Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Everything was pounding smoothly. The path was pretty much carved through that strange Qi with Dai Lu and others.

Why others? Mei noticed and realised that everyone could get better from being affected by that stuff by simply pounding for a little bit, so everyone was tasked to pound the soil for a while.

This allowed everyone, especially the Foxes that were vomiting before to improve their health greatly. It also boosted morale and allowed them to bond with each other through this experience and while there were some weaker Foxes that were unable to last that long, even if they pounded a little bit, over time it would still improve their health.

Mei had no idea why this strange Qi reacted this way, and she didn't have the necessary tools nor Cultivation Stage to figure that out.

Fortunately, Aiko was able to figure something like this out, which allowed everyone to benefit from that.

Witch Aiko pounded with the others, encouraging everyone to continue. This was slightly bad since the construction of the continental flying ship was delayed.

However, once the thickness of the strange Qi increased, it was impossible to continue for the most normal Foxes.

This allowed Mei to just drag them back and help with the construction.

The Foxes weren't too happy about it at the beginning, but once they realised it was a lot easier than before, they became more enthusiastic.

This naturally caused yet another headache for Mei, but this time she was prepared.

There was this strange merchant that she encountered while the other Foxes pounded, and he sold her a very nice pack of Pills.

These Pills were pretty much softeners and painkillers of different variants.

But there was something even more outrageous about them. Their ingredients.

They were so simple that pretty much all those Herbs were weeds that you could find anywhere! And while it wouldn't work on powerful Foxes, you could still make more powerful painkillers from rarer Herbs.

Satisfied with this purchase, Mei popped it inside her mouth. This one was even flavoured, which was a nice surprise. She already got a few ideas about candies for Aiko, but what if she flavoured even the other Pills?

Of course the scent wouldn't be there, otherwise they couldn't be used on stealth missions, but nobody said anything about taste.

Most Pills were... questionable in taste at best and vomit-inducing at worst, so giving them some nice flavour didn't sound too bad.

There were many useless Herbs with nice tastes, so that wouldn't be a problem, but what would be a problem would be balancing the current Pills and adding those Herbs into them.

As such, a lot of research was necessary to accomplish that, but it might be worth it as it would greatly increase the value of the inedible, but effective Pills.

With that in mind, she would start experimenting with it once they had more time.

...

Meanwhile, Witch Aiko kept digging with the others for a while. She was happy that everything was going so smoothly, but then she suddenly appeared in a completely different place.

The distance between their current base and the former 'Holy' Deer Clan was sizeable, that's also why she wanted to pick Dai Lu for this.

Witch Aiko looked around her. She was on nice plains where flowers grew, but there were no trees around, which meant this was not her original location.

Moreover, the 'horizon' also didn't exist, so it was obvious that this place was not the same as where she was pounding the soil.

"Not again..." Witch Aiko groaned. She started to hate these things a lot.

'I wonder if I can create a Treasure that would 'lock' the space around me so that I couldn't teleport around or be dragged somewhere.' Witch Aiko pondered about it for a brief moment before observing the flowers.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Alright, that's it! I'm burning this place down!" Witch Aiko proclaimed loudly. All those flowers had faces and were staring at her. There was no way that they were friendly!

Witch Aiko briefly turned into Sun Aiko with the unleashed Seal and everything within around 100 metres perished instantly.

"Phew." Witch Aiko couldn't allow Sun Aiko to be here for too long, and she also lacked the necessary Solar Essence. She didn't want to burn through her HP\Stamina?\Vitality just to burn creepy flowers.

Fortunately her plan succeeded and there were no flowers around her.

"Now, how am I supposed to get out..." Witch Aiko didn't think much of it and immediately searched for the exit in the burned up zone. She didn't want to go into the zone where the flowers were still there.

"But isn't this getting ridiculous? From one illusion to another and who knows if this is as elaborate as the other one." Witch Aiko stomped her feet angrily.

Just seeing the flowers in the distance angered her.

"Fine!" Witch Aiko checked if she could bring things from her tails storage and once she realised that was possible, she immediately pulled out Yuqi.

"Are you fine?" Witch Aiko asked cautiously. If she was the same as the Demonic Foxes then she would be able to stay outside for only a little bit before she was wrecked by the ambient Qi.

"Hm?" Yuqi was briefly confused, but once she noticed that Aiko was around, she immediately straightened her back. "Some kind of strange flower field?"

"Will you be fine?" Witch Aiko asked again.

"Leave it to me~!" Yuqi hummed. Thanks to Aiko she was able to meet Feifei, so it was time to start and repay all those favours!

Yuqi was a Flower Demon, but you could also assume she was a Plant Demon. Those two were not exactly exclusive, it's just that Plant Demon covered a lot more than Flower Demon.

However, in this kind of situation, she was the best possible ally, outside Sun Aiko and Grandpa Flame, but she was keeping him on holiday, just in case he grumbled at her like before.

"Whoa-" Yuqi was startled when she touched the soil. "Did you...?" She wanted to ask if Aiko did this, but... 'She is too scary when angry.' That was a universal fact that she acknowledged as she spent time inside the tails.

Aiko's ability to create might be limited, but her ability to destroy was definitely unlimited!

"Yeah..." Witch Aiko scratched her head.

"That's fine. It just means you were concerned about what might happen if you stayed in that place." Yuqi didn't fault Aiko for this, since there was something foul about this place.

Well, she didn't complain since she rules over flowers, and she was not quite the usual 'Righteous' Cultivator.

There was a reason she was called Flower DEMON.

Yuqi chuckled as she tip-toed towards those flowers before slamming her hands into the ground.

Suddenly, a subtle wave washed over a large area and even around Aiko.

Witch Aiko immediately noticed that everything that was not considered an 'ally' was being drained of its Vitality and the flowers with the faces were no exception.

Yuqi licked her lips. "This always made them run away~" The drain increased twofold and then again and again, until the withering was visible with the naked eyes.

The flowers panicked, their snug and mocking expressions no more as they tried to wiggle away from that 'demon'.

However, Yuqi would not allow them to run, since they were already in her sphere of influence. They also slighted Aiko, so even if she didn't do this, Aiko would wipe them out without a second thought.

'Now I owe her another favour...' Yuqi was even more concerned now, since she was obtaining so much delicious and nourishing energy that she might advance again!

'The favours are just piling up...' Yuqi hummed inside her mind. This was not too bad since she could always pay it with her body, and it was not like Aiko would reject her.

She could grow all kinds of Herbs on her body, so Aiko just needed to insert a bit of the given energy to make it happen.

'It will drain me, but if I could bring back extinct Herbs, she would definitely praise me.' Yuqi already talked with Feifei, and it seemed like she also liked to tend to flowers. Well, Herbs were no different, although they were even more picky than flowers if they were rare, so she would have to put in a lot more work.

Yuqi smiled happily, if this worked, at least some of that favour would be fulfilled.

Now feeling even happier than before she made sure to do a thorough job at this, so that Aiko wouldn't encounter any more flowers.

How would she do that? She would just do it the Aiko style, drain until nothing is left and then drain some more just for a good measure.

Yuqi would lose some energy over it, but the energy she was currently collecting was so pure that that was no problem. She didn't even mind giving some of the old energy away to make sure that there were no flowers left, since that would improve her quality of energy and make it easier to breakthrough.

Witch Aiko was impressed by how quickly everything was withering. Moreover, those concerning faces were no more, now those faces were filled with horror, like they were trying to plead to her to stop this madness.

Of course, Witch Aiko had no intentions of doing that. Those little fuckers kept staring at her in a way that intimidated her. They could just be flowers, but nooooo, they had to be smug faces!

Was she destroying nature? Yes, but it was better if nature was beautiful than ugly.

'I don't care that I'm biased~' Witch Aiko was just happy that that 'strange' feeling was no more. 'I wonder if this would allow me to find the 'doors'.

She was looking for a 'door' that would allow her to leave this place, but so far there was nothing like that.

Yuqi kept draining the flowers, so Witch Aiko had enough time to look around, but there was no obvious way to do it.

'Should I just wreak havoc like before?' Witch Aiko tilted her head, but there was a problem with this. The problem being that she couldn't 'change' things into other things.

As such she concluded that this was a different space instead of illusion space!