Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Dai Lu also helped around, but when she was looking around and hearing everyone’s thoughts, something startling happened.

’Harmony Contract Technique...?’ Dai Lu’s whole body stiffened. If she was in the Human Body Stage she would already be sweating buckets.

There were distant legends about a special technique for contracting Beasts that wasn’t like any other.

Pretty much all powerful Beasts heard and thought about it.

The main reason being was that they would be able to remedy their mistakes that they made during their cultivation journey. Things like cracked Beast Cores, incorrectly absorbed energies, pushing their bodies over their limit and many other things could be simply forgotten with that technique.

It was a godsend from the Immortal World that would allow the Beasts progress past their limits safely without the Heavenly Dao punishing them.

Sure, you would lose all cultivation and regress to mindless Beasts, but that was worth it since it would allow you a longer lifespan with fewer issues.

Dai Lu immediately looked over at Aiko. She was not really interested in being contracted, but that thing... was both absurd and dangerous.

”Hm? Your lip is bleeding?” Mei gestured towards Dai Lu, worried about her.

”Don’t mind me.” Dai Lu threw blood even before she knew it. ’No, what would happen if I was contracted...’ She was seriously considering striking a conversation about this with Aiko.

”... Are you alright? Did you check your mind?” Mei narrowed her eyes. If there was something wrong with her, she would have to tie up Dai Lu before she went berserk.

”A misunderstanding. A misunderstanding.” Dai Lu shook her head. ”A certain Fox got something outrageous... again...”

”...” Mei didn’t even need to ask who that was, since it was painfully obvious. ’I wonder what Aiko got this time...’ She was no longer surprised as Aiko even had things like the Reverse Scale or Karmic Bind.

However, she was curious about what Aiko got this time for Dai Lu to react like that.

”Aiko.” Mei waved at her. ”How is your vitality?” She completely forgot that the meat also gave everyone vitality, but since she never consumed it she didn’t know what kind of effects it exactly had.

”My Vitality is pouring nicely. I have also increased it greatly, so there is no problem.” Witch Aiko nodded her head seriously before smiling, that meant she didn’t need to eat any more of those Pills.

”You don’t feel strange or anything?” Mei was concerned that the Vitality would suddenly vanish, which would make Aiko bedridden for sure.

”It should be fine.” The bird lady joined the conversation. ”I consumed it first and my body is even more frail than yours, so I should be experiencing the negative effects first.” She gestured towards her body.

Mei narrowed her eyes. She didn’t like this birdie at all, but then again, she didn’t like any of the other females around Aiko.

”Ugh...”

A pained voice spread from a certain direction.

Witch Aiko looked over only to be startled. ”I completely forgot about you...”

”Haha...” The not-so-Evil Deer chuckled. ”You won’t need to remember me.” He was slowly decaying in front of their eyes, clutching something small, as if trying to protect it.

[You can use the ’Technique’ on him.]

[Something magical might happen~]

Witch Aiko was suspicious of this message, but she was curious what might happen if she did that.

”You are dying too quickly.” Witch Aiko said very unseriously and right into his face.

”Haha, sorry about that.” The Holy Deer groaned painfully. Unlike the others he didn’t practise most of the techniques offered by his Holy Deer Clan, making his decay slower, but that much more painful.

”How about coming with me? I could use some transportation.” Witch Aiko chuckled at him. Everyone was very much disturbed how unserious she was.

”Are you sure about that? It will take a lot of resources to keep him alive.” Mei was worried that Aiko was making a mistake, but then Dai Lu stopped her.

”It’s better to stop thinking right about now.” Dai Lu listened to Aiko’s thoughts and already wanted to vomit blood. ’Contract me too! I want to redo my cultivation path!’ She cried inside her mind, but as a dignified Sword Cultivator she would never voice that opinion.

”...?” Mei was confused, and just glanced between Dai Lu and Aiko.

”I’m dying and you are still asking that? You would run my dry I bet.” The Holy Deer knew that working for this kind of Fox would be... very difficult.

”Hey, better than dying no?” Witch Aiko chuckled sinisterly.

”I will die anyway, but sure. What do you need me to do?” The Holy Deer would just help her one more time before dying.

[You have gained the consent of the individual ’Xinyue’. Do you wish to Contract him? (0/2)]

’Hm? Sure.’ Witch Aiko would first save him before thinking about other things.

A gentle light suddenly wrapped both of them.

”...” The Holy Deer was staring blankly at her, since she could vaguely feel what this was. ”I feel scammed.” He thought that she would have to help only once, but it seems he will be stuck with this Fox forever...

’I hate my body...’ The Holy Deer sighed gently, but then the unimaginable happened.

His body was rapidly shrinking until a small doe was left in front of them.

”Oh?” Witch Aiko blinked her eyes in surprise.

’What the...?’ The formerly Holy Deer was confused. He was one of the first test subjects for the Ancestral ’Holy’ Deer which did some irreparable damage to his body. One of which was the extreme abundance of Yang Qi, which changed his body.

’Aren’t you cute~’ Witch Aiko whistled. She never imagined that a handsome fella would turn into a cute small doe.

However, she soon stiffened.

”Wait, you were female?!” Witch Aiko almost jumped when she realised that important information.

’Well...’ The formerly Holy Deer knew that she couldn’t hear him, but he still prattled on. ’That’s because of the Ancestor, he was too worried that he would die during the Bloodline transition so he used me for the experiments. Well, it was supposed to be my sister at first, but I couldn’t bear to see her in pain and stepped in. And that’s how I became a guy. But it wasn’t really too bad the rod was very useful-’

”You should count yourself lucky you don’t have one.” Witch Aiko snorted at him.

’...’ The formerly Holy Deer stared at her.

”...” Witch Aiko stared at him.

’You can hear me?’ The formerly Holy Deer was startled.

”Of course I can hear you, little Xinyue.” Witch Aiko chuckled at her.

’...’ Xinyue stared at this strange Fox. Everyone knew that only supplementary techniques would allow Cultivators to hear their contracted Beasts, but she didn’t even need to do that?!

”What did you do?” A somewhat chilling voice drifted from behind Witch Aiko.

”Um...” Witch Aiko shivered. That was definitely the bird lady, but why was she so cold?

”Hey.” Mei stepped in between them.

”My, my...” The bird lady calmed down quite quickly. ”My apologies for this outburst, but I just...”

”I know what you mean.” Mei also nodded her head. This technique was one of the lost techniques in the Immortal World, so Aiko having something like this, is...

”I’m glad you understand my reaction, but I still want to apologise. It was not my intention to sound like that, it’s just...” The bird lady had injured Soul and by her calculations she would have to take around 270 years to heal it, and even then it wouldn’t be perfect.

”Let’s talk about this later, let’s treat the other Foxes first.” Mei understood why the bird lady was in hurry, but that could wait. The most important part right now were the Foxes!

Witch Aiko nodded her head and ran around distributing the Pills to the other Foxes. She was still startled that ’he’ was actually ’she’, but she also didn’t expect that bastard to go so far as to experiment on his children!

’Well, I will look at the system message later as that was a lot of angering information to take in.’ Witch Aiko nodded her head seriously.

...

The Pills were distributed and most of the Foxes were recovering smoothly. There were some that were in worse shape since they were weaker, but nothing Mei couldn’t deal with.

”Come here.” Mei called over Aiko to teach her how to treat something like this.

Witch Aiko came over curiously, listening to Mei.

”Their Qi flow is very weak, since they are weak and were hit by a nasty decaying food, so the best you can do is isolate the rotten Qi out of the rest of the body. This necessarily won’t allow you to immediately extract, but it will buy you time to get their bodies up and running. We need to increase their health first and then we can think about Vitality if it’s too low. The isolated energy will also slowly dissolve into the body, but since we are doing it slowly and carefully over time, the body will be able to deal with it without causing as big of a fuss as right now.” Mei barraged Aiko with words, almost making her ears bleed.

”Why not move the rotten Qi into an arm or something like that?” Witch Aiko noticed that the rotten Qi was quite close to the Beast Core, but wasn’t that quite dangerous.

”The Beast Core protects the body from rotting. If you place it into an arm, the arm would rot away. So yes, you would be able to clear the rotten Qi like that, but at the expense of their future.” Mei warned Aiko to be careful about such things.

”I see... So extreme Qi works differently depending on the origin and it’s better to either lock it inside the Beast Core, outside the Beast Core or in a certain body part.” Witch Aiko could see the flow of Qi, so she was able to surmise as much.

”I wouldn’t recommend that, but yes.” Mei liked White Aiko the most, since she was the smartest, but Dark Aiko was a bit witty too!

”However, every type of Qi requires a different method and you will only be able to learn with experience.” Mei shook her head slowly. It would be dangerous if Aiko attempted something like this without knowing what the type of Qi might do.

”Right, if I try to isolate Solar Qi, it might cause more issues than letting it run rampant.” Witch Aiko nodded her head.

”That’s... oddly specific, but yes.” Mei was happy that Aiko understood the danger and wouldn’t experiment on the innocent. However, Humans weren’t innocent, so she didn’t mind if Aiko did this and that to them.

Mei guided Aiko through this whole process.

”You are isolating it too much, it won’t be able to slowly leak into the body and will hinder them over time.”

”You are letting it rampage too much. I understand you want to gather everything in one place, but that’s not necessary.”

”Yes, like that, slowly isolate the bits of Qi and then merge them. Lastly, loosen the isolation slightly so it naturally pours back into the body.”

Mei kept nagging Aiko into her ear, since she knew that these Foxes were important for her. Well, at least Aiko liked these Foxes, so Mei didn’t want her to make a mistake and then regret it later.

”This is a lot harder than I expected.” Witch Aiko breathed out tiredly.

”Unlike poisons, which are mostly predictable, Qi is very unpredictable. If you allow it to flow, it will flow in the worst way imaginable, so you have to restrain it and guide it.” Mei said seriously and kept nagging Aiko.

”Ah, so that’s why you have to circulate the Pill energy manually.” Witch Aiko seriously nodded her head.

”That’s... right?” Mei was startled that Aiko didn’t figure this out before. ’Nononono, she doesn’t know anything. I will have to make sure to nag her more and explain even more things.’ She burned with the passion of a passionate teacher!