Zhang Yu found a spot on the ground and sat down. Around him, the plaza swelled with bodies — all waiting for work, all looking like they hadn't slept in days. Some of them probably hadn't.
*This place is a meat grinder. Is there a single corner of this world that isn't a race to the bone?*
He'd barely closed his eyes when the chill crawled up his spine. The Ritual Contract. Always watching.
"Please comply with the terms of your Ritual. Work diligently toward fulfilling your wish. Do not slack or delay. Countdown: 10."
"Damn it."
There was no arguing with a supernatural force. Zhang Yu gritted his teeth and started circulating the Basic Breathing Method. His body hadn't recovered yet — he couldn't risk the Body-Forging 36 Forms right now. Not if he needed to work later.
Spiritual energy trickled in from the air, threading toward his dantian. Each breath refined a sliver of mana. It was slow. It was boring. It was all he could do.
An hour passed. Three rounds of recruitment came and went. Temporary security. Construction labor. Package sorting at a delivery company. Every job was the same — heavy lifting, physical grunt work, bodies as machines.
Zhang Yu understood the logic. Qi Refining cultivators weren't smarter than ordinary humans. But they were stronger. Far stronger. One cultivator could do the work of thirty men. Employers paid ten times a normal wage and still came out ahead. The math was brutal and elegant — exactly the kind of math that turned people into draft animals.
The people on this plaza were the 007 crowd. Zero-zero-seven. Midnight to midnight, seven days a week. Super livestock. Beside them, Zhang Yu — who still needed four or five hours of sleep — was just a drowsy high school freshman.
He watched each mob swarm every new job posting. He didn't even try to compete. Those were graduates down there. People who'd finished high school. They were bigger, stronger, more desperate. He was a first-year who still got sleepy in class.
Other high schoolers waited too. Some read textbooks. Some practiced breathing. Some shadowboxed. None of them rushed the recruitment cars. They waited, like Zhang Yu, for jobs that specifically wanted students.
Another hour bled away.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
Tiny detonations in the air. Zhang Yu's body had recovered enough. He launched into the Body-Forging 36 Forms.
Nobody around him cared. The 36 Forms were the most basic technique in existence — about as interesting as watching someone do jumping jacks.
**Body-Forging 36 Forms Lv. 2 (18/20)** **Body-Forging 36 Forms Lv. 2 (19/20)**
His muscles ached after two rounds. But his spirit burned. One more. One more and he'd hit Level 3 — something even Bai Zhenzhen hadn't done. Two days. That was all it had taken him.
Halfway through his third round, a car pulled up. The window rolled down.
"Any freshmen or sophomores? Need two martial sparring partners."
The plaza detonated. High schoolers blurred across the square, leaving afterimages and the sound of thunder. By the time Zhang Yu reached the car, the spot in front of the driver was walled off by sophomore bodies — thick, wide, immovable.
"I'm a sophomore! Physical strength 2.15!"
*Even getting beaten up is competitive. Whatever happened to student dignity?*
The driver scanned the crowd. "Any from a key high school?"
Half the hands dropped.
"I'm from Songyang High!" Zhang Yu raised his hand.
"Combat martial arts Level 3 or above?"
Three students remained. "Three hundred an hour. Yes or no?"
A kid with a buzzcut scowled. "Three hundred? That's nothing."
The student beside him lunged forward. "Three hundred! I'll do it!"
The car door closed. The vehicle vanished. The buzzcut kid spat. "Three hundred an hour. What a joke." Someone else muttered: "Scab. Wait till he gets injured and finds out three hundred won't cover the hospital bill."
The crowd dispersed. Grumbling. Back to waiting. Back to training.
Zhang Yu returned to the 36 Forms.
---
Ten minutes later, another car. This one wanted freshmen specifically. The job: testing experimental drugs. Some lab's latest product, designed for Immortal Path beginners.
Zhang Yu looked at his own body — wrecked, undernourished, running on fumes. He stayed put. He kept practicing.
Crack.
The final form. The last punch. Level 3.
**Body-Forging 36 Forms Lv. 3 (0/30)**
A torrent of memories crashed into his skull. Thousands of repetitions, compressed into a single instant. But it wasn't just muscle memory this time — he could feel mana threading through his body, moving on its own, knitting tissue together as he practiced.
*Level 3. The 36 Forms now drive mana through the body's full circuit. Repairs flesh during training. Amplifies results.*
Levels 1 and 2 had been about breaking the body down — forcing mana out to participate in the exercise. Level 3 was different. Movement guided mana through his limbs like warm water through pipes. The technique rebuilt him even as it pushed him harder.
When he started the next set, warmth flooded his bones. The aching muscles loosened. The pain receded. His body was becoming something more than human.
A contraction. An expansion. Something deep shifted.
**Physical Strength: 0.84 → 0.85**
He checked the Feather Book. A smile cracked his face. He didn't even need the Ritual's pressure anymore. He wanted to keep going.
---
Night deepened. The drug-testing recruiters lingered. They wanted five students. Two showed up. They left with two.
Employers grew scarce. Zhang Yu kept training. Still nothing.
**Body-Forging 36 Forms Lv. 3 (6/30)**
After the sixth set, he accepted the truth. Waiting wasn't working.
He walked back into the human resources office. Old Wang sat behind the same desk, in the same position, as if he hadn't moved in hours. Zhang Yu set a pack of cigarettes on the desk.
"Brother Wang. Is there anything else I can do?"
Old Wang didn't look up. "Told you. Jobs come through the plaza."
"Besides the plaza. Not every temp job in Songyang drives out here to recruit. There has to be more."
Old Wang scrolled his phone, annoyed. "Look for yourself. Not that I'm stopping you — but those long-term jobs? Not easy."
He turned the screen around. A wall of listings. Long-term drug testing. Technique research subjects. Exploration team laborers in the Kunxu underground. Police support operations.
Zhang Yu scanned them. Too dangerous. Too dangerous AND unqualified. Every listing was a different flavor of meat grinder.
*These jobs can't fill their quotas for a reason.*
Then one caught his eye. "Brother Wang. This one — technique research. What's the risk?"
Old Wang shrugged. "They have you test new techniques developed by big companies. They watch you practice. Record side effects. Document what injuries you sustain. Which organs fail. How you're disabled. How you eventually die."
Zhang Yu swallowed.
But his eye caught another listing. "What about this one? Entry-level technique testing? Ten thousand yuan per session? Why only freshmen?"
Old Wang thought. Then: "Ah. That's a Xianyun Group project. They developed a technique. Already passed safety testing — no lethal side effects. But the entry process is brutal. Easy to sustain internal injuries. They keep testing with new subjects."
"It's designed for Immortal Path beginners, so they want freshmen."
He looked at Zhang Yu's eager expression. "Don't tell me you want this. Last kid who tried it had a mana surge. Internal injuries. Two weeks off school and still not recovered."
"That ten thousand is not easy money."
Zhang Yu shrugged. "I need money. What choice do I have?"
---
*New terms: Xianyun Group (仙韵集团) — subsidiary of the Myriad Arts Sect (万法宗), one of the Ten Great Sects. Qi Refining (炼气) — base cultivation realm.*