Ch-34-The Surprise
After my words, they calmed down once more, and color returned to their faces. Lou Xia herself looks around before saying, "This place is definitely better for cultivation, and with the shrine of a goddess here, I guess it would be improper to use it without permission."
I sighed once more at that before taking another deep breath to calm down and respond, "It would be fine if you cultivated here, but please at least show some respect when you do, and don't just treat this place as some sort of cultivation resource."
Lou Xia seemed to take this as a personal attack, which it sort of was, and defended, "I wasn't saying that!"
At that point, I could only give her a blank look as I asked, "Then what were you saying earlier?"
She instantly started to defend herself again when I asked that saying, "That was not what I meant!"
I continued giving her a blank stare as I asked, "Then what did you mean?"
That left her floundering for a few seconds before she closed her mouth and stared back at me, causing tension to fill the air around us.
We maintained that for a few moments, just standing there looking at each other as the air was filled with tension so thick that you could cut it with a knife.
Eventually, I turned away and walked up to the shrine and knelt at the base to begin praying once more.
I stayed there even as I heard someone walk up and knelt down next to me. This lasted for a few minutes more when I heard the person next to me start moving.
With the footsteps moving away, I also got up and turned around.
From what I could tell, the person who was kneeling next to me was Lou Xia, as the other three were standing off to the side on the path to the house and outside the range of the shrine.
Following Lou Xia on her way out of the shrine, I am greeted by the three of them ending their conversation and looking over at me.
Mrs. Xia then asked, "With this done, what will you do now?"
"I will go back to the library to get some more books for research as I am currently out," I said, ignoring what had happened earlier.
The look on her face then changed to what I thought was an apologetic expression with a hint of something else that I was not able to fully place, hope maybe, as she then waved her hand at one of the maids nearby and asked me, "Will you need any help with that?"
Seeing this and with what just happened still in mind, I lowered of my head and answered, "If they can, that would be great."
When I did that I almost immediately heard her say, "There is no need for that." As she hurriedly grabbed my shoulder with one hand and using her other hand to attempt to raise my head.
Following her encouragement, I raised my head and looked from her to Lou Xia and back. They both started laughing when I did that and the last of the atmosphere from earlier was dispersed.
Soon, we were walking back through the house and over to the entry hall of the house.
Here, I saw many of the maids walk back and forth through the front door, with a few things in their hands entering the house and nothing except for a few large chests leaving.
Over to the side, I heard both Mr. and Mrs. Xia thanking the old man that they invited and ended up getting caught up in a conversation.
This went on even until after the maids finished their work.
That was when Lou Xia grabbed my hand and pulled me outside, where a carriage was waiting with two maids standing next to it. She did not even stop to greet the maid and pulled me straight into the carriage, closing the door behind her.
I was about to ask her what was going on when the carriage started moving, and I decided to just close my mouth and wait to see where we ended up.
When we stopped, Lou Xia got up to open the door when it opened for us with one of the maids holding it open.
Stepping down, I followed her and found that we were standing in front of the Library.
I was instantly excited and moved over to the elder with what looked to be me walking, but if you paid attention to how fast I moved, you would be forgiven for thinking that I had run over. The elder himself looked up and saw the carriage behind me and looked back to me with a question in his eyes.
I proceeded to explain to him that I needed it so I could transport all the copies of the books I would need for my research. He sat there for a second before it seemed that he understood what my words meant.
Soon, he called over a few disciples and asked them to help me grab a copy of everybody's tempering manual in the library and take it to the carriage. This was a great help and turned into something that could have taken around half an hour to around ten minutes.
I started to thank him, but he stopped me, saying that he just hoped that I could help out by fixing most of the techniques and adding at least one that is of at least the Immortal level.
With that, Lou Xia, me, and the maids were heading back to the mansion in almost no time. I also had a new book in my hand that I was excitedly reading while ignoring the world again.
In the back of my mind, there was something telling me that I was forgetting something and that there was someone watching me, but I just continued to ignore them.
When we made it back to the mansion, I did not even wait. I rushed out of the carriage and tried to grab one of the chests.
This did not last long, as I was not able to lift it, but I was soon saved by a few maids coming out of the house and carrying them for me.
With them transporting them, I went into the house and quickly made my way to my room so I could continue to do my research. Once in my room, I sat on the sofa and started reading my book with my notebook placed next to me.
This lasted until the end of the day when I was called for dinner again and joined the family in the dining room.
At dinner, there was a small conversation about what each of us did today before we finished, and then we all went to our rooms.
There, I did a bit more reading before choosing to turn in for the night. In the morning, I went to the bathroom and cleaned myself up before going back to my room and doing more research.
I was interrupted about an hour into my research by the maids again for their morning routine.
It was here that I informed them that their action was not needed and also reminded them not to try touching my tail or ears again.
They seemed surprised by my words for a moment as I saw one of them about to make an excuse when Silica walked in.
It was quite a sight watching them get scolded and chewed out by her. However, I could roughly understand why they tried to do that and stepped in to stop them from getting scolded too bad.
They immediately looked at me like I was their savior as Silica sighed and told them to leave the room.
I quickly contradicted that and asked them to guide me to the shrine instead, which caused all three of the girls to get confused.
Regardless, they did as ordered, and once there, I walked up to the statue and prayed for a few minutes before going back to the house and to the dining room, where I waited for breakfast.
At breakfast, there was a conversation about what I was doing and if I had found any interesting things yesterday, which started my ranting about all the different intricacies of the techniques and how obvious some of the mistakes were.
Afterward, I returned to my room and did more research on the techniques I now had in my hands.
This was only interrupted when dinner came around and I was informed of it by the maids. This cycle carried on for a couple of weeks.
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(Raina POV)
It had been a few weeks since I had met and adopted that cute little kitsune girl.
I did not follow her to the sect because I could not return immediately due to a treaty I had signed once before. However, thanks to the disciple Lou Xia, I could return in a few days.
Since I was ready to move at a moment's notice, I did not need to prepare anything and I was spending this entire time meditating in my room.
For some reason, not only did the enhanced attunement to the world laws not go down, but it even increased. I thought that it would only be a temporary thing from the little kitsune staying in the room, but it turned out to be a very different outcome.
These thoughts went through my mind so fast that not even a millisecond passed.
This was interrupted not long after, as I felt a sharp pain shoot up my spine and at the top of my skull while my ears went completely numb faster than even those thoughts in my head.
The blood in my veins started to boil, and all the muscles, bones, and organs in my body started to itch.
In my dantain and Qi pathways, I felt as if my Qi was changing as well. Soon, my meridians felt like they started to shatter slowly in sequence around my body.
This went on for what felt like days or even weeks with no end, as the pain was greater than anything I have ever felt.
When the pain started to fade, I was able to feel that my body seemed to be more intune with the laws of the world. I was also able to notice that I could see better in the dark and that my nails felt like they were sharper and could be extended like a set of claws.
My hearing was also enhanced on top of my sense of touch. However, the one thing that caught me off guard was when I felt a soft, fluffy thing touch my back, and that I could also feel that I was touching my back with some form of new limb.
I knew of a few spiritual techniques that could create spectral limbs that could give touch feedback, but none of them could make ones that felt real or fluffy.
Spinning around to look behind me at the new limb I had, I caught a glimpse of something far too familiar that should not have been there.
Reaching up to the top of my head, I feel that I now have a new pair of fluffy ears and that my old human ears are gone.
Looking around the room for what could have turned me into a kitsune, I noticed that out of the corner of my eye, there was a change in my cultivation mat.
A small little group of fox fur in the shape of a nine-tailed kitsune.
What was throwing me off though, was that the fox fur seemed to be dripping with blood.