“First-grade mid-tier!”

Wang Ba stared at the plume of smoke, his eyes widening as a brilliant white light surged from within.

Although he had his suspicions, seeing the undeniable proof of Alpha-Five’s rank shattered his composure.

Alpha-Five, however, remained completely oblivious to its sudden elevation to the status of a mid-tier Spirit Poultry. It simply rubbed its head against Wang Ba’s leg, clucking fawningly for a treat.

Wang Ba tossed it a few discarded spirit insects as a reward.

Yet, as he watched the rooster peck at the ground, a pang of regret gnawed at him.

“It’s a pity Alpha-Five is just livestock. If it were a combat-type spirit beast, having a First-grade mid-tier guardian would solve a lot of my problems.”

For reasons he couldn’t quite place, Wang Ba felt a lingering unease about the atmosphere in the sect lately.

It hadn’t been obvious when he was at Lu’s Grain Depot, but seeing the empty shelves in the herbal medicine and talisman shops had planted a seed of anxiety in his gut.

Still, nestled deep within the sect, he couldn’t imagine what kind of danger could possibly reach him here, let alone where it would come from.

He decided to stop overthinking it. Let the sky fall. The giants of the cultivation world could hold it up; it wasn’t his turn to get crushed yet.

Time flew by.

Five days had passed since Wang Ba successfully broke through to the sixth layer of the Physique Strengthening Scripture.

At the foot of the villa.

Old Hou stared at the extra buckets of chicken feed, scratching his head in confusion.

“What’s going on with you? Why is your feed usage jumping up and down like this? One day it’s a little, the next it’s a mountain.”

“You know I’ve been researching how to cultivate Spirit Poultry recently,” Wang Ba replied with a helpless smile. “The consumption is unstable because I’m testing different ratios. How about you just leave those extra buckets here? The weather is turning cold, so it won’t spoil if it ferments a bit longer.”

Wang Ba hadn’t hidden his ‘research’ from Old Hou. In fact, he had deliberately fed the old man information.

However, he strictly concealed the results.

This was a calculated move—a way to vaccinate the sect against suspicion.

He wanted the powers that be to know that he didn’t just magically conjure a flock of Spirit Poultry overnight, but that there was a traceable, struggle-filled process.

If anything went wrong with Deacon Li, Wang Ba could rely on Old Hou’s loose lips to plant a narrative within the sect.

It was a backup plan for his backup plan. Double insurance.

As for hiding the success? That was simply to avoid the prying eyes of jealous peers.

After all, plenty of Laborer Disciples dreamed of breeding their way to riches, but almost none succeeded. Even if people knew Wang Ba was trying, they would assume he was just another fool wasting his time.

This was Wang Ba’s consistent narrative, and Old Hou had long since tired of questioning it. With a grunt of exertion, he hoisted the buckets and helped carry them up to the villa.

Seeing Wang Ba looking ready to dive back into his chicken coop, Old Hou shook his head.

“Brother, you really have the patience of a stone turtle! Haven’t you noticed something is off in the sect lately?”

“Off? I think everything is fine. Why? Did something happen?”

Wang Ba’s heart skipped a beat, though his face remained a mask of dull ignorance.

Old Hou looked at him with a gaze full of frustration at his lack of ambition—that distinctly Confucian disappointment in a man who refused to strive. Naturally, he couldn’t help but unleash his talent for gossip.

“You don’t know? The sect is press-ganging people!”

Wang Ba looked baffled. “Press-ganging?”

“They’ve sent a group of laborers outside the sect to do hard labor!” Old Hou dropped his voice, leaning in.

“Hard labor? That doesn’t make sense. The Immortals could move mountains with a wave of their hands. Why would they need laborers for manual work?”

Wang Ba thought for a moment, then cast a skeptical look at the old man.

“This isn’t that ‘Ascension Society’ filling your head with nonsense again, is it?”

“Shh!”

Old Hou frantically held a finger to his lips, his eyes darting left and right. “Keep it down!”

“I don’t need anyone to tell me! I saw it with my own eyes! Disciples from the External Affairs Hall were personally escorting the laborers out!”

He leaned closer, whispering urgently. “And I heard from the folks at the Clean Mountain Department that a Spirit Spring was discovered nearby. They’re likely being sent to dig it out!”

“Think about it. If these high-and-mighty disciples could really solve everything with a wave of their hands, why would they need us to shovel shit and feed their beasts?”

The resentment in his voice was palpable.

Wang Ba considered it. There was logic there. If Immortals were truly omnipotent, the profession of ‘chicken farmer’ wouldn’t exist.

“But what does that have to do with us? We belong to the Myriad Beast Department. The External Affairs Hall shouldn’t have jurisdiction over us, right?”

Wang Ba continued, his tone pragmatic. “Besides, I’m raising livestock. They can’t expect me to let all these chickens starve just to go dig a hole, can they? Do the Immortals not need their Spirit Chow anymore?”

His reasoning was watertight. Old Hou racked his brain for a rebuttal but found none. Flustered, he settled for righteous indignation.

“Anyway, I think we lowly Laborer Disciples must band together! Only then will no one dare to look down on us or bully us!”

“That doesn’t sound like something you’d come up with, Old Hou. Did the Ascension Society write that speech for you?” Wang Ba teased.

“Bah! Get lost! Why am I wasting my breath on you? Go feed your damn chickens!”

Old Hou glared at him, annoyed, and whipped his donkey into motion.

However, he hadn’t gone far before he seemed to remember something terrifying. He leaped off the moving cart and sprinted back.

He crossed the hundred-odd zhang in a flash, arriving in front of Wang Ba without a single bead of sweat or a heavy breath.

“I almost forgot the most important thing!”

Old Hou spoke rapidly, his face grave. “I heard the pig-raising Alpha Section and the cattle-and-sheep Beta Section are both suffering outbreaks! And right, over twenty farms in the Ding Section have been hit by Chicken Plague. You absolutely must be careful!”

Wang Ba’s expression finally cracked.

“Over twenty farms hit with Chicken Plague?! I remember the plague started over three months ago. Haven’t the Immortals from the Myriad Beast Department fixed it yet?”

He recalled Shopkeeper Lu mentioning the plague in the Ding Section, but he had assumed it was a minor, contained incident. Twenty farms was a disaster.

“I don’t know the details. I don’t deliver to the infected farms. I only found out because I saw piles of livestock carcasses at the Clean Mountain Department and asked around. Just watch your back!”

With that, Old Hou dashed off again. He had a tight schedule to keep.

Whether it was an illusion or not, Wang Ba felt that Old Hou moved with a suspicious amount of agility for an old man.

But that thought was quickly drowned out by the gravity of the news.

“Over twenty farms… This is trouble.”

Chicken Plague. In his previous life, Wang Ba knew it by a more terrifying name: Avian Influenza.

Even in that scientifically advanced world, there was no cure. The only solution was scorched earth—disinfection, isolation, and mass culling.

If the Immortals here were just as helpless against it, the Rare Fowl in the Ding Section were facing extinction.

No, perhaps the entire Eastern Sage Sect would be wiped clean of poultry.

Wang Ba didn’t care about the sect’s financial losses. He cared that if the Rare Fowl supply collapsed, his plan to reach the tenth layer of the Physique Strengthening Scripture would be dead in the water.

Worse, his instincts were screaming that something didn’t add up.

“The Chicken Plague broke out three months ago. Logically, the sect should have noticed and intervened by now.”

“Yet, not only has it returned, but it’s worse.”

“And consider the timing… Chicken Plague, Swine Fever, and whatever is killing the cattle and sheep—three different diseases, three different species, all exploding at the exact same time?”

Wang Ba’s eyes narrowed as he stared at the distant peaks of the sect.

“There’s… something very wrong here.”