Why Do All These Monsters Have Health Bars?

Evening.

Jianghai's North City district, North City Agricultural Market.

Li Jing expertly navigated through the market to its deepest part, then turned directly into a Chicken Shop.

Don't get it wrong.

This Chicken Shop's a proper establishment.

They sell chickens.

In front of the shop counter, a lady with a pretty face and a sultry figure was lazily sprawled on the counter.

Suddenly, seeing someone enter, the woman quickly looked up.

Upon realizing it was Li Jing, she immediately lost interest and slumped back down.

"What, I thought a customer had come in. Turns out it's you, King Li, coming in for work," she said mockingly.

Li Jing stopped in his tracks when he heard this.

"Sisi, I don't like the way you're talking. How am I freeloading? I've been working here for three months, earning the lowest wages in Jianghai. I'm the one who does all the heavy and tedious work for you. I even kill the chickens for the shop. Who else would do all this work willingly for such meager pay?"

"Ha!"

Liu Sisi rolled her eyes at him.

"You little rascal, you show up for work precisely at meal times, never early or late just to scrounge a meal off of me! Haven't you eaten more than what your wages are worth?"

"When I first applied, you were the one who said that meals on the job were a staff benefit."

Li Jing retorted with an eye roll and without letting the conversation linger, he asked,

"How's business today?"

"Don't even mention it. Not a single sale all day, not sure if we'll even make a penny tonight."

Liu Sisi sighed lightly and gestured.

"Now that you're here, go to the kitchen and kill a chicken, then I'll take care of the rest."

"Got it."

Li Jing nodded.

...

Once in the kitchen,

Li Jing looked at the dozens of lively clucking hens in the cages, his gaze as if he was looking at a lover.

It's not that he had a peculiar fondness.

It was because these chickens were no ordinary fowl.

The chickens in the cages were Spirit Chickens, a heterogenous species cultivated by special means through Heavenly and Earthly Spiritual Energy.

Spirit Chickens were considered premium products among poultry, with meat that was extremely tasty and nourishing.

One chicken cost a whopping fifty thousand yuan!

Liu Sisi said he was freeloading because she was concerned about these chickens.

But to Li Jing, the price of these Spirit Chickens wasn't the point.

The key thing was that in his eyes, above the heads of each chicken in the cages was a floating red Health Bar, each displaying values ranging from 5 to 11 points.

Picking out a Spirit Chicken with 11 points on its Health Bar, Li Jing reflected inwardly.

Unknowingly, he had already spent three months in this world.

Time travel, to be honest, isn't hard to accept.

Who, living in the 21st century, doesn't enjoy the occasional novel or comic?

The real challenge was initially adapting to an entirely different way of life.

The world he now found himself in was one where everyone practiced cultivation, with cultivation culture deeply integrated into everyday life.

Besides the most basic water resources, electricity, oil, and natural gas were all obsolete.

Phones aren't charged with electricity, but with Spiritual Qi.

Cars don't run on gas, but on Spiritual Qi.

Even the stove relies on Spiritual Qi.

Nearly all aspects of modern life were powered by the Spiritual Qi within people, achieving self-sufficiency.

While being extremely environmentally friendly, it also meant that a newcomer without Spiritual Qi within them would find it very difficult to survive.

When Li Jing first arrived, he was just an ordinary person with no Spiritual Qi.

In a world where even mobile phones required Spiritual Qi to function, he was effectively a primitive man.

Friendless, penniless,

And without the knowledge of cultivation or any Spiritual Qi, even finding a job was tough.

If he hadn't been clever enough, immediately seeking work at the Agricultural Market after roughly getting a grasp of the situation, and if Liu Sisi's shop hadn't just happened to need a chicken butcher, he would not only be homeless but might well have starved to death on the streets.

Fortunately, the hardest times have passed.

Looking back now, it all seems as if it were fated.

Having encountered the Spirit Chickens in Liu Sisi's shop, he realized that as a transmigrant, his system had long been activated.

He walked to the edge of the sink, took a kitchen knife in hand, and with a swift motion, cleanly slit the neck of the Spirit Chicken in his hand.

"Whoosh!"

Blood gushed out like a torrent.

In an instant, the health bar above the Spirit Chicken's head emptied, its numbers returning to zero.

Thereupon, an emotionless, synthetic female voice rang by Li Jing's ear.

"Experience +11."

Hearing the woman's voice, he couldn't help but glance at the remaining hens shivering in the cage.

From the moment, three months ago, when he had first killed a Spirit Chicken, he had been certain.

His system needed to kill things with visible health bars to harvest an equivalent number of experience points.

Health bars were not something you could see everywhere.

At least until now, Li Jing had only ever seen them above the heads of Spirit Chickens in Liu Sisi's shop.

Considering the North City Agricultural Market had only Liu Sisi's store selling Spirit-Infused Heterogeneous Species, he had specifically bought an ordinary hen to test his theory.

The results proved that without seeing a health bar, he could not gain experience points.

At this moment, in Li Jing's eyes.

The Spirit Chickens in the cage were not chickens, but rather one "Experience +??" after another.

It was a pity that he couldn't kill these chickens.

At least not until a customer came to buy them, he could not act.

After death, the Spiritual Qi within a Spirit Chicken would dissipate over time.

Cold storage wouldn't solve the problem.

Thus, freshness was crucial for a Spirit Chicken.

When he wasn't there during the day, Liu Sisi would only sell them alive.

If he disregarded this and killed these Spirit Chickens now, Liu Sisi would come looking to settle the score with him later.

In the cage, there were several millions at stake.

After slitting the throat of the Spirit Chicken, Li Jing pressed it by the sink to drain the blood. With a slight shift in thought, a transparent panel emerged before his eyes.

Host: Li Jing

Experience Points: 132/210

Level: 5

Spiritual Power Intensity: 30

Equipment: None

Passive Skills: None

Active Skills: None

The transparent panel, resembling a game's status bar, was straightforward and clear.

At the very bottom of the status bar, the three items—Equipment, Passive Skills, and Active Skills—Li Jing wasn't yet sure how to alter.

What he had figured out was this.

With the accumulation of experience points and the consequent level increase, Spiritual Power Intensity would enhance at twice the rate of the level.

Level 1, intensity increases by 2 points.

Level 2, intensity increases by 4 points.

Level 3, intensity increases by 6 points.

And so on.

As his Spiritual Power Intensity grew, the Spiritual Power within his body would become increasingly robust.

It was worth mentioning that his Spiritual Power was quite different from the Spiritual Qi cultivated by the people of this world.

Spiritual Qi was an invisible, colorless gas.

One could sense it but not see it.

It could only be infused into objects that could contain Spiritual Qi or be released through the construction of magic skills.

Meanwhile, the Spiritual Power within Li Jing's body was a liquid energy that could be seen through inner vision or directly released, and it could enhance the external strength of anything it attached to.

Furthermore,

Spiritual Power could be used in everyday life as Spiritual Qi, and its efficiency was outrageously high.

Take, for instance, a mobile phone; normal people needed fifteen minutes to charge a phone fully.

But for Li Jing, it took merely a thought to charge it completely.

This world's system of cultivation,

Spanned from One Realm to Ten, divided into ten major power levels.

Each major power level was further divided into Early, Intermediate, and Late phases—the three small realms.

But when using some more intricate small devices, there is no distinction in cultivation levels.

Devices like smartphones run on Spiritual Qi batteries.

Spiritual Qi batteries, just like the rechargeable batteries from Li Jing's previous life,

have rated standards.

No matter how high your realm is, you can only transfer Spiritual Qi bit by bit according to the standard; otherwise, you might just blow up the Spiritual Qi battery.

Whether he had the ability to blow up a Spiritual Qi battery, Li Jing didn't know.

After all, with a "snap," it was fully charged.

It wouldn't take any more charge, and he had neither the chance nor the desire to try.

He only earns two thousand five hundred a month working for Liu Sisi.

Just the rent alone costs him fifteen hundred.

With only a thousand left for daily expenses, he had been tightening his belt for the past three months.

Save wherever possible, and it was with great difficulty that he managed to scrape together eight hundred to buy a low-end smartphone.

Wouldn't his heart break if he blew up his phone?

As long as he confirmed that Spiritual Power had a clear advantage in charging efficiency, that was enough.

The rest could wait for another day.

Now, he hasn't even properly learned a single skill yet; he needs to save money.

In Li Jing's understanding,

the passive and active skills on the panel should be things like magic skills, which can be learned at Immortal Learning institutes.

But he can't afford the hefty tuition, and full-time schools aren't suitable for him.

There's only one way to learn magic skills.

Self-study via various online Immortal Learning websites.

Studying magic skills on Immortal Learning websites costs money; otherwise, you can only see a name.

And different magic skills have different fees.

The cheapest would be at least five thousand, which he currently can't afford.

After draining the blood from the Spirit Chicken in his hand, Li Jing prepared a basin of hot water for it to take a warm bath, contemplating whether he should find another job.

Liu Sisi only required him to help out in the evenings, leaving his days free.

Before, his life was too unstable to consider it, but now that things have steadied, he felt it was time to evaluate.

Gaining experience points was secondary.

Li Jing didn't expect to find another high-end store selling Spirit Infusion Livestock to work at.

The key was to find a job with a high enough salary.

As the saying goes,

Money isn't everything.

But without it, there's nothing you can do.

Not only to learn skills, Li Jing wanted to find a better rental.

The poor rental he was living in now had terrible sound insulation.

Every night, he would hear strange noises that disturbed his sleep, making a peaceful night's rest difficult.

What can you say?

You can only say those who cultivate are different.

They're full of energy.

As a mentally sound twenty-one-year-old, Li Jing found it unbearable.

Just as he was pondering, a sudden "boom" from outside, followed by numerous screams, startled him.

?

Li Jing jumped in shock and turned his head in confusion.

What's happening?

Did someone's Spirit Pot explode?

Stepping out of the kitchen quickly, he just managed to see Liu Sisi, looking pale, retreating from the front of the store, hurriedly closing the door, and swiftly pulling out a talisman paper from her waist to stick on the glass door.

Immediately, a layer of thick white light cloaked the transparent glass door of the shop.

A First-order Solidification Talisman!

Thirty thousand a piece!

Li Jing's heart twitched.

Just as he was about to ask, Liu Sisi hurried over to his side in three steps.

"There's a rooster that suddenly turned into a monster outside! It pecked several people to death! Don't panic, the Patrol Department should be reporting soon. The Agricultural Market is so big; it's unlikely that the rooster would come our way."

No sooner had she finished speaking than a huge rooster, the size of a person and covered in blood, appeared outside the door, flapping its wings.

Suddenly spotting the rooster, Liu Sisi couldn't help but scream out loud.

The rooster, originally chasing someone and intending to run past the entrance, was attracted by the scream and paused, turning its head to look inside the shop.

Upon seeing this, Liu Sisi's face lost all color in an instant.

Li Jing was also startled.

The so-called demon transformation is an accidental event in this world where animals sense the Heavenly and Earthly Spiritual Energy and gain Spiritual Intelligence, stepping into the path of cultivation and transforming into monsters. The probability of this happening is exceedingly low—lower than winning the lottery!

Li Jing had been in this world for three months and had only read about such incidents in online news.

He never expected to witness it with his own eyes today!

The situation before him was far from good!

Domestically-raised pets and wild animals that do not interact with humans usually don't become hostile immediately upon demon transformation.

But in a place like the Agricultural Market, a demon transformation would spell disaster!

After all, this was where animals viewed as food by people were sold.

Upon gaining Spiritual Intelligence, how could they not harbor hatred?

Take for example this rooster that had undergone demon transformation...

Who knew how many times the butcher's knife had nearly fallen on its head?

And who could know how many of its mates had been slaughtered and sold, or how many of its offspring had been turned into tea eggs?

Unfortunately for Liu Sisi, her shop sold hens.

At that moment, clucking sounds still came from the kitchen.

Gritting his teeth secretly, Li Jing stepped forward half a step, shielding Liu Sisi behind him.

At a time like this, a man definitely needed to stand at the forefront.

What deeply moved Li Jing was...

Above the head of the demon-transformed rooster outside the shop, he saw a long Health Bar marked with 574!

574!

If he could kill it, that would be 574 Experience Points!

Equivalent to nearly 57 Spirit Chickens with Health Bars longer than 10 points!

Seeing Li Jing step forward, Liu Sisi thought he was recklessly trying to dash outside and quickly reached out to hold him back.

"Li Jing, you must not act rashly! We ordinary people can't deal with monsters that have undergone demon transformation!"

Li Jing wanted to say he wasn't impulsive when Liu Sisi spoke with a calmness suggestive of an old dog.

"Don't worry, the Solidification Talisman I have is prepared for such unexpected situations. It's worth hundreds of thousands at the least. That rooster, having just undergone demon transformation, could only be at the Intermediate phase of One Realm at most. It definitely won't be able to break through."

"..."

Li Jing's lips twitched.

Easy to say.

Liu Sisi's flag planting...

Was like sticking both of them onto a path of death!

The key was that she had just boasted about one thing that had come true, and without any panic, she boasted another.

In such times, shouldn't one keep one's mouth shut instead of saying all these unnecessary things?

How did the saying go?

What you fear, comes to pass.

The demonized rooster outside suddenly raised its head and let out a long cry, violently pecking its head against the glass door.

"Bang!"

The glass door, supported by the Solidification Talisman, withstood the blow.

But the wall next to the door didn't...

It cracked.

Seeing the walls on both sides of the shop door cracking and the glass door tilting, Liu Sisi's face turned pale on the spot.

Li Jing almost couldn't resist cursing.

He really wanted to turn around and say something.

Sister!

Why did you only reinforce the door and not the walls too?

Without time to think further, Li Jing quickly pulled Liu Sisi back into the kitchen.

"You stay in the kitchen and don't run around. I'll try to handle the situation outside."

Not waiting for Liu Sisi to respond, he grabbed the kitchen knife usually used for killing chickens and returned to the shop.

At the same time.

Another "Bang" sounded in front of the shop.

The glass door had completely toppled over.