Cultivation Struggles of a Lowly Fox

Tao Xuefeng was fuming.

Aiko giggled cutely. "I can't believe an esteemed Inscription Cultivator would resort to cheats."

As Aiko's Soul recovered she was able to create more elaborate traps for her opponents.

The Elders frowned, now it was not just a duel between youngsters, but a duel between Inscription Cultivators. They could no longer aid Tao Xuefeng.

They bought Tao Xuefeng the same Pen and Ink that Aiko had. There was no real time limit, but it was advised to complete the Inscription as soon as possible.

Tao Xuefeng used her pen to carve into a wooden stick. She was skilled and her hand was steady. She was able to finish in half an hour, with a score of 98.

Aiko smiled from ear to ear. She had a brilliant idea.

She picked up her Pen and slowly carved the wooden stick as the girl did. She was a bit faster, but her hand was steadier, she finished in 25 minutes, but because it counted from the time Tao Xuefeng started she managed to finish it in 55 minutes.

The Patriarch scored Aiko.

"99 Points." The Patriarch said gently. The peanut gallery with Elders fell quiet.

"That can't be right."
"What's wrong with her? She barely managed to beat [Inscription Adept]..."
"There is no way that's it, right?"

"Patriarch..." Tao Xuefeng's father gently nudged the Patriarch.

"What is it?" The Patriarch glanced at him. He then rolled his eyes and gave him the wooden stick.

The Elder tried to discredit Aiko, but her technique was refined and even when she was quicker the effect was slightly stronger. He couldn't deduct any points without becoming a clown.

"I believe that they should do another round." Tao Xuefeng's father gently coughed and proposed.

"Double the Treasures." Aiko immediately said and that Elder choked.

"What?! You little-"

"That is fine." The Patriarch overruled the Elder.

"P-Patriarch?!" The Elder was left speechless.

"Duels are normally done once, not more times, it's only natural that if you want to challenge her you need to bring more rewards." The Patriarch spoke slowly, but it was obvious he was taking Aiko's side. 'She is incredibly talented that she could guess our marking system and then improve the craft ever so slightly to beat that girl.' Patriarch smiled.

The next round was of higher difficulty. The Girl ended with 65 points.

Once again Aiko watched her and ended with 66 points.

Murmurs spread through the audience.

"I thought she would be able to create something exceptional, but she only surpassed Tao Xuefeng with only one point..."
"Yeah, it's disappointing. I also expected more."
"Can't believe I'm wasting my time on this instead of researching about Runes..."

The reception was not very good. The Elders also didn't say anything as they realized the true worth of what Aiko was doing, but none spoke about it, just in case this was a fluke.

The third round arrived and Aiko was still smiling innocently.

'I can't believe this bitch is just so so-so. How can she be [Inscription Master] when she can barely beat me? Luckily I saved up my strength for this round and I will easily beat her.' Tao Xuefeng was still clueless about what was Aiko doing and she would stay like that since nobody ever dared to play with her.

She was the shining star, the prodigy of the millennium. She was the undefeated champion, the chosen one. She was cherished and worshipped by many.

This caused her intelligence to degrade greatly, which brought even more issues. She believed that everything should go her way, so when the third round finished and scores were told...

"WHAT!? HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE?!" Tao Xuefeng screamed like mad.

"I got 126 points! I used the best technique! How can she still get 127 points!" Tao Xuefeng couldn't comprehend it.

"Again!" Tao Xuefeng challenged Aiko again.

The Audience was bored at this stage, the first two rounds were interesting, but after seeing Aiko effortlessly wipe her with Tao Xuefeng, they lost interest...

The interest was regained once they saw Aiko move her tail. It would faintly mimic her hand movement when she was drawing. The Audience was attracted to that cute display and more murmurs spread.

"Did you see that tail? Isn't that just the cutest!"
"Kyyaaaa, I want to comb that tail!"
"I wonder if she can become Rune Cultivator..."

The audience quietened at the last remark. They paused to think about it and shivered in fear.

"S-hut up, you know how scary is that thought?!"
"Y-yeah you bastard! Can you imagine her drawing 11 Runes at the same time?!"

The audience fell silent, that thought was really terrifying as they already had a demonstration from the Patriarch, who dual drawn Runes. It was a terrifying display of power.

What was more the number of Runes one could draw at once would not increase the power linearly, it was explosive growth in power.

The Human Elders saw the smirking faces of the Fox Elders and they really wanted to punch them until they were half-dead, but they couldn't the moment they moved a Rune pinned them back down into a sitting position. What was worse, was that Rune would last quite a long time, meaning they would be left sitting here for a few days.

Nobody wanted to spend days in this place so they conceded. They dragged the Fuming Elder who was threatening to kill Aiko and the girl who continued screaming insults at Aiko.

"Wait!" Aiko stopped them, nobody knew why Aiko stopped them, so they stared at the Patriarch.

"Don't forget my rewards! Meat, Spirit Stones and 3 Treasures!" Aiko counted on her little fingers. Half of the audience fainted, they couldn't bear with Aiko's cuteness.

The Elder was let go temporarily, but most of his Qi was sealed, he opened his Ring and gave Aiko one piece of meat, a couple of Spirit Stones and 3 worthless Treasures.

Aiko stomped his hand.

"AGH!" The Elder screamed as his bones were crushed by Aiko.

"Seriously you shitty old bastards have quite the balls right!" Aiko cursed him and his blindingly shining head.

"You think I'm easy to bully? Even with your Spiritual Power, I can make you into an eunuch!" Aiko kept kicking him.

The audience couldn't help but laugh out loud. A small cute little thing was beating a grown-ass guy. It was just too comical.

"Now listen you bastard, I want 2 podium-sized meat, Spirit Stones that I can roll in them and you will turn your Treasury upside down so I can choose the Treasures! Ptooey" Aiko spat at his shiny head, slapping paper there with words written 'Bald Fuck'.

[[Babi-barian] Activated! Emotional damage increased!]

The rest of the audience fainted and Tao Xuefeng's father was looking like he was eating shit.

The Patriarch coughed awkwardly. "Isn't that a little excessive?"

"If you go into a restaurant and order a meat omelette, but instead you get a bucket full of shit. Would you be happily eating or force that cook to eat his own shit?" Aiko stared directly at Patriarch and raised that question.

The audience recovered and agreed with Aiko's motion, now they had the opportunity to go after those two assholes and they would take every little opportunity to do so!

"That's right, the prize can't be that shabby."
"They insulted her, but wanted to withdraw paying the price!"
"Can't believe we have such a shameless Elder."

The Elder was completely red glaring at Aiko, but Aiko wouldn't budge.

"I will gather Elder's Treasure for you to pick, we will come tomorrow with it." The Patriarch said gently. 'That also means you will finally leave this place...' He sighed.

Aiko snorted but didn't say anything against it. She went to drag Mei into the South courtyard, naturally picking the biggest place which even had a large sofa.

Aiko jumped on it and rolled a few times to ascertain quality. She gave Mei a thumbs up that it was good and Mei giggled.

She sat down near Aiko and petted her gently. Aiko was happily humming.

The other Fox tests went well and without complications, the Patriarch had to kick 80% of his Elder, since all of them were guilty.

'So much paperwork...' The Patriarch was without a Soul, he would now have to do a lot more paperwork as 17 out of the 20 Elders were kicked out. He would have to manage 18 Peaks by himself or delegate the other 3 Elders to spread out the work, but either way, it was extremely bad for him.

Aiko enjoyed sleeping on the sofa. Her Beast Core was almost completely depleted from this fortuitous encounter. She still didn't like the stares from the Audience.

They kept staring at Aiko's slowly moving tail. Some shivered, some felt pressured to pray towards that tail, and some even made small shrines with things from their rings.

The 3 Elders sighed in displeasure, sure, her display of power was great, but to warrant this... they couldn't agree with the youngsters, but since there were too many youngsters it was difficult to rail them in line.

They could only watch as multiple shrines were created and small grounds of people prayed to the small shrines.

They also gave their offering, from simple Spirit Stones to... underwear...???

The Elders immediately took action punishing the Human Disciples.

Meanwhile, Aiko was quietly sleeping ignoring this commotion and Mei could only wryly smile.

...

The whole event was... peaceful... mostly. None of the Foxes were injured and the Patriarch was able to clear his Association from bad apples.

Aiko and Mei returned to their West wing, only to find it completely trashed up. It was a good idea to bring all the Foxes as they only lost some of their possessions.

"We will talk with the Patriarch later about this."
"And we will make him pay for the damages."
"And we will quietly increase it~"

The Elders laughed in glee, they previously told them to pack up everything since they would be leaving so the worst loss was some clothing and maybe a few Spirit Stones, but Patriarch didn't know that, they would be able to squeeze quite a few Treasures from him.

...

Aiko went to her bed lifelessly, her Beast Core was almost empty, only leaving her with-

Beast Cores(50%): 100 (32,130)

'Who would've thought that that duel would drain me so much...' Aiko was sad as they kept increasing the difficulty thus increasing the Beast Core consumption.

'At least I will have some Treasures, but I should also loot the East Wing for this displeasure of mine, I will have to calm myself down with some rare books or something...' Aiko thought this was a good plan.

"Where you are going?" Mei smiled, but that smile didn't reach her eyes.

Aiko shivered. "Nowhere!" And she was forced to stay behind.

"You are not going anywhere today, tomorrow you will choose those Treasures and Inscription Master Token and we will be going, okay?" Mei pinched the mischievous Aiko's cheeks.

Mei enjoyed Aiko's performance, but that didn't mean she could spoil her here.

'Those Elders are still on the loose, we need to be careful about retaliation...' Mei thought this wouldn't be the end since her carefully changed Array was changed again into a hidden Trapping Array.

Naturally, she already worked on changing that, but she didn't like the fact that someone tinkered with her work. She would make that person pay in blood!