The realization of the curse that Raina placed on me made me want to rush back to the workshop and confront her. However, I knew that going over there would be futile, so I instead walked into the library with my tail angrily swishing about behind me.
Yuki followed behind me and entered the library as well.
Walking over to the desk, I sat down and pulled out one of the books on formations from my inventory. Placing it on the desk and opening it to do some research, I saw Yuki beginning to clean the book selves out of the corner of my eye.
Leaving her be, I continued my research for the next few hours as the day continued to pass. Eventually, night fell, and the day started to come to an end.
Leaving the library, I walked into the house only to see that Raina was not at the table even though dinner was already there.
Looking too Yuki, who was sitting at the table with confusion, she quickly explained, "Miss Raina said that she would not be joining us for dinner tonight as she would spend the night working on your present."
This explanation made my anger nearly blow up, but I still suppressed it as I would not be able to do anything about it at the current moment.
Sitting down at the table, I served myself some food and quickly took a bite. This caused Yuki to look at me weirdly, so I asked, "What's wrong?"
Hearing my question, she quickly shook her head and answered, "You didn't pray."
This hit me like a hammer and made me realize that I was getting too focused on what Raina had done and started to ignore everything else.
Quickly stopping my meal, I said a small prayer before resumeing.
With that, we both focused on finishing the meal before I got up and went to leave the house. As I was doing so, Yuki asked me where I was going.
Telling her I was heading to the shrine without looking back, I left the house to continue what I was doing yesterday.
Sitting down in front of Elinaria's statue, I began cultivating as the sun set and the moon began to rise. This was the first time I had started to cultivate this early, allowing me to notice the sharp increase in the sliver particles of light during this period of the day.
This allowed me to confirm my theory that the yellow particles of light were Yang-attributed Qi while the silver ones were Yin-attributed Qi. Regardless, this increase did not last long, and soon, the moon started to make its way across the sky.
Soon, the night started to come to an end when I felt like my core was filled with energy. It was very faint, and the only reason I felt it was because I was focusing on not missing anything happening in my core again.
Thankfully, my cores did not automatically upgrade like last time.
Continuing to cultivate, I initiated my cores upgrade, letting them expand using the energy they had accumulated. This caused a vacuum to be formed in my cores, which pulled in more of the spiritual energy around me.
This lasted for a few minutes as my cores kept expanding before they suddenly stopped, causing the spiritual energy to keep flowing in and accumulating on the outside of my body. Then, a few seconds later, the spiritual energy reversed course and dispersed, causing a compressed wave of air to fly off from my body.
Opening my eyes, I saw the first lights of dawn coming over the horizon.
Getting up from the ground, I made my way over to the house for breakfast like Raina would have liked me to do.
Entering the house, I saw that breakfast was not made, and Yuki was not anywhere near the kitchen. Going down the hallway where the rooms were located, I came across her room and opened the door slightly to check what she was doing.
What I saw was her sitting on the bed in the lotus position and meditating.
Getting a wild idea, I try sending some Qi into my eyes and creating a lens on the inside that light would have to flow through. This lens was completely flat so that it would not distort the image in any way.
Soon I got my desired effect and was able to see the same going lights representing the different types of Qi floating through the air. However, the most significant change was that I was able to see the meridian networks of other people.
Since Yuki was the only person here, this meant that I was able to see her entire network including her cores.
From what I could see, she was slowly poking holes in each of her core walls. The lower core was complete, with her being halfway through the second.
Since any mistake that could be made during this step might result in a serious injury, I wanted to stay around her during this time. However, I also wanted to eat breakfast, so I quickly went to the kitchen and made a small sandwich using salted and cured meat.
Returning to her room, I sat down off to the side and started eating.
A few hours later, she poked the last hole in her upper core, and then the walls blocking access to the core burst out with energy flowing from it into the other cores, causing the walls of those cores to burst as well.
After that, a burst of energy flowed toward her as her cores started to expand. This only lasted for a few seconds before stopping as the cores reached their limit, and she opened her eyes.
Her eyes were as calm as water when she opened them before seeing me sitting in the corner of her room watching her. When she noticed me, her face instantly went red, and she started to panic.
Getting up from the ground, I quickly said something along the lines of good job on not dying and left the room. I then went to the kitchen to make something for her to eat as a few hours had passed since the sun had risen, and she had been cultivating since dinner last night.
Since I did not feel like spending that long making food, I quickly put together a sandwich like the one that I had. However, unlike the one I had, this one was heated up on a skillet over the stove.
She walked into the kitchen a few minutes later as I was finishing up her food making her panic again. This time, though, it was because she thought that I was making food for myself as she did not make anything for breakfast. However, when I took it off the skillet and placed it in front of her, she went silent.
The food in front of her made her confused, but I could not entirely tell for what reason. What I did know was that I told her I would be heading to the workshop in a few minutes if she wanted to join me.
At this, she immediately started to eat the sandwich as quickly as she could, though she somehow made it not look like she was simply inhaling the food. I had to admit that this was causing me to be jealous for some reason I could not place.
Once she was finished eating, we both cleaned up the kitchen before heading out to the workshop so we could find Raina.
Yuki was probably doing it so she could see what the finished project looked like, but I had other reasons for going.
Arriving at the door to the workshop, Raina opened the door about to walk out but stopped upon seeing us.
Yuki did not have much of a reaction to this. However, I could feel my tail start to lash back and forth while my ears went flat out toward the sides of my head, and a scowl appeared on my face.
Raina's expression changed to one of realization upon seeing my reaction to her. She then tried to distract me by saying, "I finished your present and managed to finish your project for you."
This distraction did not work, though, as I continued to stare at her for a few minutes before asking, "Why did you place a curse on me?"
Raina dared to show a look of pain at my words as if they had hurt her, whereas Yuki turned to look at me in shock before looking at Raina with the same expression.
This turned into a small stalemate between Raina and me for a few minutes, with neither side speaking up and only looking at each other in silence.
The one who eventually broke was Raina as she sighed, letting her tail and ears drop down. She then looked up at me with a mixture of regret and pain evident in her eyes before speaking in a guilt riden tone.