Hei Tian was such a sore loser!

The training ended with Kou being utterly destroyed! Now that he knew about her ice flame he avoided it easily. Crushing her just like always. Well, she was thankful for that! Kou wanted to beat him more often now but she would have to try harder for that.The intense desire to beat Hei Tian to a pulp ignited flames in Kou! That boy would regret his training with her at some point! She would make sure of it. Today also taught her a valuable lesson! It was that she could win if she could surprise her opponent even mid-fight!

This also made her realize how important it was to keep your skills a secret as best as possible, or at least have a trump card to turn the tables on the opponent. Kou had always just used her movement skill to dash from Shadow to Shadow trying to get hits on her enemies before they could react to her, but now she could also freeze them! Just like she did with Hei Tian. She also never used her Light attribute skill "Spiritual Weapon" in any fights, just because she was awful at using it but with the progress, she had made in Shi Shi's training she may just be able to Master it properly soon!

People saw her using her shadow jumping, so that was probably already a well-known fact, but nobody aside from her friends had seen her use her ice or spiritual weapon, so she still had aces up her sleeves! A somewhat vicious grin snuck on her face as she imagined the people that would try to attack her once the peace period was over! While she was deeply thinking about beating someone that looked a lot like Fu Tengfang up.

Li Zhi made her way over to Kou. "So.. Yun Kou, do you have time this evening for the trial? I want it done before the peace is over." Li Zhi had asked Kou for her help a long time ago, but she had never pushed it - fo her asking now showed that she was somewhat anxious.

Kou, of course, had never forgotten the girl asking her and nodded slowly "Have time." She confirmed and looked up to the taller girl "When and where?" Her questions were simple as always - down to the point but she seemed not unfriendly with the other girl her voice was soft and the corner of her mouth was slightly turned. Kou rarely smiled at people so her treating Li Zhi with such familiarity meant a lot, at least for Yun Kou.

"The entrance is deep in the woods, I know where it is so we go together, we have to go to the very edge of the allowed area. The trial is primarily for Water users, but it also needs speed, so with both of us it should be very easy, I hope..."Li Zhi smiled at Kou her eyes glowing with anticipation! Li Zhi looked forward on doing something with Yun Kou on her own! Away from the sect where people like Fu Tengfang will ambush them!

The journey to the trial side was not worth a mention at all, With Kou being in the second realm and Li Zhi at the very cusp of being so herself none of the lower first realm creatures around posed any kind of threat, the only foes that could beat them were deep in the Spider's nest, and much to Kou's joy they made a detour to avoid it. The further out one went the darker the forest became, the creatures turned from early to mid - to mid to late first realm - and soon all sunlight was gone. But it was not dark, the trees had some kind of glowing mushroom growing on them which filled the forest with an eery blue light.

Kou felt Li Zhi in her back, the girl had grasped her cloak at some point, Kou had no problems with this forest but Li Zhi seemed terrified, which made Kou wonder once more why the girl wanted to do this specific trial so badly! "So...Why this?" She asked plainly and glanced over her shoulder at the taller girl that tried to hide behind her, her fluffy ears twitching slightly

Li Zhi gasped and grumbled "Well, I did some inquiry and apparently this trial rewards some things that would be rather useful for me, and maybe you - 've heard from an Inner sect member my family has contacts with that there is quite a powerful water art amidst others in here! It's so far out so that only the talented disciples can get to here! That art would help me out a lot, my families technique does not evolve much further anymore, while it is powerful it won't give me the edge I need to compete with ... with everyone." She bit her lower lip and glanced up to Kou

"Mh, Fine." She hummed while nodding -pressing on - as Li Zhi refused to move away from her back - Kou's fluffy tail gently wrapped around the girl's hips "Stop holding me... " She murmured, Li Zhi holding on to her was a bother so she held on to her! It was a lot easier being the person that had the choice of 'letting go' after all. Li Zhi was perfectly fine with this arrangement her soft hands digging into the fluffy tail fur which made Kou's ears twitch again. But they continued on!

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A few more minutes and they found a dark hole in the ground, it was .. literally just a hole, Kou rubbed her head slightly - it looked like someone had just gone and took a piece of land away! Next to it was one of the big copper plates that every trial seemed to have.

"Water and Speed promise success, but beware of the depths."

Kou curled her nose at that but did not comment on it, her ears twitched... she felt small fingers brushing through her tail fur over and over again - turning around showed Li Zhi with a stupid grin on her face as she continued to stroke Kou's tail over and over again, Kou was not particularly ticklish but her tail seemed to be rather sensitive, in annoyance Kou grunted and pulled her tail back. She could see Li Zhi's smile drop slightly as she watched the fluffy tail wrapping around Kou's hip. She coughed and nodded trying to recompose herself "Well...we are here, I don't know too much about what is inside but I know that I need to do this before we ... jump."

Li Zhi stretched out her left hand - closing her eyes she concentrated and water QI gathered around her hand, she summed forth a stream of water! It came out of her hand like a spring falling down into this seemingly bottomless pit, Kou could hear it fall down and reach the bottom a little later, but Li Zhi continued - she placed a pill into her mouth with her right hand while her face seemed strained. Just a little while later she crushed the pill with her teeth swallowing it in one go! It was some kind of replenishing pill, Kou could tell just from looking, suddenly Li Zhi was so full of QI that she almost exploded! She could see the girls veins grow and almost pop, but the Qi quickly found an outlet in Li Zhi's current water summoning business.

Li Zhi had not explained whatsoever why she was doing that so Kou simply stood off to the side twiddling her thumbs waiting for the other girl to be done with whatever she was doing, it would probably have a use later on... Minutes went on... and on. After a while Kou took some jerky out of her pockets and started to chew on them just to pass the time while Li Zhi stood there - still filling the hole with water - she was currently sweaty and pale, but she already had another of those pills in her right hand playing with it between her fingers, she seemed hesitant to use another.

After another few minutes Kou gazed down into the dark hole, there was no Water to be seen so if Li Zhi wanted to fill it up... Kou... blinked and lied down - she would take a nap while the other girl was busy, Li Zhi did not explain properly! So Kou would just wait until the girl was done - closing her eyes she let out a yawn before drifting into a very light sleep.

Li Zhi was struggling, she knew what she had to do, the Inner Sect member had told her from his experiences, if one would just climb or jump down they would just find an empty hole, only if the hole was filled to the brim with water and one dove downwards would you find the entrance - this trial was primarily used to test Water users, their endurance, skill, and strength with the element. Water was often used to support and defend so this trial did exactly that!

She had spent a lot of spirit stones for the pills for replenishing her Qi, those were actually for people in the second realm so it almost made her dantian burst when she took one, she had to quickly use all the new Qi or she would risk internal injuries. But the upper-classman had not told her how deep this hole was! And she did not know it would take this long! She had not told Kou wanting to impress the other girl with filling the hole up quickly! But by now Kou had even fallen asleep...Li Zhi's spirit was at an all-time low but she continued with gritted teeth, she needed the reward of this trial!

It seemed like hours had gone past her by now - and she had to use the second pill, those were REALLY expensive! She felt her purse bleeding as she crushed the next pill, her QI filling up in an instant up to the brim! She felt like she could crush mountains at that moment but it quickly changed to a feeling of bursting, as if she would explode due to being unable to hold in all that might.

She redoubled her efforts of summoning Water using the overflow of Qi.

Finally...it was done. She was SPEND! Li Zhi had to stand there for another 20 minutes and pour water until she finally filled the hole up! Her Qi was halfway depleted even after the second pill! But that was good enough, her exhaustion was more on the mental side - continuously using a technique and spending Qi over hours was not something any first realm person could do, and so Li Zhi currently had the mother of all headaches

Kou was still sleeping and so ...Li Zhi curled up next to the other girl for a quick nap herself, now that the hole was full the water would not go away, even if she took a short nap.

Kou opened one eye - apparently Li Zhi was done...and exhausted as the other girl curled up next to her and fell asleep in an instant, Kou curled her nose - her fluffy tail moved forward and she put it around Li Zhi's shoulders, the strained and exhausted expression on the other girls face seems to soften slightly. Sitting up Kou watched her sleep... she would pull her tail away the moment she saw any signs of Li Zhi waking up...

She did not want the other girl to pester her in the future about touching her tail... that seemed... dangerous in a very particular way. Well... she might also be a bit shy about wanting to ease the other girls sleep.. but, she would never tell anyone...