Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

”Thank you for your warm welcome.” Witch Aiko suddenly felt kinship with that person. ”I wish to Contract you one day.”

”...” Now both of them were taken aback.

”Ah, I’m not forcing anything. I just like you, so I would like to take you with me.” Witch Aiko spoke completely shamelessly.

At first, they were taken aback, confused and maybe even bewildered, but as time passed, they quickly calmed down.

”That is impossible.” The puppet spoke softly.

”Why?” Witch Aiko was curious. What kind of individual is behind this puppet? Why were they doing this? Was it fun?

”...” The puppet didn’t answer for a while. ”What do you think about twins?”

”I think they are lovely perverts.” Witch Aiko giggled.

”No-” The puppet was so startled that it almost laughed. ”I don’t mean your companions.”

”??” Witch Aiko tilted her head in confusion. ”How should I know? I never met them.”

”No-” The puppet felt like this little Fox was making fun of her, but if she didn’t, there was something seriously wrong about her.

”What do you think about the concept of twins? Someone that is born identical and at the ’same’ time.” The puppet tried to explain it slowly, so that Aiko wouldn’t misunderstand.

”What about them? They are alive, be it good or evil, there is nothing different between them and normal birth, no?” Witch Aiko shrugged.

The puppet’s eyes shone during this exchange, but the more it tried to comprehend this situation, the more bizarre it was.

”Do you not believe in cursed fate?” The puppet asked as she jumped onto another crown some distance away.

Witch Aiko followed her with light steps. She didn’t really want to take bath in this thing, so she had to be careful about every step.

”I suppose that’s possible, but why should it matter? Fate can always be changed.” Witch Aiko chuckled as her eyes shone in strange colours. This was not her activating anything, just her being speaking what she believed in.

The puppet was taken in.

”Even if it meant suffering from the same fate?” The puppet was curious if she was just brave or completely foolish.

”If you are worried about Providence, I want to see if it can put a dent into it.” Witch Aiko laughed. Her current providence was capped by 3 factors, so she really wanted to see how much it would get reduced if she took in someone with cursed fate.

The puppet almost fell down from the tree crown when it heard that.

”You are... eccentric.” The puppet wanted to say freak, but since she was a guest, it couldn’t say that.

”I hear that a lot...” Witch Aiko nodded her head. ”But I think they are just too normal.” She was convinced that was the case as she didn’t do anything too crazy.

Except for the burning of the Sacred Realm, that one was an accident!

’If I did it on purpose, I would like to take those liquefied resources with me.’ Witch Aiko smirked, but then paused. ’Why not come up with a technique that can harvest a whole ’Realm’...’ She chuckled sinisterly, making the Nightmare Owl pause his steps.

’My sister is crazy enough, but what now, another one?!’ The Nightmare Owl wanted to cry, but he couldn’t.

Tears in this part of their domain would cause explosion, so he had to be-

”Oh? My tears are sizzling!” Once Witch Aiko found out about that, she immediately played in this place.

”Can you be normal for one damned day?” The Nightmare Owl blurted out without meaning to say that. He was immediately flustered, but what he got in return made him even more speechless.

”Why? We are talking about removing a Contract. If we are talking about normal, today is not that day.” Witch Aiko shook her head. She had a point, but...

Stolen novel; please report.

”...” The Nightmare Owl sighed. ’I know this is right, but why do I feel the need to refute it...’ He scratched his head gently.

”Anyway. What is wrong with this place?” Witch Aiko was curious why this place made her tears sizzle.

”The previous ’stage’ was supposed to make your eyes teary, while this place was supposed to explode them. The tears are not simply water, but a compound of several things. We just had to find the right toxin that was airborne and would interact with the tears in a specific way.” The Nightmare Owl explained, since this Fox never harboured any negative intentions towards them and while the talk about ’contracting’ them was weird, he never thought about it too deeply.

”That’s really cool.” Maybe setting up her own poison/toxic garden would be more fulfilling than she expected.

’Although Moon Aiko might make fun of my efficiency and Sun Aiko might burn it, it’s not a bad idea.’ Witch Aiko nodded her head at the thought.

”Is it? It’s just a simple trap.” The Nightmare Owl scratched his head again. ”There is another one that makes you horny, followed by one that makes you hallucinate, so that the next one you would hump a thorn bush.” The Nightmare Owl was suddenly very talkative about these traps, going into great detail on how they are set up and maintained.

”I didn’t think toxic fumes could be used to also maintain them...” Witch Aiko was startled that there was such a way to do these things.

”Well, the flora is toxic by default, so it’s only natural that it would benefit from such an arrangement. However, even if it can ’heal’ there is a limit on how much it can ’heal’.” The Nightmare Owl estimated that when flora was missing about 70% of its body, as long as its roots were intact, it would be able to recover without seemingly no issues or demerits.

Once you passed that number, there would be some hiccups.

The flora wouldn’t grow as big, the toxin would weaken and so on.

”Let’s talk about this later. I feel like we can get along well. Outside the whole third leg thing.” Witch Aiko chuckled.

”?” The Nightmare Owl was confused for a moment before also chuckling. ”Well, life has many surprises.”

The forest was quite vast. Was this place bigger than the other Clans, or did this place play with her senses? Both were possible considering that the Nightmare Owl Clan could do both medicine and toxin.

”When will we arrive?” Witch Aiko looked around.

”It won’t take too long, we are almost there.” The Nightmare Owl smiled.

Witch Aiko would just have to wait patiently...

...

And wait she did. This place was seriously huge and unlike the other Clans, there were no Movement Arrays.

Witch Aiko didn’t know why they didn’t set up one, but maybe she will be able to get the answer later?

For now, she arrived at her destination, and it was damn confusing, yet gorgeous.

In front of her spread a large garden with the most beautiful flowers that Witch Aiko ever saw in her life.

There were many beautiful colours, from bright red, to exotic like blue and purple. There were many, many colours, making this feel like a tale.

”Are you sure this place is real?” Witch Aiko nudged him.

”As real as it gets.” The Nightmare Owl nodded his head. ”Ah, but you shouldn’t touch anything, you will-”

He looked at the Fox who was touching and sniffing everything, yet not dropping dead yet.

”What was it?” Witch Aiko was enamoured with this garden. She wanted to take this home if possible~!

”... Nothing.” The Nightmare Owl pursed his lips. ”Should’ve known this would happen.” He mumbled to himself.

Witch Aiko observed the flowers, touching them and sniffing them.

Their scent was mixed, but very gentle, which was unexpected considering this was such an exotic garden.

’No, there are some powerful scents, but most of these flowers seem harmless.’ Well, they were far from harmless, but since Witch Aiko had that special poison constitution, this was actually helping her improve.

”I heard that there is every known toxin in this place, but that’s actually a stretch.” The Nightmare Owl chuckled. ”It’s impossible to gather every known toxin, but you can do something slightly different. Just mix what you got and this is the outcome.” He nudged her, pointing at the vast garden.

”Wait, so if you take one flower this place would crumble?” Witch Aiko was speechless.

”Not crumble, no. Everything would just die, leaving only one flower as survivor.” The Nightmare Owl smiled a bit bitterly about it.

”That’s poetic.” Witch Aiko smacked her lips. She wanted to make tea from these, but since it would endanger this beautiful garden... she didn’t really want to touch them and take them with her.

”I wonder if I can come here later...” Witch Aiko wanted to record all the toxic flowers and make her own garden, but she was not like Moon Aiko, so she didn’t want to spend years researching it.

”That can be arranged if you succeed with the Contract.” The Nightmare Owl pursed his lips. He could promise something like this, since this was the last Contract, but at the same time, since it was last...

’It will be that much more difficult to remove.’ The Nightmare Owl was not stupid. He understood that ’that’ jerk would be waiting and something might happen, but he still hoped that his sister would be safe and sound.

’He bothered her so much...’ The Nightmare Owl sighed. It was fortunate that at that time his sister was not powerful enough to ascend. Otherwise, he would no longer have a sister...

’Oh, right, the puppet.’ Witch Aiko looked around, but couldn’t find anyone. Was she imagining things? She felt like someone was watching her.

’Well, even if they are watching. I’m not doing anything bad, am I?’ Witch Aiko shrugged inside her mind while sniffing more flowers.

They were very mellow in scent, but then Witch Aiko noticed that some flowers had stronger scents.

They were arranged in a way that those stronger would be closer to each other, while the weaker would be on the outside.

There were many ’circles’ with stronger scents and ’hollows’ with weaker scents.

You could almost see the ’path’ that you were supposed to take in order to arrive somewhere-

”Welcome.”

A gentle voice caressed Aiko’s ears. Looking up she was taken aback.

’Whoa...’ Witch Aiko saw the most beautiful person so far...