Likes the Attention

He smiled while looking at the rock like object. He used the same technique a few more times to clear the snow around it, allowing him to see the object fully.

Unlike the small part visible at the top which was pristine, as it got lower and lower cracks seemed to have formed all over it. He put his hand to it and started to think to himself.

'It should be almost time for you to hatch. I can't wait to have a duel blooded phoenix mount, hopefully you can also grow into a beautiful girl when you are strong enough. Oooh, I can already imagine the father daughter play that will happen with that. You should only be a few hours away from hatching and are currently in the final stage of absorbing the surrounding Qi. As such I want to make sure you get the best possible hatching. I should start pushing my ice and earth Qi into it.

I know the ice Qi will help it hatch quicker but I'm hoping that adding dense earth Qi will allow it to evolve once again and even if it doesn't maybe have traces of earth Qi which should help its defence. Since it's a known fact that although birds have strong feathers, compared to the other beasts its still the weakest defence. Hopefully some earth Qi should help counteract this. It would be better to use metal Qi but I don't have metal Qi so earth Qi will have to do.'

He slowly started emptying his Qi reserves turning his Qi into half ice and half earth. The egg feeling the source of high purity ice Qi greedily started to suck more forcing it out of his dantan. As for the earth Qi entering it tried to resist it and forced it back out.

Seeing the egg be so stubborn, he slowed down the flow of ice Qi and made it clear if it wants the ice Qi it also has to have the earth Qi. The egg continued to ignore the earth Qi and tried to forcefully draw out more of the ice Qi.

Unfortunately for it due to his cultivation technique, it prevents it from exerting its will and forcefully drawing it out. Eventually he got to the point where he almost stopped the ice Qi flow entirely and mixed the small amount, he is letting out to combine with the earth QI.

Seeing that it can't separate the ice Qi from the earth Qi it then started to absorb both. He slowly once again started to increase the ice Qi coming out and eventually got back to the 50-50 split with the egg absorbing both types of Qi.

After only 20 minutes of continuous drain his Qi reserves are nearing empty so he stops the flow, eats some grade 3 Qi recovery pills and within only 10 minutes he starts once again and continues.

Due to the higher Qi density in the inner world his recovery is faster and he is also using grade 3 recovery pills made for stage 3 cultivators, so him only being in stage 1 means the efficiency of them is incredibly fast.

Soon 4 hours pass and he is still expending Qi into the egg. At first, he expected it to only take a few hours till it would hatch normally but in seems that due to him giving it pure ice and earth Qi the hatching was delayed, as if it knew the more it absorbed before hatching the better it would be.

Changes started occurring during this time as well to its appearance. The white colour has become even whiter to the point of producing a natural glow. At the start some brown spots started appearing indicating the earth Qi being absorbed nicely which made him happy but unexpectedly the silver veins along the egg started to move and eventually make their way to the brown spots.

The silver then devoured the brown and the silver colour started getting shinier and getting a metallic lustre. He presumes that because metal Qi is the advanced form of earth and the dove having both ice and silver phoenix bloodlines the natural metal Qi from the silver phoenix is devouring the earth to strengthen itself.

This was a pleasant surprise for him and made him get excised over how strong this dove will end up being.

Soon the egg started absorbing less and less Qi and quickly stopped taking in any. The cracks around on the shell started to make noises and more cracks started to form.

Seeing that it was time to hatch he moved back and cleared away the snow layers that had once again piled up in the area. The cracks started spreading rapidly creating loud cracking noises with each movement.

The egg started to rock back and forth as the dove inside tries to worm its way out. Slowly part of the shell towards the top started to bulge before retracting in. The cracks in that area specifically started to grow with each time it went out.

The shell didn't hold for long as not long after a piece of the shell cracked off and fell to the floor. Behind it was a metallic beak that looked like stainless steel.

He just sat back and watched as the dove broke away the shell and eventually revealed itself. In front of him is a baby dove the size of the average pony. Its body feathers where pure white and radiated a cold aura, that froze even the ice Qi infused snow falling from the sky turning them into clumps of ice.

The tips of its wing and tail feathers have a metallic shine to them as they looked like sharped sword tips. Its claws are like sharp metal hooks that could rip away at flesh and its beak looked like a sharp dagger ready to tear away at flesh. Its eyes where an ice blue colour with its skin under the feathers matching the snow-white colour.

After admiring the noble aura radiating from it, he saw that the dove was looking directly at him. The baby dove chirped into the air and wobblily started walking towards him as it got used to walking.

When it got to him it chirped at his face before snuggling itself into his embrace. Using its eyes, it conveyed an innocence and reliant expression, treating him as its father since he was the one who was their when born along with him using his seal to imprinting himself before it birthed.

He stared showing affection back, as he hugged its soft feathers back. The dove happy with the attention started to make a low humming noise almost like a cat's purr.

After a little he stopped and the dove retraced its body and just looked at him. He pointed towards the egg shells left over and told it to eat them. Although it didn't understand what he said it could understand the meaning and went over to the shells and started to eat them.

From the information within the database, a beast's egg shells are highly nutritious and give the young creatures a lot of Qi and other good things.

After it finished eating the egg shells it let out a satisfied chirp before returning to his side once again wanting more attention and fuss. He smiled and once again gave it more fuss, he was unable to resist the cuteness of the dove and its soft feathers that felt like clouds.

…

It was now evening and he had long since returned with the dove and gave it one of the pills that allows it to instinctively control its size. He had it take the form of a normal size dove and wore a special scarf that allows it to sit comfortably in his embrace.

He found out on the way back that it is overly fond of his body heat and often tries to stay as close as possible to his body. At first, he had it just either sit on his shoulder or head but it kept on getting upset as it wanted to be closer to him. So he came up with this solution and the moment he showed the scarf it instantly flew their and nestled up against his chest underneath his neck.