The following patients were rather easy to treat, yet each treatment took around ten minutes, including Fengyu’s spiritual recovery.

In the second hour, the half-beast panther came and agreed to the quoted price to heal his hand. He paid 10.000 spirit stones upfront after signing a contract - with the second payment following after the first finger recovered, and the third after both fingers were fully functional.

In addition, he was actually asked by another patient for the treatment of a friend who had a serious issue, but Fengyu rejected, saying that he wouldn’t do two major treatments at the same time, as the mental exhaustion was too serious.

After rounding up everything, in those two hours he had ten normal customers and the panther half-beast, bringing a total profit of around 1.500 spirit stones and 10.000 spirit stones...

Getting spirit stones like this, Fengyu felt for the first time how easy it was to earn them. In the future he would see that this had become the norm...

His thoughts returned to spiritual herding, ’It seems I don’t need to upgrade my spiritual herd,’ he breathed a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t that herding would bring so little. Once he reached the middle stage, he was eligible to raise low-grade spiritual beasts en masse, and now at the late stage he was even more capable of doing so.

Considering this, why did he not do it?

In fact, the spirit stones he’d earn would be a lot more, but the loss was also evident - the Beast Origin Essence Strands would become a lot less!

He got exactly three strands per duck he raised, leading to an income of ninety strands monthly, which was 20 more than he gained before, simply because he was able to raise these thirty ducks properly without any deduction in strands -

[Beast Origin Essence Strands: 6.780]

For several years he got 70 strands, and for these ten months he got 90 strands, resulting in quite a high number. The amount of strands he got now was nearly comparable to those he gained in over 20 years.

’I get strands from raising a beast to maturity, this means raising Spirited Ducks and raising Spiritual Ducks are basically equal - of course since the latter requires a longer time to reach maturity, each beast gives more strands, but realistically raising several ducks equals out the number.

So effectively I gain nothing by raising higher ducks...’ Fengyu always considered strands and cores more important than spirit stones. He wasn’t a merchant, he was a cultivator!

With the ability to improve his talent, how could he not pursue it? It would definitely be an important factor in his Foundation Establishment, the breakthrough to the Foundation Building stage.

So for years he knew he had a way to make more money, but he refused to give up on the strands and even take a risk to gain more spirit stones, without even knowing whether it would benefit him as much.

Now that he had become a doctor, he found a new way to make income, without having to worry about changing things up with his farm!

’In the future, I can consider various businesses to make a proper amount of spirit stones with ducks, but currently my time and energy is limited to only raising them without profiting much.

Other herders might even laugh at me, thinking that I’m doing a thankless job and benefiting others much more than I gain... but in the end, doesn’t it come down to focus?

Spiritual Healing, as great as it may sound and as much as I enjoy it, does not benefit my path much currently. But putting just two hours into it daily allows me to be financially independent.’

Only for this reason was he willing to take off two hours a day on this, two hours he could’ve spent learning spells and continuing his path of herding.

Fortunately he liked healing a lot and his talent in this wasn’t low either, so even if he did it under the premise of gaining spirit stones, in fact, he enjoyed every interaction with patients.

As he thought about these, he already closed his office and walked out. Looking back, he saw cleaning staff going to his office, probably cleaning it and preparing it for the next doctor who booked this office.

’Sharing a room is good here, but having your own Doctor’s Office is better. In the future I can seriously consider creating a treatment centre in my field.’ he had thought of this many times, feeling more and more how great it would be.

Outside the hospital, he turned to go back to the northern main street, watching the beasts around living their daily lives.

It was remarkable how... boring it was. Unlike the exciting scene Fengyu expected, everything was orderly and normal. Sure, the butcher on the street was a half-beast wolf who gnawed on a bone while hacking down at the meat with a huge knife, scaring some herbivore beasts walking by, but nothing serious happened.

He chuckled shortly as he passed them by, coincidentally seeing that one of the beasts on the butcher’s table was a dead and plucked duck.

Shaking his head, he still felt this sight was wrong, quickly turning away. No matter how many times he talked about it with Zimu, he still felt it was cannibalism, so he would never eat it no matter how well he praised its meat would be.

"Quack, you’re still unwilling to accept it... but I’m really fine," Zimu quacked when it saw him act like this.

"You’re fine but I’m not!"

"Quack, you’re right. I also couldn’t eat a monkey, you two look too alike!"

"Youuu!" Fengyu feigned anger at Zimu, even throwing him into the air and letting him fly behind him, unwilling to carry him.

Flap flap

"Quack, don’t be like this! I just made a joke!" Zimu quickly tried to catch up.

"You can make a joke while flying, there’s no need for me to carry you!"

"Quack, petty, petty, you’re so petty!"