While Ethan ate, Roland looked at the shop. He didn't know how to take care of Ethan, but there might be something in there that could help him.
He went into the miscellaneous section and looked to see what it had. After a bit of searching, he found something that should help.
[The Definitive Guide for Taking Care of Your Chicken] [30 SP]
Roland was amazed by the variety of things in the shop. Anyway, he bought the item immediately, and set it on the ground in front of him.
Ethan was already done with his meal, and he had fallen asleep. Roland put the bowl in the storage space and took a look at the first page of the guide.
"Are you a newbie who just decided to start on your chicken rearing journey? Are you confused and don't know where to begin? Introducing, the Definitive Guide for Taking Care of Your Chicken."
Roland rolled his eyes. This already sounded unreliable. Still, he had already spent his SP, so he might as well see what this was all about.
He flipped to the next page.
"Chapter One, Hatching the Egg"
"When you obtain your first chicken egg, do not use any brute force methods to make the egg hatch faster. This may cause permanent damage to the hatchling and reduce its potential."
'Well, it's a bit too late now.' Roland thought.
"In addition, do not expose your egg to high temperatures, as this can cause the hatchling to be malformed and it might cause it to die."
'Again, too late for that. And I'm not seeing any problems.' Roland directly skipped past this and went to the next chapter.
"Chapter Two, Taking Care of the Hatchling(s)"
"When it is young, only feed your hatchling small food. If the things it eats are too large, it can cause it to choke. Make sure you keep your hatchling hydrated and give it plenty of water."
Roland saw the next part was a list of things they could and could not eat, but he skipped it since he had the Super Growth Feed either way.
"Chapter Three, Safe and Unsafe Methods of Increasing Your Chicken's Strength"
'Oooh! This is exactly what I need!'
"There are many safe methods of increasing the strength of your chicken, but most of them only give small increases. Here, we will look at the four fastest and most useful ways to make your chicken stronger."
"Method one involves the usage of resources rich in mana. By mixing things rich in mana into the diet of your chicken, it can increase the amount of mana your chicken will have, increasing the amount of spells it can use. These mana rich objects must be edible. Some of these include mana crystals, water from mana springs, and other objects made only of mana and edible objects."
"The second method is to teach your chicken more skills. This will give it more options during combat and allowing to adapt to more situations. There is no concrete method of doing this, so you will need to figure that out yourself."
"The third method is to increase the growth rate of your chicken. The more your chicken grows, the more its combat strength will increase since it unlocks more skills and has a more developed body. There are some objects are artifacts that can do this."
"The last method is to put your chicken into dangerous situations. This will make it grow and gain more experience if it doesn't die first."
Roland scratched his head. It seemed like method one was the the best way. He had a mana crystal that he could use.
He had also seen a pool of water near the mana crystal that had a lot of mana, but he didn't put the water in the storage space. Now, thay cave had already collapsed, so it was too late for that.
'Hey system, is the mana crystal water-soluble?'
[Yeah]
Roland brought the mana crystal from his storage space. He grabbed a rock from nearby and used it to hit the crystal over and over.
"Crack!"
Roland saw a crack on one part of the crystal and increased his speed. After a bit more smashing, the mana crystal shattered into tiny pieces.
Roland brought the last water bottle out of the storage space and put some of the smashed up crystal inside.
He put the cap back on the water bottle and shook it around a bit. After he shook it and the crystal pieces dissolved into the water, the water had a slightly blue hue.
Roland placed the bottle back into the storage space along with the other crystal fragments and looked around. The sun had long set, and Ethan was already sleeping, so Roland decided to take a break as well.
...
In the morning, Roland woke up and gave Ethan his breakfast. After getting another bowl and putting the water with the mana crystal parts inside, he turned to the next page of the Definitive Guide For Taking Care Of Your Chicken. He wasn't sure if the tips in the book would work, but if the system sold it, it should have a pretty good effect.
"Chapter Four, Taking Your Chicken To Adulthood"
"As your chicken grows, you need to make sure it doesn't overexert itself. This might cause the chicken to grow slower. At minimum, the growing process will take 18 weeks, or about 4 months. Make sure the hatchling is in a warm area, and it has a safe area to stay.'
Roland felt like the most unqualified chicken owner ever. Everything this guide told him not to do was already done by him.
The rest of this chapter was about the specific stages the hatchling would go through before it finally reached adulthood and the things he needed to avoid.
After reading the rest of the chapter, he closed the book and put it back in the storage space.
While no strenuous activity was allowed, Ethan still needed some exercise, so they could go out for the walk.
'Come on, Ethan. Let's go out for a walk.'
Ethan got up lazily and wobbled his way to Roland's side. Roland rolled his eyes and set off.
As they went, Roland looked at the repeatable achievements to see what the next three tasks were.
[Repeatable Achievements]
[Learn a New Skill] [1/1]
[Level Up a Tier Two Skill] [2/2]
[Defeat Something At Least 10 levels Higher than You] [1/1]
'Huh? Why is the achievement from yesterday still here?'
[It only resets the achievements that you completed. The ones that aren't completed and the half finished ones will still be there]
'Then what happens if I get one I can't do?'
[These are created based on your capabilities. Every achievement given is possible for the current you to do.]
'Oh.'
Roland looked at the achievements again. For the first achievement, he could learn a new skill just by getting it from the shop, so he put that aside for now.
For the second one, all his tier two skills were above level 10 besides [Hurricane Slash], so that was pretty much his only option.
The last achievement would be harder. While it may be possible, there weren't many creatures with a high enough level that he had seen so far. Most of the strong beasts he had encountered were underground.