Ming Dynasty: Gain one supernatural power every day

When Empress Xu arrived, she brought many gourds with her.

Zhu Di ordered his men to turn the palace's treasury upside down, collecting everything that looked like a gourd and filling several large boxes with it.

The stewards of the Han Prince's Mansion and the Zhao Prince's Mansion were also busy, selecting several good-quality items from their own storerooms and sending them over.

In addition to the gourds collected by Prince Rui's own people today, the gourds in front of Zhu Gaoxi were piled up like a small mountain.

He spent another whole day refining, and the jade gourd at his waist was stuffed full, with dozens more finished products.

Most of them are of mediocre quality, have limited space, and ordinary attributes. They are mostly the same few types: water-spraying, fire-spraying, and spirit-producing liquid.

But there were a few that caught his eye a little longer.

One of the wooden gourds was an old object unearthed from the palace's inner treasury. It had been passed down for several generations and had a glossy patina all over its body, making it feel quite heavy in the hand.

After refining, the space will be nearly one hundred cubic meters. What does one hundred cubic meters mean? It can fit into a large room. In the future, when transporting grain and supplies, this gourd will be equivalent to a convoy.

It has the largest space among the gourds that have been refined so far, but unfortunately it still can't hold people.

There was also a red gourd, which was from the palace. It seems that there are indeed many good things in the palace.

This gourd is also made of wood and has a small volume, about twenty cubic meters, but it has a property that caught his eye: it can hold a person.

This is a low-end version of Laozi's gourd. As long as you say the name of the person and align the gourd opening, you can bring them in. Of course, this depends on the user's strength. Giving this gourd to an ordinary person would be useless to the protagonist.

Once the person is inside, activating the fire gourd will refine them into a Human Essence Pill within twenty-four hours, but this pill will not be of much use to them. The limitation is also clear: only one person can be placed inside at a time.

He weighed the red gourd in his hand and then put it into the jade gourd at his waist. This thing wasn't very lethal, so he didn't need it for the time being, but it was better to be prepared.

The other two gourds are engraved with patterns of birds and beasts, and are specifically designed to hold animals. Live animals can be put inside, but people cannot.

Overall, he wasn't particularly satisfied with any of the gourds he refined today. Only a few were useful; the rest were pretty useless.

When Yang Ji and his group return from their travels, they should be able to find a few more good old gourds among the collected items. At that time, these ordinary gourds can be given as rewards to the officials and ministers who have worked diligently, since these gourds are really of little use to them.

By the time he finished all this, it was completely dark. He leaned against the cloud bed in his bedchamber, closed his eyes to rest, and waited for that familiar notification sound.

[Ding! It's time to check in for tomorrow. Do you wish to claim today's special ability?]

"receive."

[Ding! Sign-in successful! Congratulations, host, you have obtained a new supernatural power—the Monkey Talisman Divine Power.]

Host: Zhu Gaoxi

Age: 18 (adjustable)

Number of check-in days: 11

Acquired supernatural powers: Power of Creation, Immortal Body, Sword Control, Culinary Skills, Divine Craftsmanship, Rat Talisman Power, Light of Time, Myriad Heavenly Book, Somersault Cloud, Gourd Heaven, Monkey Talisman Power

Monkey Talisman Divine Power

[Supernatural Power Effect: Can transform any living being or inanimate object into any animal form existing on Earth. When applied to living beings, it completely transforms them into a living animal; when applied to inanimate objects, it only retains the animal's shape but has no life.]

The panel appeared deep within his consciousness. Zhu Gaoxi glanced at the introduction, and his eyes lit up slightly.

The Monkey Talisman, one of the twelve talismans in Jackie Chan Adventures, can transform any creature into any animal shape existing on Earth.

However, the limitations are also clear: extinct animals cannot be reproduced; saber-toothed tigers and dinosaurs are out of the question.

Moreover, transformation only changes the body, not the mind. Just like in the animation, if you turn a frog into a tiger, it is still a frog at heart. It just has a more powerful body and greater strength.

Zhu Gaoxi leaned against the cloud bed, pondering how to use this supernatural power.

This supernatural ability is actually quite suitable for amusement. In ancient times, the variety of pets was pitifully limited, mostly cats, dogs, birds, and rabbits, with wealthy families perhaps keeping a few fighting roosters. Even the breeds of cats and dogs were limited, unlike in my previous life when there were Ragdoll cats, huskies, corgis, Shiba Inus…

Since I'm just killing time anyway, I'll conjure up a few for myself to play with tomorrow, and also for my mother and nephews and nieces to play with.

But then I thought, it seems a bit of a waste to use this supernatural power only to create pets.

An idea popped into his head: he would put a gourd of ants in the air, fly over Japan, and have them all turn into tigers, giving Japan a complete annihilation package.

Unfortunately, we now know that the tigers created through the illusion still have the mind of ants. They'll only move around looking for food and won't bite. This plan is on hold for now; we'll revisit it later when we can gain the ability to control beasts through daily check-ins.

However, if we look at it from another angle, this divine power would be quite suitable for distributing welfare to the people.

The army marched to Annam, passing through many prefectures and counties along the way. He could use the power of the monkey talisman to transform some creatures into chickens, sheep, and pigs, which he then distributed to the local people as meat.

Moreover, it can be transformed into a draft ox. In agrarian societies, oxen were the most valuable source of labor; one ox was equivalent to dozens of strong laborers. Many farming families could not save enough in their entire lives to afford an ox, and during spring plowing, they could only rely on manpower to pull the plow.

What's the most cost-effective way to turn them? Earthworms, ants, and cockroaches are everywhere; you can find a bunch just by turning over a rock. Turning these little creatures into cows costs almost nothing, but the output is a large animal that can plow the fields and pull carts.

Isn't this the ultimate form of resource conversion? Thinking of this, he couldn't help but chuckle.

Why do I feel like I'm becoming more and more like a capitalist? Leveraging the greatest profit with the least cost is the core skill of a capitalist, but capitalists exploit people, while this guy does it to provide welfare for the people; the nature of the two is different.

Tomorrow, have the people in the manor dig up earthworms and search ant nests. Anyway, there are plenty of these things in the back garden of Prince Rui's manor; a few shovelfuls will be enough for the first batch of test subjects.

The next morning, after finishing his breakfast, Zhu Gaoxi called Xiao Biti and Qiutang Yuehe to his side.

"Take a few people and go to the back garden to dig up some earthworms, and also search for ant nests. Get as many as you can of anything that crawls on the ground and is small."

Little Snotty was stunned for a moment, thinking he had misheard. Digging for earthworms? Turning over ant nests? What is Your Highness planning to do today?

Qiu Tang quietly tugged at his sleeve, and he quickly bowed and replied "Yes," then led several eunuchs carrying shovels to the back garden.

Before long, the bluestone slabs in the courtyard were filled with pottery jars and wooden basins of all sizes.

Earthworms wriggled in the soil, ants crawled in a dense, black mass, and a few grasshoppers hopped and popped in the jar.

Several eunuchs stood by, their faces full of confusion. His Highness had them dig these up so early in the morning. Did he want them to fish? But you don't need ants to fish. Oh well, His Highness is a disciple of the Dao Ancestor. He must have a deeper meaning in doing this.