JACKAL AMONG SNAKES - Chapter 17: Theory to Reality

A young orphaned boy named Mu Yi is saved by an old travelling Taoist Priest. They travel the world ‘scamming’ people by ‘exorcising ghosts’ and ‘slaying demons’, that is until the old Taoist Priest dies and Mu Yi is forced to realise that all is not as it seems. He was told stories of armies of ghosts, hordes of zombies, horrifying demons, and worst of all, the cultivators who controlled them.

Mu Yi takes his first steps towards rising to the top of this dark and cruel new world.

- Description from Novelupdates

A normal high school boy with nothing much happening in his life except for...life. Every new day was the same as the one before but he doesn't really care much about it. He thought of himself as a normal high school-going boy with no clear future. Lazy, sarcastic, but kind of intelligent, he was living a normal life.Though fate had different plans for him as he met a girl who he did and did not know. The school princess was the first thing he saw when he woke up in his bed caressing his head. To any other boy in his situation, it would be pure bliss but he was worried.Why?Since she was in his house which he had locked before going to sleep. Little did he know that the girl was more than what she showed and was about to turn his entire life upside down. How will he tackle this situation? No one knows that.

“Devouring Lifespan to grow stronger!!”When Ricky Stormwind—a washed-up office worker—drank himself to death, he expected eternal nothingness. Instead, he awoke in a new world… as a mosquito.Weak as an ant. Fragile as a piece of paper. Prey to everything.But this world is no ordinary one. Magic, monsters, and powerful beings dominate the land, with ruthless forces waging war for supremacy. And Ricky? He possesses a terrifying ability—he can drain lifespan from any living creature and use it to evolve.A single bite can grant him hours. A feast?..... Years!!Now, in a forest filled with predators and beside a village on the brink of destruction, Ricky must climb the evolutionary ladder—from insignificant pest to a calamity that could devour the world itself.But when his first real meal triggers a mass sacrifice, the world mistakes him for a rising Demon Lord. Bounties are placed on his head. Armies march to hunt him down. And lurking in the shadows, a forbidden power calls to him, promising a path beyond mere survival—one that could reshape reality itself.In a world where everything is prey to something greater, something horrendous… he will rise to become the apex.

One day, a villainess came to the orphanage.“I absolutely can’t stand children!”“How can someone my age have a child? It doesn’t make sense!”“What’s so great about these little creatures that tire you out all day long…”Setting aside her dislike for children…Somehow, after she arrived, the children started gaining weight.“It’s all because of the contract, you know?”That’s what she says.While personally feeding them sweets she made herself.