Chapter 1 First Kill a Chicken_2

Eating medicine is not as good as chewing on a couple more steamed buns.

This anomaly wouldn't make Zheng Yichen feel weak, nor would it affect the efficiency of his physical training; it only caused more severe wrinkles in his skin, which felt like the bark of a dead tree when touched. At first, these wrinkles appeared only on his torso, and wearing more layers could conceal them.

As the symptoms worsened, they gradually spread to his limbs. That was something he couldn't tolerate.

The turning point came during an extraordinary incident in which he became involved after finding a new job in Hazy City. It wasn't a glamorous job—just feeding chickens.

In a world with many abnormalities, chicken farms could also encounter them. While he was feeding chickens, one chicken's head exploded, sprouting more than a dozen tentacle-like blood vessels, and it began frantically devouring its own kind, not even sparing the freshly laid eggs!

He was at a safe distance when it happened, but facing that suddenly mutated hen, Zheng Yichen felt an impulse from within, like a starving person who had just seen a roasted chicken.

Driven by this impulse, he relied on his strong physique and charged at it.

It was just a chicken, even if it had tentacles—it was still just a chicken, and he won. However, the owner of the chicken farm was very dissatisfied with his behavior. Could he not have used a gun to resolve the situation instead of getting close for a melee?

The hen had mutated, but it was still locked in a cage, and the cage was solid enough that a mutated chicken couldn't break free right away. There was plenty of time for the staff inside to grab a weapon and take it down.

Yet, Zheng Yichen chose the most brash approach.

The chicken farm owner's words felt very real to Zheng Yichen. After all, in this world, which wasn't ancient times, when facing such extraordinary creatures, one should use the most reliable method to resolve the situation. If people approached, they could get hurt; shooting from a distance was safe; at the worst, using a crossbow would suffice.

Crossbows were much easier to get than guns. The farm owner had access to firearms, and among the security equipment in the farm, besides fire protection, there were crossbows that were locked up and networked with the local police station. In an emergency, they could directly contact the owner for authorization or, if it was more urgent, bypass this authorization after facial recognition and recording a personal photo.

In any case, weapons could be immediately accessed to handle any unexpected situations.

He didn't lose his job over this, since he was the first to rush forward. Though it was a bit reckless, as long as he wasn't too unlucky, any human wouldn't be easily killed by a mutated chicken.

Not to mention that Zheng Yichen was strong and courageous. The owner of the chicken farm just emphasized that next time such an incident occurred, they should prioritize remote weapons. Accidentally hurting other chickens was fine as long as no people were injured. As for the hens eaten by the mutated chicken?

That didn't matter; a mutated chicken could fetch a much higher price on the market—one could be worth a hundred normal ones!

Who knows how many schools were eager to purchase that creature for teachers and students to use. Some people even planned to buy and eat it. A mutated creature was still a creature, having undergone certain changes. It didn't turn from flesh to stone with a mutation; as long as it was prepared well, it remained a 'delicacy'.

As long as the mutated chicken could be obtained, the death of the other ordinary chickens seemed irrelevant.

Zheng Yichen, who completed his first kill of an extraordinary creature, discovered changes in himself after being splattered with the mutated hen's blood. At the time, he didn't feel anything, or even notice the blood diminishing and lightening. It wasn't until he returned home and showered that he noticed these problems, as well as his 'Withering Disease' subsiding a bit.

This was much more effective than his daily exercises; it was a pity that the mutated hen had been taken away, with no opportunity at that moment to explore a certain indescribable impulse.

The mutated hen also became the first entry on his resume, an extraordinary creature he had taken down on his own—why not write it down?

Others hadn't personally killed such a chicken. Afterwards, he continued his job while searching for other anomalies. He didn't find many that were big, and those were not creatures he could provoke.

The smaller kind, most of them can be taken down by ordinary people as long as they have the guts, some personal combat power, and as long they're not unlucky.

Even if they are a bit more troublesome, their threat level is about the same as a crocodile on land and a human armed with a knife in a PK; it's not that they can't be fought, the key is that not many people have the courage to fight them, facing them in person and not through a video. Lions and tigers might look cute in a video, but it's a whole other story when you're up against them in reality.

Originally, when he took off his clothes, his body would be exposed, looking like tree bark, but now, aside from a few marks, it looks just like it did years ago; you can hardly tell there was ever a problem.

All of this was exchanged for the deaths of many mutant animals by his hand.

He was certain that his 'strange disease' wasn't really a disease at all, but something akin to a golden finger. Although it had caused him a lot of trouble when he first arrived in this world, in order to resist it, he had also worked hard to exercise his body, which had always been in good condition.

The golden finger paired with self-disciplined training under pressure, could be considered double the happiness, right?

What he found a bit regrettable was that this golden finger wasn't a 'system' or anything of the sort, just a special ability. In this world, not Earth, but similar, special powers were no secret and were not something that would see you sent off to a research institute at the first sign of uniqueness. The old-fashioned approach of taking biopsies and studying tissue samples no longer applied, unless they were dealing with a corpse. This wasn't really his concern.

That had nothing to do with him. He had found a way to alleviate, even completely remove his 'Withering Disease', and it was related to those extraordinary creatures. After accumulating enough 'qualifications', he couldn't wait to head over to Night Banquet Bar and go through an identity registration.

Once he got his proof, he could officially receive his Hunter's License, and then he would be able to get lots of free information without having to blindly run around the city to find those elusive mutated creatures.

A chicken farm? Mutant chickens were still the property of the farm owner; if you happen to kill one in time, there is a reward, but they still belong to the farm owner, not the staff. Other farms follow the same rule.

Zheng Yichen encountered that kind of thing three times at the chicken farm, and each time, he only got splattered with a little blood. Eventually, he quit his job there and began his formal amateur 'hunting'.

It was during his formal amateur hunting that he gained a clearer understanding of his 'disease'.

Now, the mutated small animals were no longer enough to meet his needs, but his 'Withering Disease' had not yet been eradicated. Hoping to become the Ten-mile Hill Sword God by bullying small creatures was clearly unrealistic. Just like leveling up by killing monsters, you eventually have to leave the novice village.

So he might as well come down from the mountain.

Patting his chest, he had to admit that exercising could be quite addictive. At first, it was for survival, but now it had become a habit, and he felt uncomfortable if he didn't exert his muscles every day.

He casually lifted the heavy barbells at home, manipulating them for over half an hour, as part of his pre-sleep routine. Afterward, Zheng Yichen hummed a tune, took a cold shower, and lay in bed reading some 'Combat Skills' books he had bought from a street vendor.

He was keen to find some formidable people to learn from but without access to those circles, he had no way to find them. Visiting the common martial arts schools would be appropriate for strength and fitness, but he was past the stage where he needed just that.

Martial arts schools should have their secret techniques, but such secrets couldn't be bought at the marketplace like cabbage. Zheng Yichen was more interested in a 'quick fix'; if his abnormal condition hadn't been so serious, he would have been content to train patiently for a few years, but he didn't have that luxury of time.

Better to learn in real combat situations among the Hunters.

For that reason, he planned to get up early the next morning and go kill a chicken...