Experiment

"This cultivation method can't produce even a trace of an immortal's Law Power!"

Although he had no experience in cultivation, he had heard that once cultivators entered Qi Refining, they could nurture Law Power.

They used it to perform all manner of wondrous Law Techniques.

Thus, Law Power was the foundation of cultivators.

Yet this cultivation method had absolutely nothing to do with their Law Power.

According to its contents, what it cultivated was called "Yin Spirit Power."

It could strengthen the mind and bewilder the minds of others.

Anything beyond that was left vague.

Practicing it, however, was quite similar to practicing the Body-Strengthening Scripture.

It was extremely time-consuming!

Mastering the first level alone required at least a hundred years of painstaking effort!

And each subsequent level took ten times as long.

There were three levels in total.

In other words, mastering the third level would take at least ten thousand years!

"Another lethal weapon against my lifespan! Worse still, without enough comprehension, I might not even get started on this cultivation method after a hundred or a thousand years."

Wang Ba shook his head and put away the gold paper.

He had no idea where Old Sun had gotten this bizarre cultivation method.

Its unclear effects were one thing, but its cost was enormous too.

It did not particularly appeal to him.

Besides, he had yet to master the Body-Strengthening Scripture, so naturally he had no time to waste on an extra cultivation method.

"For now, I should focus on raising the Precious Chickens properly. That's the key to successfully mastering the Body-Strengthening Scripture."

Wang Ba briskly cleaned up all the chicken droppings in the estate, then added water to the feeding containers.

The chicken feed had mostly been eaten.

There was no need to add more today.

As usual, he checked the numbers and condition of the hens, roosters, and chicks.

He also took stock of the eggs.

Perhaps because they were rich in Spiritual Qi, even eggs several months old would not spoil.

Their shells were also hard and extremely difficult to break, making them quite easy to store.

"Old Sun said fertilized eggs have duller shells than unfertilized ones, and something shifts inside when you shake them gently."

Wang Ba counted them one by one. This month's total was looking a little precarious: there were only a little over 120 so far.

With fewer than ten days left until the end of the month, gathering a full 200 would be difficult at the rate these Precious Chickens laid eggs.

To his disappointment, none of the three eggs laid today were fertilized.

Still, he was not too disappointed. Both the chicken-raising instructions and Old Sun had mentioned that Precious Chickens were extremely difficult to breed. The roosters showed little interest in the hens and very rarely mounted them to mate.

Even human intervention, such as using aphrodisiacs, had little effect.

And even if they hatched, the newborn chicks were extremely frail and could easily die for no apparent reason.

Wang Ba did have some guesses about this.

In his previous life, chicken-farming techniques had already become extremely advanced.

Even though Wang Ba had not worked in animal husbandry, he had heard a few things.

Chicks died for only a handful of reasons, such as inherent deficiencies in the hatching eggs, disease, or unstable temperatures.

All of these could be addressed through certain methods.

But the most crucial thing was still to get the roosters interested in the hens.

For the moment, however, Wang Ba had no idea how to do that.

Playing pimp for chickens was a little difficult.

Still, he could find a way to deal with that later. The pressing matter was to test his conjecture first.

Wang Ba spent a long time examining and touching the flock of Precious Chickens before finally selecting four.

Using food as bait, he went to considerable trouble before finally managing to catch them.

Two roosters and two hens.

These four chickens were in excellent condition. They had grown big but were not yet fully mature, and their ages were close.

Their lifespans were all around 19.5 years.

He named them Jia One, Jia Two, Jia Three, and Jia Four, respectively.

Wang Ba allocated 0.1, 0.2, 0.3, and 0.4 years of lifespan to the four chickens, respectively.

At a ratio of one to five, these increments of 0.1 years became half a year, one year, a year and a half, and two years when deposited into the Precious Chickens.

That brought their lifespans to 20, 20.5, 21, and 21.5 years.

Next, he marked them and released them back into the flock.

Having lost another year of lifespan, Wang Ba vaguely felt that he seemed to have aged a little.

Yet his heart was filled with drive.

That evening, he made himself another bowl of porridge and ate it with the pickled vegetables Old Sun had given him. He quite enjoyed the meal.

A night passed.

The roosters crowed.

Wang Ba rose at cockcrow to practice his sword... to get up, and hurriedly caught the four Precious Chickens.

He discovered that all their lifespans had actually changed!

In order, they were now 20.7, 21.3, 21.7, and 22.1 years.

They had increased by 0.7, 0.8, 0.7, and 0.6 years, respectively!

"They really changed!"

"And all four of them changed!"

"Could it really be as I guessed? After I deposited lifespan into them, these Precious Chickens all underwent a fundamental transformation?"

Wang Ba was both astonished and delighted.

He connected this with how, after he had deposited lifespan into the big hen before, she had actually become what Old Sun and Steward Li called a Spirit Chicken.

At the same time, that Spirit Chicken's lifespan had subsequently soared from around twenty years to nearly sixty.

According to Old Sun, Spirit Chickens already counted as immortal fowl, so a lifespan of sixty years was normal enough.

If that really was the case, then this cheat of his was simply astonishing!

"Wait first. Keep watching. There's no rush."

Wang Ba steadied his mind.

Only then did he notice that the chicken feed left over last night had actually been eaten clean.

"These four Precious Chickens probably did that too."

The big hen had been the same before. After he deposited lifespan into her, her appetite had increased enormously.

It was probably because the transformation greatly increased their need for Spiritual Qi.

Wang Ba silently conjectured.

Before long, someone arrived leading a donkey cart, delivering several dozen jin of a mixture of spirit grain bran, spirit bean cake, spirit stone powder, and spirit fish bone powder.

Wang Ba first fed the Precious Chickens the chicken feed he had fermented earlier.

Then he set the newly delivered feed ingredients to ferment.

Wang Ba even showed favoritism by setting aside an extra portion of Discarded Spirit Insects for those four Precious Chickens.

Sure enough, they ate with great relish.

Another busy day passed.

Only while tidying up that evening did Wang Ba discover that the chicken feed he had put out today had actually all been eaten!

"It looks like these four Precious Chickens are going to transform into Spirit Chickens too..."

Wang Ba looked thoughtful.

He did not give the four Precious Chickens any more special meals.

Going too far was as bad as not going far enough. Eating too much at once was no good either.

The next day, as usual, he first picked out the four Precious Chickens.

To his surprise, he discovered that they had already changed considerably!

Their bodies had grown taller and sturdier, and their expressions were full of intelligence.

Though they still did not look particularly bright.

Compared with the ordinary Precious Chickens around them, however, they were clearly much more striking.

They rather resembled cranes standing among chickens.

What delighted Wang Ba even more was that Jia Four, the hen into whom he had deposited two years of lifespan, had actually laid an egg!

"Good, good! By the end of the month, there should be hope of gathering a full 200 eggs..."

Of course, none of that was the main point.

The main point was still their lifespans!

In order, the four Precious Chickens had lifespans of 24, 25.7, 25.6, and 26.3 years.

In just one day, they had increased by 3.3, 4.4, 3.9, and 4.2 years, respectively!

"Could the increase in lifespan be related to food intake?"

Wang Ba rubbed his chin, a little puzzled.

But too little time had passed to discern anything from the data.

Whenever he had time, he would occasionally wander around near the estate. Now and then, he managed to touch a few rabbits or the like, only to discover that although he could sense their lifespans, he could not transfer lifespan to or from them.

He also tried trees, ants, mosquitoes, and other creatures.

He could not sense any lifespan at all in plants such as trees, while ants and mosquitoes were like those rabbits: he could sense their lifespans but likewise could not transfer them.

"So these Precious Chickens really aren't ordinary chickens. No wonder immortals specifically raise them. Immortal-approved selections, huh? Perhaps my ability to transfer lifespan was only triggered after I touched these Precious Chickens. After all, I'd touched other people before, but no lifespan panel ever appeared."

Bit by bit, Wang Ba mentally compiled these experiences and insights.

And so, the days passed.

On the eighth day.

"Hmm? Their lifespans have stopped increasing?"