Chapter 59: The Spirit Chicken and the Peak-Level Alchemy
The Beast Speech talent at level ten vastly exceeded Su Xing’s expectations in this simulation.
Foremost was the ability to communicate with Gu Insects during a crisis, which allowed Su Xing to turn danger into safety.
Next was the ability to communicate with Spirit Chickens, which also enabled Su Xing to breed them more effectively, thereby improving the quality of the eggs and chicken soup.
Even more, Su Xing could use this ability to cultivate more useful spiritual animals in the future.
Such a talent was hard to come by; if missed this time, who knows when it would be available again.
As for cultivation level, the advancement Su Xing experienced in this simulation was limited; it wasn’t indispensable.
After Su Xing made his choice, the system’s notification sounded in his ear.
[Ding, you have chosen to take out the complete Changchun Technique, which cost 500,000 points of energy, leaving a balance of 193,000 points.]
[Ding, you have chosen to take out the level ten blue talent Beast Speech, which cost 100,000 points of energy, leaving a balance of 93,000 points.]
At the same time, a complete ancient text appeared in Su Xing’s hands, which was the complete Changchun Technique.
Su Xing sighed somewhat,
“The first half of the technique was worth a mere 3,000 points of energy, yet the technique that could cultivate to the Return to Void Realm was valued at an astonishing 500,000 points.”
Perhaps, in the simulator’s eyes, a cultivation technique that could only cultivate to the Golden Core Stage wasn’t much, after all, it would only produce a Golden Core Stage cultivator at best.
But cultivating to the Return to Void Realm was an entirely different matter.
Of course, Su Xing guessed that a large part of this 500,000 points of energy might also be because the Changchun Technique was a component of a much more powerful cultivation technique, which is why it held such value.
Su Xing gave the Changchun Technique a careful read and indeed found the cultivation mantra for after the Nascent Soul Stage in the latter half.
Besides the cultivation mantra, Su Xing also discovered some annotations on cultivation experiences left by previous cultivators of the Changchun Sect.
Su Xing treasured them like valuable treasures; these cultivation experiences were immensely useful to him.
So far, Su Xing’s cultivation had been based on his own explorations; the experiences in this technique could not only make cultivation more intuitive for Su Xing but would also help him avoid many detours.
“I see, during the Qi refining and Foundation Establishment Stage, it is crucial to pay attention to the expansion of the Dantian so as to lay the groundwork for the Golden Core Stage and condense a higher-quality Golden Core.”
Su Xing reflected with slight emotion; the experiences detailed methods for expanding the Dantian, which Su Xing had not known before, so his cultivation in the Golden Core Stage might be slightly slower.
“However, there are still ways to remedy this. According to the experiences recorded, it requires more courage and time to directly elevate the quality of the Golden Core to higher-grade, which would also greatly increase the speed of cultivation…”
Su Xing pondered thoughtfully, scrutinizing the cultivation experiences in the ancient text over and over again while combining them with his own cultivation gains from recent days, feeling that he had benefited a lot.
After a while, Su Xing returned from his reverie, his eyes brimming with newfound confidence, and said,
“As long as I can master the experiences recorded in this book one by one, my cultivation speed might very well increase by another third!”
An increase by a third was no small amount; it might save Su Xing several rounds of simulation time in the future.
Su Xing carefully stored the ancient text and then began to ponder over the second reward he had taken out, the level ten Beast Speech talent.
After carefully feeling it out for a while, Su Xing hadn’t noticed any difference; just as he started to feel puzzled, he suddenly heard a voice coming from afar.
“Brother Chicken! Can you share some Spirit Rice with me… I don’t need much, just two and a half grains is enough!”
Su Xing paused for a moment when he heard the sound and then looked towards its source.
He then discovered that in the chicken enclosure he had set up, several Spirit Chickens wore a flattering expression, seemingly wanting to eat more grains of Spirit Rice.
One particularly majestic and assertive rooster even had a look of disdain in its eyes and casually said,
“Little Blackie, it’s not that Brother Chicken doesn’t want to give you guys more, but you’re not trying hard enough! In this world, it’s survival of the fittest. I’m stronger than you, so I naturally get more Spirit Rice…”
Upon hearing Brother Chicken’s words, the other smaller Spirit Chickens immediately trembled.
Su Xing witnessed this scene with a black line forming on his forehead.
“I was wondering why the evolution speed of the Spirit Chickens have been slowing down this recently. Turns out there’s a bad egg in the group! Daring to call himself Brother Chicken? Isn’t this affecting the breeding speed of my Spirit Chickens?”
“Looks like it’s time for a special meal tonight, a serving of Spirit Chicken soup…”
Without much hesitation, Su Xing picked up a knife and sharpened it menacingly towards Brother Chicken.
With a swift motion, killing, bleeding, plucking… he went through the whole process smoothly.
As Su Xing sipped on the Spirit Chicken soup, he said to the other chickens,
“You are all equal! There’s no such thing as Brother Chicken or not. Whoever dares to hinder the evolution of the other chickens is my enemy!”
Seeing that the strongest Spirit Chicken among them couldn’t make even the smallest ripple in Su Xing’s hands, and at most could only make Su Xing burp contentedly, they were immediately terrified and trembled all over.
“Ah! There’s only one true Brother Chicken in this world, and that’s our great master! I, Little Blackie, swear to protect Brother Chicken with my life from now on!”
Watching the Spirit Chickens swear their loyalty, another black line rose on Su Xing’s forehead.
Great, now I’m Brother Chicken?
Su Xing curled his lips, but the breeding speed of his Spirit Chickens had not been slow over these past few months.
The second generation of Spirit Chickens had already started to develop slowly, providing Su Xing with ample Spirit Chicken eggs every day, sometimes dozens, sometimes as many as fifty or sixty.
With an abundance of Spirit Chicken eggs, Su Xing couldn’t even finish them all, and their effects were even better than Spirit Rice, continuously nourishing his physical body, while all he had to give in return was some Spirit Rice.
In the following week, Su Xing, as always, refined three hundred Nourishing Face Pills, and besides that, struck by inspiration, he also refined some lower-grade Healing Pills and Essence-Nourishing Pills for emergency use.
Without sufficient aged Spiritual Medicines, Su Xing was completely unable to refine Organ Refining Pills, and even the effectiveness of the Healing Pills and Essence-Nourishing Pills was only one tenth of the normal ones.
But even so, Essence-Nourishing Pills were precious materials that could directly enhance a Cultivator’s Spiritual Power and even a professional’s mental attributes.
However, after some experimentation, Su Xing found that the lower-grade Essence-Nourishing Pills’ effects would completely vanish after consuming dozens of them, providing only limited improvement, and couldn’t continually strengthen a Cultivator’s Spiritual Energy like the real Essence-Nourishing Pills.
But these lower-grade Pills were advantageous because the materials were cheap and the methods were simple, allowing Su Xing to refine hundreds of them in a day.
After developing the lower-grade Essence-Nourishing Pills, Su Xing was surprised to find that the skill level for refining Essence-Nourishing Pills in his skill bar had risen from advanced to peak level.
This was a pleasant surprise for Su Xing, as among the Alchemy skills he mastered, there were now two types of Elixirs that had reached peak level.
They were the Nourishing Face Pill and the Essence-Nourishing Pill.
Without exception, Su Xing had modified both types of Elixirs and developed new versions of them.
“Could it be that, to raise an Alchemy skill to peak level, besides mastering the original essentials of Alchemy, one also needs their own understanding and even personal improvements?”