Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

It was a nice and peaceful morning. The outside was the same as ever, but various scents drifted into her window and towards her nose.

Those scents gently tickled her nose, waking her up from her slumber.

'This is nice...' Aiko yawned, still wishing to sleep for a bit, but something cool was wrapped around her ankle, making it impossible to go back to sleep.

Aiko blinked a few of her eyes a few times before opening them fully. It seemed like the Spirit Slime was waiting for her already, but Aiko didn't want to move yet.

"What is it, little guy?" Aiko yawned at him, still wanting to snuggle under her sheets.

The Spirit Slime didn't do much, just wrapped around her ankle and rested.

"I can't rest when you are so cold." Aiko rolled inside her bed, trying to get under her covers, the Spirit Slime following her.

'Anyway...' Aiko rolled on her back, looking towards the ceiling of her room. It was large and spacious since it was also part of the attic. Well, her room had more steps to get to the attic, but part of the attic was still uncovered just above her.

The attic was more of a storage place with some nice hideouts instead of a completely separate room.

During winter, it would be nice and warm since all the heat would rise up, but during the summer it would be quite bad.

However, the concept of temperature was still too vague in this place to matter much, so Aiko didn't need to worry about that yet.

'Yeah, can't sleep.' Aiko stirred completely awake, since that cool sensation didn't go away. It kind of felt like the Spirit Slime was stealing her warmth, but that was probably her imagination.

"Here." Aiko still had some marbles that she didn't need to use yet, so she gave them to the Spirit Slime.

The Spirit Slime munched on them and seemed to calm down significantly. However, its body was a lot cooler than before, making Aiko shiver.

"Alright." Aiko removed the tendril around her ankle so that she could actually roll around freely. "Do you know where Yue is?" Aiko asked the slime and it paused temporarily. It seemed like it knew something, but Aiko didn't dwell on its expressions too much because the Spirit Slime was constantly smiling.

Aiko sat on her bed, her feet touching the ground. The same cool feeling spread on her soles.

"Seriously. I need to warm up." Aiko complained because the Spirit Slime was sprawled pretty much everywhere. "Fine, fine." She patted the Spirit Slime until it rolled into a large ball.

Then that large ball shrunk into a small portable slime that Aiko could just grab and carry around.

"Aren't you clingy?" Aiko shook her head, chuckling. Picking the Spirit Slime up, it nuzzled into her, which puzzled Aiko, but she didn't ask why. After all, it was not like the Spirit Slime would be able to answer her...

Stepping down from her bedroom, the living room was filled with food. There was nobody around in this place, other than Aiko and the Spirit Slime, but the food was still piping hot.

Aiko sat down on the couch and picked something that looked like soup. It was nice and smooth, with mellow taste, something nice to have after not eating anything in a while.

It kind of felt like this soup was supposed to be for an upset stomach, but that was definitely her imagination, right?

Aiko finished the soup quite quickly. Next up was soft bread. It had a crunchy outer layer which Aiko liked a lot, but the soft insides were tasty too. She couldn't use it with anything watery since it tended to break down, but the slight salty taste was perfect for just eating alone or with something light.

Aiko enjoyed the bread for a while before moving onto a piece of rice with some baked wings. The skin was nice and crunchy and the seasoning was perfect too. Aiko really liked this, but there was also a sensation of: I have definitely eaten this somewhere...

However, Aiko didn't know where, so she just enjoyed the taste without actually thinking about anything.

For the desert, it was an assortment of fruits. They were not fresh, but sliced and kind of dried, but not really?

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The fruit was thinly sliced and there was a gel-like feeling to it with crunchy sugar as the outer layer. It was delicious, but it also didn't feel like the sugar was overdone.

Aiko was wondering how this was possible, since she would like to create more of them once she left the place, but she quickly forgot about it since she encountered Yue in a sorry state.

Yue entered Aiko's house cautiously. It seemed like she was worried about something, but once she spotted Aiko, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"What's wrong?" Before Yue could say anything, Aiko was already asking her. Yue's expression was not bright, so it was possible something happened.

"Honestly..." Yue sighed. "This place is too abnormal." She complained while cautiously glancing around. "Your pets are also scary." She admitted openly, since it was better for Aiko to know this.

"But you can just leave this place, no?" Aiko tilted her head.

"While there is a connection to your Treasure..." Yue trailed her words while swallowing awkwardly. "I can't really leave this place..."

"..." Aiko paused for a moment before offering the candied fruits to Yue.

"I have never seen these, but they are delicious." Yue commented before taking some into her mouth.

"Yeah, there are a lot of strange things in here." Aiko nodded her head seriously.

"..." Yue didn't know if Aiko was making fun of her or not, but she seemed serious. 'Ah, I really want to know what this place actually is, but if it can contain an Immeasurable Disaster, then I probably shouldn't ask about it.' She agonised over this, but eventually decided not to ask. It was for her own benefit, since she might not be able to handle the truth.

Some things were better left untouched...

...

"Feeling better?" Aiko smiled at her.

"Honestly, this is delicious, but I can feel my blood sugar rising." Yue said jokingly.

"Is there such a concept?" Aiko tilted her head.

"More or less, but it's more to do with weight and beauty, since those Immortal Fuckers care too much about it. Every has at least double Ds, ass that can kill with sway and hips that can cause the walls to distort." Yue clicked her tongue.

"Suddenly I like this place more." Aiko commented on that. She liked boobs, and butts, sure, but there was a limit to her likeness.

The limit was when your back didn't hurt yet. The weight would be just right, and you wouldn't have too many issues, but go over that threshold, and she would end up like Ah Cy, Li Xiu's Master.

Shaking her head gently, she looked around. "How are you doing in this place?"

"It's weird, but doable, as long as you take that with you." Yue shuddered at the sight of that Spirit Slime. Her previous encounter didn't end with just massage, and she was still ashamed about it.

"Well, I will be wiping the villages soon, so we should be able to leave this place." Aiko nodded her head seriously.

Yue stared blankly for a while, like she was imagining something horrible.

"What? You don't want to return into the Treasure?" Aiko was confused by her reaction.

"No- Well- Wait-" Yue was trying to spit out what she was thinking, but her thoughts were so jumbled that she didn't know where to start from.

"Can anything out of this place leave?" Yue asked the most important question.

"Unlikely." Aiko shook her head. She wished to take a few things out of this place, but that didn't seem possible. As long as it was 'touchable' it couldn't be taken out, probably.

The only things she would be able to take out were the knowledge from those books, but she didn't have the resources to use them, so it was pointless to think about it.

As for the 'cultivation' side of things, it was hard to say if those were real or not. Well, they probably were, since Aiko saw familiar things in that library, but she didn't touch them yet.

For some reason it felt wrong touching them at this point, so Aiko just listened to her senses.

"Phew." Yue breathed a sigh of relief, as long as Aiko didn't confirm this, she would be able to sleep peacefully outside.

"Also, about the villages..." Yue did venture out of this place briefly and saw things burning in the distance, but the distance seemed too great to cross by her feet and everything was too expensive to purchase, so she just went back in.

The world outside the immeasurable wall was dull. There were no colours, no scents, no senses, nothing. There was still a vague feel of touch and sight, but the colours were drained.

The place was still, like death, waiting to claim you.

"Are you alright outside...?" Yue didn't know how to ask this properly so that Aiko wouldn't misunderstand her intentions, but at this point she just had to go for it.

"I'm fine. It's kind of a bother getting to my goal since I'm constantly running out of food and things like that." Aiko crossed her arms, clearly upset about those things.

"Should I join you?" Yue wanted to see the outside world, while also being protected.

She could, probably, use her art to make things, but how far would that allow her to go? Yue already noticed the strangeness of this place, the unfamiliar creepy sensation that she had once while locked in 'that' place. Yet that same sensation vanished the moment she was around Aiko, as if this place was trying to make her happy and pamper her.

"You can, but you will have to bring your own food." Aiko said seriously. If Yue could bring a lot of food with her, everything would get easier.

Aiko offered her bread and other yummy things, so that Yue would calm down further.

"How would that work?" Yue asked about the plan, since she didn't want to go out without anything concrete.

"We pick food that can last in this place and I will teleport us to our destination. First I will try to teleport myself, and then I will test the limits so that we know what we have to do." Aiko explained the plan briefly.

She would first acquire the set that would allow her to use teleportation freely before testing the limits of it and how many things she could bring.

The distance might be an issue, but shorter jumps should be possible. And even if she couldn't bring food with her from the safe area, she could just hunt in the forest that had a lot of those wild chickens and then teleport them to her destination.

'I might have to set up more bases...' Aiko narrowed her eyes, thinking about it.