Chapter 68 - 66: Hatching the Eagle Egg, Harvest from the Clinic
"This mud pond is huge! Now we finally have a place to raise all the loaches and crabs we catch."
Beside the farmland, Xu Jun gazed at the mud pond that had replaced the fence, his eyes filled with wonder.
The pond created by the Card looked almost identical to a traditional one.
The water was less than a palm deep, with a thick layer of mud at the bottom. The perimeter was formed by a thirty-centimeter-high embankment of hardened earth, preventing the creatures inside from easily getting out.
"Not bad. The location is perfect."
Chen Chong was quite pleased with the layout before him.
The mud pond and the farmland were right next to each other, perfectly occupying the empty space beside the kitchen. It no longer looked as barren as when the fence was there.
Twenty square meters wasn’t enormous, but it was more than enough to raise things like loaches and crabs, and even some carnivorous fish could be put inside.
"Wang Biao, bring the bucket over."
At Chen Chong’s command, Wang Biao brought over the fish they had sorted earlier.
The bucket was mostly filled with loaches, eels, river snails, crabs, river shrimp, and some carnivorous fish like catfish and snakehead.
He poured most of the bucket’s contents into the pond.
The once-clear water of the mud pond was quickly stirred up by sediment, turning completely murky.
Loaches and eels naturally love to burrow in the mud, while crabs and snails also enjoy hiding in the sediment. The mud pond’s environment couldn’t have been more suitable for them.
As for the carnivorous fish like snakeheads and catfish, they could eat whatever they wanted, as long as they could catch it.
The fish traps caught countless numbers of these little creatures every day. It was perfect for raising them as their own food source while also feeding the carnivorous fish.
The fish, shrimp, and crabs adapted instantly the moment they hit the water, showing no signs of rejection...
"Brother Chong, I’m not worried about the loaches and snakeheads, but do you think the snails and crabs will climb out and run away?"
Xu Jun was a little worried as he looked at the surrounding embankment, which wasn’t particularly high.
Chen Chong shook his head. "They might climb out, but they won’t run away. As long as the mud pond environment meets their needs, the crabs will prefer to stay in the water and the surrounding mud burrows. As for the snails, they might wander off to lay eggs."
"But at their crawling speed, they won’t get far overnight. Worst case, if we see any in the morning, we can just kick them back in."
"That’s true." Xu Jun smiled. "Raising them in the pond will make it really convenient to just grab some whenever we want to eat..."
Chen Chong added, "The mud pond has other uses, too. If we’re lucky enough to get any aquatic crops in the future, we can also plant them in here."
"It can raise fish and grow plants... Brother Chong, this Card you found was a great find..."
"It wasn’t just the mud pond. There was also that shield."
Chen Chong looked at the table, where a round iron shield, about half a meter in diameter, was resting.
This was the second Card that had dropped from the smashed Stone Claw Eagle egg: a Refined Iron Shield.
Chen Chong had already used it before they ate.
The entire face of the shield was forged from Refined Iron, while the handle was wrapped in leather for comfort. It felt substantial in hand but wasn’t overly heavy.
To test the shield’s defensive capabilities, Chen Chong had held it up and let Xu Jun strike it with a Fire Axe.
After several full-strength swings, though his hand went numb from the impact, the shield’s face showed no significant damage—only faint, tiny dents, a testament to its incredible sturdiness.
The shield was half a meter in diameter. While not large, it was perfectly capable of protecting vital areas like the head and chest when needed.
If it were any larger, it would likely lose its portability. This size was just right...
"Brother Chong, your haul this time was massive! You smashed two eagle eggs and got two Cards, and you even brought one egg back. Oh, right, will it fit in the Incubator?"
"It should be fine, I think."
Chen Chong wasn’t entirely sure either. He vaguely recalled the Incubator’s description saying the entire case had an area of three square meters.
The mutated eagle egg they brought back was only half a meter tall and wide, so there was no way it wouldn’t fit.
Of course, that was assuming he checked the Incubator’s structure first.
If it had rows of small compartments inside, only big enough for fist-sized chicken or duck eggs, then they’d be out of luck...
After thinking it over, Chen Chong decided to use the Incubator Card in his room.
Firstly, the living room was already filled with large structures from Cards. Secondly, if the eagle egg did hatch, keeping it in his room would make it easier to monitor any changes at all times.
As the Card slowly vanished, a rectangular structure three meters tall and one meter wide appeared behind the door.
The surface of the Incubator was covered in countless wood grain patterns, clearly indicating it was made of wood.
It was divided equally from top to bottom into three separate incubation chambers, each with its own independent bamboo-slat door.
At the top of each chamber was a fist-sized red stone that emitted a faint glow and a hint of warmth.
Seeing this, everyone was amazed, completely unable to comprehend the principle behind the stone’s light and heat.
But then they remembered that Cards themselves defied common sense, so it seemed to stand to reason that structures created by them would possess some special abilities.
When you really thought about it, the accelerated growth effect of things like the Farmland and Fishpond Cards, and the space-expanding ability of the Vacant Land Card, were far stranger than the stone in the Incubator...
Inside each of the Incubator’s three independent chambers were wooden trays for placing beast eggs.
However, these wooden trays could be freely removed and rearranged; they weren’t completely fixed in place.
This was clearly to accommodate beast eggs of different sizes, allowing the user to arrange them as they saw fit...
Chen Chong was finally at ease.
This meant he could remove the wooden trays from one chamber and place the entire eagle egg inside without worrying about it not fitting.
He took the backpack from Wang Biao and unzipped it...
A black eagle egg, resembling a stone block, appeared before them.
Xu Jun, Jia Wen, and even Shen Xinrou, who were seeing the eagle egg for the first time, were all extremely curious and kept sizing it up.
"Brother Chong, are you sure this is a Stone Claw Eagle’s egg?"
"Why is it so black? It looks like it’s been coated in ink."
"I don’t know. Maybe it’s a mutation," Chen Chong said as he took the egg out and placed it inside the Incubator.
As the egg was placed inside, the stone at the top of the chamber began to glow with a warm, red light.
Chen Chong closed the door. It was a perfect seal, and not a single sliver of light escaped.
The incubation would be accelerated fivefold.
According to the intelligence they had gathered, the normal incubation period was one month. Barring any surprises, the egg should hatch in less than six days.
As for whether the "Stone Claw Eagle" could be successfully tamed after it hatched, that remained to be seen...
The group returned to the living room.
Chen Chong asked how they had handled the tasks he had assigned them while he was away.
Xu Jun quickly reported, "Brother Chong, just like you said before you left, I went downstairs and found the security guard to trade for a one-bedroom apartment. It’s on the first floor. It cost less than fifteen pounds of cured meat, and we successfully set up a traditional Chinese medicine clinic."
"After that was settled, I took Jia Wen to the trading market. We found that guy in the sunglasses we got information from last time, gave him two bags of instant noodles, and asked him to help spread the word for a while. And guess what?"
"What happened?" Chen Chong asked.
Xu Jun beamed. "In less than half a day, we had about ten different groups of people come to us for treatment! It was all for things like stomach pain, sprains, and infections."
"And that’s with the advertising having just started and not even being fully out there yet. It just goes to show how desperate our school is for medical services!"
...