Days went by, and finally, Kou was ready to try again, fully establishing herself in the second realm was important to her, Kou had not many goals in her life - the only thing she wanted was to stop others from bullying her and to cultivate, she liked cultivation after all.

Many people had quite a few goals in life, some wanted to protect people, and while Kou clearly wanted to do that too with her friends, it was not really something she had to think about, there was the looming end of the peace period coming up - inching closer every day, but she had little concerns about it.

Who would bully them? Li Zhi would be in the second realm herself soon, Xiu Shihong was way too powerful to be bullied, and Hei Tian? He ... He was too nice? Kou did not feel the pressing almost suffocating need to advance as many other cultivators did, she cultivated as much as she did because she found it fun.

Enemies? Well, she had one... Jie Ciao - and she would pay him and his friends back soon enough, but she did not have a full-blown vendetta against him, Fu Tengfang? He was just yelling a lot for whatever reason, so why should she care?

She did not really think about things like other cultivators did, her "Face" had no value to her, she had been treated like shit her whole life, developing an ego just because you are out of the gutter was not something she would ever do...

It was one of the big reasons she caught up so fast, while Kou was reasonably talented, not quite a genius but not far off, the biggest reason she was starting to even leave others that came from a background in cultivation behind was that she did not interact with others much, there were her 3 friends and Shi Shi - that was it, after the Jie Ciao accident she blocked herself off from the other cultivators - no talking and no looking, she just stuck to the few "friends" she had already.

And since she had to spend so little time socializing, and even less time scheming and trying to compete with her peers she almost exclusively used it for cultivation!

And so it was of little surprise to anyone that knew her that she succeeded in her second try, with the use of one spirit stone - and a few hours of continued circulation of Qi inside her - she broke the threshold of her body - the Qi rushed into her tempering her bones - cleansing her skin, blood, and tendons.

It has to be said that Kou's former lifestyle was not a healthy one at all - even after fully entering the first realm there was still a lot of impurities left in her, these were now forced out now!

But this was not all that was happening, she felt Qi gather at the end of her spine, it slowly pushed outwards - forming something like an extension of her spine, slowly but surely it grew and grew, she wanted to check this out but, no way. A hideous stench was assaulting her nose, the fact that her nose seemed to have become a lot better all of a sudden did not help whatsoever.

She was grimy all over, thank goodness she was smart enough to just wear the disposable inner robe from the sect uniform. The stench was so had that she actually was about to pass out, quickly she threw the grimy and sticky thing off, a dive into the pound, some nose-rubbing and scrubbing later she dropped to the ground as if she had just fought the deadliest of battles.'

"Giant spiders aren't that scary compared to that stench..."

Once she caught her breath she closed her eyes for a moment. Ok. She had been warned, Shi Shi had told her that this would happen - she was mentally prepared for it - she thought at least, but actually seeing and feeling it was something else.

There it was...a tail, as she wore nothing at the moment it could freely move about, it looked like a wet puppy right now, it was rather long for a fox tail - at least in Kou's opinion foxes had small and puffy tails - Well Shi Shi's tails were rather long to.. so that was not a surprise, still... it was weird. It did feel natural, moving it back and forth did not take any more effort than moving her arms and legs, it was almost automatical, still! It was weird?!

Shaking her head a few times she found herself in front of a problem. What was she supposed to do with her clothes now? How would she wear these with a tail? There was no way right? She opened her mouth and closed it again and started to run a few circles around the pile that were her usual and EXPENSIVE clothes, she did not want to buy a new set just because she had a tail now! She liked these clothes, and money was tight!

"Ah, lil thief, congratulations, while I do find it endearing that you don't mind me seeing you like this I would prefer you wearing clothes still." Shi Shi's voice was teasing and very close - Kou jumped to the side, the woman was barely 3 feet away from her sitting on a small rock and looking at her with a grin.

"Come here, give me your clothes I'll adjust them for you, I've prepared everything already." Indeed she had a sewing kit with her! And so Kou brought her clothes over and placed them next to Shi Shi sitting down next to her rock on the ground - Shi Shi threw a towel over her head and a brush into her lap "As one of my own you should take care of your tails, brush it probably and dry yourself while I do this."

And so ...a somewhat comfy atmosphere was created while Kou was busy drying her long hair, body, and tail - Shi Shi was humming gently while she adjusted the clothing for Kou - she would do it in a way without hurting the enchantments on the gown, it was not really high quality, but her little granddaughter seemed to be rather attached to it.

This continued for a while, Kou started to brush her tail, the hair.. or fur? Should she call it fur? Well it was dry now and the brushing made it quite fluffy and puffy, having gained quite the volume now, Kou has to get used to sneaking about with this.

Actually.. brushing it was kinda soothing - it felt really nice how the brush was going through the hair, it had quite the relaxing effect... it was soft and ...co...mfy..

Kou leaned against Shi Shi's legs having drifted off, after today's great success a small nap was rightfully earned, right? Well, even if someone would disagree, Kou didn't care she was already deep into the land of dreams her arms hugging around the tail.

Shi Shi looked down and almost laughed. "Other children would be excited to see what they can do now, or what her bloodline power is but you just take a nap? Well.. that is fine too, you cultivate like a madman rarely seen so, taking a bit of a break is all fine with me..

She had finished altering Kou's outfit and reached down with one hand to gently pat the girls head while she continued to hum.