Breakfast came first, no matter how strange the world was.
A working man couldn’t run on mountain air. He needed grease, protein, and black coffee strong enough to strip paint. Even in a broken game with no settings menu, Austin needed an egg.
He leaned against a charred porch post and looked over his shack. The rafters sagged under the rotten thatch. Water had soaked into the wood, and nothing held the roof frame together properly. Left alone, it would rot through within two seasons.
Just beyond the black glass courtyard, three mangy mountain pheasants pecked at the dirt.
They were pitiful birds. Patches of pink skin showed through their gray feathers, and their legs were thin as twigs. The old Chu Yuan had fed them grass seed now and then before the cold killed him.
[Wild Mountain Pheasant | Level 1 | Half-Starved | Taming: 0%]
“Basic wildlife,” Austin said. “Feed them the right grain, make them friendly, and unlock daily eggs. Simple survival mechanics.”
Chickens were chickens. His uncle had kept four dozen behind the machine shed. They ate almost anything, and every fox in the county tried to eat them. Austin had buried the fence wire a foot deep and bent it out at a ninety-degree angle to stop the foxes from digging under it.
He went to the compost heap behind the lean-to. Yesterday’s work had left a mound of thorn roots, husks, and seed pods. The white-hot hoe had filled them with solar heat.
The seeds looked like dry grain, but they glowed red and gold and smelled like toasted oats.
Austin scooped up two handfuls in a cracked bowl.
“Here, chook-chook.” He scattered the seeds at the edge of the courtyard. “Breakfast. Eat up and start laying.”
The pheasants froze, then stared at the glowing kernels.
To the starving birds, the seeds smelled like the richest food in the world. They hopped forward, claws clicking on the glass, and began to peck.
CRACKLE.
The lead hen swallowed one kernel. Her pupils turned molten gold.
SCREEEEEECH!
She threw back her head and screamed like a cutting torch striking steel. Golden fire burst through her feathers. The dull gray plumage vanished, replaced by clear golden feathers that scattered the dawn light. Her wings spread five feet, and white fire danced along their tips. Her thin legs grew strong, ending in sharp golden claws.
Within seconds, all three pheasants had become Golden Sun-Crows, divine birds that ancient scrolls described as the mounts of the Solar Sovereign.
The lead hen settled onto the courtyard and cooed at Austin. The other two bowed their fiery heads.
Austin checked their new description.
“Not bad.” Austin nodded. “A shiny skin and better egg production. Saves on firewood, too.”
He put the remaining seeds in a crate.
“Stay in the yard. Don’t peck the fence wire, or you’ll trip the breaker. And keep your droppings off the black floor. I just finished leveling it.”
The three divine birds took their places along the perimeter like fiery guards.
***
Five miles below, in the Iron Sword Hall’s council courtyard, Young Master Bai Chen kicked a rosewood table across the stones.
“WHAT KIND OF JOKE IS THIS?”
Tea and broken china sprayed across the floor. He glared at the stretcher in front of him.
Wang Hu lay on it, covered in pig manure. His robes were burned to threads, and purple lightning marks covered his skin. His beard and eyebrows were gone.
“The sky...” he whispered. “Three hundred meters... straight into the sky...”
The hall’s chief apothecary pulled his shaking fingers from Wang Hu’s wrist.
“Young Master Bai, his spirit veins have fused together. There is solar fire in his marrow. Our cooling salves can’t touch it.”
The two lackeys knelt nearby with their foreheads pressed to the floor.
“It wasn’t a fight!” one sobbed. “Brother Hu only kicked the wire. Purple lightning came out of nowhere and threw him across the valley!”
“Idiots!” Bai Chen gripped his spirit sword. “Chu Yuan is a cripple. The Testing Elder examined him three years ago. His veins are dead. He couldn’t gather enough qi to light a candle, let alone call down heavenly lightning!”
“We swear on our Dao hearts!” the second lackey said. “And Sunset Peak has changed. The yard is covered in black stone. Li Xiaoyao is on his knees, sweeping it with a sacred relic and chanting!”
Bai Chen’s anger gave way to greed.
An immortal’s hidden cave, he thought. That dying fool must have found an inheritance under the peak.
If such a treasure could command lightning and melt stone, it could make Bai Chen a core disciple. Perhaps more.
“Summon Senior Brother Shen,” he ordered. “He is at the fourth level of Foundation Establishment. Tell him to bring the Heaven-Suppressing Spirit Net and twenty archers with spirit-piercing crossbows. If Chu Yuan found an ancient treasure, it belongs to the Iron Sword Hall.”
***
Back on Sunset Peak, Austin knew nothing about the armed group preparing to climb the mountain.
He was crouched behind the shack, looking into a straw-lined nesting crate.
The lead hen had laid an egg.
It was the size of an ostrich egg, with a clear red shell that looked like ruby. Golden fire turned slowly inside it. The shell gave off enough heat to warm his face from a foot away.
“That’s not going in a nonstick pan,” Austin said. “And a clay pot would crack before the water got warm.”
He picked up the egg with long iron tongs and carried it to a cast-iron kettle filled with cold spring water.
The moment he lowered it in, the water exploded into steam.
Austin jumped back, coughing and waving a pine paddle to clear the air. Then he checked the result.
“Ten percent fire resistance. Not bad for breakfast.” Austin prodded the shell with a cedar chopstick. “Now I just need salt and pepper, and this place might be worth the trouble.”
He set aside a cool slice for Xiaoyao. The boy had finished his millet, but he was still too thin. Austin covered the slice with a bowl so the hens would not steal it.