I died young at the start, but I'm reincarnated with unlimited skill points!

As dawn broke, officers from the animal husbandry department conducted their routine patrol of the alleyways and gathered the scattered succulent seedlings back into the enclosure.

The so-called "breeding enclosure" is a stone-built enclosure surrounding the Blood Refining Workshop.

The paddock is not large, but it is fully equipped.

A row of wooden shelves against the wall were covered with dry straw, specifically for placing newly adopted infants.

In a corner of the hunting grounds, sat several women with sallow complexions.

They were all ordinary women who were breastfeeding, recruited by the Blood Refining Workshop from the outer city's commoner district, specifically to feed the budding babies.

For each one that survives, you can receive an extra half pound of coarse grains.

The demons paid great attention to these details in order to sustainably harvest flesh and blood materials.

In the afternoon, a hunched old beggar came to the pen.

He looked at the few remaining sick and weak infants, tucked the dying Su Yu into his arms, and exchanged her for a domino used to collect the feeding subsidy.

The old beggar led Su Yu through the muddy alleys of the slums.

On both sides of the alley, one can see ordinary people who are as thin as a rake.

They leaned against the corner of the wall, their eyes empty and numb, like livestock kept in an enclosure, waiting for the day they would be slaughtered.

Back in the dark and cramped shack in the slum, the old beggar soaked the black bread in murky water until it softened, and fed it to Su Yu little by little while muttering to himself.

"Eat well, raise them for seven or eight years, and sell them to the adults at the Blood Refining Workshop. That way, this old man can have a few days of plenty."

Even so, he took off the only piece of tattered hemp clothing he had on to protect himself from the wind and covered Su Yu with it.

In this cannibalistic black city, the old beggar had no wife or children and had endured most of his life alone.

They said it was to sell for money to be used as food.

But beneath this cold-blooded excuse, perhaps lies a sliver of solace in his desire to raise the child as his own flesh and blood.

Su Yu did not refuse the old beggar's food.

A newborn's body is extremely fragile, and he needs food to maintain his basic life.

The paste-like liquid was extremely coarse, even with a sandy, astringent taste.

Su Yu obediently swallowed it.

But the real life-or-death crisis he was facing at that moment was not food.

It's breathing.

The shack, and indeed the entire Black City, was filled with a polluted and malevolent aura.

The moment Su Yu inhaled his first breath, he perceived the essence of this world at the microscopic level.

This was the blessing of his 9999 comprehension level, and it was an experience he had never had before.

The spiritual energy of this world has been polluted.

It sounds unbelievable, but it must be true.

It is not localized pollution, nor is it a natural anomaly in a particular area.

Instead, the entire world was completely transformed from its very foundation, with the nature of its spiritual energy altered.

Everything in the universe has adaptability, and spiritual energy is no exception.

The number of demons in this world must have reached an extremely terrifying level.

They absorb the spiritual energy of heaven and earth day and night, using extremely vicious evil methods to transform it into insidious demonic energy.

Then, it was dispersed back into the world.

Over time, the entire world's spiritual energy circulation system was completely destroyed and assimilated.

The originally pure and pristine spiritual energy of heaven and earth has completely mutated and evolved into the highly poisonous demonic energy that is now more suitable for evil spirits to inhale and exhale in order to adapt to this extreme environment!

For ordinary mortals without any cultivation.

They have no spiritual roots or divine sense, so they cannot perceive this potential threat at all.

With each breath, they continuously inhale this polluted demonic energy into their internal organs.

Unbeknownst to them, their lifespans were drastically reduced, and their internal organs suffered irreversible lesions and deformities due to the long-term erosion by the evil and toxic energy.

This explains why it's in this dark alley of the slum.

The mortals were all emaciated and looked like demons, yet they still lived like walking corpses.

Because they have been breathing poison gas since birth.

He spent his entire life breathing in toxic fumes.

"Cultivation of immortality is not possible in this world."

As Su Yu lay in the old beggar's arms, he made a decision in his heart.

This place has been completely transformed into a lair of evil spirits, making cultivation impossible.

Then turn to demonic cultivation?

Su Yu did have a few demonic cultivation techniques, but that wouldn't do.

Demonic cultivators are still human at heart; they cultivate the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

However, they follow an evil path centered on killing, sexual exploitation, and possession.

Although the cultivation method is cruel and brutal, it still follows the laws governing the circulation of spiritual energy in heaven and earth.

In other words, the foundation of demonic cultivation is still spiritual energy, not highly poisonous demonic energy.

Despite this, Su Yu did not despair because he was unable to cultivate.

Although the spiritual energy of heaven and earth has been transformed into demonic energy, it doesn't mean there's no possibility of recovery.

Demonic energy, in the end, is just polluted spiritual energy.

As long as it can be reversed back to its original pure source, spiritual energy can return to normal!

However, the first problem to solve is the one right in front of us.

breathe!

Breathing was his biggest and most critical problem.

Because if one inhales this demonic energy for too long, not only will one's mortal body weaken and become deformed, but even one's spiritual roots will wither completely.

Su Yu even suspected that, given the extremely long period of erosion in this world, there were probably no cultivators left long ago.

He has to come up with a solution.

Su Yu closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing rhythm with extreme restraint.

He minimized the amount of air he inhaled with each breath in order to slow down the erosion of his fragile mortal body by the demonic energy.

But this is ultimately not a long-term solution.

Humans cannot stop breathing.

As long as one breathes, demonic energy will continue to accumulate within the body, and mutation and death are only a matter of time.

Since we cannot directly absorb demonic energy, we can only modify it at its source.

Su Yu's mind calmed down completely.

He abandoned his perception of everything in the outside world and focused all his attention on the faint wisp of demonic energy he had just inhaled.

With the blessing of extraordinary comprehension.

All the martial arts experience, cultivation techniques, formations, and alchemy principles he had accumulated in his previous lives were completely shattered and reassembled at this moment.

In an instant, he had an inspiration and an idea.

Since the outside world is a great melting pot, it has refined spiritual energy into demonic energy.

Then he used himself as a furnace to refine the demonic energy back into spiritual energy!

Su Yu focused his mind on his nascent lungs and dantian.

He began to construct an extremely special meridian circulation route within his body.

This is not any known cultivation method.

Rather, it was a method of refinement he tailored specifically for this distorted world.

"suck."

Su Yu slightly opened his mouth and inhaled a breath of turbid demonic energy.

The moment this demonic energy entered his lungs...

Su Yu's internal organs began to tremble slightly at an extremely subtle and peculiar frequency.

The demonic energy was forcibly pulled and shattered amidst the tremors.

Then, Su Yu exhaled a breath of stale air.

The black impurities that were peeled off were expelled from his body through his nasal cavity and skin pores.

And deep within his dantian.

A faint wisp of pure, ethereal energy lingered there quietly.

Reiki.

In this desolate land filled with demonic energy, he managed to extract a trace of the purest essence of heaven and earth.

As soon as this wisp of spiritual energy appeared, it quickly merged into his limbs and bones, nourishing his fragile newborn body.

Su Yu did not open his eyes.

He continued to maintain this extremely peculiar breathing rate.

Each breath is a crushing and purification of demonic energy.

He transformed the highly poisonous demonic energy into his own resources.

This breathing technique, which originated from desperate situations, took complete shape in Su Yu's mind.

Using the physical body as a furnace, it creates all things.

The Secrets of the Forge of Creation!