Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Thanks to Mei’s foresight, the journey was very smooth.

It seemed like those Human Cultivators lacked brains, or they never expected for anyone to fly above the clouds.

Of course even that part was not completely smooth, since there was limited space in the sky as the world barrier was quite ’close’. Well, considering the great distance between them, it was still far away considering how small those continental flying ships were.

Moon Aiko walked out. It seemed like most Elders and even Mei were now playing cards, Go, or anything that they could get their hands on.

Moon Aiko slowly walked next to Mei.

”Are you sure this is fine?” Moon Aiko looked once again around her, but only few paid attention to what was happening outside.

”Oh.” Mei was so immersed that she was startled that Aiko was next to her. ”It’s all thanks to you. The- What did you call it? Table Map? Yeah, thanks to that only a few of us need to watch out for enemies, since the person sitting behind the ’Table Map’ sees pretty much everything that is happening outside.”

”But it might not be perfect.” Moon Aiko pursed her lips. Her main reason for doing this was to map it again, but in greater detail, since she was not in a hurry.

”You might think that, but those guys made sure it was accurate.” Mei nudged the Elder next to her.

”Ah?” The Elder was so immersed that he could only nod back.

”This is turning into a disaster...” Moon Aiko was both speechless and concerned. She always thought that the older Foxes were responsible, but that was no longer the case!

”It’s not that bleak.” Mei chuckled. ”There are still Elders that spread their Divine Sense ’thin’ so that they are not easily discovered, but still able to keep their guard up.”

”You mean those 3 that meditate? One at the front and two at the back, each corner having one?” Moon Aiko tilted her head.

”En.” Mei smiled and right after won another game of Go. ”Pay up~”

She received another wine bottle from the opposing Elder, making him click his tongue.

Moon Aiko hugged her knees. ”Wouldn’t it be better to station two Elders in each corner?” She kept nudging Mei until she paid attention to her.

”Why do you say that?” Mei wanted to know why Aiko was so concerned.

”Because it’s harder to fool 2 Elders than one.” Moon Aiko nodded her head seriously. Once there is more than one person, everything becomes a lot more difficult, be it illusions, charming or anything you can think of, other than flagging.

”There are 3 Elders, but I understand your worry.” Mei nodded her head.

”But they are far away?” Moon Aiko tilted her head. ”Or are you telling me they cover the same area?”

”En.” Mei smiled, Aiko was smart, which she liked.

”Then why are they so far away?” Moon Aiko couldn’t understand it.

”You said that it’s harder to fool more than one person.” Mei pursed her lips. ”I would like to say that it’s easy to fool more people in the same place, rather when they have some distance between each other.”

”No, but how does that work?” Moon Aiko still didn’t understand.

”The way illusions work, you know they can be empowered, right?” Mei smiled gently.

”Yeah, in theory if you have good cooperation with other Cultivators, you can sync your energies and make the illusion more powerful.” Moon Aiko nodded her head.

”It’s not just about that, the illusion doesn’t scale linearly. You can make more elaborate and truthful illusions if you give it just a bit of time and more manpower.” Mei focused on her next game, but still paid plenty of attention to Aiko.

”So it would be like combining 3 people against 3 individuals?” Moon Aiko tilted her head and groaned. That was not quite it.

”The illusion would be in the same place, but empowered by 3 individuals. That means those that are caught in it will experience the same thing. Meanwhile, if those individuals are spread out, they have higher chances of resisting.” Mei patted Aiko before giving her a few snacks.

Moon Aiko grabbed the meat with both hands. It was dried meat, chewy and nice.

”So they would need 9 people in sync in order to be able to fool them? But then why wouldn’t they just cast an illusion over this whole place?” Moon Aiko tilted her head.

”Foxes inherently know illusions and controlling their minds is also difficult, as such when they would try something that big, pretty much anyone would be able to notice and alert the others.” Mei chuckled.

”This is... so stupid.” Moon Aiko couldn’t believe how easy it was to deter others, but that couldn’t be all of it, right? It couldn’t be, otherwise there would be no more ambushes!

”As you might guess. There is a way to bypass this, but then there are another two ships behind with many Foxes, so the alarm would ring either way.” Mei chuckled.

”This still feels like an elaborate scheme to play games and bet things.” Moon Aiko nodded her head seriously. She didn’t believe for a moment that was not the main goal of this arrangement!

”Pfff.” Mei giggled. ”Well, I can’t deny that it’s nice to indulge in some games, but the main purpose was for others to rest and relax. While you can sleep easily inside, we can’t really do that since we still need to shield this place from natural disasters if they occur.”

”Natural disasters? Like what?” Moon Aiko was curious, but she didn’t deny the other things.

”Well, there was an instance that one of our flying ships was hit by a meteor technique.” Mei’s lips twitched. ”Only later did we realise that was by accident and that our flying ship flew over a war-zone and the enemies just cast the meteor technique in order to annihilate their enemies... you can guess the rest.” She sighed, still upset about her flying ship getting shot down like that.

”I... didn’t think something like that could happen.” Moon Aiko was shocked that something like that even worked, considering how high up in the sky they were.

”You might not think about it, but most techniques that make things ’fall’, usually the fall would start from the world boundary.” Mei sighed. Those techniques were nice, but they still had several issues.

The main issue was the damn consumption. It cost you both kidneys if you wanted to cast them at full power and not just cause fireworks in the sky.

”Oh... oh.” Moon Aiko immediately looked up, with her luck, something like that just might happen!

”It won’t happen.” Mei assured Aiko, albeit weakly.

”You should put more strength into your voice...” Moon Aiko complained lightly, since even she could not bear to witness what might happen if she jinxed it.

”Let’s not talk about that.” Mei grumbled unhappily. She was very concerned about that part, but that’s where the Table Map came in!

It could show the density of Cultivators under them and their general Qi capacity. So unless both of those things reached a certain number, everyone would be safe.

Of course there might be some kind of lunatic that would sacrifice their lives just to cast that one meteor, but that’s rarer than getting struck by lightning bolt!

”So, everyone is having fun, but when are we descending?” Moon Aiko was a bit concerned about her Beast Core energy.

”We shouldn’t be that far from the first planned stop, but can you make it?” Mei was concerned that Aiko might be pushing herself because of this situation.

”I’m fine.” Moon Aiko nodded her head. She was fine and should be fine for a while, so she was not in a hurry.

She looked around and saw someone use strange cards, so she slowly stood up and walked over.

”It’s Divination.” An overly old Fox said gently, when she saw a certain Fox walk over.

”So you use cards for it?” Moon Aiko was curious. So far she saw dice and... What did the Seer use for her Divination...?

”The thing about Divination...” The overly old Fox paused. ”Everyone can do them, but not everyone can find the ’medium’ that fits them.”

”You don’t need to train Divination?” Moon Aiko was startled.

”You do.” Mei shouted since she didn’t want Aiko to be deceived.

”As your partner says, you do, but you also don’t. It depends on how much you cherish your life.” The overly old Fox chuckled.

”Why do you look so old?” Moon Aiko didn’t mince her words. She didn’t care about if it was ’appropriate’ or not. If she was curious, she would just ask and bear the consequences later.

”That is the penalty that I experience.” The overly old Fox said gently. ”Depending on the scope of Divination and your skill, the penalty increases or decreases.”

”Since I use my Divination for solely personal purposes, it robs my lifespan very slowly, making me age quicker and negate the innate trait that Foxes have.” She slowly explained, since it was a while that she was able to teach anyone.

Divination was no longer a trend these days, so only the Seer followed her footsteps.

That is not to say there were no other Foxes that could divine things, but those were usually either crippled or too scared to divine anything bigger, making them as useful as just waiting for the given thing to happen.

”It’s quite dangerous...” Moon Aiko nodded her head slowly.

”But it can protect you when you need it the most.” The overly old Fox smiled gently. She never regretted picking these cards and divining fate.

”Did it save your life?” Moon Aiko was startled that someone spoke about this so fondly.

”En.” The overly old Fox smiled. ”Many, many times.”

”Is this that price?” Moon Aiko tilted her head.

”If you are selfish, the penalty is minimal, but once you start affecting the bigger fate, that’s where consequences will catch up to you.” The overly old Fox chuckled.

”How strange... I probably never met anyone that didn’t regret going on this path.” Moon Aiko couldn’t come up with anyone.

Sure, the Dice Girl was fine, but her attitude seemed like she disliked divining. As for the Seer... her experience was rough, so Moon Aiko didn’t consider her opinion valid.

”There are only a few who can bear the fate that they see. Most would rather end their lives to prevent seeing that fate unfolding in front of them.” The overly old Fox said tiredly. ”This is it for today, I need rest.”

The Foxes around bowed towards her, so Moon Aiko followed suit. It seemed like everyone liked this Fox, so she might think about her later and gather some information...