"Cough, cough..."
"Deacon, this is this month's tribute, please count."
Wang Ba coughed, his face showing a touch of weakness and paleness following a severe illness.
Deacon Li, with his protruding belly, was still standing with his hands behind his back, counting the items.
Upon seeing that there were the correct number of two roosters, two hens, and two hundred Precious Chicken eggs, he squinted his eyes, his expression impassive.
But when Wang Ba, in the midst of his coughing, handed him a silver note, Deacon Li's face instantly cleared, and he said with a beaming smile:
"Lil' brother is still so polite!"
"It's my duty...cough, cough!"
"This villa is chilling, lil' brother needs to take care of his health to serve the Sect!"
Deacon Li said with a look of concern.
As he spoke, a mysterious smile surfaced on his face: "Lil' brother, do you know what I have brought this time?"
A thought sprang up in Wang Ba's heart, and he blurted out: "Cough...Is it...cough...a book about raising chickens?"
"You see, I wanted to keep you guessing!"
Deacon Li laughed heartily, and without delay, he took a scroll from his spacious sleeve and gave it to Wang Ba.
Subsequently, he said solemnly:
"Ordinarily, in the Sect, menial workers have no qualification to borrow scrolls, even Deacons need to apply extensively..."
Wang Ba picked up on his cues and hurriedly handed him the last silver note from his pocket.
This was all he had earned from hard labor, selling chicken droppings. He had even purposely converted spare silver into silver notes some time ago.
"Eh, lil' brother, what kind of person do you take me for!"
Deacon Li indifferently accepted the silver note, nodding with displeasure: "Yet I, who considers you as my best ally!"
"Yes, yes, yes! I'm the vulgar one!"
Wang Ba smiled awkwardly.
Deacon Li was just saying that, and with satisfaction, he tucked the silver note into his clothes, then warned:
"This scroll, you can read it for a maximum of two months. After two months, I'll come to retrieve it, and you mustn't dirty or damage it!"
"Yes! I promise not to dirty or damage it!"
Two months is enough. Wang Ba swore to see Deacon Li off.
After Deacon Li left, Wang Ba finally took the scroll and returned to his room.
He didn't know if it was because he was startled last night, but he woke up feeling drained, weak, sweating coldly, with an unceasing cough.
He quickly realized that he was ill.
But he still insisted on feeding the chickens, cleaning up the chicken droppings, and preparing the monthly tribute.
Meanwhile, he heard Old Hou talking about a matter.
"This morning, Deacon Mei, who is in charge of the menial duties, got a good telling-off from an outer disciple!"
Speaking of this matter, Old Hou's face clearly showed a trace of schadenfreude.
"Oh? What happened?"
Wang Ba unconsciously clenched his clothes, and casually asked.
"Apparently, an outer disciple had some business in the Merit Room last night. He seems to have been deceived by a menial worker. The Merit Room is in the north side, but he ran to the east side, missing out on some good opportunity. So, he came to trouble Deacon Mei first thing in the morning. You should have seen Deacon Mei's face..."
Old Hou vividly recounted his observations, as if he had been right there witnessing the events.
But at his words, Wang Ba's heart skipped a beat!
Last night, the Merit Room, deceived by a menial worker...
And thinking back now, the direction he had casually pointed out last night was indeed to the east!
Without thinking, there was almost a ninety percent chance that it was the Sect Disciple whom he himself had misled!
Once Wang Ba realized this, his already weak body broke out in cold sweat!
He didn't understand how the other party became aware of the realization later on.
Anyway, after Old Hou had left, he quickly reburied the Spirit Stone deeper and moved the vat used for fermenting chicken feed over it, piling on feed infused with Spiritual Energy.
All the previous leftover chicken bones and such should be properly dealt with, either by burning or burying them.
He didn't know if any Sect Disciples would come to investigate, but he had to do his best to reduce the risk.
As he lay in bed recalling the events of last night, he couldn't help but feel a trace of fear.
"There should be no loopholes left..."
Wang Ba muttered to himself.
He then carefully picked up the scroll given to him by Deacon Li.
He didn't know what material it was made of, as it didn't look thick or large, yet it felt surprisingly heavy.
The first thing that came into view were four large characters:
"Everything about Poultry."
The author's signature was written with a grandiose flourish: penned by Master Jiaohu.
Wang Ba casually began to flip through it.
He didn't hold much expectation at first. After all, no matter how great a book was, it couldn't compare to his ability to transfer Lifespan.
But as he read, Wang Ba's eyes lit up.
"So there are so many ways for ordinary birds and beasts to upgrade their ranks?"
In his book, Master Jiaohu wrote about cultivating an ordinary creature into a ranked Spirit Beast or spirit poultry, and he mentioned three methods he was aware of.
The first is for the bloodline within the creature to purify continuously under sufficient nourishment from Spiritual Energy until it naturally undergoes a breakthrough. This is called 'Bloodline Breakthrough.'
There is a prerequisite, which is that the creature's bloodline must have descended from a powerful Spirit Beast.
If it has not, then it would be challenging to achieve advancement through the purification of the bloodline.
The second method was 'Lifespan Breakthrough.'
The common saying is that living beyond one's lifespan is akin to thievery; this thievery refers to the stealing of life or cheating death.
If a creature can break through its natural lifespan limit, even by a marginal amount, it is effectively stealing from nature. This will earn it a blessing from the laws of the universe, and it will naturally ascend and upgrade.
However, treasures that can enable a Lifespan Breakthrough are exceedingly rare. Most Life-Extending Treasures can't actually result in a breakthrough in lifespan but rather replenish the lifespan that has already been lost.
Moreover, possibly due to the restrictions of universal laws, this method can often only be used once.
When Wang Ba read this, he immediately thought of his own trump card.
He had a sudden realization.
No wonder just by depositing 0.1 years of Lifespan, these Precious Chickens had made rapid advancements.
It seems that they have gone through the 'Lifespan Breakthrough' route.
After becoming Spirit Chickens, no matter how much Lifespan he deposited into them, they didn't undergo any further advancements.
This was consistent with what Master Jiaohu had written in the book.
"The third method is to awaken their Spiritual Wisdom, to breakthrough with cultivation?"
Wang Ba looked at the last method and shook his head.
Awakening Spiritual Wisdom, such a method, wasn't something he could accomplish at present.
Although 'Lifespan Breakthrough' was the method he used, it was also his biggest secret and must never be revealed.
"So, the only way I can show others that I'm raising chickens is the first method––'Bloodline Breakthrough'!"
He flipped to the section in the book corresponding to 'Bloodline Breakthrough.'
Soon his eyes showed an unexpected shock.
That's because Master Jiaohu had recorded eight different methods of Bloodline Breakthrough for various creatures!
"Bloodline Breakthrough is a profound principle!"
"Yet if you rely solely on Spiritual Energy to nurture and purify the bloodline, the process is incredibly slow! And different varieties of beasts and birds have specific methods!"
"After painstaking research, I have found these eight methods for purifying the bloodlines of various creatures. They are as follows––"
"Grasshoppers, Gold-Silver Ring Snake, Yang Tiger, White Carp, Seventeen-Year Cicada, Mysterious Phoenix, Yellow Throat Stone Turtle, Precious Chicken..."