Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

The Soul Domain had limited size for ’outsiders’. Fang Yue was able to join Aiko because she didn’t have corporeal body, but for others, it would be more difficult.

To safely ’extract’ the Soul and transport it into the Soul Domain required a lot of energy. Furthermore, ensuring that those Souls are not harmed during their stay, consumed a lot of energy too.

Combine everything together, and you get the ’Soul index’ or size of one’s Soul.

For Ghosts, this would always be one, as long as they are friendly towards Aiko. For Souls with bodies, those varied. Things like age, Cultivation Stage, pretty much everything counted into the size of one’s Soul, if Aiko wanted to invite them.

However, this also meant that her defences were that much greater. The wall that she saw inside would protect her from most Soul invasions. It couldn’t completely block an invasion from the Immortal World, but she was getting there.

In other words, for now Aiko could only accommodate Ghosts, as normal Soul would require a bare minimum of 5. There are some things that would allow Aiko to lower that number, but she doesn’t have access to those.

”Well, I will figure it out later.” Moon Aiko nodded her head as she slowly walked back from where she came from.

This place was slowly crumbling. The space was twisting, screaming from the pressure from outside. It won’t be long before this place disappears, but for now, Moon Aiko could walk around normally.

She came to the vast flower fields, which were now littered with corpses.

”Gosh...” Moon Aiko shuddered. Those things were uglier from close up, but there was also peculiar scent on them.

”Hmmmm...” This familiar, peculiar scent was quite pleasant. ”Don’t tell me those are really walking Herbs...” Moon Aiko shuddered even more thinking about it.

If all Herbs looked like this, then maybe she shouldn’t grow them one day.

’But outsourcing things are too costly...’ Moon Aiko clicked her tongue. While she was all for not working with ugly things, it would be very detrimental for Mei if she couldn’t grow any Herbs.

”Hmmmm...” Moon Aiko had mischievous smile on her lips.

*Slurp*

Her tails slurped that corpse like it was no problem.

”It won’t hurt if I store them, maybe Mei can use them.” Aiko wouldn’t touch them, but it could be useful to Mei, maybe she will even be happy. ’Hehehe~’ She hummed happily, being completely oblivious to the disaster she was just causing...

-----

”We have been here for a while Mai.” Yu floated around, eating a bit of the honey the Crimson Bees prepared.

”But we are not in much pain and I prefer it that way.” Mai responded gently. She was still not used to Yu, but their bedtime was too amazing to simply let go of her.

”That is true. I don’t like when you are in pain.” Yu nodded her head thoughtfully, while Mai squealed and hugged her.

”You are so cute.” Mai rubbed her head on her bosom happily.

”Please maintain at least the bare minimum decorum.” Yu’s lips twitched. It seemed like she was already used to this and Mai to the scolding.

”En, en- KYAAAAAAAA!” Mai suddenly screamed, attracting a lot of attention.

”What happened?”

”Did Yu punish her again?”

”Why can’t we join?”

The other Demonic Foxes huddled up together, trying to figure out what just happened, but-

”KYAAAA!”

They had the same reaction as Mai.

”?” Yu was confused, so she turned around.

There, horrendously ugly corpse floated. Her face distorted into unsightly mess, as she groaned painfully.

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”We should slam it into a corner of this place?”

”Can’t we just burn it?”

”Do you want to get kicked out of this place?! How about we mince it?”

The Demonic Foxes talked about what to do with this thing. It was exceptionally repulsive for them.

”This is Aiko’s stuff, we can’t touch it.” Mai proclaimed and Yu nodded, but both of them really wanted to burn this thing.

The Demonic Foxes came to a consensus. Hide this thing and keep it as far away from this place as possible!

”...”

However, their determination didn’t last for long.

More and more unsightly corpses popped into this place.

”W-w-w-w-w-what do we do?!” One Demonic Fox panicked.

”L-l-let’s run!” Another Demonic Fox suggested.

”Where to?! This place is limited!” Another chimed in.

It quickly descended into a chaos as more and more corpses piled up.

”R-run!”

”I will hold them back!” One Demonic Fox screamed.

”Don’t go! You are going to suffer!” The other Demonic Foxes yelled back.

”Remember meeeeeee-!” The Demonic Fox yelled her last words as she was swallowed by the tsunami of corpses.

”M-mommy.”

”I don’t want to suffer from ugliness-!”

Turns out... Foxes are quite weak to ugly things...

-----

”Phew.” Moon Aiko breathed a sigh of relief. She picked up the pace when it came to cleaning this place. She collected all those corpses and stored them inside her tails for later use.

It was convenient that she could store things inside her tails, instead of having to carry them around or teleporting them around. However, this secret mustn’t be leaked outside of the Fox circles.

Moon Aiko believed it would bring unnecessary trouble, so until she was strong enough to deal with anything that was coming her way, she should be careful about using them.

”Well, I wonder if Mei will like them?” Moon Aiko nodded her head seriously as she walked forward. She wanted to ransack this place before it completely collapsed, and she was forced to use her [Jaws of ####].

The consumption might be finicky, but since she would appear near Mei, everything should be fine.

Looking around, Moon Aiko found a few Herb gardens. Or at least assumed that’s what it was as there was no indication from the system.

’I also never saw such Herbs, but they are too thick with Qi to not be Herbs.’ Moon Aiko nodded her head slowly. She was not sure how to uproot them, preserve them or transport them. It would require a lot of trial and error, but it was not like this was her garden.

”As long as I can take at least one with me, then it would be success.” Moon Aiko nodded her head while chucking.

She would be able to gain a lot of experience in this place, allowing her to use it in the future when she found more obscure Herbs.

”Hm? How about this?” Moon Aiko figured out that she could just use her Innate Ability on this.

[Serene Lantern Eyes]

Or rather they were the [Serene/Pandemonium Lantern Eyes]. She used the ’Serene’ part, because it was more focused on identifying things, rather than anything else.

[Immortal Herb?]

*Pffft*

Moon Aiko choked on her saliva.

Sure, she expected Mei not to know every Herb, but to think this place housed Immortal Herbs! And that was not even the full story!

[Immortal Spiritual Herb?]

”I want them.” Moon Aiko smacked her lips, but she didn’t have enough experience in gathering Herbs.

Sure, she had her theory, which she practised here and there, but those were for Mortal Herbs and each of them required different way of harvesting.

Not to mention there was the issue of elements too, if she couldn’t guess which Herb did what, things would get dicey.

Mortal Herbs were easy to distinguish, well, at least their element. They would usually cover a certain area in their element, in order for them to grow even more.

You would find scorching grounds, flooded swamps and so on. Usually, in the middle of those places, would lie a Herb for picking.

Since the element was clearly on display, Moon Aiko just had to figure out how to harvest it without damaging it too much.

”Hmmmm...” Moon Aiko pondered for a while, but she still couldn’t figure out the element. Moreover, while her eyes could tell her, it was really draining her, and she had to save up her energy for the transportation, meaning she couldn’t rely on it right now.

”Ah, this is such bother...” Moon Aiko really wanted to use those eyes to extract as many Herbs as possible, since it would make very, very happy.

”How about buying a Herb manual-”

[Minimal cost - 1 trillion Cultivation Points]

”-... Never mind.” Moon Aiko sighed. This was both maddening and upsetting. She really wanted to get those Herbs, but it seems like she would have to improvise.

”Good old [Digging Site]x[Soil Excavation] combo.” Moon Aiko chuckled, assigning the required space for it.

”And... It requires a lot of energy...” Moon Aiko groaned. It seems like those Immortal Herbs didn’t want to leave this place.

”Alright, fine.” Moon Aiko would have to risk it.

She rustled her tails, pulling out Yuqi, the Flower Demon.

”I need these Herbs.” Moon Aiko gestured.

”Hm?” It seemed like Yuqi was munching on something, but when she saw those Herbs, she suddenly started to salivate.

”Say, can I keep some?” Yuqi nudged Aiko with her hit, she was really clingy, even more than when she was with Feifei.

”Shouldn’t you be doing this to Feifei?” Moon Aiko raised her eyebrow.

”We can go for a quickie.” Yuqi winked at her.

”You can keep 30%, if you can preserve and transport them.” Moon Aiko rolled her eyes. She was not like Witch Aiko, who would jump on this opportunity. She just needed those Herbs and get out of this place.

Yuqi slammed her hands on the ground, and all those priceless Herbs suddenly stood out of the ground. Gathered their own soil and lined in front of Aiko.

The Flower Demon, true to her name, smiled. ”Is this enough?” Yuqi giggled, while her stomach grumbled.

Moon Aiko just blinked her eyes. ”I’m suddenly glad I brought you along.”

”And I’m glad I didn’t stick around that guy.” Yuqi giggled. ”Anyway, I will take 30% and if you want to have some fun, tell me~” She blew a smoochie towards Aiko, before taking her share and disappearing into the tails.

”Gosh...” Everyone was slowly getting more and more outrageous, but she didn’t dislike it. A bit of chaos would go a long way...

”Well, at least Mei will be happy.” Moon Aiko nodded her head. ”I wonder what she is doing...”