Chapter Seventy-Five: Processed Chicken Products

A creature both reserved and affable. Across the continent of Falvi, one could find flocks of chickens scattered along the walls of nearly every village and town. They gathered in groups, leaning against walls, strutting with heads held high, observing passersby with a cold, proud gaze. If left unprovoked, they would never pay you any mind.

Yet, should you inadvertently anger them—and if you happened to be a powerless novice, unable even to “tie a chicken”—then congratulations: you would be granted the rare opportunity to witness the wild, violent side of this otherwise restrained animal. Early in my adventuring days, I once faced a frenzy of angry hens alongside Million Bull. Even now, when I close my eyes, I still see the onslaught of claws, beaks, and flying feathers. Though I’ve reached level forty-plus and now wear defenses no ordinary hen could pierce, the mere sight of these proud, short-feathered, high-crested birds still unnerves me. I’d rather take a detour than pass by them lightly.

However, if you wish to obtain the common ingredient “eggs,” there’s no avoiding dealings with these hidden fierce birds. The sole way to get eggs is by killing a hen and hoping for luck within its corpse. Contrary to popular belief, eggs are not easily found; some unlucky cooking apprentices might slaughter thirty hens in vain without finding a single egg. Yet, in this absurd world, luck defies biology—some extraordinarily fortunate individuals have even found eggs inside the bodies of roosters.

Ah, these strange egg-laying roosters, the battle roosters among their kind...

Fein’s cooking skill was nearing level fifteen. She had gathered every rare and precious seasoning—except for the most ordinary ingredient: eggs. This sounded comical, but it was understandable. As an ice mage over level forty, wandering through desolate wastelands, perilous forests, and treacherous caves, hens—the lowly domestic fowl—simply did not appear in such remote locales. Most of her time was spent on lucrative adventures. It was unlikely she would return to the capital city just to kill chickens.

Thus, Fein’s magic backpack brimmed with enormous ostrich eggs, coarse lizard eggs, tough turtle eggs, elongated winged serpent eggs, and many more eggs both imaginable and unimaginable—yet not a single simple chicken egg.

“If you came along, we wouldn’t be able to kill a single chicken. We’d be lucky if we weren’t pecked to death,” Fein bluntly declined the Yan Formation’s offer to help, a reasoning we fully supported.

Unexpectedly, Yan Formation blinked her bright eyes, teasing with a smile, “So, if I give you eggs, you won’t kill those innocent little ‘chickies’?”

Though we all knew Yan had a habit of calling animals “little” with a double syllable for cuteness, when she said “little chickies,” both Xian Ge and I couldn’t help but exchange embarrassed glances, cheeks flushed.

“You couldn’t possibly have eggs...” Fein said skeptically, “...you wouldn’t kill chickens...”

Before Fein finished, Yan Formation softly muttered an incantation, opening the magical space where she kept her pets. As the space twisted to its limit, a translucent portal appeared out of thin air, and a small hen, with a head nearly as large as its body, bright eyes, a short hard beak, and covered in yellow downy fluff, eagerly darted out.

Freshly set foot on Falvi’s soil, the little hen seemed ecstatic. It nimbly darted across the nearby grass, flapping its still-growing wings with a “flutter flutter” sound, chirping joyfully. Suddenly tripping over a clump of grass, it tumbled headfirst, stumbled up like a drunkard, then wobbled off, continuing its run in a crooked path.

This spirited little hen bore the name “Li Little Bird” above its head, which must be its name.

“Could it be…” Fein gazed at the fluffy newborn hen, clearly understanding, though the harsh reality struck her suddenly and was hard to accept, “...this is...”

“It’s my third pet, just caught a few days ago,” Yan Formation tilted her head, smiling at the fuzzy creature on the ground.

Just as we suspected!

“But...” Fein asked, half laughing, half exasperated, “...how did you come up with such a strange name for it?”

“Strange?” Yan Formation cocked her head, innocence shining in her eyes, “Not at all. Such a cute chick has to share my surname. My last name is Li, so naturally, this one’s Li too.”

I had long grown accustomed to my airborne friends’ diverse naming conventions. Spending much time with them, I knew that Yan’s claim of her pet “sharing her surname” was entirely separate from the soul mark hovering above its head—two unrelated things.

Fein parted her lips slightly, as if to say something, but instead bit her lip hard and remained silent. We all knew Yan Formation, a fervent animal rights advocate, lacked any resistance to adorable, fluffy creatures. This tiny, level-one, defenseless bald chick was, in her eyes, more precious than a high-level phoenix. Her sole measure of a pet’s worth was its cuteness—and this small orange-yellow bird, with nearly one-to-one head-to-body proportions, met that standard perfectly.

“Don’t underestimate my little birdie,” Yan Formation said, crouching down and teasing the new “battle pet” Li Little Bird with her finger, eyes sparkling as she introduced it. “It was born with a skill! Rabbit and Sheep only got their first skill after level five.”

“Really? What skill?” Fein’s expression brightened with hope. No matter the pet, as long as it possessed a powerful combat skill, it could be instrumental in battle despite mediocre stats.

Yan Formation opened her palm, revealing a small, white, oval-shaped object, proudly showing off, “It lays eggs!”

Fein’s face contorted as if she'd just swallowed a raw egg whole.

Nonetheless, Li Little Bird’s egg-laying every thirty seconds perfectly suited Fein’s cooking practice. Soon enough, she gathered enough eggs to learn how to make Richard’s Egg and Meat Roll—a new culinary skill.

But Li Little Bird seemed eager for more. As its “egg-laying” skill grew more proficient, experience accumulated. After producing a dozen eggs, the little hen was about to level up to a “Level Two Egg-Laying Chicken.”

Since Yan Formation hadn’t yet summoned the chick for adventures, and because its egg-laying skill was useless for Yan’s tailoring, even she had just discovered a secret: like adventurers’ life skills, each use of “Lay Egg” earned experience, leveling up both the skill and the bird.

Upon this revelation, Fein and the rest were wide awake, curious to see what Li Little Bird would produce at higher levels.

“Maybe the eggs will get bigger,” Xian Ge guessed. Though refined and polite, the elven sharpshooter often fell into rigid metaphysical thinking. In his mind, higher levels meant larger size—likely an erroneous conclusion from adventuring experience, where bosses tended to be huge.

He forgot a simple counterexample: himself, leveled from one to over forty, yet still frail and skinny.

“You’re an idiot!” Fein slapped the elf’s head. “Look carefully—all recipes count ingredients by ‘pieces.’ No matter how big the egg, you need two for an egg-meat roll. Bigger eggs won’t help!”

Rubbing his sore head, Xian Ge replied, “I’m not a cook; who pays attention to that? So what do you think?”

Fein’s eyes darted as she speculated uncertainly, “Maybe... the higher the level, the more eggs it lays. Level two lays two eggs, level three four eggs, level four eight eggs...” The more she counted, the more excited she became. When she reached “Level twenty lays 524,288 eggs; each egg sells for three copper coins; one laying session sells for 15,728 gold, six silver, and four copper; lays twice per minute; earning 1,887,436 gold and eight silver per hour,” she nearly fainted from dehydration.

“If that’s true, I’ll give you eight silver coins every time!” Oh my, did I hear correctly? Fein, the miserly “human dragon hoarder” obsessed with gold and treasure, was generously offering to share her wealth. At that moment, even the Supreme God might weep for her generosity. Although this fortune existed only—perhaps forever—in her vivid imagination, it showed how utterly she had lost her usual stingy composure.

Higher level meant greater numbers, and thus colossal wealth—a classic “Fein” answer.

“Maybe it’ll lay double-yolk eggs,” Yan Formation boldly guessed.

And if it got even higher level? I pictured an egg shell containing a dozen or so yolks—a magical sight.

Not long after, when Li Little Bird reached level two, it proudly chirped, crouched, and after leaving its first upgraded product, happily ran off.

The four of us, full of anticipation, fell silent.

Who could explain this?

On the ground lay a golden-yellow, round, soft solid: a “cake.”

This was no accident. Moments later, Li Little Bird laid two more cakes, then three regular eggs. As the skill matured, the chance to lay ordinary eggs dropped. By level eight, only one in ten eggs was normal; the rest were cakes.

We stared dumbfounded at this tiny, adorable, multifunctional “food-processing chicken,” watching it continuously upgrade its egg-laying, producing “egg mousse cake,” “egg sponge roll,” “egg tart,” and other egg-based delicacies. Although it only had the “Lay Egg” skill, what it produced was no longer natural eggs.

When it bravely innovated at a weak level in producing a “Portuguese Egg Tart,” Fein’s spirit began to collapse.

“I only learned to make egg tarts after level thirty...” The human mage burned with envy, her mindset seriously unbalanced. Her jealousy turned to hatred and then violent tendencies: “I wonder if I could kill it and eat it—I just learned a spicy chicken wing recipe...”

After level twenty, leveling slowed. Practicing “Lay Egg” alone no longer rapidly raised Li Little Bird’s level. Watching it produce vast quantities of Richard’s Egg and Meat Rolls without Fein’s effort, and to rest while sparing her embarrassment, Yan Formation promptly recalled the endlessly egg-laying Li Little Bird.

“It’s getting late; we should rest,” Yan Formation gently told us.

“Yeah, yeah, after a long day, I’m tired too.” Somehow, Xian Ge had begun agreeing unconditionally with all of Yan’s suggestions.

“You guys go ahead; I’ll wait a bit longer,” Fein waved them off.

“Isn’t your skill learned already? What else do you need to do?” Yan Formation asked curiously.

“Throwing these away would be wasteful—I want to collect them all!” Fein looked at the scattered bounty left by Li Little Bird, her expression reluctant.

“That’s so many, it might take over an hour to gather...” Xian Ge shaded his eyes, gazing at the vast spread of egg-based delicacies stretching to the horizon.

“These are money...” Fein swallowed hard, speaking with biting regret.