The sun hung motionless in the violet sky, an unblinking eye staring down at the golden cage. An hour had passed since Ji Han's realization, yet the shadows of the azure grass had not shifted.
If his calculations were correct, the sun wouldn't set for months. The concept of "afternoon" was weeks away.
Ji Han wiped sweat from his brow. The heat was already building. The stationary sun meant the ground would bake continuously, the temperature rising until the air itself became an oven.
He looked down at the unconscious woman. Lin Qinghe. Her breathing was shallow, a ragged rattle in her chest. Her lips were cracked and pale, contrasting with the dark blood drying on her chin.
"Resource assessment," Ji Han muttered, his voice tight. He uncorked the waterskin. It was light. Sloshing. One liter. [cite_start]Maybe less.
A human needed two liters a day to function efficiently. In survival mode, maybe half a liter. He had one liter total.
"If I give you water, I lose days of life," he said to the unconscious body. "If I don't, you die in hours."
Logic dictated he let her die. She was a drain on limited stock. She was injured. She was dead weight. But logic also whispered a darker truth: Seven years. Seven years of isolation in a one-kilometer circle. No books, no internet, no voice but his own. If he let her die, the silence would likely kill him long before the starvation did. Insanity was a tangible threat.
He needed an asset. Even a damaged one.
He capped the waterskin without giving her a drop. Not yet. He couldn't afford to invest in a sinking ship until he knew if the ship could float.
"Stay alive," he commanded her. "I need to see what we have to work with."
Ji Han turned and began to walk. He needed to map the perimeter.
The territory was a flat expanse of tall, alien grass, broken only by scattered grey boulders. He walked toward the golden barrier, his rusty sword hacking a path through the vegetation. The physical exertion was dangerous—burning calories he couldn't replace—but ignorance was deadlier.
He reached the edge of the domain in fifteen minutes.
The barrier was a translucent wall of golden light, humming with a low energy field. Ji Han reached out and pressed his hand against it. It was solid, like warm glass.
He looked through it.
Just ten meters away, outside the safety zone, a creature was mid-pounce. It looked like a wolf, but it was the size of a minivan, with six eyes and quills running down its spine. Its jaws were open, revealing rows of serrated teeth.
It wasn't frozen, but it was moving with agonizing slowness.
Ji Han watched, mesmerized by the physics of it. Outside, the beast was snapping its jaws in a split second. Inside, Ji Han watched the creature drift through the air as if it were submerged in thick, invisible syrup.
He counted the seconds. One... two... three...
The wolf's front claw inched forward perhaps a few centimeters. A glob of saliva drifted from its maw, hanging in the air like a diamond, descending imperceptibly.
"Ratio check," Ji Han whispered, his heart hammering against his ribs. "One day equals one year. That means one second out there is roughly six minutes in here."
It would take the monster several minutes just to hit the ground. To the wolf, Ji Han was a blur, a ghost flickering in and out of existence. To Ji Han, the wolf was a glacier of violence, sliding inevitably forward.
He turned his back on the monster. He was safe from the outside, but the visual reminder of the speed difference made his stomach churn.
He walked the perimeter, his eyes scanning the ground. Grass. Dirt. Rocks. More grass.
No fruit trees. No rabbits. No flowing river.
Panic began to claw at his throat again. The "Novice Gift" was a death sentence. A rusty sword and three loaves of bread for a seven-year sentence? The System wasn't testing him; it was executing him.
He completed the circle and began spiraling inward, checking the rock formations.
Near the northern edge of the circle, he found a cluster of grey boulders that looked different. The grass around them was a deeper, more vibrant shade of blue.
Ji Han dropped to his knees. He touched the soil at the base of the rocks. It was cool. Damp.
"Water table," he gasped.
He began to dig with his hands, ignoring the sharp edges of the stones. He dug six inches down, then a foot. The soil turned to mud. Wet, heavy mud.
It wasn't a spring. It wasn't a fountain. It was a seep. If he dug a hole deep enough, water might accumulate. Maybe a cup a day? Maybe less.
It wasn't enough to sustain a farm. It certainly wasn't enough to sustain two people for seven years. But it was something.
He scraped the mud from his fingers and stood up. The sun beat down on him, relentless and fixed. He was thirsty. His throat felt like sandpaper.
He walked back to the center of the clearing.
Lin Qinghe hadn't moved. Flies were beginning to buzz around her bloody robes.
Ji Han knelt beside her. He looked at the muddy soil on his hands, then at his waterskin. He had found a potential—albeit pathetic—source of water. That changed the math. Slightly.
He lifted her head, propping it on his knee. She was light, her bone structure delicate despite the aura of power she must have once held.
"This is a loan," Ji Han whispered. "You work this off. With interest."
He uncorked the skin and tilted it. He carefully let a small stream of water—precious, diamond-clear—trickle between her cracked lips.
She didn't swallow at first. Then, a reflex kicked in. Her throat worked. She coughed, a weak, dry sound, but she swallowed.
He gave her three mouthfuls. A fortune. A king's ransom in this wasteland.
Then he pulled the skin away and capped it tight.
Lin Qinghe's eyelids fluttered. They didn't open, but her brow furrowed. The pained expression eased, just a fraction.
[System Notification: Loyalty Updated.][Lin Qinghe: Stranger -> Wary Debtor.]
Ji Han let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. She was alive.
He sat back in the dirt, exhausted. He took a single sip of water himself, savoring the moisture, then looked at the third item in his inventory.
The Basic Breathing Technique.
Food was finite. Water was scarce. But in these Xianxia stories, cultivators didn't just eat food. They ate energy. They ate Qi.
If he wanted to survive seven years on three loaves of bread, he didn't need to learn how to farm. He needed to learn how to stop being human.
He picked up the manual.
"Lesson one," he muttered, opening the first page under the glare of the eternal sun. "How to eat air."