Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

"You are one to look at them like that?" Mei rolled her eyes at Aiko.

"What?" Witch Aiko puffed up her cheeks.

"You are the most carefree individual out of us." Mei believed that even if this place was falling apart Aiko might just enjoy it and roll with it.

"Hey! I'm not that carefree! I'm actually serious!" Witch Aiko almost shouted, like she was offended by what Mei said.

Mei just shrugged and Danji shook her head. It seemed like both of them believed what Mei said, which was a bit...

"Alright, I will take it even more seriously." Witch Aiko pulled up her sleeve, since rolling it was impossible and ran off to uproot even more trees.

"..." The duo just blinked a few times before sighing.

"Should we help?" Mei asked the other Fox.

"What?" Danji rolled her eyes. "You think we won't just get in the way?"

"..." Mei seriously pondered on it, but-

"Alright, fine. We will help around a bit." Danji sighed softly. She wanted to be alone with Aiko during this time, but everyone just fell down and ruined everything.

"What about me?" The bird lady pointed at herself, since she felt like she was an odd person in this group.

They both stared at her. "Do you know how to build with trees?"

"Pardon?" The bird lady was flabbergasted, and her lips twitched at that sentence.

"Then just go and uproot more trees." Mei dismissed this birdie like she endangered her position.

"That's a good idea." Danji turned around and lifted a few trees and placed them down like she was building a house.

"Don't forget to tie down the foundation too, otherwise we might be in trouble." Mei immediately forgot about the bird lady and assisted Danji in building this. The sooner they build this the sooner everyone would be able to peacefully rest!

The bird lady felt a bit hurt. She was a powerful Beast that nobody could ignore, yet at this moment she was ignored so much that it actually hurt her!

"I can't believe it." The bird lady sighed as her head bobbed from side to side. She turned around and also went her way since it didn't seem like anyone would entertain her here.

...

Witch Aiko saw a nice tree and that nice tree disappeared. She was not allowed to even get close to more trees like she was cursed!

"Seriously! At least let me do something!" Witch Aiko roared angrily. "Just you wait you fucker! I will make sure to stretch you up real nice!" She kept shouting one obscene thing after another, but fortunately or unfortunately, nobody was around to hear it.

*Huff Huff*

Witch Aiko was huffing from the constant shouting. She was not allowed to take those trees so she would have to return and just wait around. Who knows if the other trees would disappear from her mere touch.

Witch Aiko was concerned that everything would be a mess, but maybe she should just test it to know?

...

Returning to the camp, both Danji and Mei were building a multi-stories house. It was impressive how the whole thing looked sturdy, so much so that even Witch Aiko wanted to test the sturdiness!

However, she held back. If she touched those things and they disappeared, it would ruin their work and Witch Aiko didn't want that.

"You are back?" The duo was startled that Aiko returned empty-handed.

"Yeah, anything I touch just disappears." Witch Aiko groaned unhappily.

"Oh?" Mei smiled playfully. Maybe it was time for more teaching?

She jumped down near Aiko, leaving Danji alone to deal with the whole structure. Considering what kind of ingenious ideas she had, she was a better builder than Mei.

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This upset her somewhat, but it was a good thing that she didn't need to work as hard.

"How about learning to control your powers?" Mei smiled, but it was obvious she planned to wring Aiko dry...

"S-sure." Witch Aiko laughed nervously. She didn't really want to learn, but there was nothing that she could do, so maybe it was not too bad to learn something new.

"I will teach you how to manipulate the 'Dream Space' conjured by others." Mei smirked. This technique would be useful only later on, but learning it now wouldn't hurt Aiko.

"Hm? Isn't that kind of difficult?" Witch Aiko didn't want to do anything too difficult, but seeing Mei's expression it didn't seem like she would be able to just reject her teaching now.

"You said you destroy anything you touch. That only means that this place is unstable enough that it is affected by you." Mei explained and they showed Aiko that even she could delete things with mere touch.

"But how does that work, shouldn't this place be under the control of the 'centre' or something like that?" Witch Aiko felt like it was odd that someone was able to just delete things with mere touch without any conditions or consequences.

"That's because this place is too big, so the overall 'protection' over this place is too weak. Moreover, it's possible we are already in the 'centre' so this place should have weaker 'dreams' to begin with." Mei looked very serious while explaining so Witch Aiko had to listen just in case she got homework from her.

"So, how do I start?" Witch Aiko didn't want to know too much as she was better on practical things rather than theory.

"It's simple, you have to focus to 'keep things as is'." Mei said that nonchalantly, but Aiko cringed at her.

The main reason being that her thoughts were all over the place, so focusing just on one thing was nearly impossible...

"I understand it won't be easy." Mei noticed her expression, so she immediately tried to soothe her so that she wouldn't give up.

"Okay, okay." Witch Aiko sighed, nodding her head. She would just try it a few times...

A few dozens of times...

A few hundreds of times...

A few thousands of times...

...

Witch Aiko breathed out slowly. The branch that she was currently holding didn't get destroyed immediately. She was quite happy at it, so much so that her emotions stirred.

*Zzzzt*

"DAMMIT! FUCK!" Witch Aiko immediately cursed seeing that branch disappear like it was never there to begin with.

"Shouldn't you tell her more?" Danji narrowed her eyes at Mei who was helping her build this structure.

"If I tell her how to do it, she will become more reliant and that's not what I want." Mei sighed softly. She would love to help Aiko, but some things would be better if she figured it out herself.

"You want to expand her horizons without doing too much." Danji called her out, since it was better to at least nudge her to one solution than doing nothing at all.

"But she seems to be having fun." Mei avoided Danji's gaze.

"You think?" Danji rolled her eyes. She could see Aiko throwing a tantrum because it didn't work after so many times. "Her mind is too chaotic, how about introducing some kind of technique?" She suggested this to drive Mei away, since she was getting in the way.

"That is impossible unless she attains the Human Body Stage. The problem is that I only have such techniques for Human Cultivators." Mei sighed. Beasts didn't really practice their minds, since they were already in a good position from just surviving the beginning, but now she was actually questioning if that was even true.

There were many impulsive Beasts, making it difficult for other Beasts to meet Human Cultivators. And while the Human Cultivators were irredeemable rubbish, they still had their uses.

Mostly as a stepping stone, but still.

"I didn't expect you to not have something like that." Danji raised her eyebrow like she was suspicious of Mei.

"Well, most of those things are abilities and only some techniques can be cultivated by Beasts. But most of those techniques are limited by their stage and actual effects, so in this situation nothing will really help her." Mei shook her head before returning to building things.

"Aren't you worried that Aiko gets bored?" Danji would do everything in her power to just drive her away so she can be here alone and building.

"..." Mei paused. That was definitely a possibility and not a kind one, so it was better for her to come up with something.

She jumped down next to the one raving about stretching the person who made this whole shitty place.

"Mei!" Witch Aiko huffed and immediately ranted about how this place is just a hell and that she wanted to leave.

Mei listened for a while before nudging Aiko. "We can change the teaching for now." She came up with something that Aiko might like and that would keep her occupied for a while.

"Oh?" Witch Aiko narrowed her eyes, making Mei take a step back. "Are you saying this was impossible to begin with?" She would be quite upset if that was the case!

"Since you can't keep your thoughts in check, then you can start with 'changing a thing to something else'." Mei smiled. Aiko would definitely like this more and you didn't really need to constantly keep your thoughts in check. What you just needed to do is to briefly think about what you wanted to change the given thing into and touch it.

Of course, it was more difficult than what Mei explained, but easier than constantly keeping one's thoughts in check.

"Oh?" Witch Aiko nodded her head seriously, this was definitely a lot easier than what she was doing, so this might work well.

Mei smiled and briefed Aiko on what she should do to achieve this before returning to the structure and where Danji was working.

"You are here too soon..." Danji was obviously not happy about this, but she couldn't do anything about it, since everyone was trapped in here.

"Hm?" Mei missed what Danji said and just smiled.

'Is she trying to insult me?' And of course Danji misunderstood that smile.

Mei smiled again. "Aiko should be hardworking right now, so let's progre-"

*BOOOM*

A roaring sound blasted past them.

"HAHAHAHAHA~!" And Witch Aiko was laughing like a maniac.

Danji just blankly stared at Mei.

"... Don't say anything." Mei immediately made sure that Danji wouldn't say anything, since she was concerned about what she would hear from her.

"There are so many things I wanted to say, but for now let's see what happened..." Danji's lips kept twitching, like she wanted to say so much more, but she was holding back quite well.

Mei only sighed and went to the side where the booming explosion happened...