Chapter 20 - The Floor was Covered with Chicken Feathers (2/2)

Every single breath had brought Bai Xiaochun waves of warmth. It spread all over his body, before gathering on his skin. This made his skin look stronger and tougher, with black lights flashing from time to time. However, if one looked closer, his skin was still as white and tender.

“This Unending Longevity Technique, first with pain, then starvation. It’s indeed not that easy, but its effects are excellent.” said Bai Xiaoxhun as he raised his right arm and pulled out the wooden sword, before carefully touching it with the back of his hand.

When this wooden sword, which had gone through two spirit refinements, touched Bai Xiaochun’s skin, he clearly felt some resistance. He didn’t continue, but he was even more convinced that he should keep cultivating the Unending Longevity Technique.

“According to the Unending Longevity Technique, the impentrable skin is divided into four stages, which are gold, silver, copper and iron; I am currently at the the basic level, but if I breathe like this for eighty-one days…I will gain an initial success on the invincible skin.” murmured Bai Xiaochun while glancing at the chicken bones on the ground. He had already come up with a good plan which could help him achieve the final stage of the invincible-skin.

(ED note: Er Gen is being realistic with the skin rankings. IRL in terms of hardness, gold<silver<copper<iron. Copper could also be TLed as bronze however bronze is harder than iron so we used copper.)

“Fortunately, there are enough Spirit Tailed Chickens on this mountain,” laughed Bai Xiaochun. He was now even more interested in Spirit Tailed Chickens.

He didn’t know that during the past ten-thousand years, quite a lot cultivators had tried cultivating the Unending Longevity Technique. Amongst these people, most had given up because they couldn’t bear the great and terrifying pain during the first eighty-one days, and only a few of them had stuck to it. However, after the first eighty-one days, the difficulty of the technique stemmed from the large consumption of resources.

If he intended to achieve the highest stage of the invincible skin, the amount of materials he needed to consume for his cultivation would be so terrifyingly large, that even an entire sect couldn’t afford it easily. After all, although cultivating other techniques using the same amount of materials couldn’t gain a cultivator an immortal life, it would still be more cost-effective.

This was the biggest reason that this technique had been buried in the bookshelves for years, with no one even sparing it a glance.

Cultivating for a while, Bai Xiaochun cleaned those chicken bones before burying them in his spirit field, together with the chicken feathers.

After that, he walked out of the yard, headed for a place where outer sect disciples congregated, mingled with the crowd, and carefully listened to people’s conversations, trying to find some useful information. With the experiences that he gained in his old village, he understood that he couldn’t steal a chicken everyday, every three to five days would be the best.

Listening to people’s conversation for a while, he hadn’t heard anybody talking abount any missing chickens. Surprisingly though, he learned that the Spirit Tailed Chicken’s tail were fuels of three-coloured flame.

Bai Xiaochun hurriedly rushed back to his yard after hearing this, dug the three-coloured chicken tail feathers out of the spirit soil, held them in his hand and stared at it for quite a while, seemingly thinking of something.

“No wonder these Spirit Tailed Chickens are mass-reared.” Bai Xiaochun hurriedly placed the feathers in his storage pouch. To others, these feathers were nothing more than fuel of three-coloured flame, but to him, these feathers meant three spirit refinements.

He didn’t use them right away. He was planning on saving them till he had spirit medicines, then refine the medicines to improve their effects.

A few days later, Bai Xiaochun, who had quietly stayed at home for a few days started to feel hungry again. This night, he put down the jade tablet of the second volume of herbs and sneaked out again, under the cover of the night. When he returned home, another two Spirit Tailed Chickens had been added to his storage pouch.

As time went by, a month had soon passed. During the past month, gradually, more and more Scented Cloud Mountain’s disciples had heard of the Spirit Tailed Chicken heists.

Even Li Qinghou himself had heard of this. After all, during the last month, the number of lost chickens in all three henneries were in the dozens. However, this didn’t catch too much of his attention, besides, he had to leave the mountain for other affairs, and as a result, he didn’t look into it.

The ones who were angry the most about this were those outer sect disciples, who were responsible for taking care of those chickens. These seven to eight people were not angry because of the lost chickens, after all, those chickens didn’t belong to them, and the elder didn’t blame them for this either. They were angry because they felt humiliated. They couldn’t believe that a thief dared to steal the chickens from right under their noses. Every time they thought about that thief, they would find themselves grinding their teeth.

However, they had absolutely no idea about how to prevent the chickens from being stolen. No matter how hard they tried to guard them, there were always one to two chickens lost every couple of days. What they couldn’t understand the most was how every single chicken was stolen so silently, not a single noticeable sound was made. It was as if those chickens had disappeared into thin air.

As for Bai Xiaochun, his body had fully recovered during the past month, and had even slightly fattened. No matter how much the Unending Longevity Technique exhausted him, he had enough chickens to replenish his body. His face now had a healthy flush, as if he had returned to his happy life from back then.

While happy and full, his efficiency in learning the second volume of herbs was raised. Finally, the day he had thoroughly studied the entire second volume of herbs arrived. After what he had experienced previously, this time he was even more careful in his research. He was now familiar with all of the leaves, stems, roots and even villus. He was confident in his ability to recognize a herb with a single glance, even when it had been split into dozens of parts.

After he felt confident enough, he walked out of his yard in large strides with his head held high and his chest puffed out.

“This time, I’ll let everyone know that I am the turtle who had topped Zhou Xinqi!” Bai Xiaochun rushed towards the Ten Thousand Medicine Pavilion, his face filled with anticipation.