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    Crestwood was an unremarkable little town, a speck on the map with nothing to boast about. At the southern end of the town’s central market, tucked away in a narrow alley beneath a crumbling mud wall, lay a ragged young man in tattered clothes. Outside the alley, people bustled by, their footsteps echoing on the cobblestones, yet no one spared him a glance. Perhaps they’d grown too used to his presence to care.


    A streak of black lightning sliced silently across the sky. The young man’s body twitched, a low, pained groan escaping his lips. But neither the eerie flash nor his suffering drew a single curious eye.


    Just then, a girl—sixteen or seventeen years old—darted into the alley. Two middle-aged men trailed after her, shouting breathlessly, “Miss, wait! Miss, please!”


    The girl strode past the mud wall, her pace quickening. Maybe it was the relentless pursuit behind her that frayed her nerves, but she suddenly halted, whirled around, and shrieked, “Enough! Stop following me! Do you really want me to marry that wretched little toad?” Her voice cracked with fury as she flung the necklace clutched in her hand.


    The man in front raised an arm to shield himself. The necklace struck his hand, ricocheted outward in a wild arc, and—by sheer chance—landed square on the beggar’s forehead. The chain snapped, and fiery red beads spilled across the dirt, rolling in every direction like scattered embers.


    Alexander opened his eyes, consciousness flickering back to life. His first thought wasn’t the strange new surroundings or the chaotic echoes of a fractured journey through time and space. No—it was hunger. A gnawing, relentless hunger that clawed at his core.


    By all rights, Alexander’s willpower should’ve held firm against such a primal urge. He’d trained for years under a master unlike any other—a visionary who’d carved a unique path through the dying art of cultivation. “Spiritual energy is a resource,” his master had once said, voice grave and certain. “Like oil in your modern world. A thousand years from now, Earth might run dry of it, drained by greed and overuse. Long ago, cultivators thrived everywhere, soaking up vast reserves of qi. But today? It’s nearly gone. The old ways—breathing in the world’s essence—are as useless as a car without fuel. Museums might display them, but they won’t run.”


    His master had a radical theory: animals were a higher lifeform than plants, so why cling to plant-like methods of drawing qi from the air? “Science proves it,” he’d argued. “A single piece of bread, fully digested, can sustain a man for a day. Eating to fuel life—that’s the animal way. And if animals outrank plants, then this method outranks the old traditions.”


    In the ancient cultivation texts, energy from food was dismissed as crude “grain essence,” a lesser impurity compared to the pure “primordial qi.” But Alexander’s master saw it differently. “All energy traces back to the same source,” he’d insisted. And he’d proven it, walking a path no one else dared tread. While others mocked him as a glutton—his appetite was legendary, dwarfing even tales of old heroes who devoured half a cow in a sitting—time had silenced the skeptics. His peers withered and faded, their dreams of ascension crumbling to dust, while he endured. Alive, he held hope.


    Alexander had been lucky. When he began his training at sixteen, his master had already refined this unorthodox method into a practical system—stages, effects, everything mapped out. Alexander simply followed the blueprint. And it worked. In just seven years, he’d outstripped most of his peers, even the scions of ancient cultivation clans, earning a name among the young elite. His body could absorb nearly every scrap of what he ate—99.9% efficiency. On a good day, he could eat nonstop, a walking furnace of power.


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    But then his body had been destroyed. In that final moment, he’d clung to his master’s words: “Death isn’t the end.” Trusting that promise, fueled by sheer will, his soul had refused to fade. It tore through a nameless void, a tunnel of chaos, and landed here—in this broken shell of a beggar.


    Whoever this body once belonged to, its energy was spent, its soul long gone. Alexander’s own essence was a faint ember, and the hunger roared louder than ever, drowning out reason.


    His bleary eyes caught the glint of scattered red beads. Energy! Instinct screamed it. With a jerky, desperate lunge, he snatched one and shoved it into his mouth, swallowing it whole. He didn’t care what it was. After reaching the Foundation stage, he’d eaten stranger things—warm jade from the Frost Peaks, fire crystals from the Ember River, even stardust sand. To him, anything with energy was food, and he could strip it bare.


    “Hey—that’s not edible!” the girl yelped, wide-eyed. Her necklace had been crafted from low-grade fire rabbit cores—pretty trinkets with a faint spark of elemental energy, more decorative than useful. Hardly a meal.


    Alexander’s eyes bulged as the bead slid down his throat. Danger pulsed through him. His cultivation technique had limits. Food was fine—he could gorge endlessly on grain essence. But rare materials? Those demanded precision. If his body held a thousand units of energy, he could safely absorb one unit per day—1/1000th of his total. Push past 1%, and he risked injury or worse: a qi deviation. This body? It had nothing. Zero reserves. Back in his prime, these beads would’ve been a quick boost. Now? One was enough to kill him.


    With a final burst of strength, he jammed his left hand down his throat and slammed his right fist into his chest. A wet gag—the bead shot out, and Alexander collapsed face-first into the dirt, motionless.


    “Is this guy… insane?” the girl muttered, patting her chest to calm her racing heart.


    One of the men knelt, pressing fingers to Alexander’s nose. His face paled. “Miss, we need to go—now. He’s dead!”


    “What?” Her eyes widened, and she lunged toward Alexander.


    “Miss!” The man grabbed her arm. “He’s just a beggar. Getting tangled up in this isn’t worth it. Let’s move!” He knew trouble when he saw it—her outburst had already drawn too many eyes. If someone twisted this into a scandal, she’d pay dearly.


    “Let go—I need to check!” She thrashed against his grip.


    “Miss, please!” Sweat beaded on his brow as he shot a look at his companion. Together, they dragged her away, her protests fading into the market’s din.


    Time blurred. A hoarse, wailing sob jolted Alexander awake. He opened his eyes to find himself cradled against someone’s chest, the rhythmic heaving syncing with the cries. He squirmed, and the sobbing stopped. A face loomed into view—grimy, tear-streaked, and reeking of unwashed days. Beneath the filth, it wasn’t unattractive: big eyes, a straight nose, decent features. But the stench and tangled hair made Alexander recoil.


    “By the Light, young master—you’re alive!” The figure’s voice broke with joy, tears spilling anew. Trembling hands offered a chunk of bread. “I know you’re starving. It’s my fault—I took too long. Eat, please!”


    Questions swarmed Alexander’s mind, but the bread drowned them all out. He snatched it, shoving the whole piece into his mouth. As he chewed, a wave of bliss hit—shuddering happiness, soul-deep satisfaction. He’d never imagined hunger could break him like this. He thought of a story he’d heard: miners trapped underground for days, rescued, only for one to gorge himself to death against all warnings. Now, he understood that tragedy completely.


    Even in this foreign body, his cultivation hummed to life. The bread dissolved into threads of energy, soothing his wrecked frame and mind. Alexander’s eyes fluttered shut in relief, while the filthy young man grinned wide.


    A moment later, Alexander’s gaze sharpened. Energy restored, his thoughts cleared. He studied the stranger and ventured a guess: “Sten?”


    “Young master?” The youth blinked. “What’s wrong?”


    “Nothing…” Alexander coughed, masking his surprise. This wasn’t a delusion. The name fit—Sten, his family’s last servant, the final remnant of a fallen noble line. “Got more bread? I’m still…”


    “Oh! Not full yet, right.” Sten scrambled to his feet. “Wait here—I’ll be back!”