Kou felt very sick. This old man had been very powerful. Aside from Bingqing he might've been the most powerful person she had ever encountered, and the gap of power between her and him was so very clear, Kou was very aware of the fact that even if she gave everything she had she would still not win in a fight.
So she made the mental note to avoid him at all costs.
However, she would not stay here for too long anyway, she had already found out where the blade was and it just so happened that there would be a small kind of tournament soon in which the royal children, as well as some high ranking nobles, would compete with each other. The reward? One wish would be granted to the winner by the emperor.
This was her best bet on getting the treasure. There was just... the small fact that she was just the spirit pet of a princess right now. She could not participate. But... her "owner" could. Now just for a way to convince the girl to help her...
Kou decided to just go with the truth, so at one evening when the two of them were alone, Ning Jiao was currently cultivating, for a girl barely around 12 was already very good. having reached the second realm without a hitch, as she was already nearing the third.
Kou poked the girl with her nose, looking up. "Hey." Her voice was soft and high-pitched and sounded quite a bit different from her usual tone. Ning Jiao was startled and jumped up her eyes darting around for a moment before they settled on Kou. "Little Xue, you can talk?!" The girl's eyes seem to sparkle as she looked down.
"Can talk." She confirmed and moved over to the bed to jump up on it. "I've come here for a reason. I like you but I have my own objective in coming here." She let the girl calm down for a moment from the shock of her pet suddenly talking before she continued
"A member of my family is bond and cursed and can't get away, I need a treasure from your royal family to safe her, that is why I have come here for."
There was a myriad of better and smarter ways to do this but these ways were nothing for Kou. She would not try to do it like that. She had her grievances with the Ning family but the little time she had to spend with Ning Jiao already told her that this little girl was very different from her older brother.
Ning Jiao glanced down at this tiny fox talking to her and tilted her head slightly to the side, her pure eyes sparkling. "Mh! If Little Xue needs help, Jiao will help! But Jiao is not very good at fighting and such. Jiao's cultivation is more about healing and defense, you know? Jiao has a special body type that is very good with that."
She started to chat again, she talked a lot... which Kou knew was because nobody else aside from her would treat her like a normal kid, she was so pretty and pure that people would stay away from her out of instinct in fear of defiling the beauty.
Well, it was also a bit of her own fault, to be honest. She never really tried to approach anyone, everyone just saw her as a thing, and not really as a person, she was a lonely lotus flower in an empty pond.
Kou snickered slightly. "Don't worry, I will train you until the day of the tournament! And I will keep you safe if there is anyone that eclipses your power, just tell me and I will beat them up!" Kou sounded quite sure of herself but Jiao could not help but feel a little helpless, how would this small creature beat someone up? Big brother wouldn't have given her if this creature was very strong.
Kou had no idea of the thoughts that this little girl had right now and her eyes were glowing. "First of all, take these, a Master I know made these for me to cultivate with, sadly he is very busy so he can't help." Obviously, this was a blatant lie, but Kou handed the girl some pills. Even in her current form, she could still use her storage cloak!
This interaction obviously stunned Jiao for a moment, but then she became excited! Maybe she could really do this? If she won maybe people would stop treating her like a fragile flower! She wanted friends and she wanted to talk with people! Shedding her image sounded like a good idea to her!
And if she could help little Xue it was even better!
Putting in some of the pills she had just gotten she sat down, before her eyes almost popped out. What was with these pills! They were better than anything the royal alchemist created that was for sure!
She had no time to be shocked however, the medical energy in her body was almost bursting out and she had to start cultivating immediately otherwise she would either waste the pills or ... explode! Which was very worrying indeed.
She wished little Xue had told her about these pills beforehand! If she had known these pills were so strong she wouldn't have taken them without preparations. She had very little time to get accustomed to this!
Kou, on the other hand, watched the girl with glowing eyes as she sat down, she would train this little Ning girl not like one would train a princess, she would train her the Kou way. And that meant stupidly hard! Not a single step was taken back! Once the tournament started her family would lose their faith in heaven and earth.
.....
A big news shock the capital city a few days later, Ning Jiao the renowned pearl of the Ning family would be participating in the tournament! Nobody had expected that! This tournament quite a big attraction in the capital city. The young lords would be able to square off against each other showing who was most likely to be the leader of their generations!
You could come from a good family, you could have a shocking background, but if your talent was bad and you had no power you would not amount to much in the capital city! It was also a way for the older generation to choose promising disciples.
Obviously in the end there was always a Ning that won, but that was just because they were the empirical family! However this time... this might actually not be the case, because an even more shocking news bit was spreading in the capital city, Xiu Shihong from the Xiu clan was coming and she had recently reached core formation in record time! Also...It was a Golden Core! It was a shocking piece of news! Obviously most of the influential people in the capital city knew about Xiu Shihong the headstrong child. They knew that she had ended her engagement with Ning Yu, the promising young prince, and they also knew how she had beaten him up quite badly.
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But what was shocking was that she apparently had not been tamed! She actually had reached Gold Core! How rare was that?! Not even the old emperor had a Golden Core! And now a tyrannical woman like her had gotten one! And she was on her way here to engage in combat with the capitals elite youth! Was that not a little unfair? She was in core formation and not even 20! They could complain in their hearts but could not complain out loud, the only requirement was to not yet be above the age of thirty when entering. Who else was so talented to reach golden core before twenty anyway! There were dreadfully small cases! Even Ning Yu who had the biggest talent in the empirical family was still struggling in the fourth realm, even with the rumors going on that he was about to get into core formation!
It was such a shame...a girl would actually win.
...
Kou oversaw Ning Jiao's training while she herself was getting accustomed to her new form, if she wanted to use her powers properly and win she would need to be proficient with this body after all! She created little Ice golems for Ning Jiao to fight with, this was something she was able to do now that she was in core formation, her Ice Core was most powerful when manipulating ice after all! So powerful that she could infuse ice with her energy and make constructs this way. Something unheard off in the Ning Empire! A puppet or construct usually took multiple cultivators all pouring their power into a very complicated and expensive formation! The poor soldiers at DongZhou would curse the world if they knew about this!
She was also in a very good mood today! The reason for it had happened earlier this morning....
"Little Xue, Little Xue. We might not be able to win this time.." Ning Jiao came rushing towards the abandoned courtyard they used for training. "I heard big news! Apparently someone that is in Core Formation has entered the tournament as well! Brother Yu also suddenly got sick for some reason. And Big Brother will also compete! He is 29 now and was supposed to not participate this time! But this lady, Xiu Shihong! It is said she is actually a Golden Core!"
Kou stopped thinking for a moment before she just started laughing to herself at the irony of this.
....
"Huff...Huff...." Ning Jiao's chest hurt, her whole body hurt, but her beautiful eyes shone with determination. This was the first time there was a challenge before her. Nobody had taken her seriously when she had entered the tournament, she was a beautiful pearl and many came to try to make her reconsider, but at some point, she just closed her palace for visitors, she fully indulged in this training.
And it was hellish, this tiny and cute fox creature that everyone thought was a cute little pet put her through hell, creating Ice Golems that were far more powerful then Ning Jiao to fight, having giving her pills that would almost rupture her meridians. Many would say the little girl was ruining herself here. But she felt different, the pain in her body was calling to her. She had always felt a little useless, she was pretty, and that was all her worth was...people liked her because she was docile.
She would've lived her life like this until her death, if not for little Xue appearing, actually asking for her help and giving her the possibility to grow out of these chains that were holding her.
Just like Kou and Xiu Shihong, she unbeknownst to herself broke the chains of destiny that had locked her in her very own path, with simple endurance, grit and the will to change if the chance was presented. She jumped with everything she had on it, as if a raging tide had finally found an outlet to burst out.
And she loved this feeling. Before she liked being visited sometimes, she liked playing, she liked learning and cute things. And she still did...But this feeling she got every time she woke up for these past few days, feeling her strength increasing every time...it was almost addicting
She would always be a beautiful flower, but right now, this flower was developing thorns.
....
Kou was a little worried, the first two days or so Ning Jiao seemed like she would drop dead after each training session, but her expression changed soon, her eyes became hard and a smile was on her face even while she was fighting with everything she got, her cultivation that was quite strong for someone her age improved so quickly that Kou felt like it was a little unfair to everyone else.
Just what did this Ning family do? Ning Jiao was a born cultivator, her talent was great her attitude was great and she even had a special body! How came she was treated like a frail little girl when she clearly was not! Just because she was cute? Some people are really just dumb!
Just because looked a little frail they went easy on her! Kou had been frail herself once and nobody went easy on her! She knew how it was to be the absolute weakest and finally having the chance to grow, to finally be able to choose your own destiny. Not having this because your family wanted to have a cute little flower? These Ning people are just dumb!
She had little to teach to Ning Jiao, as a Ning her cultivation technique was good, and the other techniques she knew were of high quality, the only thing she lacked was fighting spirit and knowledge. If you gave a grand-master a wooden sword, and a normal person an Iron one. clearly the grand-master would win after all.
....
"Ah, that girl Ning Jiao... why would she.."
The current emperor let out a sigh he had looked over the list of participates. It was already quite a big stirr when that Xiu girl came, having reached core formation, and already being so strong. He would not be able to loose face this time, so he had to send his eldest son to attend too. The reason as for why he cared was simple. An outsider was here. An old Master, war surpassing anything his Ning Empire had ever produced, if not for the barrier restricting this old Monster he could just destroy the whole empire with a flick of his sleeve!
This old Monster hat already shown interest in Ning Jiao for some reason and he did not want him to keep an eye on the girl any more than he already did.
He should've gone over the list before putting it out...
Well, it would not be so hard to defeat the girl quickly and swiftly, without hurting her. Some of the other outsiders that occasionally came to play had already shown some interest in Ning Jiao, one of them even offering to take her as a concubine in a year or two when she had grown a little.
Such a thing could bring many benefits for him and this empire! This old man was just looking for promising youths to take away. But these youngsters that came to play every now and then were clearly young masters and would be able to benefit him quite a lot. If his daughter played her cards right she might even get promoted to wife and bear an heir.
As the emperor he naturally knew some of the outside world, he knew of the insignificance of his own land, and the reason why it had not taken over yet was also clear to him. "Strengthening the Ning bloodline is the most important thing. I have no idea how father could stay so passive while knowing the rest of the world..."
.....
Kou was both somewhat nervous and happy, she would get to see Shihong again. She had missed her first friend quite a lot, and in her heart, the other girl had a quite irreplaceable place. But it was a little sad that they would have to fight against each other, Kou would not blow her cover, even if it meant to talk to Shihong for a bit. She was the Princesses pet. It was a lot better that way.
Still, Core-formation.... Kou glanced up to the stars. Shihong had done good for herself... she wondered how the others were doing. Li Zhi and Hei Tian. Just what were these two up to anyway?
Shaking her head slightly Kou closed her eyes, she trained Ning Jiao as best as she could, they would step into the fight together, which was slightly unfair.. but as for the rules of the cultivation world... one's treasures counted towards the individual strength. There were many paths of cultivation, and some of them even included bounding and training spirit beasts, so obviously they would be allowed to bring them to fight. It was the same with her and Ning Jiao, nobody would openly complain.
Still, she had to hold back a bit and try to give most of the merit to Ning Jiao.
She glanced to the side, the girl was dirty and exhausted, she just had fallen asleep on the spot. But there was a big smile on her face. Her expression bloomed when she was able to exert herself like this, feeling the strength of her body develop. Kou nodded slightly, this Ning family actually had spawned a good person! But suddenly she felt heat on her face..
Her eyes locked onto Ning Jiao and went wide...