The Record of the Wind Bird’s Southern Journey chronicled the travels of a cultivator named Yan Shu, who traversed the southern realms atop his spirit beast, the Wind Bird.

It was, in essence, a travelogue.

The pages were filled with thrilling tales of encountering Demonic Sects, narrow escapes, and romantic trysts with local beauties that lasted only a single, passionate night. Wang Ba read it purely for entertainment, treating it like a pulp novel.

However, buried within the prose, Yan Shu mentioned a visit to a place called the ‘Great Wu Country.’ There, he was entertained by a local beast-taming sect and given a tour of their large-scale avian breeding facility.

Yan Shu, being a beast tamer himself, had paid close attention. He had secretly recorded their breeding methods in the margins.

They called it the ‘Prime Yang Inversion Technique.’

Wang Ba immediately straightened up, his lethargy vanishing.

Rare Fowl were, after all, a type of spirit bird. If this technique worked for the sect, it might work for him. He leaned in, devouring the text.

But when he finished, he sat back, dumbfounded.

Isn’t this just… artificial insemination?

The concept wasn’t new to him. In his previous life, he had watched adults perform this exact procedure on hens during his childhood. The mechanics were simple; a skilled hand could finish the job in a few breaths.

He had actually tried it before in this world. But he had failed. Later, he found the reason in the scrolls left by the cultivator surnamed Stone: the physiological structure of Rare Fowl and Spirit Poultry was unique, making mundane methods ineffective.

“Strange. So how did that beast-taming sect manage it?”

Curiosity piqued, Wang Ba read on.

To his surprise, he found that Yan Shu had recorded a specific Spiritual Power circulation route alongside a peculiar hand technique.

“Could this be the true secret of the Prime Yang Inversion Technique?”

Wang Ba quickly memorized the circulation path and the hand movements. Unable to sit still, he rushed out of the wooden hut to the back of the yard, grabbing a mature male Spirit Poultry to test his theory.

He channeled his Spiritual Power and applied the technique.

To his disappointment, the rooster merely wiggled its butt. It turned its head, looking at him with sheer confusion.

What the hell are you doing, cluck?

Wang Ba tossed the rooster back in frustration. He frowned, squatting under the moonlight.

“That shouldn’t be right. They’re all avian species. Even if the technique isn’t specifically for Spirit Poultry, there should be some reaction.”

He stroked his chin, pondering back and forth.

Unwilling to give up, he grabbed a male Rare Fowl this time. He channeled his Spiritual Power along the specific meridian route detailed in the book, infusing it into the bird’s body while gently massaging its abdomen with his other hand.

Wang Ba’s eyes went wide.

A wave of ecstasy surged in his heart.

It works! The Prime Yang Inversion Technique actually works!

Sleep was no longer an option. Energized, he immediately and tirelessly rounded up several male Rare Fowl and Spirit Poultry, testing them one by one.

The results were clear: the technique was highly effective on Rare Fowl, but its effect on the evolved Spirit Poultry was negligible.

Still, Wang Ba was more than satisfied.

He immediately collected the ‘Prime Yang’—the essence—extracted from the male Rare Fowl. Using his Spiritual Power as a guide, he carefully introduced it into the cloacas of the female Rare Fowl and Spirit Poultry.

He even let Alpha-Seven out. While the hen wasn’t paying attention, he grabbed her, pried open her tail feathers, and injected the essence of a male Rare Fowl.

Alpha-Seven shook her rear end with palpable disdain.

Cluck!

Wang Ba ignored her attitude. His heart was bursting with the joy of finally solving the breeding bottleneck.

He worked through the entire night, successfully distributing the Prime Yang of the roosters to almost every hen of breeding age. By the time he finished, he was on the verge of collapse. His Spiritual Power was meager, which severely limited his speed.

As dawn broke, he finally collapsed onto his wooden bed for a few hours of deep sleep.

The next day, he meticulously prepared extra feed for all the birds, with special double rations for the ‘donor’ roosters.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but the male Rare Fowl he had focused on seemed visibly thinner, their feathers lacking their usual luster. They looked… drained.

“Illusion. Definitely an illusion,” Wang Ba muttered, suppressing a twinge of guilt.

He waited a full day. By evening, his patience was rewarded.

The hens started laying.

He spent hours sweeping the entire farm, collecting a total of 260 eggs.

245 Rare Fowl eggs.

15 Spirit Poultry eggs.

Candling them revealed the truth: 96 of the Rare Fowl eggs were fertilized. None of the Spirit Poultry eggs were.

“Fertilization rate for Rare Fowl is about forty percent,” Wang Ba noted on a piece of paper. “Zero for Spirit Poultry. Maybe the sample size is too small, or the cross-breeding doesn’t work.”

He didn’t repeat the procedure immediately.

On the second day, he collected 290 eggs.

269 Rare Fowl eggs.

107 fertilized.

Still no fertilized Spirit Poultry eggs.

The rate held steady at forty percent.

Third day. Fourth day…

By the fifth day, the fertilization rate plummeted to less than ten percent. By the sixth, it was negligible.

“So, one application of the Prime Yang Inversion Technique lasts about five days,” Wang Ba concluded. “And male Rare Fowl cannot fertilize female Spirit Poultry.”

Over the next few weeks, Wang Ba repeated the cycle.

When his stockpile of fertilized eggs exceeded three thousand, he forced himself to stop. The hens simply couldn’t incubate them all. He only had about two hundred broody hens available. While a single hen could cover fifteen to twenty eggs, he had to think long-term.

Even so, watching the rows of hens quietly sitting on their nests filled him with an unprecedented sense of satisfaction.

These eggs weren’t just poultry. They were his Lifespan.

As the twenty-day incubation period progressed, the mountain-like pile of chicken feed began to vanish at a terrifying rate.

As hatching day approached, Wang Ba’s anxiety spiked.

On one hand, the feed was critically low. On the other, three thousand tiny new mouths were about to open.

“Breeding too many brings its own problems,” he sighed, feeling helpless. “If I can’t solve the feed issue, I’ll have to throttle back production.”

Amidst the stress, a small surprise occurred. Perhaps due to the warming weather, the Yellow-throated Spirit Turtles in the pond began to lay.

While cleaning manure near the water’s edge, Wang Ba noticed disturbed soil. His farmer’s instincts kicked in. He gently brushed away the dirt to reveal over forty oval, white turtle eggs resting in the damp sand.

He didn’t dare move them. According to Notes on Avian Husbandry, turtle eggs were sensitive. Unlike chicken eggs, which required constant turning by the mother to maintain even heat, turtle eggs had to remain in their original orientation. Flipping them could detach the embryo and kill it.

He carefully re-buried them and marked the spot to avoid stepping on them.

Now, his daily routine consisted of three things: feeding chickens, shoveling shit, and praying for Yu Changchun’s return.

“I had to ask around half the sect, but I finally found a Junior Brother in the ‘Nurturing Spirit Path’ who had a batch of Discarded Spirit Worms and spirit grain chaff.”

Several days later, just as the feed bins were scraped clean, Yu Changchun descended from the sky.

He brought another mountain of feed, but he also brought a condition.

“However…” Yu Changchun paused, his expression grave. “He has terms. He needs ten Spirit Poultry sent to him every month. In exchange, he will secure a steady supply of these materials. If you find this too difficult, I can try to think of something else…”

Wang Ba’s mind raced.

Ten Spirit Poultry. Even if they were males sold at the recycling price, that was nearly twenty Spirit Stones of value.

Trading twenty Spirit Stones for ‘useless’ worm carcasses and chaff? That was pure profit for the supplier.

Wang Ba frowned, not out of stinginess, but out of caution.

“Senior Yu, can this Junior Brother guarantee stability? How much can he supply daily?”

Yu Changchun smiled confidently. “Rest assured, I’ve confirmed it. He manages nearly a hundred acres of Spirit Rice fields at another sect outpost. He can provide sixty to seventy thousand catties of chaff per month without issue. As for the worms, expect about a thousand catties monthly.”

Sixty to seventy thousand catties?

Wang Ba did the mental math instantly. Chaff was the bulk filler. Even without high-quality additives, the birds would grow, just slower.

A Rare Fowl ate half a catty a day. During the transition to Spirit Poultry, they gorged on eight to ten catties. Once evolved, they settled back to one or two catties.

Even if he only raised Rare Fowl, this supply supports about 4,000 birds. If he scaled up Spirit Poultry production, that number would drop drastically.

He contorted his face into a mask of extreme distress.

“This… ten Spirit Poultry a month… that is truly difficult, Senior!” Wang Ba groaned. “Is there really no other way?”

Yu Changchun watched him closely and nodded internally. Ten is clearly beyond his limit. Better not squeeze him too hard and break him.

He let a warm, benevolent smile spread across his face.

“Hehe, I was merely jesting. I’ve already negotiated him down. You only need to provide five Spirit Poultry per month. I cut the price in half for you. How is that?”

Wang Ba looked surprised, but the pained look didn’t fully leave his eyes. He gritted his teeth, as if making a physically painful decision.

“This… would three be acceptable? Five is… it’s really too much!”

Hmm. He’s truly tapped out.

Yu Changchun mentally applauded his own negotiation skills. He pretended to hesitate, furrowing his brow in deep thought, before finally nodding with a sigh of ‘helpless’ agreement.

“Very well. Three it is.”

As he nodded, Yu Changchun was secretly rejoicing.

Another three free Spirit Poultry every month for me!

Meanwhile, Wang Ba let out a long sigh of relief, thinking: Old Yu is such an honest man.

They smiled at each other, the air thick with warmth, each harboring their own schemes.

But before leaving, Yu Changchun dropped a piece of heavy news.

“The Heavenly Gate Sect is about to assign mandatory tasks to our batch of Outer Sect Left-Path Cultivators.”

“Unfortunately,” he added, his brow furrowing for real this time, “even I don’t know the specifics yet.”