A Little Fox’s Exploration (2)

It was nice to know that now she had an absolute way of quickly gaining her spiritual energy.

Xue Yao lost six-thousand years as a result of her appetite, but she would gain them back through eating as well. What a funny scenario.

If for every meal she ate, she gained a hundred years of spiritual energy, then didn't it mean that in twenty days, she would get to the eight thousand years that she was used to? That was less time than she expected. She thought that she would have to slave away for a few hundred years before she gained all nine tails again.

That also meant that she didn't have to worry about cultivating either. What a relaxed life this could be— just spending a few days and getting free meals as well. Now, thinking about it, she didn't mind any of this as much as she did when she first entered this world.

Xue Yao was rather satisfied. Her tail began to swing side to side at her happiness, completely involuntarily, but she didn't mind it either. She gave another look at the hut that Luo Qing was in, likely still finishing his meal, then turned herself around, leaving the area through a thin bridge that connected the hut in the pond to land itself.

Her leg didn't limp as much as it did before— cultivating the previous night and gaining those years of spiritual energy helped relieve the pain— so she might as well use her free time to explore the area around the hut.

…

Xue Yao wandered for only a few minutes before she found her way out of the sparse forest that surrounded the pond. She kept note of the spiritual energy that was contained within the trees and bamboo in case she ever had the need to cultivate. Trees were difficult to absorb spiritual energy from, but they provided more years than average plants.

The scene that she stumbled into after exiting the forest was a small stone arch that opened up a path to some gated walls. To the distance, she could hear the clanging of metal, likely swords, except that wasn't what caught her attention.

It was the fact that she could sense that the entire place inside was teeming with spiritual energy.

Excitement rose up within Xue Yao. She had to find out the origin of all this spiritual energy. If she could draw from it, wouldn't that only make her life even easier?

Carefully, she entered through the stone arch and headed closer to the direction of the clanging metal. What she saw when she found the source of the sound and all the spiritual energy didn't particularly surprise her that much.

They were just a bunch of cultivating mortals, learning different sorts of sword patterns. She expected something like this, yet she had to admit that she was slightly disappointed. Humans were easy to drain spiritual energy from, especially cultivators, but in the heavens, they didn't support it since immortals had too much of an advantage over these weak mortals.

Xue Yao supposed that she deserved some sort of exemption from the common unspoken rule, though. After all, she lost so many years of spiritual energy— it wasn't that she had too great of an upperhand. Just a slight one, by about two thousand years.

She observed the practicing cultivators for a few seconds.

It all brought back emotions and memories. Back when she was still a young fox, she often visited places like these. She guessed that this was some sort of sect, and sects were her favorite places in the past.

There were two simple reasons.

One, that sects generally had an environment teeming with spiritual energy simply so the disciples within the sect would be able to improve faster. This meant that at the same time, a small fox like Xue Yao could also improve faster.

Two, that disciples in the sects were not like average humans. They had more spiritual energy cultivated from their many years of training, lows being fifty or so years for beginners and highs being in the hundreds. Of course, the more spiritual energy an object had, the more time consuming it was to draw the years from them without their willing consent, but at least it was easier to steal from them than spending hours and hours taking all the spiritual energy from small plants.

Xue Yao used to spend her time just creeping in the shadows of these sects, randomly choosing weak victims and sapping away all of their spiritual energy. It wasn't that morally correct, but why should she be blamed?

She was born as a fox. Foxes were naturally devilish and clever creatures. It was her natural instinct.

It was really just so lucky of her that the place where she would temporarily reside, Luo Qing's hut in the pond, was so conveniently close to the sect. This was rather nice in case she ever needed anything.

For now, though, Xue Yao didn't plan to do anything. She didn't want to put in the effort when she could just enjoy herself by eating delicious meals and gaining spiritual energy at the same time—

Her decision was cut off when a yell from one of the practicing disciples interrupted it all.

"Hey! Look over there— what's that?" One of them called out, pointing in her direction.

Did they notice her?

Xue Yao thought that they were too busy with their swords and whatnot to notice her presence. Whoever spotted her must either have some excellent eyesight or be too bored to have nothing better to do than to observe the shadows formed by the walls.

She scrunched up her nose in frustration and turned around, ready to slip away when a hand rudely grabbed her and scooped her up.

'Not again, mortals…' Xue Yao growled on the inside, 'What's with everyone picking me up like that? I'm an immortal! My precious body is too good for you to touch so carelessly.'

She twisted her neck to see who it was, noticing that it wasn't the disciple that pointed her out, but rather another one. Xue Yao glared at his face for a few moments. The man wasn't a pretty one, so Xue Yao only felt a little more indignant.

She liked to judge by appearances, and this one was a mortal not quite as handsome as Luo Qing. His nose was too flat and his face too wide. He wasn't the ugliest being Xue Yao had ever seen, but it didn't help that he had a wide sneer on his face.

"Look at what this is…" he chuckled, "a nice white fox."

'Well, at least you're intelligent enough to recognize that I'm not a 'puppy', unlike some certain individual…" Xue Yao growled a little at the back of her throat, displeased with both the man for picking her up and her memory of Luo Qing's ignorant insistence that she was a dog.

The man lifted his left hand up, asking, "What do you say, brothers? Should we skin this fox and sell this fur for some good money? Surely a pure white pelt like this is worth a decent price?"

Xue Yao's eyes widened.

Skin her?

They were going to skin her and sell her fur for money?

What demented person was this?

She growled even louder now. 'Idiotic human, I'm an immortal who has been alive longer than your sorry grandmother was born! Let me go now, or suffer the consequences of saying such crude words in front of my face!'