Chương 28: Chicken Dungeon

[Meditation Technique (Basic)] 359/1000 [Pristine Aura Manipulation (Basic)] 403/1000 Satisfaction welled up inside Nero at the display. He'd spent the most time cultivating the Pristine Aura technique, and that was for good reason: to awaken his dormant beast core. He'd need more than a single spirit stone. Sure, he could go ahead and evolve his meditation technique to a different tier, which would reduce his need for resources. But that would only reduce the need.

Currently, he had been set up for failure by the sect elder with that ultimatum of awakening his core by February first. It was impossible to do, even for those with [Profound Grade] aptitude, unless they had a good supply of spirit stones. Based on his talks with Senior Disciple Chang, who'd long since awakened his beast core, one needed anywhere from ten to twenty spirit stones to awaken their beast core. And his monthly salary was two spirit stones, and he'd been told to awaken it by February.

The elder's idea was simple: quickly expel him with a dressed-up, semi-legitimate reason so they could bring in an actual noble-born's children. The outer court was filled with disciples who hailed from lesser noble families. They usually received an allowance to purchase spirit stones from their families anyway, with sect earnings only partially supplementing that cost. The thing was, they mostly entered the sect with their cores already half-awakened, spending an extra month here to awaken the other half.

And Nero had been given the same amount of time to awaken his core, with far fewer resources to draw from. Which is why he wasn't planning on betting everything on an intermediate meditation technique to awaken his beast core, and instead planned to keep up his adventuring to earn more resources on the side. He closed the panels next and lay back down in his bed.

"Time to get some sleep in," he decided, and soon dozed off. It was exactly three hours later that he woke up. He went over to quickly freshen up, take a bath, and eat his breakfast before swiftly leaving for the garden. There, he spent approximately seven hours tending to the plants. The previous day he'd taken care of about twenty-six varieties, so today he proceeded with the rest. In between, when he couldn't recall certain information, he called on Senior Disciple Chang for help.

Throughout his full working duration, he called on the man exactly three times. Since the sky was in perpetual night, cleaning the mana lamps was also necessary. It wasn't listed among his official duties, but if he neglected it, the plants would wither. So naturally, he cleaned them and replaced any broken lights with new ones provided by the sect. When his duty was done for the day, he didn't return to the cottage to wash up and change clothes.

Instead, he kept his white attire on, went over to Senior Chang, showed him the task was complete, and requested permission to leave the sect compound.

"The sect still hasn't given me their official clothing," Nero muttered, walking through the knee-deep snow without effort. To ward off the cold, he wrapped the lower half of his body in Pristine Aura, which had grown a lot easier to use and now consumed 10% less mental energy than before. Trudging through the dense snow, after an hour Nero reached the slum area where Saru and the villagers lived. He went to meet the old man, who was busy repairing his carriage after returning from work.

Having exchanged some greetings, he asked about Sylvia.

"What happened to the child? She was taken by a bunch of cultivators in silver-trimmed robes on a sky barge, without any explanation. And you went missing too. I spent most of yesterday searching for the both of you, barely getting any real work done. Then this morning, some disciples from the Nether World Sect showed up and handed me roughly ten gold crowns out of nowhere?" he said.

"I honestly can't tell what's happening anymore." The old man seemed to shrink into himself as he spoke. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. So, she'd already gotten enough allowance to send extra alongside the funds she'd gotten from the sold lesser Oni core. The sect was indeed generous to its stars. Setting the thoughts aside for now. He walked up and consoled Saru. His wife, Ashar, soon came over and ushered them inside the house, serving tea and snacks.

Though she tried to keep a neutral face, Nero could see the anxiety and concern beneath it. He sighed and began explaining the whole string of events. The couple's eyes widened more and more as he continued, their pupils threatening to pop from their sockets.

"Seriously, a direct disciple? Under a Daoist Master?" Ashar said in disbelief, while Saru sat nearly speechless. After a moment, as their emotions settled, Saru said, "And here I thought she'd been kidnapped for having some strange physique the cultivators planned to use as ingredients for some kind of pill. You know how they operate behind their facade of righteousness."

"You're not wrong, but that's usually the case with smaller sects lacking funds. The Nether World Sect is one of the largest sects out there—they wouldn't stoop to that."

"Right, the same sect whose disciples unjustly attacked our Chief behind his back," Ashar murmured. Nero only gave a pained smile in response; he had no counter for it. In truth, these people might be doing heinous things behind the scenes too, but it was still unwise to badmouth cultivators whose ears reached far and wide. They're still furious at the sect over the injustice Zyran suffered. Otherwise, no villager would dare speak ill of one of the three major sects.

After spending a bit more time with the couple, Nero returned Saru's clothes despite the man's insistence he keep them. He packed his own clothes, freshly washed and dried by the fire courtesy of Saru's wife, offered her his thanks, bid farewell to the rest of the villagers, and took off. On the way, he bought two healing potions and some bread. His goal today was tackling a lower E-ranked dungeon. It took him an hour, but he soon reached the chicken dungeon he'd been aiming to raid for a while now.

The chicken dungeon sat in the northwestern part of the seventh circle. As he arrived, he found a cave even larger than the rat cave he'd cleared previously. With tentative steps, Nero entered, and the moment he set foot inside, a foul smell struck him.

"Ugh, this is the smell of chicken shit." He couldn't cover his nose since one hand already held his short sword and the other his lantern.

"Should've brought a mask, damn it." In his rush to get here, he hadn't taken the time to consider the various difficulties one might face in a chicken dungeon. Chief among them was the smell. It was strange that the chicken dungeon somehow reeked worse than the rat dungeon.

"I wonder if it's because they eat like there's no tomorrow." Either way, after several more steps into the dark cave, Nero spotted light ahead, coming from deeper within. After a minute of climbing down, he emerged into a large hollowed-out hall at the bottom, illuminated by glowing crystals of mana. The reason he'd even known about this particular cave was thanks to one of his friends back at the Red Rats, a guy named Mai.

A young man of his own age who worked as a harvester, Mai had joined the Red Rats to gather funds for eventually conquering this dungeon. But he'd possessed insane talent for harvesting monsters and was recruited by the Silverine Knights as a chief of harvesting instead. The Silverine Knights dove into dungeons frequently, since whenever a dungeon grew too large for ordinary adventurers to handle and began seriously affecting the land, it fell to them to dive in and destroy its core.

After being recruited, Mai had simply told him the location, adding the following:"I don't really need it anymore, do what you will with it. Though I wouldn't advise diving in alone—get some backup. The chickens in there are massive!" And true to his word, they were massive. An ear-splitting crow tore through the surroundings, originating from atop a towering ten-foot-tall mana crystal. The creature's body stood nearly six feet tall, with a beak so sharp it looked capable of piercing straight through his soul.

It practically glistened with a rainbow hue, and now that he looked closer, its feathers were multi-colored as well. With a command, Pristine Aura began to hum within his veins, bursting out like a tide, swallowing his entire body in a silvery glow, strengthening each muscle and tendon. He called on the aspect of decay over his short sword next, and dropped into a battle stance. The chicken lunged forward, flying through the air, three nearly five-inch-long claws aimed straight for his head.

"Bad idea, little chick." Nero slashed out in a wide arc, cutting clean through the creature's legs as his blade melted the hard bone like a hot knife through butter. Blood gushed out as the chicken collapsed to the ground. Nero promptly severed its head from its torso.

"One down." Before he could even take a breath, several more crows rang out from all around him, as nearly thirty more wild roosters came howling forward from every direction.