Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko returned to the repaired library to read those books.

She would acquire mostly buffs, since they were easier to manage than questionable magic that might blow her up.

This way she would fight the normal way, while also being more powerful thanks to those buffs.

Looking through the books, Aiko only noticed a few that she could use. It was mostly because she couldn’t use the others due to lack of Mana, which should be remedied over time.

”Oh right, what can I use the Soul Points on?” Aiko suddenly asked and waited for an answer.

This part was important, since it was possible that she missed something.

[You can obtain the remaining tails, you can shop under some restrictions. You can enhance this place and a few others that you will find/figure out once you venture out.]

The system immediately replied, which was nice, but it was also very brief, so it seemed like she wouldn’t be able to get too much information out of them.

That was fine for the time being, but she would pester them if she thought it could be important information.

Aiko read and learning following magic:

[Wind God’s Blessing], [Iron Maiden’s Embrace] and [Fairless Wings].

Those were things she could currently use, and they would scale with how much Mana she would put into it.

There were some interesting techniques, but as this place was different to the real world, Aiko ignored them for the time being.

She might check them out later, but they were not as important due to her equipment.

Aiko also couldn’t find equipment that would fit normal cultivation techniques, so she would have to explore this place more. Maybe she would be able to find it, or maybe those things are just anomalies that she should ignore.

Aiko walked out of the library, she would have to return here a bit later once she had more Mana since there were many interesting things inside.

Like meteor shower and similar kinds of things~!

Walking towards the smaller door, she opened it again. The wall was now seriously thick. She didn’t believe anything would be able to breach it, but she still should be careful.

The thickness didn’t equate to the monster’s strength, but that begged an important question. What if she clears the waves faster than the growth of the walls? Would that mean the monsters would be able to break it and cause trouble?

Aiko shook her head gently. If she saw that the monsters were able to damage her walls, she would just hide inside until the walls thickened enough that it wouldn’t be a problem, and then she would repeat this whole thing until she cleared this place.

With a plan in her mind she walked outside. Ah, the weapon she was using was a bat, since it scaled well with her equipment, but she was considering picking something else later as enemies changed.

The bat was similar to a hammer or rather to a blunt weapon which was effective against these fuckers.

It was also light and dealt a nice chunk of damage, so Aiko stuck with it.

The sludge approached her slowly. It didn’t seem fast, but Aiko wouldn’t underestimate it just because of that, it was very well possible that it could ’run’ when it got close enough to her, so she should observe her enemy first.

This was her first time completely outside and exposed. She felt... weird, like something was leaking out of her.

That was her Soul. Her Soul was not used to the outside elements, so it would take a while until it developed any kind of resistance.

But of course this was the safest way to do it, since normally you would have to risk being dissolved into nature, which pretty much meant death without reincarnation.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on NovelFire. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

As she expected, the sludge was only slow when she was some distance away from it, but once it got close it tried to ’chase’ after her.

Since she predicted this, it was very easy to dodge to the side. While it did ’run’ it was not like it was quicker than Aiko. It was still slower thanks to all the rings and equipment she had on her.

Aiko was also considering finding some nice toe rings, since those were the only ’fingers’ that didn’t contribute to her strength. Currently, she was wearing 10 rings with slightly different, but still passively boosting effects.

From what she saw, there were also rings that were able to conjure things or use magic, but again, Aiko was not too keen about that.

She used the [Wind God’s Blessing] to keep safe distance from the sludge. As stated before, the sludge was slower even in its ’running’ state, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The current buff was around 5%, and it consumed 1 Mana per minute, so she pretty much had 10 minutes of runtime until she ran out of Mana.

That was enough to deal with this sludge, but why do that? It was better just slightly damage the sludge and see what it would do on lower HP. Would it attack differently? Would it shrink?

Aiko took her time with this and as expected. Not only did the sludge lose mass, it also got quicker, but other than that, nothing else changed.

There was no spitting attack or anything that would endanger her from a distance. The sludge seemed clingier, but it was not like she really wanted to test that theory out.

Looking around, other sludges were not approaching yet, so Aiko just kept going at it.

She estimated that the sludge lost around 80% of its mass and that’s when it happened.

The sludge bubbled, clearly doing something, so Aiko immediately ’hid’ into the safe area and watched it from afar.

She didn’t expect what happened next, but she was glad she was in the safe area.

As the sludge was bubbling there was something strange about it. It was calling for the other sludges, but not just about joining the fight, but they would merge together becoming stronger. This ’event’ would probably repeat until you are either overwhelmed or until you are able to shave 20% HP before the other sludges come over.

Of course, those 20% were easy to take off, but Aiko didn’t do that. She wanted to make sure the sludges wouldn’t do something unpredictable.

Once the ’transformation’ finished, Aiko went out to test the ’new’ sludge.

It was a lot quicker, easily matching Aiko’s speed while it was still slow, so it was safe to assume that the sludge was much faster while ’running’.

This was troubling since that sludge didn’t consume all that many other sludges and it was already this powerful. Aiko would have to be careful about how she fought so that she wouldn’t accidentally produce a monster she couldn’t kill.

But there was still something fortunate. The sludges were no longer corrosive to their surroundings, but now it was a sticky and unpleasant mess, and they actually gained a ranged attack.

It felt like the sludge was now specialised in capturing instead of killing, which Aiko obviously didn’t like.

*Swish*

She used her sling to obliterate the slime, since that ’rock’ gained so many buffs that it was not even funny.

Sure, the bat received the help of the [Iron Maiden’s Embrace], but that didn’t mean it could overpower the sling which had many more buffs!

As for her actual magic. [Fireball], AOE fire magic. [Wind God’s Blessing], mostly speed and movement. [Iron Maiden’s Embrace] strengthens held weapons and grappling attacks. [Fairless Wings] mostly gliding, but if enough Mana is used, you can also gain temporary flight.

Those were the magic that Aiko picked and would use until she had more Mana.

[You have killed Empowered Enraged Sludge]

[You have gained 200 Soul Points.]

”Eh?” Aiko blinked blankly. She didn’t expect to gain so much from one monster. Did it mean she gained more than 100 times more if she were outside and didn’t camp those fuckers? That was nice~!

”Let’s hunt more~!” Aiko hummed and all sludges quivered. It seemed like they were placed on the extinct species list by Aiko...

...

Aiko kept hurling rocks like a repeater until all the sludges died. She was not very interested in using the bat since she wanted to gain as many Soul Points as she could.

Did she succeed? You can be the judge.

[Soul Points: 24,305]

She could now gain one tail for each species, which would make her into a pseudo ten-tailed Fox. Well, she could gain more tails past that, but it would cost a lot more, so Aiko was not too interested currently.

That was because her... ummmm... Mortal(?) Stats didn’t count in this place. Only things related to her Soul counted, but she also had to purchase the conveniences.

That’s right, she had to buy the ’ability’ to summon her Flying Boat and other Treasures that were tied to her Soul!

This was so ridiculous, and she hated it, but she had no one to protest to since this was too fair! She was allowed to hunt from safety and even just finish the enemies without endangering herself, so it was obvious that there would be something to compensate for that.

It was unfortunate that it was this, but what can you do...

Aiko hunted the last slime and the ground quivered.

The tremors spread all around except her safe area where she was located right now.

Aiko was sensitive to the changes, so before the tremors got worse she booked it and that’s how she was currently in the safe area.

With that, she was able to observe what was happening outside.

First, the ground or floor or whatever you call it, was being quickly repaired, like it was never corroded by her poisons and those sludges.

The slimy stuff left behind was also vaporised, but she noticed small orbs fall to the ground while that happened.

’Some kind of loot?’ Aiko pondered. It was possible, and she would like to get them, but the outside world was still changing, so it was a better idea to wait inside here where it was safe...