Raising Ducks for Daily Rewards-Chapter 85: Danger again?

"Quack? What... happened?" Zimu entered the hut after everyone left, looking worried.

"I nearly developed an inner demon," Fengyu’s fear wasn’t suppressed nor hidden anymore, it was clearly evident on his face.

"I felt it," Zimu said as he looked deeply at his face.

"You felt it?"

"Quack, Inner Demons are unpeaceful. When you were in that state of reverie, your usual peacefulness disappeared in an instant, instead, an ominous feeling descended.

Are you fine now?"

"Not peaceful? Haha, well, it seems like they’re not peaceful.

The inner demon nearly emerged, I felt it.

It was just a single step away –

If you didn’t wake me up, then I don’t know what I would have done."

"Fengyu, quack... maybe you should take a break? You’ve been up the past ten months for 20 hours, barely resting 4 hours a day. Such a schedule is harmful! I can feel that your body has been radiating a sense of exhaustion."

"Alas, Zimu... it’s not that I don’t want to go easier.

But do you know how difficult the path of cultivation is?

Every step I am taking is calculated, every thought I have is pursued.

I am trying to achieve the dao truly.

When something like this appears in front of you, it’s likely related to cultivation.

If I just ignore it, I will miss out on a chance.

If I don’t ignore it, I will fall into mental chaos, the breeding ground of inner demons.

Everything is wrong!

The immortal path is difficult, extremely difficult!"

"Quack..." Zimu could only quack, unable to say more.

As for telling him to quit?

Zimu himself also sought the path of immortality!

It was like a carrot held in front of a pig, no matter whether the pig knew it was just a tool to make it walk, whether it would ever catch up with the carrot, it would still chase after it.

For cultivators and beasts alike, the path of immortality signified their deepest desire to rise into the sky and transform into immortals that live as long as heaven and earth!

After a moment of silence, Fengyu shook his head and smiled.

Since he didn’t die, he would continue growing stronger!

...

Days and months passed as Fengyu returned to his rhythm.

He reduced the additional ducks to 10 ducks, all descendants of the fire-patterned duck. With only ten, he was able to slowly configure his cultivation.

Everything slowed down while Fengyu felt like he was approaching a point where he didn’t have to split a day into 48 hours just to keep up with things.

For those three years from when he first bought the totem to now the maturity of Fire Breath, he had earned around 590 monthly. Subtracting the 500 rent every year, he earned a total of nearly 20.000 spirit stones.

Every year he paid 9.000 spirit stones for the totem – in three years this is 27.000 spirit stones, his expenses higher than his gain.

With the 35.000 spirit stone savings he had before, he was still able to cover everything.

When he reduced the amount of ducks from 40 to 30, the result was still 20 high-quality ducks but the remaining 10 weren’t of common grade. Instead, they were of a higher quality. The steward was very generous and directly promised a bonus of 10 spirit stones per 10 ducks, which technically raised the price from 8 spirit stones per duck to 9 spirit stones per duck. Even the price of 8 was already a higher price than usual, so the newer price surprised Fengyu slightly.

His income only decreased from 590 to 520, which was still manageable for him.

The only issue was that his income was mostly locked, but since it was only seven more years, Fengyu could accept it.

Afterward, he planned to save his income for when he moved to the city –

He would think of how to pay the remaining 200.000 spirit stones after he was able to create a foundation for himself.

Though while everything was clean in pure numbers, Fengyu knew that the situation ahead wasn’t something he could guess. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

So, while he continued as usual, he started learning the Egg-Inducing Spell.

With limited time he wasn’t able to use it frequently enough to increase his income, but his expertise improved rapidly.

...

"Senior brother, it seems it’s happening again..."

Just as Fengyu was watering his field, he saw Ling come over.

After some time, to ensure they could help each other in emergency situations, they each opened up their courtyard to the other.

Seeing Ling, Fengyu knew something must’ve happened.

"What’s happening again?" Fengyu stopped his spell and asked curiously.

"A Beast Attack!" Ling said, her expression full of worry.

"What? Now?!" Fengyu asked her in shock, his hands already moving to his spatial bag.

"No, not now! Senior brother, don’t worry." Ling hurriedly waved her hands to stop him.

"Then?"

"After that sudden beast attack, the village kept its eyes closer to the beasts.

Now, they said that a Beast Attack is likely going to happen in at most a year, because several groups of beasts have joined.

They even said that this was supposed to have happened even earlier, but apparently infighting between the beasts delayed this for some time."

"Is that so?" Fengyu nodded, thinking of the injuries of the wolves... after their deal, they seemed to have changed their tactic and didn’t come to Fengyu.

"They said that this time, they would employ a large formation outside the village as a buffer zone, so that our field’s formations won’t be attacked right away.

In addition, they already started recruiting for this attack. Missions have been posted in the Mission Hall, suggesting they’re taking this seriously.

For now, we won’t be in danger.

I only came so fast to tell brother to buy his supplies – the talismans are already getting more expensive.

Fortunately this is only a local issue, so the prices at which the city buys our items haven’t decreased."

Hearing the last part, Fengyu knew Ling was most worried about pricing falling when people are scared.

At that time, no one will be interested in buying expensive rice or going to restaurants to buy ducks.

Only a few wealthy cultivators will purchase them.

But Spiritual Herding and Spiritual Planting have always been businesses targeting the masses rather than the few...