Beast Park Office

And so, word of the Lingxian Sect’s recruitment drive spread like wildfire.

Within just a few days, practically everyone in Hufang Province had heard about it. Lately, when neighbors ran into one another, they no longer exchanged the same old “Have you eaten?” Instead, they would sidle up to each other with mysterious expressions and whisper:

“Hey, have you gotten your boy ready?”

“What? What has your daughter been preparing? Come on, tell me. I’ll have my little rascal learn from her.”

“Hehe, mine’s a girl. What could she possibly prepare? Well, it’s getting late, so I’ll be heading home. We can chat another time…”

They rarely exchanged more than a few words before treating each other like sworn rivals, eyeing one another warily as they hurried home to give their children another stern lecture.

…

Scenes like this were playing out in towns, counties, and villages all across the province.

Of course, news did not travel especially quickly in this era. The fact that it had spread throughout Hufang Province in such a short time was already remarkable, but it was not enough to carry beyond the provincial borders. For the moment, the craze had yet to sweep into neighboring provinces.

That did not stop certain interested parties who had been keeping a close eye on the news. Even those separated by an entire province—or even an entire country—soon received word and began making their way over.

Meanwhile, at the center of the craze, the Lingxian Sect, things were already heating up.

“Elder Xiaoluan, please, can’t you make an exception? Our Spirit Food Hall is practically out of meat…”

Beside the Lingxian Sect’s Beast Garden stood a hall decorated with all kinds of brightly colored feathers. A crooked sign hung above the entrance, bearing the words “Beast Garden Office.”

Inside, a child of just over eight was hugging Little Luan’s enormous wing and shaking it back and forth.

In the three years since becoming the master of the Beast Garden, Little Luan had completely changed from its former lazy attitude toward cultivation. Every day, aside from handling the Beast Garden’s affairs and teaching its disciple Da Tao, it would clutch the monster core of the silver-frost python demon and cultivate while gnawing on it.

By now, Little Luan’s cultivation had advanced to the early Core Formation stage, equivalent to the early Golden Core stage among humans.

Its body had grown considerably larger as well. Standing upright, it was now as tall as an adult human.

Faced with the child clinging to its wing, Little Luan shook its head like a rattle.

“No can do! The first-grade beasts haven’t matured yet, cluck! Can’t give you any, cluck!”

The child—Jiang Chengtian—lowered his head in disappointment and leaned against Little Luan’s wing, clinging even more tightly.

“Elder Xiaoluan, if I go back without any monster beast meat, Senior Sister is going to look down on me. Please help me, okay~”

Jiang Chengtian was the son of Jiang Youfu’s elder brother—in other words, Jiang Youfu’s nephew. He had turned six the year before last and was especially fond of clinging to his younger uncle, Jiang Youfu. He spent all day hanging around the Spirit Food Hall, and after developing a particular interest in cooking, he was accepted as Jiang Youfu’s disciple.

He was now an eight-year-old child with two years of work experience in the Spirit Food Hall.

Though he was only eight, his cultivation had already reached the late Qi Condensation stage.

Little Luan lowered its head and glanced at the brat. Its claws were itching, and it really wanted to kick him away the way it kicked its own disciple, Da Tao, whenever it wanted to make its position clear.

But it held back.

Not because it couldn’t bear to hurt him, but because the boy was far too good at crying.

Once, when the boy had still been only five or six, he had pestered Little Luan until it lost patience. Little Luan had knocked him over with one flap of its wing.

Naturally, after receiving guidance from the various members of the Lingxian Sect, Little Luan knew that human children were too fragile to withstand being roughed up by it, so it had not used any real force. It had merely toppled him over.

What it had not expected was that the brat would throw back his head and howl at the top of his lungs for an entire day!

The racket had driven Little Luan so crazy that it had wanted to swallow its silver-frost python demon core whole and be done with life.

After that, Little Luan did its best to avoid the boy whenever possible.

There was nothing it could do. It couldn’t hit him, and it didn’t know how to scold him. Back then, the boy could not even understand what it was saying.

It had been utterly helpless.

It just hadn’t expected the people from the Spirit Food Hall to discover this weakness of its!

They had actually sent the boy to ask it for monster beast meat!

How despicable!

Little Luan lowered its head and shot another glance at the boy leaning against its wing. Its large chicken foot clenched tightly against the ground, gouging two cracks into the stone floor.

Jiang Chengtian lifted his head as well, gazing at Little Luan with a pure, hopeful look in his eyes.

The human and the chicken stared at each other.

After a long while, Little Luan tilted its head away, pulled its great wing out from beneath Jiang Chengtian’s head, and raised the sharpest feather on its wing with a huff.

“Cluck. I can only give you one. No more.”

“Elder Xiaoluan, you’re the one who loves me most!”

…

At last, Little Luan managed to send the troublesome brat away. It collapsed into its nest, pulled a small notebook from its storage ring, and painfully crossed one first-grade monster beast off the list.

Just then, a demon chicken one size smaller than Little Luan came huffing and puffing inside. Dozens of storage bags hung around its neck.

The newcomer was Da Tao.

Although Da Tao had not been given any more of the demon core that had opened its intelligence, after three years of hard work, its cultivation had now reached the early Core Transformation stage—equivalent to the early Foundation Establishment stage.

It first removed ten storage bags from its neck and placed them on the desk in front of Little Luan.

“Cluck cluck, cluck-cluck-cluck.”

Little Luan took out a pile of small notebooks from the storage bags and rapidly checked them one by one. Once it had finished, it nodded solemnly.

Although the sect now had enough financial resources to purchase storage rings, those had to be exchanged with contribution points. Unlike the simple storage bags, they were not easy to refine.

Thus, many disciples below the elder level still used storage bags in their daily lives to transport goods, miscellaneous items, and the like.

Three years ago, Da Tao had become the Lingxian Sect’s Number Two Hardworking Chicken. It had studied characters and cultivated its knowledge with feverish dedication. After making some progress through a period of hard work, Little Luan had somehow mastered the skill of “making one’s disciple handle all the tedious chores.”

It had registered every monster beast in the Beast Garden and kept meticulous records of each one’s growth and various changes. It then classified them according to their growth rate and quality.

The higher the grade of a monster beast, the more difficult it was to raise. As a result, Little Luan kept extremely strict control over how much monster beast meat was slaughtered and supplied.

This forced the Spirit Food Hall to rack its brains and devise all kinds of strategies to squeeze a little more meat out of Little Luan.

Seeing Little Luan nod, Da Tao removed the dozens of remaining storage bags from its neck and placed them on the desk as well.

“Cluck.”

These storage bags contained the newly harvested feed for the monster beasts from the Spirit Fields.

This time, Little Luan did not open them. Instead, it stood up and waved a wing, signaling for Da Tao to take the bags along.

“Cluck cluck cluck!”

Come on. Your master is going to test you!

Da Tao had no choice but to obediently hang all the storage bags back around its neck. It lowered its head and followed Little Luan out of the Beast Garden Office, looking extremely meek as they headed into the Beast Garden.

Today, it was going to teach this foolish disciple how to feed monster beasts properly.