Longevity, starting from being a chicken raising servant - Chapter 86
Chapter 86: Chapter 86 Heavenly Gate Seal, Difficult Problem_i
Translator: 549690339
This is the entrance to a shop.
At this moment, a familiar face is standing in front of the shop, peering inside.
Clad in the white robe of an East Saint Sect disciple, she was stunning, but her eyes were dull and her face clearly worn out. This, however, lent her an additional touch of pitiful, ailing beauty.
It was none other than Lin Yu, one of the four cultivators from Ding 9 Villa.
She had been separated from Wang Ba during their retreat earlier and had believed that survival in such circumstances was undoubtedly impossible. Yet, astonishingly, not only had the other party managed to survive but seemed completely unscathed.
Wang Ba couldn’t help but express amazement.
Although he didn’t particularly like this woman, having survived a life and death experience, Wang Ba’s animosity towards her had considerably reduced. Seeing a familiar face in such circumstances was oddly comforting.
Cultivators have very sharp perceptions. As soon as Wang Ba noticed Lin Yu, she too spotted him.
The moment she laid eyes on Wang Ba, her eyes lit up.
She immediately moved to approach Wang Ba.
But soon she hastily turned her head to look inside the store; it seemed like she’d heard something. A hint of reluctance briefly flitted across her face.
After hesitating for a moment, she glanced at Wang Ba apologetically and then carefully turned around and entered the shop, her steps light.
The two acquaintances, in the end, didn’t get to speak.
Wang Ba didn’t feel any regret either.
Carrying his purchases, he planned to hunker down by South Lake for a while.
But fewer than two days later.
A group of Tianmen Cult cultivators tracked down Wang Ba.
“All heresy cultivators not from our Sect should be registered… You’ve already used the Spirit Sending Sign? That’s a different matter… Come, let’s get you stamped.”
One of the elder cultivators took a small stamp from another cultivator and left an invisible mark on the back of Wang Ba’s right hand.
“This is called the Heavenly Gate Seal.”
“In the future, if you come across a patrol inside the Sect, you must immediately infuse it with mana to reveal this seal; else, you’ll be killed instantly.”
A cultivator standing by Wang Ba said solemnly.
Wang Ba’s face didn’t look too good, but he still infused it with mana, and a dark red square seal emerged on the back of his hand, its strange, dark glow flickering.
“Remember, if you kill a cultivator from our Sect or any other heresy cultivator inside the Sect, this seal will warn our Sect’s patrol. So, you know.”
The elder cultivator looked at him with a smug smile, then turned back around and left with the other Tianmen Cult cultivators.
“Inside the Sect? So, you mean… outside the Sect…”
Watching the retreating figures of the Tianmen Cult cultivators, Wang Ba was deep in thought.
It was clear that the existence of the Heavenly Gate Seal was to ensure the safety of the Sect’s disciples within the Sect.
But conversely, this also implied that once outside the Tianmen Cult, no one could intervene.
Though Wang Ba found this rule inexplicable, it did match the image of a demonic sect he had in mind.
Wang Ba didn’t think too much about it. He was fully engrossed in his chicken farm. After draining the surrounding spiritual energy every day, he spent his time tending to his Precious Chickens and Yellow Throat Stone Turtles, having no time to go out.
But the next day, three patrolling cultivators from the Tianmen Cult arrived.
“Who allowed you to cordon off this area?”
Each of the three patrollers was filled with mana and emanated an eerie aura; they all had grim expressions and treated Wang Ba aggressively right from the start.
Wang Ba didn’t dare to say much. As he infused the Heavenly Gate Seal with mana, he also pulled Yu Changchun out as his shield.
“Senior Brother Yu from Puppet Dao?”
The three patrollers looked at each other, and one of them, a skinny cultivator, had a hint of bewilderment in his gaze as he looked into Wang Ba’s eyes.
“You didn’t lie to us, did you?”
At this moment, Wang Ba felt the Power of the Yin God inside the Yin’s Government starting to rotate extremely quickly of its own accord!
Why is this happening?!
He clearly hadn’t disguised anything! So why was the Power of the Yin God rotating?
He suddenly remembered something Yu Changchun had once mentioned about Soul Dao, which supposedly had the ability to manipulate souls… Could it be that this person is from Soul Dao?
Had he cast some kind of spell on him?
Despite his sudden suspicion, Wang Ba didn’t let any change show on his face; on the contrary, his eyes were slightly unfocused, and he said somewhat stiffly
“Yes, I didn’t lie to you.”
The three men glanced at each other and nodded their heads. The skinny cultivator’s eyes quickly returned to normal.
After discussing amongst themselves for a while, the skinny cultivator finally said:
“Normally, you would’ve been charged spirit stones for privately sectioning off land here. But since Senior Brother Yu has made the request, and the area isn’t too large, we’re waiving the fee for this patch of land.”
“But if you expand the area, you need to pay a lower grade spirit stone per acre per month.”
“Yes, yes, yes!”
Wang Ba nodded eagerly, regretting not cordoning off more land before.
But if he had cordoned more, they probably wouldn’t have waived the fee.
Without being in a hurry to leave, the three cultivators took out several boundary stones from their storage bags and embedded them around three sides of the chicken farm. They then cast magical seals.
It was clear that the statement about having to pay spirit stones after expanding the land wasn’t an idle threat.
They would even charge spirit stones for an ordinary wasteland devoid of spiritual lineage.
Wang Ba was thoroughly impressed by the various ways the Tianmen Cult amassed spirit stones.
Suddenly, he had a hunch about the rule that the Heavenly Gate Seal only worked within the Sect’s boundaries.
“Could it be that this rule was intentionally made to collect more Spirit Stones?”
“After all, many weaker Cultivators, in order to avoid being killed, have to spend Spirit Stones to stay here.”
“It’s one thing after another!”
Wang Ba shook his head helplessly.
Of course, these were just minor glitches, and he soon put them out of his mind.
Ten days later.
Wang Ba stood before the newly rebuilt pool, gazing down at the Yellow Throat Stone Turtles, who, upon seeing him, approached in a flurry like hungry tigers. His face looked somewhat troubled.
This batch of Yellow Throat Stone Turtles was beyond his expectations. The time it took for them to transform had surpassed that of the Precious Chickens, yet they still seemed extremely hungry.
Clearly, they hadn’t absorbed enough spiritual energy and their bodies hadn’t truly transformed into Spirit Turtles, hence the need for a significant amount of spiritually rich food.
But Wang Ba was rather helpless about this.
Yellow Throat Stone Turtles are omnivores, eating both grass and meat.
However, unlike the Precious Chickens, they can’t digest Spirit Stone powder, thus they can’t supplement their spiritual energy with it. They are entirely reliant on spiritually rich vegetables and meat.
Spiritually rich leafy greens are Spirit Plants, something he had barely seen before.
As for spiritually rich meat, he did have some: Spirit Chickens.
But using Spirit Chickens as feed for the Yellow Throat Stone Turtles, even if only for a few days, was ridiculously extravagant.
The cost shot up to a heartrending level.
Thinking about it, he understood more why the East Saint Sect chose to focus on raising Precious Chickens.
Their food was largely waste that Cultivators couldn’t use, such as discarded Spirit Insects, unwanted medicine pills, Spirit Valley Bran, Spirit Stone fragments, fish bones, etc.
They mainly utilized waste.
It didn’t consume much of the East Saint Sect’s resources, just some cheap labor.
However, now that the Tianmen Cult has taken over, the East Saint Sect’s approach couldn’t continue. They certainly couldn’t feed the chickens with human bones.
“Forget it! I guess I have to kill chickens to feed turtles after all!”
Wang Ba gritted his teeth, and in desperation, he slaughtered a few of the Spirit Chickens he had bred over the past few days. After draining their lifespan, he threw them into the pool.
Watching the twenty or so Yellow Throat Stone Turtles effortlessly devour the chickens until there were no bones left…
“These guys don’t even have teeth…”
Wang Ba was astonished by their jaw strength.
Then he frowned even more.
“This won’t do, I must find a way to increase the number of chickens.”
“Otherwise, it won’t be long before I can’t satisfy Yu Changchun, and if the Yellow Throat Stone Turtles start reproducing, I probably won’t be able to support them.”
“Also, once the number of chickens increases, the demand for feed will rise, and I might not be able to handle it all by myself.”
When he was still a menial worker, he had thought about taking a few breeding chickens down the mountain, hiding somewhere, and acquiring lifespan by raising chickens on a large scale.
Looking back now, that idea seemed quite naive.
Without sufficient resources, his plan couldn’t be implemented at all.
And even if it could, once it reached a certain scale, it would inevitably attract the attention of others, and his desire to keep a low profile would be impossible.
So, hiding under a large power seems to suit him best.
With this in mind, although things didn’t go as planned, staying in the Tianmen Cult might not be a bad solution for now.
A few days passed.
The Yellow Throat Stone Turtles finally completed their transformation.
[Current Lifespan: 99.7 years], [98.5 years], [100.4 years]…
The Yellow Throat Stone Turtles didn’t change much in size or appearance after their transformation. However, their color became even more golden, giving them a golden turtle look.
In contrast, the originally prominent colored throat seemed rather ordinary.
“Their lifespans are around 100 years, which is much longer than the five to six decades of a Spirit Chicken.”
“Of course, the cost is also considerable. Each Yellow Throat Stone Turtle’s transformation into a Yellow Throat Spirit Turtle consumes about two Spirit Chickens.”
“After calculating, it’s a bit of a loss.”
Wang Ba was taken aback by his calculations and felt a bit regretful.
Two Spirit Chickens could provide him with about 12 years of lifespan, and they could be sold. According to the price he asked at the spirit beast store a few days ago, a male Spirit Chicken could be sold for around two Spirit Stones.
In conclusion, to gain 10 years of lifespan from a Yellow Throat Stone Turtle, his cost was 4 Spirit Stones.
Of course, if you want to buy, the price is outrageously high, almost seven Spirit Stones for a male Spirit Chicken.
They mainly profit from buying low and selling high, ruthlessly exploiting the owners.
Therefore, Wang Ba was reluctant to sell the Spirit Chickens.
But now he had no choice. If he didn’t solve the problem of cheap feed soon, the chicken farm would quickly fall into trouble.
After some thought, he simply crouched down and wrote down his current difficulties.
“First, solve the problem of cheap chicken feed.”
“While looking for cheaper feed for the Spirit Turtles.”
“Second, we are back to the old issue, figure out how to breed Precious Chickens.”
Once he had solved these problems, he could slowly begin to accumulate Spirit Stones. Then he could purchase a couple of Human Puppets to take care of the chicken farm, while he moves to the city to cultivate near the Spiritual Lineage.
After all, cultivation is the fundamental goal.
Not long after, though, Yu Changchun brought him some good news.
