Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko woke up and yawned, she felt very rested and somewhat healthy. She blinked a few times and her brain paused.

'Since when did we have red fluffy pillows...' Aiko's brain just woke up and had to work overtime to piece together all the evidence in front of her.

'Oh...' And when it finally pieced everything together, Aiko felt shy.

She promised that she would ask before she jumped into the Blood Fox's tails, but now here she was literally swimming in them...

Aiko wanted to sneak away, but the Blood Fox felt her passenger stir and turned around.

"Did you sleep well, Aiko?" She smiled gently, which made Aiko even more embarrassed.

"I'm sorry." Aiko apologised gently and stepped down from her tails, but the Blood Fox caught Aiko and placed her on her lap.

"How are you feeling?" She picked up the brush and brushed Aiko's fur, each stroke turning that fur silver like the moon.

"Refreshed and better." Aiko shyly nodded, but didn't try to run away.

The Blood Fox brushed Aiko slowly while paying attention to her condition. Aiko's eyelids were lazy, but her eye coloured turned back to that familiar light blue with her fur.

She breathed a sigh of relief that Aiko was able to naturally purge that poison. It would be difficult to explain to Mei what happened to her and they would also get punished.

The Blood Fox couldn't lose in this sense, since it would mean she would lose in the war over Aiko.

The Umbra Fox lay lazily, she stared at Aiko and gently nudged her.

"Are you really fine, Mistress?" The Umbra Fox asked while nudging Aiko.

Aiko bit her finger since she was being annoying, but she didn't bite too hard so that she would injure her badly.

"Auch!" The Umbra Fox jumped up, throwing Aiko into the air.

The Blood Fox readied herself to catch Aiko when she fell down, but unfortunately for her, Aiko masterfully wrapped her body around the supporting beam and stared at the Umbra Fox.

There was something incredibly funny and terrific, in the way she was just stuck to the horizontal beam.

When Aiko moved it turned from funny, but terrific, to a completely horrifying sight.

*Rawr Rawr Rawr*

The Umbra Fox had to run away from Aiko since that sight was genuinely creepy and terrifying.

She ran outside, where Aiko didn’t follow her.

…

Aiko jumped down and was caught by the Blood Fox again.

She snorted victoriously, but the Blood Fox had a mean smile on her lips.

Aiko tilted her head, she didn't understand why the Blood Fox was looking at her like this.

She looked away since that gaze was burdensome.

"Aiko~" The Blood Fox hummed, but Aiko shivered.
"You need a bath." She said seriously, looking at Aiko up and down.

"Do I?" Aiko tilted her head, but when she looked down, her formerly bright fur turned into a dusty mess. Her body was like a big magnet for dust and usually, you wouldn't clean the supporting beams since it wasn’t needed.

Aiko coughed awkwardly. How was she supposed to know that those pesky Humans wouldn’t clean this place properly?!

Aiko nodded gently. "It is indeed needed." She now understood why the Blood Fox was upset. All of her hard work was undone within half a minute...

...

The bath was simple and quick, unlike most baths with Mei.

The Blood Fox was drying Aiko just now and the only word Aiko could say about that was...

"Heavenly~" Aiko loved the feeling of being rubbed like this.

The Blood Fox narrowed her eyes and noted it down in her mind. She had one point over Mei, since Mei always used cleaning spells.

She would make sure that whenever Aiko is bathed, she would also get plenty of rubs.

The Umbra Fox peeked back inside. Aiko was wrapped in blankets and only part of her head poked out.

"Pfft." *Cough* The Umbra Fox couldn't keep her face straight like she always did, not even the Grandmaster's training could prepare her for that ridiculous sight!

"I- Pfft." She tried to talk, but the laughter that was threatening to escape her lips always interrupted her.

"Just laugh!" Aiko glared at her. It was much worse when someone tried to hold in laughter, as it made them look like an inflated fish!

Now Aiko was not fine that one of her companions laughed at her, but it was much better than that pufferfish face!

"HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA." The Umbra Fox laughed so much that she had to hold her belly.

She laughed for a good half an hour if it was not for the fact that her belly started to hurt… she would absolutely keep laughing!

"Uuuuu, it hurts..." The Umbra Fox cried softly.

Aiko was already dried, in her human form and dressed. All thanks to the Blood Fox. The dressing up part took only 5 minutes! Aiko couldn't believe how easily they could clothe her!

She was unaware that they made a doll roughly the size of Aiko and 'borrowed' a little clothing from Chen Shi. They practised hard when Aiko was lazing around on the flying ship.

Aiko tapped her foot uncomfortably since compared to her speed, which was abysmal, this was too quick!

Aiko kept glancing at the Blood Fox, who had her eyes half closed, oozing seductive air.

The Blood Fox learned from the Umbra Fox about the Go face that the Grandmaster taught her.

It was greatly effective, but the Blood Fox was not perfect with it, so she broke into a gentle smile when she saw Aiko pouting.

"So, what did you want to say?" Aiko sighed at her teammates.

"Ah, right! Tomorrow is the banquet to flesh out the rest of the plan." The Umbra Fox said gently.

Aiko nodded slowly. That was a good time, since it would be during the day. She didn’t need to worry about those perverts and the Emperor surely wouldn't try something nasty, since most if not all of them would be well rested and ready to fight.

"Anything else?" Aiko asked.

"They didn't say anything else." The Umbra Fox shook her head.

"Strange." Aiko tilted her head. "By the etiquette standards, they were supposed to tell us the dress code and what kind of food or at least ingredients they would present so that we can adjust ourselves or ask not to be served certain things." Aiko fired a long barrage of words, making the duo speechless.

Aiko turned towards them and when she found their dumbfounded expression she tilted her head. "What? Am I wrong?"

""No."" They both said in sync, but this was a great shock for them, they didn't expect that Aiko would remember so much!

That was only natural since Aiko utilised her Passive Skills. Sure, she had a harder time forgetting something, but it was way more useful than useless for her.

It made learning very easy, since she could remember the first time she learned something. However practising was a bit hard... no, very hard since she could just as easily remember bad positions and movements she was shown, which meant she had to focus a lot more to filter out those wrong motions and thoughts.

That was probably the only demerit Aiko could find, but at the same time, it was quite severe...

Aiko sighed, looking at the duo. "We will report this to Lady Liu~" Aiko had a mean smile on her lips, since she knew that Lady Liu would eat them alive if she knew they broke even the most basic etiquette. She whirled around, already imagining the mayhem.

"By the way." Aiko turned back to the Umbra Fox. "Who delivered the message?"

"Some smelly Human?" The Umbra Fox said slowly, but tilted her head. "How strange, I can't remember his face." She looked confused and lost.

She had a great memory when it came to faces, which was one of the reasons she liked Aiko so much. She had a lovely face, which was hard to get tired of.

Of course, there was still a possibility that she would get tired, but it was much lower when it came to Aiko than to other Foxes.

Lust aside, most of them had very perverted faces almost all the time, which ruined the whole first impression.

The Umbra Fox sighed, but Aiko sighed very loudly.

"This is another ploy, let's contact Chen Shi." Aiko pulled out the talisman she sto- *Cough* confiscated for safety reasons.

The Talisman gently burned.

"Who is this?" Chen Shi's annoyed voice sounded from the other side.

"Be careful, there are more assassins around, one of them tried to contact us and lead us to some place later tomorrow." Aiko summed it up, since this Talisman wouldn't last long compared to what she got from Mei.

Chen Shi was first enraged that Aiko had his Talisman, but his mind quickly cooled when he heard about the 'assassin' part.

"Everything alright over there?" He asked, but at the same time, he put up a Rune bubble around Lady Liu and himself.

"It's fine, but we don't remember his face, so it's safe to say they are using Recognition Inhibition Treasures." Aiko said gravely.

"Got it, if something happens and you are attacked, just run into my courtyard, or the previous Mansion." Chen Shi said and the Talisman burned out.

While he did have a hateful relationship with Aiko, that didn't mean he wished she would die. He would still protect them at times. Moreover, Lady Liu would be heartbroken if something happened to that group of Foxes...

He shook his head, but his grave expression was wiped out the next second as he came closer to Lady Liu.

...

Aiko stared at the Talisman amused. "Why is this only a single use..." She shook her. "Such a wasteful f-" Aiko for the first time stopped herself from cursing.

Her group stared at her strangely and Aiko had to look away. "What? I never said I wouldn't learn from Lady Liu." Aiko pouted.

She walked towards the table, but she was so distracted that she didn't watch where her legs were going and stubbed her toe.

"FUCK!" Her voice filled the whole courtyard and her team smiled gently, that was their Mistress...

...

Chen Shi dispersed the burned Talisman and returned to Lady Liu.

She was currently staring at small animal figures made out of glass. Lady Liu liked this kind of thing and had collected quite a lot of them already.

Most were displayed in Chen Shi's study, but he would always move them to wherever Lady Liu was.

If she was in a different city, he would move those small figurines to that city. If she was on a flying ship, he would move them onto the flying ship... You get the idea.

He doted on Lady Liu greatly, but at the same time he took distance, he was likewise watched over by a Sage, those spiteful fucks would be able to erase him if he got too close to her.

The problem was that Lady Liu's bright 'light' could not be ignored, he was drawn to her again and again, hundreds upon hundreds of times, yet none of those times he was able to truly confess his feelings.

He was like a lost puppy trying to get her attention only onto himself, but failing miserably.

He was not fluffy enough than those lowly Foxes, so most of her attention was on them. Fortunately, by his calculations, Lady Liu should be able to live a few more years, which will be enough to visit that auction and find a way to prevent that from happening again.

He already failed 389 times... he didn't want to fail again!