Yu Xinghan figured this might be what people meant by "growing up."

He reached the destination, clocked in, got to work, wrapped up...

And as he left, he smiled and said, “Bro, if you liked it, hit me up again.”

After his part-time gig, Yu Xinghan raced over to the underground graveyard for overtime at the construction site.

This time, he and Zhang Yu were assigned to the same zone. From afar, he spotted a humanoid Qi construct pacing back and forth, hard at work.

“Zhang Yu’s control over his Martial Qi constructs is getting scary.”

Even as Yu Xinghan was thinking that, the humanoid construct suddenly charged at him.

Zhang Yu’s voice rang out: “Since we’re both here, let’s get some sparring in.”

Yu Xinghan chuckled. “You think you can fight me with just one construct? That’s a bit arrogant.”

He’d improved a lot recently. His part-time job was raking in extra cash, his Three-Eyed Divine Sight had supercharged his training, and working in the graveyard meant he could absorb energy from the Spirit Vein for hours on end…

Seeing the Qi construct charge in, he let out a low shout. His right palm surged with Martial Qi and slammed forward.

With a loud boom, the construct exploded into fragments.

Yu Xinghan thought he had crushed it, but from within the blast emerged a bone-white skeleton radiating frigid aura. It, too, lashed out with a palm strike aimed at his chest.

“Huh?”

Yu Xinghan’s eyes widened.

In his experience, Zhang Yu’s Qi constructs were clever at deflecting force, but never that sturdy. They usually broke easily and had to be regenerated at a heavy Mana cost.

But this skeletal construct was something else—it was tough as iron and ice-cold to the touch.

As they clashed again and again, Yu Xinghan felt the frigid chill seeping into his bones. This thing wasn’t just strong—it was dangerous.

After several blows, Zhang Yu reinforced the skeleton with another surge of Martial Qi, restoring it to the full humanoid form of a Qi construct.

Yu Xinghan now understood.

“Zhang Yu froze his Martial Qi to form an internal ‘skeleton,’ giving his constructs a structural backbone.”

“Then he wraps the skeleton with regular Qi, creating an outer ‘flesh’ layer.”

“Normal attacks might break the outer ‘flesh,’ but the skeleton underneath remains intact.”

“Reapply the Qi ‘flesh,’ and the construct is back in action.”

“This tactic is getting way too polished…”

Yu Xinghan realized the only way to break this was to destroy both the ‘skin’ and the ‘bones’ in a single blow.

“Heh, try out my newly advanced level-15 technique.”

With a sudden surge of energy, he unleashed the Dragon Elephant Vajra Palm—an evolved form of the Dragon Elephant Mountain-Crushing Palm.

Unlike the original, which relied purely on brute force, the Vajra version fused explosive Martial Qi into his muscle fibers, intensifying his physical power without letting the Qi leak out. It was a close-combat Technique tailored for him by Xinghuo Zhenren.

With a shout, his arm turned golden as surging Qi filled every tendon and muscle.

He struck out with a palm. The air screamed and seemed to implode around his strike.

The Qi construct retaliated with the same move—Zhang Yu had recorded Yu Xinghan’s previous palm strike and embedded its force into the counter.

The two palms collided with a thunderous crash.

Under Yu Xinghan’s blow, the ‘flesh’ of the construct cracked and shattered outward. Even the ‘skeleton’ creaked, spiderwebbed with fractures.

Just as he prepared another palm to finish it off, the cracked skeleton raised its arm—ready to counter with the same Dragon Elephant Vajra Palm.

Sensing the explosive Qi within, Yu Xinghan instantly leapt back. “Whoa, whoa! Time out!”

“This kind of fight is brutal—count me out.”

He didn’t want to take a taste of his own Vajra Palm. Even a minor injury would be a massive loss for him.

“You’ve already got that slippery Nine Heavens Cloudstride Force going,” he muttered.

“Now you’ve got this Qi construct strategy—deadly, relentless, and you get to stay safely hidden behind the lines.”

“You’d make a hell of a security guard, you know that?”

Yu Xinghan could easily imagine Zhang Yu in a real battle. Enemies might think they’d beaten him after destroying his construct—

“They’ll realize too late that the real guy is tougher than the construct. They’d be better off just punching Qi.”

Yu Xinghan frowned harder and harder.

“The only flaw in this strategy is that maintaining these constructs burns through Mana like crazy.”

He thought it through.

“Target the real body? Useless. Attack the Qi construct? Can’t use full force or you’ll just hurt yourself from the recoil.”

“So the best tactic is... slow attrition. Wear down his constructs gradually.”

“But that takes forever. He burns Mana, but I’m burning muscle and stamina.”

“Even worse…”

Yu Xinghan remembered something else. “God knows what shady deal he made with Le Mulan, but now every one of their moves leaks cold Qi.”

“If you drag out the fight, you’re more likely to get frostbite than win.”

“Disgusting.”

The more he thought, the more nauseous he felt. Every outcome was a net loss. His mind filled with red ink and repair bills. Just imagining it made him sick.

“Thank goodness he’s my bro—I've given him money, borrowed money from him.”

“If anyone needs to suffer, let them go fight Zhang Yu.”

Zhang Yu, meanwhile, was thrilled with the results.

“Nice, very nice. My upgraded Qi construct can now tank Yu Xinghan’s full-force palm strike.”

From simple Qi arms to full-body constructs to this new variant—frozen skeleton-based constructs—his work efficiency had jumped several levels. This was the fruit of his tireless experimentation.

The base form, made of Formless Cloud Qi, he called the Formless Golem.

The upgraded skeletal version, empowered by the Frost Abyss Technique, was the Frost Golem.

The Formless Golem was faster, easier to summon (instantaneous), but weaker and less durable.

The Frost Golem was slower, more Mana-intensive, and took at least five seconds to generate, but had vastly better structural integrity and Qi conduction.

Zhang Yu calculated: “With my current Mana, I can either summon 6 Formless Golems or 2 Frost Golems.”

“But for full-power operations, I can only sustain 1 Frost Golem or 3 Formless Golems at a time.”

“Still, once my Mana Pulse Flowing Stream improves, I should be able to increase that number.”

He smiled at Yu Xinghan. “Worried about getting hurt? Let’s switch it up.”

“I’ll help stimulate your Spirit Root. Still not at full fusion yet, right?”

With a breath of Qi, Zhang Yu summoned a Formless Golem and resumed sparring. This time, it wasn’t a fight—it was targeted physical stimulation to boost Yu Xinghan’s Spirit Root fusion.

In the following days, since they shared the same work zone, Zhang Yu took every spare moment to help him train.

Until, one day—

Yu Xinghan let out a roar. His Third Eye trembled violently, and his entire body pulsed with energy.

“My Spirit Root fusion is at 100%!”

He could feel it—his control over flesh and Qi had reached a new level. His speed and power, both physical and magical, had increased by over 10%.

Zhang Yu nodded in satisfaction.

“With the Three-Eyed Divine Sight upgraded to Level 2, full Spirit Root fusion is done. Next goal: 500+ Mana.”

“He’ll hit that before the semester ends.”

The only downside? Mana accumulation had to be done solo. Zhang Yu could feed him blood occasionally, but—

Give him money?

Forget it. Zhang Yu barely had enough for himself. There was no way he was giving out handouts.

And so, as June drew to a close—

The graveyard project officially ended, and Zhang Yu’s Mana Pulse Flowing Stream finally reached Level 8.

Superior—Mana Pulse Flowing Stream (8/8):

The more Breathing Techniques mastered, the less extra Mana loss during operation of Mana and Mana-derived constructs.