⸻
The sky was slate gray over Oklahoma. No rain. No sun. Just dry wind and silence.
Kai Rowen stood in the middle of a dead field with his hands in his pockets. His boots sank a little into the soft dirt, cracked from years without a proper plow. The farmhouse behind him had no windows left. The roof sagged like it was tired of existing.
"Twenty-three years old, a hundred dollars in my account, and my last hen just died," Kai muttered.
He stared at the lifeless bird at his feet. Scrawny, barely a pound. That chicken had laid one good egg a week—maybe two on a miracle. It was the last living thing on the property besides him.
He crouched down and picked it up gently. Dead weight. Literally.
"Guess that's it. Farm's finished," he said.
⸻
Two hours later, he was in the toolshed behind the house. The place smelled like rust, dirt, and oil. Most of the old equipment was busted—nothing modern, nothing functional. He wasn't looking for anything, just wasting time before heading back to town to figure out which gas station would let him pump five bucks' worth.
Then, he saw it.
A black plastic toolbox under a pile of rotten burlap sacks.
He opened it, expecting old screwdrivers or maybe some rat poison.
Instead, he found a thick, scratched-up tablet. No brand logo. No case. Looked like it belonged in a junkyard.
It flickered on the moment he touched the screen.
White text, black background:
[MERGE SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
Do you wish to begin? [YES] / [NO]
Kai blinked.
"…Is this a game?"
He tapped YES.
Uploading initial assets…
Scanning livestock…
1 x Lv.1 Standard Hen [DECEASED]
0 x Coop
0 x Feed
No available merge.
He snorted. "Dead chicken and a dream."
Then the screen blinked again.
Warning: Dead livestock detected.
System requires live samples for merge operations.
Use 'Restoration Protocol'?
"Wait—what?"
He tapped it.
Restoration complete.
1 x Lv.1 Standard Hen – Status: Revived
He dropped the tablet like it burned him.
"WHAT THE—"
The chicken on the floor twitched.
Its legs kicked. It clucked.
Kai stepped back, heart thumping.
"No f***ing way…"
The bird stood up, shook itself off, and looked around like it just woke up from a nap.
He looked at the tablet.
It showed the live hen now—status green.
He looked at the chicken.
It pecked the floor.
"…Okay."
⸻
By noon the next day, Kai had two hens.
He bought one from a nearby Craigslist listing—$5 for a half-sick layer with mites.
He brought it back, shoved it into an old crate beside the first bird, and pulled out the tablet.
2 x Lv.1 Standard Hen detected
Merge available
Merge these animals? Y/N
He tapped YES.
Both hens vanished in a flash of light. There was a soft thud inside the crate.
He looked inside.
One bird.
But different.
Its feathers were richer, darker. It was broader, like it had been bred in a lab for meat and eggs. It didn't peck nervously like the others—it moved with purpose.
Merge complete.
1 x Lv.2 Layer Hen created
Stats:
• Egg Production: +200%
• Growth Speed: +150%
• Feed Efficiency: +120%
• Meat Quality: Grade B+
Kai just stared.
Then he scrambled inside the house, pulled out a cracked notebook, and scribbled numbers.
"Two garbage birds gave me one good bird. So if I had four… I could get two of these. Eight gives four. Sixteen gives eight… That's exponential scaling."
He paused.
His fingers tapped the table.
"If I can scale chickens… what else?"
⸻
By Friday, he'd sold two dozen eggs to a local diner. The yolks were golden. The whites thick like jelly. The cook couldn't believe it.
"These eggs ain't like the store's," the man said, handing Kai thirty bucks. "You got more?"
"I will," Kai said, pocketing the cash.
That night, he bought four more hens from a local feed store. Weak, standard breed—$4 each. Dirt cheap.
He didn't feed them. Didn't clean them.
Just merged.
Merge complete:
2 x Lv.1 = 1 x Lv.2
2 x Lv.1 = 1 x Lv.2
2 x Lv.2 = 1 x Lv.3
1 x Lv.3 Layer Hen
Stats:
• Egg Production: +350%
• Meat Grade: A-
• Health: High
• Growth Speed: +220%
• Reproduction: Enabled
He stared at the last stat.
"Wait… this one can breed?"
He flipped to a new page in his notebook.
Tier System:
• Lv.1 = Base
• Lv.2 = Fast layers
• Lv.3 = Reproducers
Merge 2 x Lv.2 = 1 x Lv.3
Merge 2 x Lv.3 = ???
The system buzzed again.
Merge History Logged
Next Merge Tier unlocks at:
• 5 x Lv.3 animals
• Merge Coops to reduce labor costs
"Coops too?" Kai said, blinking.
He ran outside to the broken-down chicken shed. Roof caved in, wood rotted.
He snapped a photo of it with the tablet.
Structure detected:
1 x Basic Coop (dilapidated)
Merge requires duplicate or spare materials
Kai had none.
But his grandpa's truck bed was full of junk. Old boards, nails, fencing.
He spent the next four hours patching together a second identical structure. Half nails, half willpower.
He scanned both.
Merge complete:
1 x Reinforced Coop
Capacity: +300%
Disease Resistance: +120%
Labor Efficiency: +80%
⸻
The next morning, he fed the Lv.3 hen for the first time.
It laid two eggs in one day.
Both bigger than usual.
He scrambled one, tasted it, and sat in silence.
It didn't just taste better — it made him feel clear. Clean. Like he'd been eating garbage for years and didn't know it.
The second egg he wrapped in paper and biked to town.
He walked into the same diner.
"Got something better," he told the cook.
The man cracked it on the pan, watched it sizzle, and took one bite.
He froze.
"You selling these?"
"I can be."
"I'll pay $1 an egg. You bring me 100 a week, I'll buy every damn one."
Kai didn't blink.
"Deal."
⸻
On the ride home, Kai smiled for the first time in months.
He didn't have investors. He didn't have land. He didn't even have working plumbing.
But he had a system.
And he had a belief.
"You don't live off money. You don't live off dreams.
You live off food.
Control the food, and you control everything."
He opened the tablet.
New Objective:
• Merge 5 x Lv.3 Layer Hens
• Merge 2 x Coops → Industrial Coop
• Reach 100 eggs/week
Reward: System Expansion – Meat Processing Module
Kai clicked "Track Objective."
Then, he grabbed his notebook and wrote at the top of a fresh page:
Business Plan – Week 1
• Buy 20 hens
• Merge to 5 x Lv.3
• Sell eggs @ $1/each
• Revenue Target: $100
• Reinvest 100% into feed and fencing
Long-Term Goal: Own the food chain
The pen stopped. He stared at the page.
Then he added one more line:
"Feed the people. Run the system. Own the future."