Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko walked alongside the river while looking around. She was not able to spot any wild animals immediately, but she started to remember a few things.

’First, rocks.’ Aiko noticed that the location with the wild chickens was full of rocks, the river included. However, until now she didn’t find such a river, so that might be why she couldn’t find those little fuckers.

Another thing would be fragile bark.

Aiko was not sure at first, but when she was collecting the sticks for the mound, she couldn’t touch the trees because the bark would just fall off.

It could mean the trees were suffering from something, but Aiko was not too sure since she never encountered such a situation.

The trees could have some kind of parasite that ate away at them, making the outer layer frail, but that was just her explanation.

Aiko looked around. The trees were sturdy, so while this location was rocky, it shouldn’t have any wild chickens.

Moving further, the rocky terrain stopped, but Aiko didn’t stop.

She would always map the whole river location. What if somewhere upstream there was another rocky location? It would be a waste to just limit her search on the first rocky location when there could be more.

With that in mind, she still paid close attention to her surroundings. It was possible that the wild chickens were only after the frail trees, so she had to take that into account.

The trailing part was very uneventful, one could even say boring, but Aiko didn’t give up. She would reach the end of this thing even if it killed her!

...

It took her a lot of time, but she finally arrived at the spring.

It was a very rocky spring with a small stream going down from here which puzzled her even more.

’How can such a small stream create a bigger and bigger river?’ Aiko didn’t see any twists or parts where the river would part away, it was kind of strange that it could grow in size over time.

’Was there some trick to it?’ Aiko was curious, but she first decided to find the wild chickens!

And she did find them!

The tree barks were very weak, and the river had rocky terrain. Well it was closer to a spring stream, but yeah. The chicks were here!

Aiko grabbed a few with the usual stabbing.

Stab, sink the knife and then punch it. Aiko was not sure if she had to do this each time, but it sure felt liberating every time those fuckers would try to dodge her.

’Hmmmm...’ Aiko suddenly had a thought. What if she spared one carcass and blinked later? What would happen to the carcass? Would it disappear?

Aiko could spare one, since it seemed like there were many wild chickens.

’Let’s do it!’ Aiko wanted to know!

...

The mound was prepared, lit and closed. Soon, smoke rose from the small hole on the top and everything worked well.

’What would happen if I blinked now...?’ Aiko was really, really curious, but as she was running low on food, she couldn’t do that yet.

She would test everything once she had more food!

Waiting around until the meat was finished, Aiko was bored. Fortunately, she couldn’t just walk away, just in case something happened to it, and she also had to add wood to make it smoke more.

The careful fire management with smoke and mound growing weaker, everything kept her on her toes, so she just couldn’t move away.

...

The meat was cooked, so Aiko immediately tried a few things.

First, she prepared another mound and lit it up. Then she prepared two carcasses, one she would hang on the tree and another into the stream. Both would slowly drain their blood, so it wouldn’t be a waste of time.

Stolen novel; please report.

With that, Aiko climbed a nearby tree with her back and blinked.

...

It was night. Dark night without any noise.

Jumping down. Aiko was able to see clearly, which pleased her.

The carcass that was on the tree was clearly looking strange. Going near it, Aiko could smell the strange smell of rotten meat.

’A bust.’ Aiko nodded her head seriously, but at least the meat didn’t disappear.

However, what surprised her was that the carcasses inside the river were gone, without anything indicating that something took it.

’I don’t get it.’ Aiko was confused why this always happened. Were there fish that could eat carcasses? Surely not...

Aiko turned her attention to the mound. It was in a good state, a bit brittle and unstable, but if handled correctly Aiko wouldn’t have any soil in her meal.

Opening it, the meat was still inside, but a change occurred.

The meat was slightly spoiled, maybe because there was not enough smoke to cure it completely as the meat was still soft and squishy. Well, it was a bit tough, but nowhere near what she experienced before.

It was hard to make a fire that would smoke for such a long time without extinguishing or catching aflame again.

There had to be some clear balance, or wood type that she was not aware of that would smoke a lot, making everything easier.

Aiko gave up thinking about that since she wouldn’t be able to easily distinguish the trees without colours.

Sure, there were shapes, but it was not like Aiko remembered which shape was from which tree, so it was pointless to think about it so hard.

Aiko prepared another mound, this time bigger and slightly more complex.

There was a special compartment that would be able to host more wood and thus more smoke, but would she be able to light it without roasting the meat? That was difficult to say.

Moreover, each blink would consume some of her food, so the trial and error would also involve her preparing more meat and doing it by hand instead of skipping.

The mound, meat and fireplace was prepared and filled.

Aiko lit the fire before closing the side and looking if it was producing smoke or not.

To her surprise, everything worked well, too well in fact.

She was wondering if anything would go wrong, but she still decided to climb the tree and blink...

...

Aiko looked down as it was night again.

These tests would go like this. Aiko smoked normally during the day and during the night she would hoard live chicken for slaughter later.

Some of them would escape, but it was still better than just standing around.

Aiko also noticed that the wild chicken ate something from the bark, but she couldn’t figure out what it was as it was too small.

’Well, it’s fine.’ Aiko was happy that she was not the meal so she didn’t need to care about what they actually ate.

She opened the mound. The meat looked smoked well enough, but part of it was roasted again so she couldn’t use it.

The meat was also not completely dry smoked, so she would have to add more smoking wood.

’At this point I’m convinced that it’s special wood.’ Aiko nodded her head seriously, but she didn’t have any concrete evidence about it.

’It’s fine.’ Aiko nodded her head solemnly. She will be able to figure out everything in time.

...

More meat was prepared and-

You know the whole process, so let’s skip until batch 48th where the first change occurred.

’The meat is too smoked.’ Aiko finally figured out how to smoke it without burning or roasting the meat.

It took her a lot of trial and error and the population of wild chicken declined sharply, but it was worth it!

’Now I don’t have to wait around.’ Aiko could set up multiple mounds and then just blink. This would allow her to quickly amass the meat without doing too much work and sitting around the mounds watching them.

And even if some of them would fail, Aiko should have enough room for error to make it work!

With this, she caught what she could find and prepared mounds for it.

’Slowly and carefully.’ Aiko chuckled. The most tedious work right now was getting rid of the feathers, but Aiko couldn’t figure out how to speed up that process.

’It would be nice if the muscles and skin relaxed.’ Aiko had a serious expression since she had a not-so-small pile of feathers.

’If I was an archer I would probably salivate at this.’ Aiko chuckled before shaking her head. The mounds were prepared, and the fire just needed to be lit, which meant that Aiko was finished!

Aiko climbed up a tree and blinked again.

...

It was a pleasant night.

Aiko jumped down to look at her mounds. She was supposed to have 24 of them, but one collapsed, leaving just 23.

That was still an incredible number that spoke for itself. Aiko was able to gather a lot of meat thanks to this and since it was night already she no longer needed to blink in order to traverse.

She immediately gathered her stuff and slowly walked out of the rest.

The journey would be still long, there were 7 more villages and the distance increased every time.

Moreover, the uglies also grew in number and there were more patrols on the plains and everything, making things more difficult than they had to be.

Fortunately for Aiko, her stealth was working wonders. She was never spotted, and she could just walk around as long as she didn’t have blood on herself.

Aiko didn’t need to fight, so there would be no blood on her. Maybe from the wild chickens, but she always at least cleaned the bare minimum by jumping into the river.

It was a very rough bath as Aiko could actually feel the cold river piercing her skin.

’It’s kind of crazy.’ The more she approached the final village, the more scents and senses she experienced.

However, there were still no colours around, so it didn’t feel complete at all.

’One day.’ Aiko nodded her head seriously. If her safe area was with colour, then everything would be in colour one day!

’Wait, but why were some monsters coloured?’ Aiko tilted her head. Some things made no sense. Maybe she was supposed to focus on those monsters or something.

’But they are growing in number...’ Aiko was confused about what to do with this situation, so she once again gave up.

It didn’t matter to her as long as she didn’t die because of it. She had to be very careful, but it should be possible to avoid any unnecessary attention.

’Let’s just get to the goal quickly.’ Aiko wanted to get this over with, so she slightly sped up her legs...