Mei had been truly helpful, taking time to point out the few things in his room that he could use. There was the bed, of course, which was admittedly better than he expected. There was also a toilet, something he had not come across before. The villagers generally did their business in a pit, while he personally found a secluded place to dig a small hole and cover it after he was done.

This toilet, which came up to his legs, was much better. He could just stand over it and be done. Water appeared from somewhere and cleaned it up. There was even an option to shoot a jet of water that would clean him up. He was not a fan of that, but Mei had said it was necessary. Something about not wanting the whole house to stink.

She had gone out shortly after that, leaving him alone with the scrolls. It was with a little nervousness that he opened them, once again thankful for the versatility of his beak. Their titles were displayed boldly at the top.

‘WHAT IS CULTIVATION: A LAYMAN’S GUIDE TO THE ART OF DEFYING THE HEAVENS.’

‘QI CONDENSATION FOR AWAKENED SPIRIT BEASTS.’

‘THE AWAKENING: A GUIDE TO THE SYSTEM’

The calligraphy of the text was beautiful, much more than the ragged writings he had found in the village. Cultivation was what he considered most important, so he took the first scroll and started reading.

Ji read the last line of the scroll, his emotions a mixture of awe and annoyance. Awe, because the entire process of cultivation and what it entailed was simply wondrous. Now he understood his Master could do even more wondrous things than the little he had shown. That also made him a little scared, because according to the book, his Master was a lot more powerful than he realised going by the things he had seen so far.

He felt annoyed because his uncle did not tell him of such wondrous truths, instead teaching him mundane stuff that he might never need. Some sensible part of his mind whispered that his uncle had a lot more information than he did and might have had good reasons to hide the knowledge. Unfortunately that did little to dispel the annoyance.

There was still a lot he was confused about. Things like Dao had been explained with language so flowery he had given up on understanding it. His Dao was the Dao of Chicken, according to his system and he still was not sure what it meant.

At least he largely understood most of the basics. He was currently a simple mortal, just like all the humans and animals in his village. To step into the world of cultivation, he would need to take in qi, which was apparently some kind of energy that was everywhere, and refine it to strengthen himself. The process was called qi condensation which explained the title of the second scroll.

He also found the meaning of words like meridians, cultivation realms, dantians, and a lot of others.

Meridians were paths through which qi, the energy of the world, flowed. He had to admit his uncle’s lessons on chicken biology were useful there. Though there were differences, meridians were similar enough in concept to blood vessels that they were fairly easy to understand.

Cultivation realms were just ways of measuring power levels. He supposed a society where people could destroy mountains would need something like that. The realms went from Qi Condensation, where he would soon enter, to Divine. He suspected his new Master was a lot closer to the latter than the former.

There were three dantians, according to what he read, but the scroll only talked about the lower one. The others were supposedly not relevant till the later stages. The dantian was where qi was stored. Usually, the larger it was the stronger a person would be. Within the same realm at least.

Armed with newfound knowledge, he was sorely tempted to jump right into the qi condensation scroll and start trying out. He was almost certain that his Master wanted him to step into the qi condensation realm before leaving his room. Unfortunately, Ji still had some amount of common sense and so he took the smarter choice. It would not exactly be wise to start cultivating without knowing anything about the system and what was happening to him, of course.

The scroll on Awakened beasts was longer than the introduction to cultivation. It was also less refined and contained more speculations. Where the first scroll had seemed like a manual with tried and tested information written by someone who was confident in their instructions, the second guide read like the work of someone who was still in the process of studying the system.

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Even then, the information was enlightening. Not to mention it was more interesting to read than the first one.

According to the author, animals and humans usually followed different cultivation styles, a necessity given the difference in intelligence. Once animals gained a certain amount of qi, either by eating a certain amount of qi rich food or by passively absorbing qi from a place with very high density, they would break through to the first realm. Their ability to absorb ambient qi would improve by a large margin. That was generally considered the threshold where a normal animal became a spirit beast.

Once a spirit beast reached a certain level of power, they could gain intelligence. Some could even pass that intelligence to their offspring. The writer mentioned entire cities with only spirit beasts. The possibility was one that truly interested him.

Occasionally though, a regular animal that was not born to any spirit beast and was still in the mortal realm gained intelligence. No one knew what caused it or how often it appeared, but it was rare enough that entire spirit beast clans could mobilise to claim one when it was found. These animals, though intelligent, were not particularly valuable on their own. What made them so sought after, was The System.

Every regular animal born intelligent to mortal parents had a chance to awaken and receive The System. There were certain requirements to be fulfilled that varied depending on the individual, but they varied so much that it was difficult to find a pattern.

Regardless, when one did manage to unlock The System, they were essentially guaranteed greatness. If they survived, that is.

The first and most important thing the system granted was a trait. Everyone who unlocked the system first had to choose a trait from a list, just like he had. The list was usually determined by some combination of species, individual actions and personal preference. Though the last one apparently had the least effect.

Every trait was useful, but some were a lot more powerful than others. Unfortunately, he had no idea where his [Force of Mind] fell in that group, though he hoped it was in the latter. He would be lying if he said he was not getting excited by the prospect of cultivating and being able to do the kind of stuff he read in the scrolls. There was also the fact that he was a chicken. The list of mortal things that could kill him was long enough without adding human cultivators and spirit beasts. Reducing that was something he was definitely interested in doing.

Traits were the most important, but they were far from the only advantage the system gave. One notable one was personalised breathing techniques. From what he read in the first scroll, breathing techniques were essential in drawing in the energy of the world, a step necessary for increasing one’s cultivation. There were many breathing techniques that existed, but even those of high quality still had some inefficiencies. The very best could supposedly take in more than ninety percent of the energy.

The personalised breathing techniques given by the system, however, wasted no energy. Currently, the known record for fastest time to the Divine Realm was held by an awakened at merely sixty years. A remarkable feat, considering the runner up was nearly double that. It was a testament to the power of The System that the four after that were also set by awakened.

There had been many efforts to recreate the breathing techniques, none of which came close to succeeding. They were also useless to anyone apart from the original owner, personalised as The System made them. He was eager to know what he would get at that point, but rushing would do him no good. So he read on.

The next thing that truly caught his attention was mention of Titles. They were currently locked for him, something that riled up his curiosity. According to the scroll, Titles were given by The System for deeds considered exceptional. The boons they gave could be anything from enhanced meridians to secrets of enlightenment, whatever that meant. From the description, he would have expected to receive a Title for driving away the forest creature the previous night. Perhaps The System considered it too mundane a feat.

Reading a little more provided him an answer. The System generally locked Titles for its mortal hosts. Which meant he needed to reach the first stage of the Qi Condensation Realm to get it. Titles were also divided by rarities, with Mortal, Spirit, Earth and Heaven ranked Titles.

There were other things the scroll mentioned, like affinities and cultivation paths but they seemed like they were beyond his level. When he finally finished reading, hunger had started to set in.

It was then he started wondering whether the whole thing was a kind of test. Reading the last scroll and strengthening his body was something that would take some time, certainly enough to leave him starving and tired, which might make it harder to finish the process. His uncle occasionally gave him such paradoxical tasks where failure seemed likely. Perhaps the old rooster had learnt it from Master Fan Guo.

He dismissed those thoughts. The realisation hammered in the fact that time was precious. I would be better for him if he finished earlier.

So with a deep breath and not a small amount of excitement, Xiao Ji opened the final scroll.