Chapter 009

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‘ ‘ for thoughts.

“ “ for speech.

<> for non-verbal communication like telepathy

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Warning: May contain mature content (18+) of an adult nature. Read at your own risk.

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Note:

Although the full name mentioned here are Chinese style, (example: Fang Hao, surname Fang first then given name Hao), the names clubbed with descriptions are description and then given name instead of description and surname (example Fatty Hao and not Fatty Meng).

Btw, I read all your comments, but may not reply to each and every one separately.

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Fang Hao and his clique left as soon as possible, not waiting for the battle-royale to conclude. They made their way towards the spirit chicken rearing pens. They reached a series of circular fences, with some having buildings in them. When one of the fatties tried to enter a fenced yard, there was a flash of lightning and he was pushed back. Evidently there were formations in place to prevent unauthorized entry.

Fang Hao decided to enter the largest building outside the fenced yards. There he met with a senior outer sect disciple, who explained to them their responsibilities and rubbed their chicken shaped tokens unto a jade slip. They had been assigned to manage one chicken coop, under supervision. Responsibilities included feeding the twin tailed spirit chickens with spirit grains, retrieving their eggs and hatching them, and also butchering the chickens and dressing their meat for inner sect disciples.

They entered a coup and a couple of senior outer sect disciples explained to them about their responsibilities. They were also instructed that half of the usable offal remaining after butchering would go to them, the seniors who had a higher position of responsibility to care for the spirit chickens. Fang Hao naturally agreed to the terms and conditions with smiles, but sensed that his clique wasn’t satisfied with his decision, but they didn’t contradict him publically.

Later on, when they were subdividing the chores, Fang Hao naturally elected himself for butchering. When Fatty Ning inquired about him agreeing to give away half the offal without any protest, Fang Hao explained to him that they were new in the sect. Many of their fellow outer disciples were already offended by their good fortune; there was no meaning to offend seniors too. Besides the seniors had much higher cultivation than them, and being in a position to manage this lucrative chore meant that they had significant connections. And these weren’t heaven defying resources anyway…just waste offal of spirit beasts.

After a couple of hours after they reached the chicken coop, the last outer disciple arrived in their coop with panda eyes and purple bruises all over his face. Fang Hao and the other fatties naturally “convinced” him to clean the spirit chickens’ shit from the coup, by audibly cracking their knuckles. But Fang Hao also motivated him saying that as long as he did a good job, he would get his share of offal. He knew that being too overbearing would only make everyone harbor resentment towards them, so a carrot and stick approach was the best to ensure that he could smoothly butcher the spirit chickens and gain the sweet sweet xp.

Even though it had a lofty name of twin tailed spirit chickens, it looked more-or less like a regular wild fowl. But it had two tails of different varying colors and was double the size of a regular chicken. Although he had no problem butchering a chicken by beheading it with one clean swipe of a cleaver, it was a pain to clean the feathers, skin, offal, beak and claws. The feathers, beak and claws weren’t useful to him and were separated; while the offal was dutifully split into half, with one half going to his seniors; and the other half split into six. He managed to butcher and clean two spirit chickens on his first day, before they left. A quick check of his status screen had confirmed that he did receive xp for killing a spirit chicken, even if it was a grand total of 1 xp per chicken.

The fatties reached the hall kitchens around a half an hour before meal time, and negotiated with the janitorial disciples managing the kitchen the use of a wok for cooking the offal, in exchange for a part of the offal of course. This further reduced each fatty’s share, but they knew that offending the janitorial disciples in charge of their food was not wise. Once the process was established, everything went smoothly. They had a minimum quota of butchering 20 spirit chickens per week, which Fang Hao had barely managed to meet in his first week, working overtime. But slowly, he was getting more proficient and had to work less and less overtime to meet the weekly quota.

Whatever little time he got, he circulated Qi according to the Sublime Qi Manual’s instructions, bt his Qi of 1.0/1.0 didn’t increase, though he could feel the circulation being smoother and smoother taking less time with every repetition. He guessed that completing the first Qi circulation was kind of a milestone. Since he could “feel” his Qi, it was reflected in his status screen. He didn’t register gains in any of the other stats either. But Fang Hao wasn’t discouraged; he was getting closer and closer to a levelup after all.

By the third week, he could manage to finish his responsibilities in time, and had accumulated enough xp to level up. When he beheaded the tied up chicken with his meat cleaver, he felt his Qi getting magnified and it circulate automatically according to the instructions of the Sublime Qi manual. He felt a pleasurable shock pass through his entire body as greyish oily sweat oozed out of his pores as he felt wisps of Qi in his dantian. He had officially reached the 1st layer of the Qi Gathering realm!

But instead of getting excited and celebrating, he quickly grabbed the plucked chicken feathers from the nearby pile and wiped the thin film of oily residue on his exposed skin. These weeks in the sect, he had learned enough about the expected pace of cultivation of silver grade talents like him with access to offal meat. Usually, for someone in his position, without leveling up, it would take at least 6 to 7 weeks to officially be 1st layer of the Qi Gathering Realm. He had managed it in less than 4 weeks (1 week entry into sect and around 3 weeks of grinding chickens) time with level grinding on the spirit chickens.

Although it wasn’t unprecedented, if his cultivation speed was known he would attract unwelcome attention and that had a possibility to give rise to all sorts of complications. So he prudently concealed his breakthrough, the best he could. He would only be exposed if a genuine Qi Condensation disciple met him, but the possibility of that was slim if he avoided Old man Zhu. This chore wouldn’t be changed for a year anyway, and he had to worry about meeting him for the next layers of the sublime qi manual when he was at the 3rd layer of the Qi gathering realm. Once he reached his cottage he took a thorough bath and washed his robe, before checking his status screen.

STATUS SCREEN Name: Fang Hao Race: Human Gender: Male Age: 14 years Titles: Class: Cultivator Unused Skill Points: 2 Realm: Qi Gathering Realm Level: 1 Current Experience: 50 Level Up at Experience: 189 Active Effects: Stats Physique: 0.6 Finesse: 0.6 Spirit: 0.9 Qi 2.0/2.0 Traits Calm Lucky Primal Instinct ??Blessed by a Drunken monk?? Manuals and Scriptures Sublime Qi Manual (1st Layer)

His Qi had the biggest gain, but his other stats had a small increase too. It made sense considering that Qi gathering realm was essentially a mortal with slightly higher stats. Sure they had unlocked Qi, but it was not like Qi Gathering realm cultivators could use the Qi to cast spells. Leveling up had also provided him with 1 additional skill point, but he was still unable to use it. For his next levelup, he would require 139 more xp. Although he was happy to see his status screen reflect his status as a level 1 Qi gathering Cultivator, he was apprehensive about the rate at which the xp requirements to level up would increase…

‘Shitty stat gains for a level up which took almost three weeks of grinding. They xp requirements for the next level up almost tripled, eh? But just wait until I, your father level grind to the pinnacle without any bottlenecks…as long as there is stuff to kill. I guess I should start learning the 2nd layer of the Sublime Qi Manual, the hard way. Never hurts to grind some additional skill points. I will figure out how to use them eventually.’