[…]
[This Month’s Cheat Device: Eternal Life Taoist Fruit (Non-Unique Cheat Device)]
[Fate Points: 7]
Last month brought no major breakthrough, so Han’s Fate Points stayed steady at seven—fittingly, matching his seventh cheat device. A number humming with a strange, willful vibe. Those points? Visible, tantalizing, but useless for now.
“Eternal Life Taoist Fruit?” Han murmured, zeroing in on the note after the name. Non-Unique Cheat Device? Did that mean there were piles of these out there?
A flood of info hit his mind, clarifying the concept. “Non-unique” didn’t mean others wielded this exact cheat device—something this bizarre was his alone. It meant the Eternal Life Taoist Fruit didn’t need the encore draw to pop up again. Future monthly resets could spit out a fresh one, no strings attached. The first six—like the Great Thousand Immortal Tree—lacked this tag, marking them as one-offs, exclusive to the encore pool. This month’s prize was a standout.
“Where do these cheat devices even come from?” Han wondered. “Is there a warehouse stuffed with Eternal Life Taoist Fruits somewhere?” Curiosity gnawed at him. “What’s this thing do?”
The text shifted, revealing more:
[Eternal Life Taoist Fruit: A fruit of boundless longevity. Your lifespan stands still—time’s blade, life’s decay, all burdens fall upon it!]
Got it—epiphany unlocked! This month’s cheat was a fruit forged from ten thousand years of lifespan. While active, any drain on his longevity—natural or otherwise—got dumped onto the fruit. It took the hit; his own clock froze. No matter how much it burned through, Han stayed untouched.
The info faded, the reset wrapping up. Han scratched his head, muttering, “Eternal Life Taoist Fruit… why does this feel like those longevity hacks from the immortal protagonists in my old life’s novels?” Those “leads” had endless years to outlast the ages. It jogged his pre-reset wish: Gimme a cheat for instant ascension. Good news? It kinda made him immortal-like. Bad news? Only in lifespan.
And not just immortal-like—ten thousand years blew past any known record in this world’s solid history, myths aside. Even the Yang God realm, fabled for deathless longevity, was a fairy tale with no proof anyone’d hit it. For this month, Han outstripped mythic powerhouses in one arena.
Was this cheat clutch? Hell yeah—ten thousand years dumped on his twenty-two-year-old self was as good as eternal life. But… it only lasted a month. After soaking up thirty days of wear, it’d vanish with the next reset. Immortal for a blink—more like a one-month life extension.
That “non-unique” tag clicked: the fruit held ten thousand years, shedding a month left it at 9,999 years and eleven months. A future reset could bring a brand-new one, full tank. But if the encore draw snagged it later, he’d get this used-up version—unless he drained it dry first. A zeroed-out fruit wouldn’t reappear in the pool.
“Would’ve preferred a straight-up Forever Fruit or Longevity Fruit,” Han grumbled. “Wait, no—this setup’s actually better for me.” A true Longevity Fruit would scream high-tier but lock as a one-shot deal—used once, gone for good outside encore draws, leaving no wiggle room. The Eternal Life Taoist Fruit’s non-unique status gave him two paths to snag it again. A month of ten thousand years or true longevity? Same diff—one life couldn’t burn through that anyway.
“Gotta squeeze this cheat for all it’s worth,” Han mused, brain churning. Letting it just offset natural aging was a waste for a spry guy like him. A month’s trickle? Pointless. Does Lord Han need an extra thirty days?
“Beyond natural decay, it covers all lifespan hits…” Ideas sparked. He couldn’t let the fruit’s longevity just tick away passively—he had to push it. Time to “court death” a little.
Checking his body, he found no trace of the fruit—typical. Some cheats, like the Heaven and Earth Bank, were ghost-like too—just cash, no form. Didn’t matter; it worked, and that’s what counted.
Decision made, Han bolted out, banging on Lu Qingmo’s door. It swung open on its own—she wasn’t asleep. “What’s up?” she asked, eyeing him.
“I… I just remembered some questions.”
“Like what?”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“As cultivation climbs, our lifespan stretches too, right?”
She nodded. “Obviously. Hit either the Taoist Yin God or Martial True Blood realm, and your lifespan jumps big-time. Even short of that, you’re looking at a hundred years baseline. Manifestation or Marrow Cleansing folks keep their strength into old age—blood and body don’t tank too hard with a little help from treasures.”
Aging wasn’t just a martial artist’s curse; cultivators faced it too. Flesh faded faster than soul—when the body couldn’t hold the spirit, game over. Day Roaming or Bone Refining eased that late-life slump; Manifestation or Marrow Cleansing made it a non-issue with decent loot. That was for old age, not death’s doorstep—months left meant no treasure could lock in vitality. Yin God or True Blood? Whole new ballgame.
“Manifestation or Marrow Cleansing gets you a century…” Han ran some quick mental math—past-life calculus flexing—and grinned. This month, his lifespan equaled a hundred generations of those cultivators stacked together. Score!
“A hundred years isn’t long,” Lu Qingmo said, shaking her head. “Take the demon clan’s Age Emperor—over five centuries and still kicking, nowhere near tapped out.”
Lifespan talk stirred her own worries. It was her lingering hang-up with Han. Stuck at Manifestation, she’d max out at a century without longevity boosts—wrinkles creeping in late-game, beauty fading to white hair. Han’s talent, though? He’d breeze past that hurdle and keep climbing. She’d be gray while he stayed in his prime, youthful and endless. Later, she’d waste away on a cot, a husk, while he, blazing like the midday sun, watched her go—alone by a cold grave. Heart-wrenching stuff.
Beauties and heroes don’t get white hair in the tales. For high-tier cultivators, a decade’s age gap was nothing—Age Emperor types laughed at ten years. The real kicker? She couldn’t keep pace, doomed to watch him soar, then him watching her fade. The Sacred Revival Liquid offered a slim hope, but slim it stayed.
Han missed her inner turmoil, too busy praising his fruit. Lifespan champ, you’re killing it!
“So, there’s gotta be ways to burn lifespan in this world, right?”
Lu Qingmo frowned. “Why ask that?”
“With so much lifespan, letting it just slip away naturally feels like a waste!”
“…”
His logic threw her. Natural lifespan drain—a waste? Wasn’t that just life’s cycle? Did he think speeding it up was somehow less wasteful?
“Burning lifespan means dying faster,” she warned. “Avoiding extra loss is the best deal going. Han, you good up there?”
Oh, I’d love to torch ten thousand years right now! He caught his slip—Lu Qingmo didn’t know he was sitting on a lifespan goldmine.
“Not what I meant,” he backpedaled. “Just curious—got any tricks that eat lifespan, Aunt Mo?”
Her look got weirder. “What’re you plotting?”
“Nothing! Just wondering, wanna see.”
Kid, that’s a dangerous train of thought. “Anything—arts, martial moves, artifacts—that chews through lifespan is forbidden stuff,” she cautioned. “Mess with it, and you’ll only screw yourself.”
“I’m not messing around,” Han said, all sincerity. “Do I look like I’m done with life, Aunt Mo? I’m young, got tons to live for—no way I’d touch forbidden junk. Just hit me out of nowhere, got curious.”
The Eternal Life Taoist Fruit was unexplainable—trickier than any prior cheat. Ten thousand years in this world? Pure madness—nobody’d buy it; they’d think he’d lost it. Even if he stormed the Heavenly Mother Sect screaming, “I’ve got ten grand to live!” those heretics would peg him as a nutcase. We butcher evil arts and still don’t end up this loony—yet a righteous kid’s gone off the deep end? Who’s the real villain here? Xuandu Temple’s gone too far.
Lu Qingmo studied him, saw he seemed sane, and nodded. “I do have one forbidden art that uses lifespan.”
“What’s it do?”
She paused, then said, “Burns all your remaining years to force a breakthrough past cultivation bottlenecks.”
Han’s eyes lit up, then widened in shock. Given her situation, he pieced together why she’d nabbed it. “Aunt Mo, you…”
“In my darkest, most desperate days, when I couldn’t accept my limits—yeah, I considered it,” she admitted calmly. “Force a break with forbidden arts, see if it’d work. But over the years, I let it go. Wouldn’t have remembered it if you hadn’t asked.”
Han went quiet, gathering his words. “Aunt Mo, the future’s long—decades of twists and turns, endless possibilities. If you’ve dropped it, don’t look back.”
“If I can talk about it with you, it’s proof I’ve moved on,” she said. “Besides, even using it wouldn’t guarantee a breakthrough—just a chance. Fail, and the backlash hits instantly—lifespan gone, dead on the spot.”
“What, it’s not a sure thing?” Han’s excitement deflated.
“Of course not,” she said, eyeing him like he’d lost it. “If it were, every Manifestation cultivator stuck at a wall could blast to Yin God, pile on more years, and keep going. No art like that exists.”
Fair point—if burning a Manifestation lifespan guaranteed Yin God, it’d be a steal; Yin God meant more life. That’d flip it from forbidden to miraculous—too good to be true.
“Even if it works, scorching your life to force it wrecks your foundation,” she added. “You’d be weaker than peers, stuck forever—no more progress.”
Han’s interest tanked. No guarantee, crippled base, no growth? Poison, not power. The fruit could eat the lifespan cost, but the side effects would still slam him. Pass.
Still, he couldn’t resist. “Can’t it use lifespan for training instead?”
“Nope,” she shot down. “It’s built to smash bottlenecks—nothing else. What’s with you?”
“Nothing…” Han mulled it over. A rare lifespan art—couldn’t let it slip, even if he wouldn’t use it yet. Seeing a forbidden art up close? Worth it.
“Aunt Mo, to keep you from ever circling back to that burnout plan…” He squared up, radiating honor. “Hand that forbidden art over—I’ll hold onto it. Can’t let you stray down that path!”