Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Aiko walked from her home to this place, feeling very refreshed and ready to tackle whatever would come her way. Her main worry being those numerous villages among other things.

It should be possible to somehow eliminate them, but is there a way to do it smartly?

’Most things would take too many Soul Points...’ Aiko had a few things in mind. Crazy things of course, but fortunately or unfortunately, she didn’t have enough Soul Points to realise those crazy plans.

Shaking her head gently, the best weapon she could probably use right now was the sling and the golf club.

The golf club was particularly nice since the balls for it were also free, but hit like they meant business.

But there were issues with them. Even if Aiko hit them with full strength, their accuracy would be questionable, but if it did hit it would hit hard. The main issue was balancing accuracy with strength.

Without strength, the ball would not have enough speed to actually hit, and those little riders would just dodge out of the way before it hit them.

Aiko could deplete her ball reserve within a few seconds of starting, so she also needed means of transportation. That came with the same issues as before, Soul Points and if it got destroyed she wouldn’t even get a refund from her paying for that.

What she could do was to make it by hand. There was a forest some way away, this one didn’t burn because it was probably part of this Wave, but how far was it actually? How was the quality? And so on...

She didn’t want to end up like with her armour, where she wouldn’t even get there and die of exhaustion, but she also didn’t want to camp outside since she liked the bed in here.

’Wait, can’t I just build a mobile home?’ Aiko raised her eyebrow. It would be a bit difficult to defend, but she could just hide it with leaves and stuff no? Maybe even find something nice that could even conceal it?

’That way I don’t have to deal with the distance, but...’ Aiko groaned since she would have to actually buy those expensive things!

’Renting was fine, since it didn’t cost too much, but actually buying it would cost me more than I currently have...’ Aiko groaned even more when she realised this.

And then once again when she realised that this place was actually growing in size each Wave.

’Does that mean that I will have to eventually travel around...?’ Aiko tilted her head. This would mean she would have to buy some kind of transportation eventually, but not right now.

Aiko shook her head. Maybe transportation was not needed yet, but would be very necessary later, but even now...

”I’m supposed to walk that far?” No, this definitely called for the damned library!

...

Following her usual path, she was already inside the library, looking for any books she could find.

”I see...” Aiko nodded her head. While there were techniques that she knew and also didn’t know. How she applied them was very different to the outside world.

Here, everything was structured as the early system. You clicked it and it would activate.

Aiko didn’t dislike this kind of system, but there was just a small problem with this.

She couldn’t take this knowledge to the outside world. That’s also why she was considering not learning anything like this, because she could only use it inside here and who knows if the next time she came in here, everything would reset, and she would have to build everything from scratch. She definitely didn’t want to experience that.

”But then...” There were techniques like the flying sword, or the Gate of Capital B, whatever that was.

Many wondrous techniques that she wouldn’t be able to get in the real world.

Well, it would still be fun suing them in here, but it would cost her.

There were things that didn’t cost her anything and things that cost her a lot. Cultivation stuff cost her a lot even if she didn’t convert it to reality, so she was hesitant on using those.

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But of course, their effects were already proven, so she wouldn’t really waste Soul Points.

”Hmmmm...” Aiko read about the different ways of Cultivation and was trying to figure out how to make use of this.

In general, there are 3 ways to cultivate: Body Cultivation, Energy Cultivation and Soul Cultivation.

Under Body Cultivation you had: Sword Intent Cultivation + variants and Body Cultivation.

Under Energy Cultivation: You had the flying swords, blazing palms and so on, since it required a lot of energy to make it work. Things like flying swords could also be used by Sword Cultivators, but they had slightly different ways of using it. Pretty much anything heavily reliant on Qi was in this category.

Soul Cultivation: Soul Cultivation, Ghost Cultivation, Purification and so on. Pretty much anything and everything that was considered ’untouchable’.

Aiko was currently cultivating her Soul, so she could be considered Soul Cultivator, but she also fiddled with Qi’s, but she didn’t fiddle much with Body Cultivation.

Sure, she did get those nice baths, but that was more so for the Energy Cultivation category than Body Cultivation.

With all that being said, there was a possibility that she would be able to gain abilities based on what she already knew.

[Most of them are Beast-related, but you are not such a thing, Princess.]

”But doesn’t that mean that half of them are useless?” Aiko frowned at her system.

[That is incorrect. The reason why the techniques can’t be moved to the real world, is because they do not exist.]

”They do exist, but the way we will use them in this place does not exist.” Aiko nodded her head. This was quite enlightening and would help her more later down the line, but for now.

”What is the point then?” Aiko tilted her head.

[They are merely conveniences that you were already used to using. Kind of like the clothing shops that serve Human Cultivators.]

”... There was such a thing...?” Aiko blinked at her system a few times.

[...]

”Wait, seriously?!” Aiko thought that the system was pulling her leg, but that was not the case. The system was completely curious and now Aiko was wondering what else she missed out on!

”... Where can I find it?” Aiko laughed awkwardly, but a book floated in front of her.

”Basics of how they get around inside a Soul...” The title felt like it was mocking her, but she wouldn’t jump into conclusion yet. The book looked quite nice, with dark green colour and lighter coloured letters.

It was kind of a depressing book, exactly how Aiko was feeling.

”Buy a map...?” Aiko blinked several times. She then rubbed her eyes if she saw incorrectly, but no matter what she did, those words didn’t disappear.

”Huhuhu...” Aiko was losing it, since she didn’t find a place to get the map from.

”Map.” However, Aiko just had to call it out with the intent to look at it.

A large flat map manifested in front of her. It seemed like this map was only of the inside of this safe area, which was a bit of a bummer, but what did she expect?

This place was made by the system, and it was supposed to help Aiko grow, but she just bulldozed everything, making carefully prepared missions, burning up in flames...

With that in mind. Aiko looked over the whole safe area, and she found even more shops. There were even specialised shops for weapons and such things, where she could marginally tinker with the weapons and pay later once she actually tested that the weapon worked.

This place was a lot bigger than Aiko was aware of. There were even some mines and stuff that would allow her to gain necessary ingredients for her weapon.

Most of those resources were Soul related, so they were actually real, but there was no need to say that to Aiko.

For her to craft and do pretty much anything without forcing herself, there needs to be a layer of fog, so that her choice only depends on her.

This would not only teach her independence, but it would also teach her critical thinking.

Aiko read the map a bit more. There were even taverns that were supposed to act as summoning platforms, but looking closely most of those locations were greyed out.

They were either not in business, or they were still being built.

The building time probably depended on her clearing the Waves, but that was just her conjecture, there was nothing concrete about it.

Looking around a bit more. There was actually a knock-off shop of what she could find, but she didn’t really care about food and Pills and whatnot.

She was looking for transportation and cheaply at that. The reason being is that she could just drive it to the forest and repair it over there so that she didn’t need to run back and forth.

However, the condition of these knock-offs was... pretty bad.

Aiko was not sure if she would even make it to the forest with this kind of garbage, buuuut hey, it only cost 10,000 for a nice large caravan.

She would try to repair this before doing anything, because if she filled it up with her stuff, only for it to then break down. Aiko would have to then carry all that stuff back making her even more upset over this whole thing.

So if this garbage broke, at least she didn’t have to carry anything along.

With that being said. She did need some tools, for cutting wood, stripping bark and that kind of thing.

Aiko didn’t really care about efficiency, since she would be on it for a while, but what was important was the quality the tools could produce.

With that in mind, she should probably get some tools for cutting down trees and such. There were things like chainsaws, but the problem with them was that it required fuel and fuel was expensive.

Playing with it once in a while was fine, but she couldn’t really use it in this kind of scenario.

Most of those tools were free anyway, as long as those tools didn’t ’help you’, like the chainsaw.

With that said and done, Aiko went around to gather plenty of tools, just in case they broke. This way she wouldn’t have to return immediately and could still stay and produce something out of pretty much scrap.

Another thing she would need were nails, but only the lower-quality ones were for free, so Aiko was seriously considering just buying them. Each nail was only like 1 Soul Point, so it was cheap...