Fey Evolution Merchant Chapter 1: Hundred Questions Beast and Sound Bird
The downpour had persisted for twenty-four hours without pause. The combination of the sweltering summer heat and the extreme humidity made the air feel heavy and suffocating to anyone caught in it.
Amidst this damp warmth, a youth with a cheerful expression but a sickly frame gripped an outdated AI mobile phone. He spent a considerable amount of time tinkering with the device until it finally emitted its characteristic startup chime.
Lin Yuan let out a breath of relief upon realizing the phone wasn't broken. Replacing it was a luxury he simply could not afford.
Once the device powered on, Lin Yuan visited the fey website he frequented. To his surprise, a single response he had posted earlier had triggered over 99 notifications.
During a bout of insomnia the previous night, Lin Yuan had come across a forum thread where a user was desperately seeking a cure for a Ghost Shadow Bristled Spider bite. He had provided a nonchalant reply.
“Don't panic if you're bitten by a Ghost Shadow Bristled Spider. Consume some hot water mixed with Woad Root, then disinfect the puncture site. To ensure your body doesn't smell too bad after you pass, find a shady, well-ventilated spot beneath a tree and lie down. If your budget allows, it’s highly recommended to place a bamboo mat beneath yourself.”
As he scrolled through a variety of colorful responses, a soft noise caught Lin Yuan's attention. Suddenly, a soot-colored cat leaped onto his lap, followed immediately by the sound of beating wings.
A cyan bird, resembling a sparrow, perched on Lin Yuan’s shoulder and gave a few sharp chirps.
Setting his phone aside, he looked at the ash-black cat clinging to his legs and asked, “Genius, what’s the current temperature in the shop?”
The cat hopped down and answered in a sweet, flirtatious tone, “The indoor temperature is 34°C. Yuan, you should open things up to let the heat out and get some fresh air.”
In a fluid, practiced motion, Lin Yuan scooped up the cat and headed downstairs, the chirping cyan bird still balanced on his shoulder.
As the first light of dawn touched the sky, Lin Yuan efficiently opened the windows before moving cautiously toward the flower stands.
The ash-black cat spoke up once more. “Lin Yuan, remember to take your medicine first!”
Stopping in his tracks, Lin Yuan turned to pour a glass of water. Simultaneously, the cyan bird flew over, carrying a medicinal tablet in its beak.
Lin Yuan took the pill from the bird, popped it into his mouth, and washed it down with a gulp of water.
The cyan bird instinctively began to belt out a tune, but Lin Yuan quickly muffled its beak with his hand.
“Chimey, stop! If you sing now, Auntie Zhang from next door will come over to complain again!”
A talking cat and a singing bird might seem like something out of a myth, but a hundred years after the Spirit Qi Awakening, such creatures were commonplace. Nearly every household owned one.
The cat was named “Genius,” a Hundred Questions Beast. These creatures served as living encyclopedias and basic lifestyle assistants, essentially acting as domestic helpers. However, this particular cat differed from the standard Hundred Questions Beasts found in shops; it was noticeably smaller and thinner, appearing quite malnourished.
Though it was born from a purebred Hundred Questions Beast mother, its fur was an uneven, patchy black that made it look perpetually grimy. Consequently, its previous owner had been unable to sell it for a long time.
The spirit pet shop owner had eventually offered it to Lin Yuan at a fifty percent discount just to get it off the shelves.
The singing bird was a Sound Bird. These were rarely seen on the market because most evolved into Songstress Birds—essentially living music players capable of memorizing over a hundred melodies.
The cyan, sparrow-like bird on Lin Yuan’s shoulder was a Sound Bird that had failed its evolution into a Songstress Bird.
When the shopkeeper noticed Lin Yuan hesitating over the Hundred Questions Beast, he had thrown in this Sound Bird as a free gift.
After two years of patient training under Lin Yuan’s care, the Sound Bird had finally mastered a single song.
The little bird was named Chimey. When it first arrived, it had been depressed and listless. Knowing that all creatures possess a spirit and can sense their environment, Lin Yuan constantly showered Chimey with praise to rebuild its self-esteem. As a result, Chimey had become remarkably spirited after learning its one song.
A scrawny, rejected Hundred Questions Beast, a Sound Bird deemed a failure, and a sickly youth—it was a fragile-looking trio. Nevertheless, they managed the fey shop left by Lin Yuan's parents with great care.
Having taken his medicine, Lin Yuan approached the flower racks and gently peeled back the black cloths covering them.
Five pots of succulent-like plants, resembling lotus flowers, were growing there. They were a vibrant emerald green and emitted a scent so faint it was nearly imperceptible.
Inspecting the five Jasmine Lilies, Lin Yuan sighed as he reached one of them. Its leaves had become soft and wilted.
“When will this heat finally break?” he wondered.
Jasmine Lilies were a standard type of healing-class fey plant.
Since the Spirit Qi Awakening a century ago, every living thing on Earth had been transformed by Spirit Qi, leading to various evolutionary paths.
Before the Awakening, the Jasmine Lily was just a common succulent, but it had since evolved into a magical plant.
If a person accidentally cut their finger while cooking, they simply needed to keep a Jasmine Lily by their bed; the wound would be fully closed by morning.
Some spirit qi professionals even chose the Jasmine Lily as their contracted fey. However, because it was a low-grade fey, it was notoriously difficult to evolve.
The five Jasmine Lilies in Lin Yuan’s shop were all normal-grade. If they could reach elite-grade or even the threshold of bronze-grade, they would be as effective as any high-end healing fey.
In this world, fate often dictated a creature's status; low-grade feys were usually ignored because their growth was so stagnant. However, if a low-grade fey actually managed to reach a high grade, it was rumored they could possess traits that surpassed naturally high-grade feys.
The ascent of a low-grade fey was like a commoner rising from the mud to the heavens, unlike high-grade feys that were born at the peak.
High-grade feys could also evolve, and they did so much more easily than their low-grade counterparts.
This was why few people bothered with low-grade feys; the resources needed to raise one could easily fund several high-grade ones. This explained why almost everyone owned a Hundred Questions Beast or a Songstress Bird, yet no one expected them to amount to much.
In the century since the Spirit Qi Awakening, there had never been a recorded case of a Hundred Questions Beast or a Songstress Bird evolving further.
Lin Yuan meticulously cared for the Jasmine Lilies, burying nutrient-rich minerals into the soil. Though the work wasn't strenuous, he found himself slightly out of breath.
His "store" was quite modest, stocking only two varieties of feys: the five Jasmine Lilies and about a dozen pots of Usnea. These Usnea weren't even considered Normal-grade feys; they were merely a variation of the pre-Awakening plant.
Aside from possessing mild toxins, their vines grew rapidly and were packed with nutrients. This made Usnea the ideal feed for low-grade herbivorous or omnivorous fey pets.
Every day, these Usnea plants provided Lin Yuan with roughly a hundred meters of vines to harvest.
“I rely on these Usneas to pay the bills. Selling a Jasmine Lily would just be a lucky bonus.”
Even though he looked at the Usnea with the affection of a protective mother, he didn't dote on them. He reserved all his genuine effort for the five Jasmine Lilies.
After wiping away the dust, the small fey shop officially opened for business in the wake of the morning rain.