Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

"It's a bit bleak, yeah." Moon Aiko nodded her head slowly. "Don't you have like, fire flowers, or something else that could grow over here?" She glanced around her a bit, but most pretty much everything was covered in dust and ashes, well, mostly ashes.

"Most of them can't survive due to the ash, as it covers them." The bird lady shook her head. It was impossible, not because of the light, but because the ashes would raise the temperature too much and burn the flowers immediately.

Even Herbs weren't any better, most of them would die out within a few days, even if they were strengthened or nurtured by specialists.

"Whoa... that's pretty bleak." Moon Aiko didn't expect that. She thought that at least something would survive over here, but to think nothing could survive...

"What do you eat?" Moon Aiko raised her eyebrow, questioning their food.

"Rude!" The bird lady puffed up her cheeks. "We all eat normal meat, so there is no need for you to look at me like that."

Moon Aiko tilted her head. "Is it black meat with a lot of partic- auauaua-"

Her cheeks were being pulled by the bird lady. The bird lady couldn't really hurt or reprimand this rascal, but that didn't mean she would take it lying down!

And those cheeks...

'Whoa, this is pretty fun.' The bird lady smiled like she was enjoying this.

"Yanqi is much better.' Moon Aiko sobbed inside her mind.

...

Once the bird lady was satisfied, she let that little Fox go. She still had to guide her around, so she couldn't delay things too much.

She guided the small Fox around, since she would have to traverse this place a few times.

The reason they didn't move into the base is because the Earthen Elephant was acting strange, so she was worried about invasions.

The Earthen Elephant was the only one who was able to bear the intense heat for prolonged time, so it was a bit iffy if she made the Movement Array into her base.

"This place is huge..." Moon Aiko felt like she was walking for days, since there was no sun around.

"You are imagining things. My domain is actually the smallest, since it's hard to spread it." The bird lady shook her head. It was obvious she was not joking, which stunned Aiko even more.

'Did their common sense regress from being stuck in this place?' That was the only thing that Moon Aiko could come up with, since this was really abnormal.

"I know what you are thinking, but you should wait until you visit the others. You will see just how huge their domains are." The bird lady shook her head.

Moon Aiko wanted to ask about those things, but it didn't seem like the bird lady would answer them.

So, she simply redirected her attention to something else.

"Do you have any resources in this place?" Moon Aiko was curious what she could get from helping out.

"We have many metals and special wood." The bird lady was quick on the uptake, so she slightly adjusted their journey to include the sites where they harvested such resources.

...

"This is where we get the wood. We are not really cutting them down, but scraping the outer shell, which doesn't nourish the 'tree' and only makes it wither." The bird lady explained, since this was a nice treasure.

"How is it created?" Moon Aiko was curious how it was made, especially considering there was no water around or anything that was supposed to sustain life.

"The 'trees' are connected to the underground water. They use that water to create a special sap that bonds well with the dust and ashes. The 'bark' then gets injected by those substances and slowly turns into this." The bird lady handed over a piece of the wood.

[Twilight-Fire Wood]

[Fire-ash Wood]

[This is an unrefined piece of wood, so its condition and effects are uncertain.]

[Depending on how you manage to refine this precious wood. It will greatly change its effect to either aid you internally or externally.]

[Internally when it comes to Qi gathering.]

[Externally when it comes to battles.]

[This wood does not possess any other utilities, so please don't try to create anything else out of it...]

It felt like the last part was begging her, but Moon Aiko ignored it and turned towards the bird lady.

"Does this also have refined form?" Moon Aiko asked softly, but the bird lady was greatly surprised.

"I didn't expect you to already notice what it was missing." The bird lady clicked her tongue, clearly displeased, but for some reason Aiko didn't feel like it was aimed at her.

"You are correct. This is the unrefined raw form. I wanted to show you this, because the refined form is... well, very different." The bird lady didn't know how to say it, since the refined form looked like a jewel.

"Oho~" Moon Aiko was curious how it looked.

"We can't see it yet, since it's refined in the core part of my domain." The bird lady shook her head. She didn't want to disappoint this little Fox, but it couldn't be helped.

"What's next?" The burned trees were interesting. Well, they were far from trees as they had just pitiful trunks, but since you got wood out of it, it was probably still considered a tree.

"Next are metals. These are also unique compared to what you might expect." The bird lady made a cute 'fufu' noise before guiding Aiko towards the fishery.

"Wait, hold on. Fishery?" Moon Aiko stopped the bird lady, because she couldn't see any bodies of water anywhere around.

"You will understand later, but it's really as you might imagine." The bird lady chuckled.

"Nonono, fish? Here? No, to start with, fishing equals metals?" Moon Aiko felt like her common sense was much more common than whatever this was!

The bird lady laughed. Her colleagues had a similar reaction when she told them about it, but she never elaborated further about it. She wanted to torment them just a little bit for having such cosy domains compared to what she had-!

...

"..." Moon Aiko stared blankly towards whatever that was.

"No, how does that make sense...?" Moon Aiko stood before a fishery, and she could even see those guys fishing in front of her!

"Let's go closer." The bird lady giggled. This kind of refreshing reaction was always nice.

The fisherman slapped the fishes and they would vomit a few metals. Then they just threw them back into the lava and fished again.

"How do they know where to catch them?" Moon Aiko was completely stunned, so she didn't know where to start with her questions.

"The fuller the fish, the higher they swim." The bird lady smiled.

There was so much wrong with that sentence that Moon Aiko didn't know what to do with it.

"So the fish are lighter...?" Moon Aiko couldn't understand the reasoning behind it.

"This is just our theory, but it seems like the fishes compete for who has the biggest and heaviest belly." The bird lady scratched her cheek, since this was such a silly reason.

"Oh, mating ritual." Moon Aiko thought about it and it was quite reasonable.

There were some animals that would gorge themselves with food, while others would compete with speed. It all depended on their environment and physique.

These fish probably swam towards the surface to lure some mates, while having bellies full of metal they would demonstrate that they are strong enough to swim with this without sinking.

"Doesn't that mean there are more fish on the bottom?" Moon Aiko tilted her head.

"There are none." The bird lady shook her head. She also wished that this little Fox wouldn't ask about how she knew since it was quite an embarrassing accident.

"Cannibalism?" Moon Aiko tilted her head.

"Yes. They eat each other to grow stronger and thus also kill the weak fish that might later carry diseases." The bird lady nodded her head slowly.

"Diseases, here?" Moon Aiko raised her eyebrow again. That was so... No, how would that even work?!

"You would be surprised how diseases could easily spread." The bird lady shook her head.

'Did the Fox Village ever have any diseases? Outside of stupidity and horniness?' Moon Aiko pondered on this, but she couldn't come up with anything, so she simply chose to give up.

Moon Aiko blankly stared how the 'fisherman' slapped those fishes before throwing them back in.

"Say, who came up with this?" Moon Aiko asked the bird lady, since she wanted to avoid that kind of person.

She already made her fair share of troubles, so she didn't want to invite even more!

"..." The bird lady awkwardly looked away.

"..." Moon Aiko wordlessly judged her.

Neither of them talked until they were outside the reach of that fishing- whatever that was.

"Our next destination is the salt fields." The bird lady nodded her head seriously. It seemed like she would have to be more careful about abnormal things, since it didn't seem like that small Fox was all that receptive.

'I only accidentally swam in that river! How was I supposed to know that I would find fish with precious materials inside their stomachs!' The bird lady cried inside her mind, but since this allowed her to be quite wealthy, it was not like she would try to stop them fishing...

"Salt...?" Moon Aiko felt yet another bad premonition. It seemed like this place was more abnormal than it first seemed!

"Yes. Usually you would question it, considering where we are, but this time it's normal mine." The bird lady coughed awkwardly when she saw the small Fox's judging expression.

"It better be." Moon Aiko believed this was enough craziness for the time being, but she also was impressed.

She didn't think that trees would be able to adapt to this place, and those fish...

'How do they even swim...?' Moon Aiko couldn't imagine it, since that lava was like goo.

The bird lady guided her towards the salt mine and as expected, they were more or less normal.

The cave was huge, so that's probably why they didn't call it salt cave, but salt fields.

They would take pickaxes and gouge the ground for salt, so it fit that expression much more than your usual salt mine.

"It's really salty." Even the air tasted of salt, which soon started to bother Moon Aiko.

"Yeah, we try to ventilate it sometimes, but as you might guess, it's difficult with ash outside." The bird lady sighed. This pained her greatly, but there was no solution without setting up too many elaborate Arrays.

This place already had a lot of them, to prevent cave-ins and other things, so making more was... less than ideal.

"Ah..." Moon Aiko nodded. It seemed like certain things still followed common sense, so she was quite happy about it~!