Chapter 62: Free-Range Chicken - Kang
Chapter 62: Chapter 62: Free-Range Chicken - Kang
Did Wei Wuwei take a loss?
To him, spending ten taels of Spiritual Sand to resolve the ownership of ten acres of Spirit Fields was not a loss at all. Besides, that Spiritual Sand had originally been taken from the Tribulation Cultivator anyway. However, this incident had left a foul taste in his mouth. Though he had feigned civility with Chen Mo, he harbored a grudge and planned to teach the man a lesson when the opportunity arose.
After watching Wei Wuwei leave, the gathered Spirit Plant Cultivators exchanged uncertain glances, not knowing what to do for a moment. That is, until He Zhiping’s good friend, Miao Chen, took the lead and called out, "Congratulations, Fellow Daoist Chen! You are bound to soar to great heights in the future. Please don’t forget your poor neighbors when that time comes."
With someone leading the way, others naturally followed suit. For a time, there was an unending stream of people trying to build connections and offering flattering words. After all, Chen Mo was now at the Qi Refining Third Layer, making him the strongest cultivator within a hundred-acre radius. Such a person was someone these Spirit Plant Cultivators simply could not afford to offend!
Among the crowd, He Zhiping awkwardly kissed up to Chen Mo as well, though it left a bitter taste in his mouth, as if he had just been forced to eat dirt. But what could he do? The two of them were no longer on the same level. Lan Ling was the only one in the crowd who didn’t offer any compliments. She just stood to the side, her face slightly flushed, waiting for Chen Mo to approach her and bring up the matter of Dual Cultivation!
As for Chen Mo? He gave a few perfunctory replies, waved his hand, and headed toward his small wooden cabin. Now, surrounding his Spirit Fields were three other houses besides his own: Yin Zheng’s, Wang Lixia’s, and Xiao Changhua’s. However, the Marketplace had not granted him access to those three houses. Due to the Restrictions in place, he could still only live in his own cabin.
Once Chen Mo had left, the previously harmonious atmosphere among the Spirit Plant Cultivators suddenly shifted. Miao Chen, who had been kissing up the hardest just moments before, took the lead again—this time with a sour tone. "Taking on ten extra acres of Spirit Fields all at once? He really doesn’t know the meaning of the word ’death’! So what if he’s at the Qi Refining Third Layer? Isn’t he still just a bottom-tier Spirit Plant Cultivator?
"Exactly! Did you see how high and mighty he was acting just now? Calling him ’Brother Chen’—and he actually had the nerve to accept it!
"Let him be smug for now. We’ll see how smug he is next year."
The group’s gossiping grew increasingly animated. Lan Ling, however, couldn’t stand listening to them. With a cold expression, she left the crowd alone. "How dare they speak ill of my Dao Companion? I’ll have to tell him about this when I get the chance!" she thought angrily.
These messy interludes didn’t bother Chen Mo at all; he simply didn’t care. However, if anyone had profited from today’s events, it was undoubtedly him! He hadn’t expected that casually finishing off Xiao Changhua would lead to such a fortuitous outcome. He didn’t even have to ask for those ten acres of Spirit Fields; the Marketplace had willingly offered them up on a silver platter. It was an unexpected turn of events and a complete surprise.
Of course, if those ten acres weren’t burdened by the quota of one thousand taels of Spirit Rice, they wouldn’t have fallen into his pockets so easily. And tracing things back even further... everything seemed to stem from the insect plague!
"Every action truly has its preordained consequence," Chen Mo sighed in awe.
As soon as he sat down, the three little chicks in the room instantly crowded around him, looking as though they wanted to be groomed and fed. Seeing this, Chen Mo had a sudden flash of inspiration. He retrieved a handful of dried Drunken Aphids from the corner.
The moment he brought them out, the previously docile Spirit Chickens immediately became hyperactive, craning their necks and chirping for food! Chen Mo fed them a handful, and the three chicks clucked happily as they ate. Clearly, they had never tasted Drunken Aphids before and were completely unable to resist the temptation.
After finishing grooming the three of them, Chen Mo walked over to the small cage. Kang had its head held high, looking utterly disdainful as it paced around in the cramped cage, not even sparing Chen Mo a single glance. That was, until a handful of Drunken Aphids appeared in Chen Mo’s hand. Kang instantly became docile, leaning against the side of the cage and rubbing its fluffy head against Chen Mo’s hand.
"You can be as hyper as you want, but you still have to behave. Don’t touch anything in the cabin. If you listen, I’ll give you a few Drunken Aphids to snack on every now and then. How about that?" Chen Mo said, though he was originally just talking to himself. With that said, he tossed the Drunken Aphids into the cage.
However, Kang didn’t rush to peck at the food. Instead, it looked at Chen Mo, then looked around the room, and finally actually nodded before eating the bugs in the cage. After finishing its meal, it didn’t forget to peck at the cage’s lock, signaling for him to open the door.
"It understands me?" Chen Mo wondered in surprise. Nevertheless, he tried opening the cage door.
Sure enough, the chaotic mess he had anticipated didn’t occur. Kang simply paced in circles around the small wooden cabin, casually kicking the other three chicks whenever it felt like it to tell them to stay out of the way.
"Hah." This behavior amused Chen Mo. He hadn’t expected that buying a chicken would actually bring home such a rare piece of work. But since it wasn’t going to cause a rebellion, Chen Mo was happy to leave it be, letting it run around the cabin as it pleased.
As for himself, he needed to comprehend the foundational Spirit Array—the Mountain Gazing Shadow Retaining Array—as soon as possible, so he could set up the Array before the spring planting! That way, he could aim for two harvests in the coming year! That was an achievement that would break the absolute laws of the Spirit Plant Realm!
Time flew by after that. Finally, after nearly a month, Chen Mo managed to set up the rudimentary prototype of the Memory Array for the first time. And even then, he only barely succeeded after wasting seven or eight taels of Spiritual Sand!
The matter of Spirit Arrays gave Chen Mo his first taste of frustration. It was different from Cultivation Techniques and Magic. Those had experience bars; as long as he kept up his Cultivation, he was guaranteed to gain experience. But Spirit Arrays, Alchemy, and Artifact Refining were entirely different. Without a master and without Talent, even the most basic Array was not something an ordinary Cultivator could easily master!
"It seems my Talent really is terrible!" Chen Mo chuckled bitterly, mocking himself.
Out of the corner of his eye, he happened to catch a glimpse of the Free-Range Chicken, Kang. It suddenly stopped in its tracks, nodded in profound agreement, and then resumed its pacing around the cabin. It couldn’t stop. It absolutely couldn’t stop.
"You!" Chen Mo was so exasperated by Kang that he had to laugh.
Over the past month or so, he had become increasingly aware of how unusual Kang was. It was an unusually big eater. One chicken consumed the rations of six. If Chen Mo hadn’t been relatively wealthy, an ordinary Spirit Nurturer wouldn’t have been able to afford to feed it at all.
During this time, Chen Mo had also done some research. Spiritual Birds like Kang weren’t particularly rare; there was always one or two in every few thousand. However, most people generally wouldn’t raise them. Simply because they ate too much!
Aside from its unusually large appetite, its intelligence was also unusually high. It could always understand the general gist of what Chen Mo said. As to whether it actually followed instructions, that depended entirely on its mood. Or rather, it depended on whether it was given enough Drunken Aphids.
Of course, the ones who suffered the most were the three other chicks. Kang would kick them every now and then, forcing them to run around the floor with it. Right now, his Vitality Technique was not yet proficient, and the [Sturdy] Talent was still locked, yet Kang was already noticeably a full size larger than the other three!
It simply couldn’t be messed with!