When he woke up again, David Clark was roused by a terrifying sense of hunger. As soon as he opened his eyes, he found himself collapsed in the corner of the courtyard wall. David Clark immediately leapt to his feet—he was so hungry, he was about to go mad!

Food. He had to find something to eat.

But after leaping up, David Clark was even more shocked, because with a single effortless jump, he had soared four or five meters high, easily clearing the courtyard wall by a large margin.

With a thud, he landed, but lost his balance and fell, his head slamming hard against the wall. The bluestone brick that made up the courtyard wall was actually shattered by his forehead, a large chunk breaking off.

The bricks tumbled down like debris, and David Clark was stunned.

He touched his head—it hurt, but aside from the pain, there was nothing unusual. Yet he had just smashed a brick with his head? And jumped four or five meters high?

What kind of joke was this?

He didn’t have any martial cultivation yet. Normally, he could barely jump a little over a meter, and if he tried to headbutt a bluestone brick, he’d only end up with a bloody head.

He stood there dazed for a moment before suddenly springing up again. The unprecedented hunger inside him made it impossible to think calmly—he only knew he had to find food as quickly as possible.

In a flash, he dashed toward the stone house. David Clark didn’t even notice that with a single stride, he covered more than ten meters, and in just a couple of steps, he was inside.

On the stone table in the open living room, there was a wooden bucket filled with a pile of cured meat. This was the seven or eight days’ worth of food he had just collected from the canteen before he fainted. After all, new laborers in the valley had a two-month cultivation period, and only after establishing a foundation could they be promoted to various labor positions. During the first two months, it was normal for laborers to collect multiple portions of food at once and shut themselves in to cultivate.

Seeing the pile of cured meat in the bucket, David Clark didn’t hesitate to grab a piece and start eating.

Crunch, crunch!

The bucket had been piled high with at least forty or fifty jin of cured meat, but David Clark devoured it all in just a few hundred breaths. Even more terrifying, after eating dozens of jin of meat in one go, the dreadful hunger inside him still hadn’t subsided—he was still just as hungry, as if eating all that meat hadn’t filled him up at all!

Not only that, after eating so much cured meat, he could vaguely feel his physical strength had increased a bit.

Was this an illusion?

He paused for a moment, then suddenly turned his head toward the bedroom. On the bedside table were ten spirit stones and several scrolls of cultivation manuals.

He was so hungry that he couldn’t help but look toward the spirit stones, because at that moment, he distinctly smelled an intoxicating fragrance coming from them. The problem was, spirit stones were the purest and most concentrated crystallization of spiritual energy. Normally, holding one and taking a sniff would only make you feel refreshed and clear-headed. But now, the scent was so rich it made his stomach growl uncontrollably.

With his stomach rumbling, David Clark took a step to the table, but his momentum was so great that he instinctively pressed his hand on the tabletop. With a crack, the solid wooden table’s corner was easily crushed by his grip—reduced to splinters.

“Where did I get this kind of strength?”

He had tested the hardness of this table before. Normally, punching it would only make his hand hurt badly, but now, just a careless squeeze had crushed the corner?

Shocked, David Clark grabbed a spirit stone and brought it to his mouth. After a moment’s hesitation, he bit down—crunch!

It was like biting into ice. As soon as the spirit stone entered his mouth, a fragrant aroma burst forth, and the stone instantly transformed into streams of mysterious energy that surged rapidly throughout David Clark’s body.

He could clearly feel those streams burrowing into his flesh and blood. This was completely different from eating cured meat—after chewing the meat, his whole body felt comfortable, but now, after eating the spirit stone, the energy was surging everywhere, making his whole body itch.

“What on earth is happening?”

Shivering from the itch, David Clark couldn’t help but crunch down and finish the spirit stone, because the intoxicating aroma at his lips made it impossible to resist.

After finishing one spirit stone, a huge amount of mysterious energy surged through his body, flooding into his flesh and blood. David Clark grabbed a second stone and ate it. In just a few dozen breaths, all ten spirit stones were gone.

And then, David Clark went mad with hunger!

He found that after eating all those spirit stones, the hunger inside him hadn’t lessened at all—instead, it had multiplied countless times over. The hunger was now even more terrifying and unbearable, pushing him to the brink of collapse.

David Clark quickly headed outside, toward the canteen—he had to find more food. But as soon as he stepped out of his own courtyard, he ran into a figure coming out of the neighboring courtyard, and what the other person said left him even more stunned.

“Junior Brother Clark? You sure have patience, huh? You actually shut yourself in for over twenty days in one go? Huh, looks like it really paid off—you’ve reached the peak of the first level?”

The person living next door to David Clark was also a newly recruited laborer, just starting cultivation. David Clark had seen him a few times before, and the other had often teased and mocked him.

Even now, the honest-looking young man’s words carried a hint of mockery, but what he said shocked David Clark—he had been in seclusion for over twenty days? Peak of the first level of Spirit Connection?

Wasn’t it midday right now? Had he not just fainted for a short while, but actually been unconscious for more than twenty days?

And besides, he still hadn’t sensed the wind-element spiritual energy in the world, and couldn’t cultivate with his technique yet—so how had he reached the peak of the first level of Spirit Connection??