While Richard was passed out, Lo Qi came over and placed his hand on Richard’s chest. He found that the rooster was still breathing and alive to his surprise. Even more surprising, was that energy was starting to increase inside of the rooster’s body. His pill had turned an ordinary chicken into a cultivator. It’s not like it was a spirit beast; it was a domesticated animal, something that fundamentally shouldn’t be able to become a cultivator.

Lo Qi grinned and began examining Richard in more detail. In his eyes, this rooster was promoted from a temporary tool for a prank into a fun, new toy. The loss felt from letting Richard destroy parts of the garden and using high-level herbs for a throwaway pill was alleviated. It felt like it was somehow worth it.

Hours later, an angry shout rang out from the house, “Lo Qi! Where is my pill?” It was the master calling for Lo Qi, wanting the pill that was fed to Richard. Lo Qi had been contemplating the effects of the pill while watching energy levels rise in the chicken the past few hours. Upon hearing his master’s voice, he grimaced and picked up Richard. His grimace disappeared, replaced by a friendly smile, as he walked towards the voice.

At the house, there was an old man wearing a black robe out front with the door wide open. This man was Lo Qi’s master. He was revealed to be an old man that was not sick at all; in fact, he was quite lively with a slight blush of pure rage on his face. The hoarse voice mentioned previously was simply a result of aging.

“So… where’s the pill? And why are you carrying a chicken?” asked Lo Qi’s master.

“This isn’t just any chicken; it’s a rooster, also known as a cock. Quite the interesting nickname for an animal, isn’t it? And that should answer both your questions,” said Lo Qi in response to his master’s question.

Lo Qi’s master opened his mouth to say something before stopping himself. His face crinkled up like he ate something sour as he pondered what Lo Qi meant. Then it dawned on him; the wording he chose for the request and where the pill was. He had requested a pill to enhance his cock and now Lo Qi had an animal cock. There was only one inconsistency he could find.

“But that’s not mine. You disobeyed my order!” shouted Lo Qi’s master.

“What do you mean master? This is the survivor I found from the ship. You told me to do whatever with it, so I named it Richard and made it into my subordinate. As my subordinate, Richard is my possession; As your subordinate, I’m your possession and all my possessions are yours. Therefore, Richard is your cock,” said Lo Qi with a smug look, smiling with one of his eyebrows raised slightly.

Lo Qi’s master suppressed his rage as it wouldn’t help him at all in this situation. The fat man before him was annoying and purposely tried to mess up orders. He wished he could just kill him, but he was too valuable. The few times he completed orders properly more than made up for the numerous screw-ups. A symbiote that wished to be a parasite is what Lo Qi was to his master.

His attention switched to the rooster. Upon closer examination, he found that it was simply unconscious; the pill didn’t kill it. So, his gaze couldn’t help but lower down to “that” area and didn’t see much of a change. There seemed to be no effect from the pill at first sight. Assuming the pill actually did what he wanted it to do, then there’d be a change there. But, there wasn’t, so Lo Qi never made the pill he desired in the first place.

Once Lo Qi’s master cleared that assumption, he took Richard out of the fat man’s grubby hands and placed his hand on the rooster’s chest. He began probing the rooster for abnormalities and found some in its head. There he felt a minuscule amount of energy gathering. Needless to say, he was shocked.

“Tell me this is actually some spirit beast, like a cockatrice, you found and disguised as a chicken for a prank,” said Lo Qi’s master.

“I cannot do that master; that would be lying and break the contract,” said Lo Qi.

“This energy… the pill caused this? Can you make more of these pills?”

“Yes, I’ve got enough ingredients for six more of these pills.”

“What about the pill I asked about before? Can you still make that properly without any tricks before my mistress arrives?”

Lo Qi let out a nervous laugh in response to this question before looking away. His master let out a sigh of disappointment at this. The laugh was enough of a confirmation for him; either there wasn’t enough time or Lo Qi couldn’t make such a pill in the first place. But that didn’t matter because Richard woke up during the conversation and started pruning his feathers while being held by the old man.

“Oh well, I made some preparations in case you didn’t come through anyways. As for… Richard? I can gift it as a pet to my mistress,” said Lo Qi’s master as he looked at Richard. The rooster looked back. His eyes had an unusual depth to them as if they were an abyss.

It was hard to describe the feeling those eyes gave when they stared. It wasn’t like a chicken looking at him in confusion or sizing him up; the rooster’s eyes aimed straight towards Lo Qi’s master’s eyes. The eyes on both sides were intelligent. The rooster knew it was being watched. It watched back, waiting for the other’s response. It wasn’t natural; it was downright creepy. Lo Qi’s master dropped Richard out of shock and his face blanched, turning pale at his own thoughts.

Richard took the opportunity to start running. He somehow knew that response was bad and that what he just did was bad. Now was the time to try to get away, as far as he can. Instinct? No, it was more like a feeling that his mind came up with. He looked down and saw his legs lift up and slam into the ground as he fled, fascinating him somewhat despite the situation.

“Catch him! Quickly, Lo Qi!” shouted Lo Qi’s master at the top of his lungs.

The shout drilled into Richard’s ears harshly. He closed his eyes and tried to raise his wings up to his ears, trying to reduce the noise in any way possible. This strange action almost unbalanced him and made him fall. Fortunately, he just stumbled and continued on his way. There wasn’t a particular direction he ran, just running somewhere away from those two strange men. A strange feeling rose in his chest suddenly.

An object appeared in the corner of his right eye. It was massive and took the shape of a human. A hand reached out from this figure, stretching towards his feet. Its position was fixed right in that spot no matter how much he moved; it seemed like it was flying while matching his running pace perfectly. But that movement seemed somewhat familiar, a hand reaching for his feet. He felt like he should avoid that somehow. It was a seemingly undodgeable move that would cement his feet to the surface he was standing on.

The answer was obvious; just not be standing on a surface when the movement hits to dodge. Richard jumped into the air to the figure’s shock. Alas, this tactic was useless. The figure stopped trying to use its strange movement and instead reached out both its arms, catching the rooster in mid-air. The figure was, of course, Lo Qi following the order to grab Richard.

“These actions… could it be?” questioned Lo Qi with a serious face, both of his eyebrows furrowed and his lips in a neutral position.

“Yes, its eyes contain intelligence. It read my emotions through my eyes and predicted your attack. It even had enough time to think of a countermeasure to your move. The rooster has become a sentient being,” his master responded.

“Then, it’s no different from a spirit beast. Livestock becoming a spirit beast.”

“Not necessarily. We won’t know for sure unless we can get it to cultivate. First, we need to teach it how to read and find a suitable cultivation manual.”

“How do we do that? It may have gained sentience but it’s still a rooster. It won’t even be able to understand human speech.”

“We? How do you do it? This is your problem; I order you to teach Richard how to read.”

“Yes, sir.”

At the end of their conversation, Lo Qi wandered off with Richard while his master shut himself back in the house. A quick glimpse before the door shut showed a room that was several times larger than the house. It truly was larger inside than the outside, without any room for doubt. Perhaps, some strange magic was casted upon it and the nearby garden that seemed to have the same phenomenon.

Lo Qi walked over to a patch of dirt under the shade of a nearby tree. This tree was about one hundred meters away from the house. What should’ve been a minute long walk was covered in just a few steps. Once there, Richard was placed just outside of the patch of dirt and was forcibly kept in that spot by Lo Qi’s strange movement. He let out a light croon to voice his displeasure and tried to move his legs to no avail.

Lo Qi grabbed a fallen branch off the ground and gripped it in the center with both hands. Next, he pulled apart slowly, revealing a perfect stick; All of the curves, imperfections, and bark was stripped off and it became a perfect cylinder. With this stick, he began drawing on the ground. He drew the alphabet while saying each letter out loud whenever he finished writing them out. His lack of enthusiasm in this boring and thankless task quickly spread to the one he was supposed to teach.

At first, Richard was interested in Lo Qi’s actions and carefully watched and listened. After a few letters, he had lost interest and began looking at his surroundings. They were right below a tree. It wasn’t the first tree he had seen but it seemed special. He saw the colors and details on it for seemingly the first time. Before it seemed like somewhere he could roost on to dodge predators, but now it was an object in front of him made up of several parts.

Seeing the rooster getting distracted, Lo Qi smacked the branch against the ground. The noise managed to catch Richard’s attention again; this attention was directed towards Lo Qi himself, instead of what he was drawing on the ground. He was wearing a simple green shirt and brown pants. The material was soft and flexible, able to stretch along with his every movement comfortably. It was also very wide to suit Lo Qi’s overweight body. As for his facial features; his cheeks were chubby, he seemed to have two chins, he had hazel eyes, a rounded nose, and dimples.

Richard continued to drift off for the next few hours as Lo Qi desperately tried to teach him. It was futile to try and teach him, though; not much time has passed since Richard gained sentience. It was like trying to convince a baby to speak its first words, except with writing instead of speech. Not that Richard could learn to speak at this point. A rooster’s lungs and mouth weren’t capable of imitating human speech, much less actual speech.

When night fell, Lo Qi’s master left the house and wandered over. He witnessed the scene of Lo Qi scrawling on the ground while mumbling and Richard looking off into the distance there. Was he angry? No, his feelings of disappointment were stronger. He chastised himself for expecting more and walked over to Richard. Lo Qi noticed his master and stopped what he was doing to watch.

Richard spotted Lo Qi’s master and avoided making eye contact. It wouldn’t help him out at all in this situation, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Lo Qi’s master simply grabbed his head and forced him to look at him. Then he spoke, either to himself or Lo Qi.

“I wanted to avoid this sort of situation but I don’t have the patience for this. At this rate, it’ll take years before we see any results. I have to take matters into my own hands,” said Lo Qi’s master.

To Lo Qi’s shock and Richard’s horror, he then opened Richard’s mouth and pressed his mouth against his beak. It was just plain awkward for everyone. However, Lo Qi quickly noticed some energy being transferred from his master to the rooster. While Richard himself felt something strange occurring in his mind. Knowledge of words, letters, and speech flooded his mind. There was some sort of memory transfer going on to speed up the process of Richard’s learning.

Author’s Note: Thanks, Slaggedfire. Your review made it to the top 5 weekly reviews and helped pretty much tripled the number of people reading this story. It expired today, apparently top weekly expires a week after the review is made; the weekly part isn’t based on when the review makes it into the list. Which also means that reviews over a week old can’t make it onto that list.

New cover art by j0nn0. It only took him 5 minutes to draw but it looks great, don’t you agree?

Broke the 100 follower mark earlier today. It’s well past that now, but I guess it’s a bit of a landmark. 100 followers right at the end of the first week of this fiction. Then average views were encroaching on 700 before I posted this chapter. Give or take a few more releases and average views will break 1000.

Turns out I was royally butchering the usage of some word. Might have to go back and make more edits.