Ten thousand leagues south of the Radiant Dawn archipelago, high within the sapphire stratosphere of the Southern Firmament, two radiant celestial shapes cut through the cloud sea.
They were the Nine-Colored Spirit Peacocks—the ancient Patriarch and Matriarch of the Solar Phoenix lineage.
For twelve hundred years, these mythical divine beasts had nested in the untamed volcanic crags of the South, only taking flight once every three centuries to follow the celestial migration paths.
Their feathers shimmered with radiant, nine-colored light.
Behind them, ninety-foot tail trains swept through the thin air, weaving luminous auroras across the skybox that mortal astronomers mistook for passing comets.
To the grand sects of the mortal realms, a single glimpse of their flight brought centuries of national prosperity.
Mighty sect patriarchs would sacrifice three lifetimes of spiritual treasure just to obtain a single shed feather from their wings.
As the two divine beasts glided above the cloud bank, a warm, fragrant current drifted up from the northeastern horizon.
The Patriarch tilted his crowned head, his golden eyes narrowing.
The scent was intoxicating.
It was the honeyed, sun-kissed aroma of the five-star Sun-Lotus Cabbage, mingled with the clean, therapeutic cedar mist of the Grand Pavilion and the deep, pulsing warmth of an authentic main-sequence star.
To the peacocks, this scent was not merely pleasant.
It was the ancestral aroma described in the First Era scriptures—the scent of the legendary Primordial Sun Tree, the birthplace of the Solar Phoenix.
The Matriarch let out a clear, melodious cry that shook the surrounding clouds like silver bells:
*KRRR-AAAAAAAH!*
With a synchronized sweep of their nine-colored wings, the two divine beasts banked hard, leaving the traditional migration corridor behind and diving straight toward the Seventh Spire.
They pierced the cloud layer at blinding speed, their feathers ablaze with prismatic fire.
Yet the moment they crossed the invisible boundary of Solitude Spire, the sky around them grew impossibly heavy.
*THUD.*
A localized gravitational distortion field of one Earth mass seized their wings.
The air ionized into sharp, crisp ozone.
The tremendous solar pressure radiating from Felix Vance’s sleeping core washed over their bodies like an ocean of burning liquid light.
The Patriarch’s pride evaporated in less than a microsecond.
His divine soul shook to its absolute foundations.
This was not an ordinary mountain peak.
This was the private dwelling of a Primordial Sun Sovereign whose internal mass dwarfed entire continents!
To spread their wings here was the ultimate blasphemy.
Instinctively, the two ancient sovereigns tucked their plumage close to their bodies.
To cope with the immense gravitational well and show total, humble submission, their ninety-foot wingspans compressed rapidly.
Their divine forms shrank inward, condensing nine-colored cosmic law into compact, plump, two-foot-tall shapes.
By the time their webbed talons touched the soft grass of Solitude Spire, the terrifying ancient phoenixes looked remarkably like two round, chubby, brilliantly colored barnyard hens.
They waddled meekly across the clover, their heads bobbing in nervous unison:
*Bok... bok... cluck?*
Down in the cabbage patch, Lord Nether-Bane stopped his hoe mid-swing.
The skeletal Ghost King stared at the two birds with bulging, emerald-flaming eye sockets.
His jaw rattled so hard his skull nearly slid off his cervical vertebrae.
"Nine-Colored... Spirit Peacocks..." Nether-Bane croaked, clutching his hemp apron with trembling bony fingers. "The divine sovereigns of the Southern Firmament! Emperors wage century-long wars for their favor! And they are... they are waddling like startled pheasants!"
Behind him, the two spectral corsairs dropped their wicker baskets, bowing so low their ghostly noses pressed into the dark loam.
The two birds paid the ghosts no mind.
Their attention was locked entirely on the grand ironwood building standing on the eastern cliff.
The underfloor heating vents hummed with warm, welcoming air.
Inside the Grand Pavilion, the two peacocks trotted through the open archway, blinking in reverence at the towering cedar rafters.
Across the central hall, the Imperial Thunder Gryphon lay sprawled in its twenty-foot basin of golden hay, snoring in deep, slobbery contentment:
*HRRRRRR-CHOOOOO-ZZZZZZ.*
The sight of the apex predator sleeping like a harmless farm dog removed any lingering doubt.
This was paradise.
Lining the southern wall of the pavilion were six spacious wooden nesting boxes, each filled with fresh, fragrant Sun-Hay.
The two peacocks hurried over to the two central boxes.
They fluttered their wings, hopped into the soft hay, and nestled down with deep, melodious clucks of absolute bliss:
*Bok-bok-bok-coooo.*
The heated cedar boards warmed their bellies.
The static charges in the hay gently aligned their plumage.
For the first time in twelve hundred years, the divine monarchs of the southern skies felt completely safe, completely warm, and completely at home.
***
The following morning, the sun broke over Solitude Spire with pristine, golden clarity.
Up on the porch, Barnaby the clockwork owl stood on his cedar beam, ticking faithfully beneath his black rubber stopper:
*Tick... tick... tick...*
The wooden screen door squeaked open, and Felix Vance shuffled out into the morning air.
He wore his loose hemp pajamas and his faded straw slippers, his messy brown hair sticking up in three directions.
In his left hand, he carried an empty wicker basket he had pulled from the kitchen pantry.
Felix rubbed his stomach, which let out an empty, rumbling gurgle.
"Running low on breakfast supplies," Felix muttered to himself, stepping down the porch steps. "Drake’s last delivery of powdered eggs was stale. Tasted like dried wall plaster."
He glanced toward the eastern ridge.
"I built that coop yesterday," Felix said. "Let's see if the game has an auto-spawn mechanic for farm animals, or if I have to buy starter chicks from a wandering merchant."
He strolled down the gravel path, completely unbothered by the crisp mountain breeze.
Lyra Ashford stepped out of the cottage behind him, her ancestral silver rapier sheathed at her waist.
She followed five paces back, her sharp eyes scanning the yard with disciplined nobility.
"Senior Brother," Lyra said respectfully. "Are you inspecting the defensive perimeter of the new pavilion?"
"No. I'm checking for eggs," Felix replied without looking back. "If I'm paying virtual lumber for an animal shelter, the game better generate passive food drops."
Lyra paused, her brow furrowing in deep contemplation.
*'Eggs?'* Lyra thought, her mind instantly racing through imperial bestiaries. *'The Grand Pavilion was forged from Primordial Ironwood and Star-Stone. Could it be that Senior Brother intends to harvest the celestial crystallization nodes generated by the pavilion's internal ley lines? He speaks in the humble vernacular of a farmer, yet his goals are unfathomably sublime!'*
Felix reached the arched gateway of the Grand Pavilion and stepped inside.
The air was pleasantly warm, smelling of cedar and sweet hay.
Over in the master roost, the Thunder Gryphon didn't even open an eye.
The golden beast merely twitched one ear and let out a soft, whistling snore, thoroughly lost in its luxury coma.
Felix walked past the sleeping gryphon and approached the wooden nesting boxes along the wall.
He stopped.
Sitting comfortably inside the two central boxes were two plump, brightly colored birds.
Their feathers shimmered with dazzling rainbow hues, sparkling like spilled jewels under the morning light filtering through the high clerestory.
As Felix approached, both birds cocked their heads, blinking their round golden eyes up at him with eager, friendly curiosity.
*Cluck?* the Patriarch offered, ruffling his neck feathers.
*Bok-bok,* the Matriarch agreed cheerfully.
Felix stared down at them with a flat, unimpressed squint.
He focused his gaze, summoning the AetherDeck's Inspector HUD:
【Target: Nine-Colored Spirit Peacock (Patriarch & Matriarch)】 【Lineage: Ancient Primordial Solar Phoenix (Eighth-Tier Divine Apex)】 【Status: Settled Farm Residents / Docile Hens】 【Inspector Note: Ancient mythical sovereigns that abandoned their three-hundred-year migration because your coop has better floor heating than the Southern Volcanoes. Currently roleplaying as ordinary barnyard chickens in exchange for free rent and cabbage scraps.】
Felix blinked twice.
"Nine-colored spirit peacocks," Felix read aloud in a deadpan drone. "Right. Fancy chickens. Must be a rare seasonal reskin from the autumn farm event."
He shook his head, thoroughly unfazed by the glowing feathers.
"Developers always put ridiculous cosmetic skins on starter animals," Felix grumbled. "All those glowing sparkles just eat up rendering power. A standard brown hen would have done the exact same job."
The two peacocks ruffled their plumage proudly.
They stood up on their talons, stepping back to reveal what they had spent all night incubating.
Sitting in the golden hay were six massive, flawless eggs.
Each egg was the size of a small cantaloupe, with a smooth, porcelain-like shell that swirled with nine radiant, iridescent colors.
Faint bands of solar auroras danced across the shells, pulsing with concentrated heavenly essence and deep True Yang vitality.
The ambient temperature inside the nesting boxes was warm and soothing, smelling faintly of sweet honey and fresh morning dew.
The Patriarch gently used his beak to nudge three eggs toward Felix's boots.
The Matriarch clucked softly, rolling the other three forward with her wing, offering them with total, unmistakable deference.
Felix's eyes lit up slightly.
"Six large eggs," Felix said, genuinely pleased. "Now that is what I call a solid passive drop rate. No quest required, no RNG failure chance. Just log in and harvest."
He knelt down in the hay, picking up the nearest rainbow egg.
It felt warm and heavy in his hand, perfectly smooth, radiating a gentle thermal hum that felt remarkably comfortable against his palm.
Felix placed it into his wicker basket with a soft clink:
*Tink.*
One by one, he scooped up all six glowing, mythic phoenix eggs, packing them neatly side-by-side into the wicker basket.
"Good chickens," Felix said, reaching down and giving the ancient Patriarch of the Solar Phoenix a brief, casual pat between his glowing crest feathers. "Keep this up and I'll toss you some leftover cabbage cores later."
The Patriarch closed his eyes, puffing his chest in pure, unadulterated pride:
*BOK-BOK-CLUCK!*
To receive a head pat and the promise of sacred Sun-Lotus cores from the Supreme Sovereign of the Great Sun was the greatest honor his bloodline had received in three millennia!
Felix stood up, dusting a stray piece of golden straw from his trousers, and turned to leave.
Standing in the arched doorway of the pavilion was Lyra Ashford.
Her silver rapier had dropped an inch in her hand.
Her jaw was completely unhinged.
Her amber eyes were wide, dilated with sheer, uncomprehending horror and awe.
"N-Nine-Colored... Spirit Eggs..." Lyra choked, the words catching in her throat like jagged glass. "The lineage eggs of the Primordial Solar Phoenix... An imperial empire would collapse into civil war for a single shell fragment... And he... he put six of them into a bread basket?!"
She watched Felix stroll past her, casually swinging the wicker basket as if he had just gathered a handful of wild mushrooms from the woods.
"Senior Brother!" Lyra gasped, hurrying after him across the sunny lawn. "Those... those eggs! They radiate the pure primordial law of rebirth! Are you going to refine them into Ninth-Tier Nirvana Resurrection Elixirs?! Or perhaps incubate them within the Spire's astral matrix to raise an army of sky-rending divine guardians?!"
Felix paused on the gravel path, looking back at her with a thoroughly bewildered expression.
"Resurrection elixirs? Army?" Felix repeated, his voice flat as a wooden board. "Lyra, are you out of your mind? Look at the size of these things."
He held up the wicker basket, showing off the six glowing, rainbow-swirled shells.
"They're eggs," Felix said simply. "I'm making breakfast. A three-egg omelet with some chopped cabbage and toast. You want half?"
Lyra froze dead in her tracks.
Her brain stalled, the gears of her intellect grinding to a complete halt.
*'An omelet...'* she repeated internally, her soul trembling within her core. *'He is going to crack the immortal eggs of the Southern Phoenix into a kitchen frying pan... and eat them for breakfast!'*
She looked at Felix’s calm, sleepy brown eyes, and suddenly a wave of profound, terrifying realization crashed over her.
*'Of course!'* Lyra realized, tears of pure spiritual enlightenment prickling the corners of her eyes. *'To Senior Brother, cultivating an elixir through cauldrons and fire is the crude method of mortals! By consuming the divine laws directly through ordinary mortal meals, he integrates the primordial forces of heaven and earth into his very blood without a single ripple of karmic resistance! The ultimate Dao is found in the daily breakfast!'*
She bowed her head deeply, her voice quivering with devotion:
"I... I would be deeply honored, Senior Brother!"
Felix nodded, turning back toward the cottage.
"Cool. Grab some salt from the pantry," Felix said, dragging his straw slippers toward the kitchen. "Let's see if these fancy birds lay good yolks."