Ugly Water Chicken

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Ugly Water Chicken (丑水鸡)
Species/Race	Waterfowl Pet Beast
Affiliation	Jiang Xing Research Institute population 47
Status	Rare; previously considered to have no evolutionary forms, later confirmed to possess three 36 79
First Appearance	36

Power Progression

Stage / Realm / Level	Chapter	Notes
Ugly Water Chicken — Mid-Transcendental racial rank	36	Base form; naturally possesses the intimacy-linked racial move Training Power.
Cloud Cotton Bird — Low-level Commander racial rank	77 80	Intimacy evolution. Confirmed condition: Mid-Transcendental strength and Friendship ≥ 198; personality, Beauty Condition, and Phoenix resources do not affect this route.
Mystic Feather Peacock	75 79	Beauty evolution achieved by overcoming the Ugliness talent during the Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix assembly.
Mystic Water Phoenix Chick — High-level Commander racial rank	77 80	Ultimate Phoenix evolution achieved by A-Ji. Its core requirements are Phoenix-type energy, extreme beauty, and extreme emotion; the route also requires resilience, intimacy, a Phoenix-type move, the Hundred Birds Garment, and the evolution ceremony. 121

Appearance

The Ugly Water Chicken is a bald, featherless waterfowl with a bizarre chicken-like head, bumpy skin, and a habit of coating itself in mud. Its appearance is intrinsically unsettling due to its talent rather than ordinary aesthetics alone. 36 47

• Featherless body covered in bumps. 36
• Often smears mud over itself to hide its appearance. 36 47
• Its stacked Ugliness talent is mentally oppressive when many individuals gather. 47
• Base-form individuals commonly live in dark ditches and avoid seeing their reflections. 47

Background

Ugly Water Chickens were originally dismissed as low-potential Pet Beasts. Researchers found them difficult to raise, slow to learn even Training Power, and believed they had no evolutionary forms; the species was consequently abandoned as a research subject. 36

The species survives partly because predators are repulsed by its appearance, but the same trait isolates it from other creatures and even its own kind. It is scarce, difficult to breed, and primarily found in the Jiangnan countryside. 37

Their social trauma forms a destructive cycle: adults incubate their eggs, but their Ugliness talent triggers fear and disgust when chicks hatch, causing parents to abandon offspring despite their underlying maternal instincts. 72 Jiang Xing's research institute became the first environment in which a large group of Ugly Water Chickens received sustained care, safety, and a path toward evolution. 47 76

Personality

Ugly Water Chickens are typically timid, solitary, insecure, and highly sensitive to rejection. Their self-loathing is intensified by their own Ugliness talent, which causes instinctive disgust in surrounding creatures—including other Ugly Water Chickens. 47 71

Despite this, they retain a strong desire for companionship, acceptance, flight, and change. Many followed humans to Jiang Xing's institute because they preferred risking rejection in pursuit of evolution over returning to their former lives in gutters. 47

Under Jiang Xing's care and A-Ji's example, the group gradually became more confident, trained together, and began supporting one another during the evolution assembly. 73 75 76

Abilities & Skills

Ugliness

An innate intimidation talent that causes instinctive disgust and can induce flinching in opponents. 47

• Increases survival odds by frightening ordinary predators. 47
• Affects creatures regardless of species or aesthetic preference. 47
• Can provoke creatures resistant to intimidation, as happened with the Yuyu near Jiang Xing's institute. 47
• Causes severe self-image issues among Ugly Water Chickens themselves. 47 71
• Can be partially offset among their own kind through Seduce. 73

Training Power / Return

A racial move believed to correspond to Return and to scale with emotional bonds. 36 48

• Base racial move alongside Splash, Water Gun, Scary, and Peck. 36
• Initially regarded as weak and slow to learn. 36
• Its connection to intimacy led Jiang Xing to identify the species as a candidate for intimacy evolution research. 36 48
• Cloud Cotton Birds can display Return power far exceeding the calculated formula, suggesting an emotional or hidden variable. 89

Seduce

A Beauty-related move adopted to counter the psychological and practical effects of Ugliness. 60 71

• Reduces an opponent's desire to attack, power, and accuracy when successfully used. 60
• Initially backfires against wild Pet Beasts, which interpret it as provocation under the effect of Ugliness. 73
• A-Ji used it to cancel Ugliness among fellow Ugly Water Chickens, allowing them to perceive one another without instinctive disgust. 73
• Its widespread nighttime practice inspired the “Dancing Chicken Under the Moon” urban legend. 73

Phoenix Demeanor

A high-tier Phoenix-type Beauty move intended as an advanced evolution tool. 72

• Channels power through feathers while imitating a Phoenix’s posture. 72
• Greatly reduces enemies’ desire to attack through overwhelming beauty. 72
• Extremely difficult for the naturally featherless Ugly Water Chicken to learn. 72
• Essential to the Mystic Water Phoenix Chick’s Phoenix-type power and extreme-beauty evolution route. 121

Evolutionary Forms

• Cloud Cotton Bird — A cute Water-type companion bird with three head feathers used to convey emotions. Its talents are Perception, which senses nearby emotional fluctuations, and Good Mood, which provides gradual stamina recovery while positive. 80
• Mystic Feather Peacock — A Water/Psychic-type evolution resembling a deep-gray peacock. Its purple-gold feather spots refract jewel-like colors when its wings spread. 76 79
• Mystic Water Phoenix Chick — A Water/Phoenix-type ultimate evolution with the Domain-type talent Ultimate Color. It creates an Ink Realm that enhances Water- and Phoenix-type moves while reducing most other attributes’ move power by one-third. 80

Story Role / Major Arcs

Discovery and Institute Arrival

Jiang Xing identified the Ugly Water Chicken as the only candidate among more than one hundred thousand basic Pet Beasts that naturally possessed Training Power while lacking a recorded conventional evolution. He suspected it might have both Intimacy and Beauty Condition evolution routes. 36

Senior Li collected and delivered more than three hundred Ugly Water Chickens to Jiang Xing's institute. Their Ugliness talent caused conflict with the institute’s resident and nearby wild Pet Beasts, leaving them driven from the lake and attacked. 47

Intimacy and Beauty Research

Jiang Xing promised to help the group evolve and designed experiments to determine how training, resources, moves, and bonds affected Training Power. 48 He later contracted A-Ji, the first Ugly Water Chicken to take that step, and encouraged it to overcome its fear of the outside world. 47 60

A-Ji mastered Seduce and became proof that an Ugly Water Chicken could see beauty in itself and its own kind when the talent’s influence was neutralized. This inspired the others to train in secret at night. 73

Hundred Birds Paying Homage to the Phoenix

Jiang Xing built an evolution stage using a Mental Field Generator and framed the assembly around stories of the Ugly Duckling and the Phoenix. The event forced each participant to confront an amplified version of its Ugliness talent and personal trauma. 74 75 77

Successful contestants evolved into Mystic Feather Peacocks by overcoming their inner demons. Those who could not endure the trial were comforted by Jiang Xing and evolved into Cloud Cotton Birds through trust and intimacy instead. 76 77

A-Ji used feathers from evolved birds to form the Hundred Birds Garment, released Phoenix Demeanor, and evolved into the Mystic Water Phoenix Chick. 77 79

Published Evolution Research

Jiang Xing continued collecting and raising Ugly Water Chickens to verify each evolution route. A second group confirmed the Cloud Cotton Bird’s Friendship-based requirement, while later research clarified the stringent conditions behind the Mystic Water Phoenix Chick. 86 88 121

Publication of the Mystic Water Phoenix Chick research caused the market value of Ugly Water Chickens to surge above one hundred million per individual. 122

Trivia

• The species was once considered so worthless that many people had never heard of it before Jiang Xing’s research. 57
• Before their evolution was discovered, the species faced possible extinction because of scarce numbers, harsh living conditions, and breeding difficulties. 76
• The original institute group numbered 316 individuals. 72
• Senior Li later found only ninety-three additional individuals despite searching the Jiangnan countryside day and night. 86