After waiting patiently for several days, Wang Ba took four male Spirit Poultry whose lifespan he had already drawn from to Lu’s Grain Depot in West Garden Market.
He didn’t wear a disguise, but he kept his head down, blending into the crowd. He loitered outside the depot until the midday rush thinned out, then slipped inside.
“Yo! Brother Wang! You’re late today,” Shopkeeper Lu called out from behind the counter, his face lighting up with a merchant’s practiced warmth. “The Meridian-Unblocking Grass seeds sold out hours ago. You here for more nematodes?”
Wang Ba might be a menial worker, but he had bought many nematodes on repeated visits. He was the only customer willing to return for more after being talked into the first purchase. Though no major buyer, he was well-off for a menial worker.
Wang Ba waved his hand dismissively. “Forget the worms for a moment. Shopkeeper, do you buy Spirit Poultry?”
“Spirit Poultry?” Lu’s eyes widened. “Of course! I take all comers, the more the better. Why? You have some?”
Lu scrambled out from behind the counter, practically tripping over his robes to reach Wang Ba. He lifted the lid of the bamboo basket.
His jaw dropped.
“Good heavens! Four Low-Grade Spirit Poultry?” Lu stared at Wang Ba, half-joking, half-serious. “Brother Wang, did you rob Section Ten?”
“I’m just a humble laborer,” Wang Ba replied with a dry chuckle. “Do I look like I have the guts to rob a farm guarded by Immortals? Don’t worry, the source is clean.”
Through time in the sect and his talks with Old Hou, Wang Ba had learned that the Ding Section comprised over a hundred chicken manors under the Myriad Beast Department. The first ten raised Spirit Poultry and were guarded by Outer Sect disciples; the others were managed by menial workers.
Generally, lower-numbered manors had a stronger foundation and more Rare Fowl. Ding Manor Sixteen, for example, had four or five hundred birds. Wang Ba’s own Ding Manor Eighty-Seven had held barely more than a hundred when Old Man Sun left.
But the lower-numbered manors also usually owed more tribute, so their burden was no lighter. That was why Song Lun of Ding Manor Sixteen had rushed to buy replacement birds as soon as he received compensation.
Lu laughed, accepting the deflection. He knew better than to pry too deep into a supplier’s secrets.
He took out yellow talismans and tested each bird. “Brother Wang, don’t take this as distrust. It’s the rule.”
Wang Ba nodded without objection, but thought of Alpha-Five. Was that fellow still only Low-Grade Spirit Poultry?
“Four Low-Grade male Spirit Poultry. A pity they aren’t hens,” Lu said regretfully, though he knew people were usually reluctant to sell hens.
He looked up, his expression shifting to one of candid negotiation. “Brother Wang, we’re old friends, so I won’t lowball you. The market is tight. I’ll offer you 3.3 Spirit Stones per bird.”
“I don’t want stones,” Wang Ba cut in. “I want to trade for Rare Fowl.”
“All of it?” Lu blinked, surprised, but his fingers were already flying across his abacus. “Fine by me! I’ll give you the wholesale purchase price. But be warned, Rare Fowl prices have ticked up recently. Hens are at 0.57 stones, roosters at 0.21…”
Clack. Clack. Clack.
“That converts to exactly 34 birds. Half male, half female. Tell you what, I’ll throw in an extra rooster for luck.”
“I don’t want hens,” Wang Ba said firmly. “Only roosters.”
Since he wanted to make quick exchanges, trading for roosters was the better bargain.
“Only roosters?” Lu paused, his abacus freezing. He stared at Wang Ba for a second before shrugging. “Suit yourself. That brings the total to… 62 roosters.” Follow the newest chapters on novelping.com.
“Make it 64,” Wang Ba countered shamelessly. “Two more for the road.”
“Two birds is nearly half a stone…” Lu grimaced, pained. “Fine! For a loyal customer, I’ll take the hit.”
For some reason, the exchange felt familiar to Shopkeeper Lu, as though it had happened before.
Transaction complete, Wang Ba leaned against the counter. “Shopkeeper, one more thing. Do you sell the breeding method for those Tendon-Severing Nematodes?”
“You want to breed them yourself? The method is not difficult, but I should warn you that breeding Tendon-Severing Nematodes costs a great deal of time and money. You’ve bought plenty, so I know you want to obtain a Spiritual Root and cultivate. There’s no need to waste your time on this.”
“Thanks for the concern, I’m just curious,” Wang Ba smiled innocently.
Shopkeeper Lu readily taught him how to raise and breed the worms, without charging him.
“They nest in the bones of high-grade Spirit Beasts and only lay eggs after eating and drinking their fill. The bones must be replaced regularly… That does sound troublesome.” Wang Ba remembered the method anyway. Given a chance, he intended to try depositing lifespan into the worms.
He made sure no one was following before returning to the manor.
Afterward, he took four Spirit Poultry each to East Mountain Market and North Pine Market, exchanging them for more than 120 male Rare Fowl. He avoided South Lake, where sellers were fleeced too badly.
It took considerable effort and several trips to carry all the birds home.
The manor now held about 260 birds.
Spirit Poultry: 6
Male Rare Fowl: 202
Female Rare Fowl: 53
There were fewer hens than when he arrived, because monthly tribute had outpaced the number of newly hatched females. The surplus of roosters was only temporary.
He selected sixty of the new arrivals and injected them with Lifespan.
After eating a dozen or so Spirit Poultry over the previous months and absorbing their lifespan, he now had 190.2 years left.
Ten days later.
The sixty roosters completed their transformation. Wang Ba didn’t hesitate. He harvested them all.
His remaining lifespan passed 550 years.
A number Wang Ba had never dreamed of seeing.
He sat cross-legged in his room, took a deep breath, and poured the time into his body.
[Lifespan -144 Years] Fifth Layer—Completed!
[Lifespan -288 Years] Sixth Layer—Completed!
In a single session, he blasted through three layers of cultivation.
Feeling the strength filling his body, Wang Ba longed all the more urgently to become a cultivator.
But he had to stop.
Along with that strength came swelling pain. Though he could advance the technique quickly with lifespan, his body might not withstand the sudden progress.
He needed to pause and let his body adapt before advancing again.
The markets were also beginning to fall short of his demand for Rare Fowl.
He had learned the reason while talking with Shopkeeper Lu a few days earlier. Several Ding Section manors had suffered repeated outbreaks of an unknown chicken plague, prompting the keepers to buy Rare Fowl instead of selling them.
“It’s not just the laborers,” Lu had complained. “Outer Sect disciples are buying in bulk too. I’m completely out of hens! I have to beg rogue cultivators outside the Sect for stock, and those vultures don’t give mortals like us any face.”
Now even a male Rare Fowl cost 0.6 Spirit Stones. The price had been only 0.15 when he first sold Spirit Poultry, and 0.21 in his recent trade.
Wang Ba did the math and grimaced. To reach the Tenth Layer, he needed over 5,100 years of Lifespan. That was roughly 900 Rare Fowl.
He still had more than a hundred roosters at the manor that had not received lifespan, leaving him about eight hundred birds short.
Buying at these prices would make the cost frighteningly high.
“Exchanging too many Spirit Poultry at once would still be unsafe. I’ll wait for prices to fall. There’s no hurry.”
With his primary plan on hold, Wang Ba wandered the markets, browsing the other stalls.
To his surprise, nearly everything in both the herb shops and the talisman shops had been sold out.
Only cheap, less popular talismans such as Low-Grade Spirit Light Talismans remained.
The talismans required no Spiritual Power to activate.
Wang Ba thought of Alpha-Five. He bought the stack.
Back at the manor, he found the oversized rooster strutting in the yard.
He pulled out a yellow talisman paper and brought it close to Alpha-Five.
Whoosh.
Without a breeze, the paper ignited.
A faint, milky white light rose from the ashes.