Spending the time on my way back to feel the wind blowing by me and the rumbling of the engine below me, I thought about how wondrous it was. Only a few months ago, I was living on Earth, and now I was soaring through the skies on the back of a motorcycle in what might as well be a medieval world.
The more I thought about it, the crazier it was.
Eventually, I began to wonder why I had been chosen for reincarnation. It was not like I did something special or anything, so what caused it?
Sadly, I did not receive any answers to this question today as I soon landed in front of the carpool and pulled my bike into one of the bays.
Stopping in the middle with all the tables that we used to work on it taking up the rest of the space. I then got off and unclasped my helmet, placing it on the seat of the bike.
With that, I walked over to the side door and hit the switch to close the garage door behind the bike. I then walked out of the room and made my way across the workshop and to the exit that led into the gardens.
I then opened the door and walked through, closing it behind me.
From here, I started making my way across the garden, slowly increasing in speed as I did so. The entire time, I marveled at how far I had come now that I was aware of it, thanks to Mrs. Xia.
These thoughts ended the moment I finished making my way across the garden and opened the door to the courtyard.
The reason was because of the silver-haired and furred kitsune standing in the middle of said courtyard with black-colored fur at the tips of her ears and tail. This had already started to set off warning bells in my head before I was even able to see the dark expression on her face as she looked at me.
She then opened her mouth and asked in a sharp tone, "Why did you come back so early? I thought you would have been out for longer."
This only left me confused, though, as she was the one who asked for me to come back, so I said, "Didn't you contact Mrs. Xia and tell her that you wanted me to come back?"
That seemed to distract her from me slightly as she became confused and said under her breath, "I didn't contact little Yanling. So why would she…" It was then that she looked up at me and asked, "Did she offer you to come over for dinner or something?"
Hearing that question and seeing that she did not seem to be as angry anymore, I rapidly nodded my head and said, "She even offered me some sherbert, too. But all the questions she asked in the end seemed a little weird."
At the mention of the sherbert, I saw her anger flare up once again and realized I had misspoken, as I was not supposed to have any dessert today. Thankfully, she calmed down quickly before asking, "Did any of those questions pertain to Lou Xia?"
Not wanting to make this situation any worse by lying to her, I said truthfully, "Some of them did."
She seemed to understand something when I said that and calmed down a little more before asking in what felt like an icy tone of voice, "Now, can you tell me why you left the house?"
I had a feeling that she would ask that after what the Sect master had said earlier, but I still decided to use the same argument, saying, "The only punishment that you gave me was that I would not be able to eat any of the dessert you were going to make."
She stopped at that and looked at me for a second before sighing and saying in reply, "You are right about that. However, you had dessert without my permission on top of what happened earlier. And since that is the case, you will not be allowed to leave this courtyard or the shrine for three days. That means you won't be able to access the workshop or the rest of the mountain for that period of time. You also won't be able to see any of the visitors during that time either. So, no spending time with Lou Xia as well."
Hearing all of that, I was shocked and wanted to say something, but the sharp glare that Mom was giving me shut me up completely. I also wanted to ask about her not contacting Mrs. Xia, and why she would have told me Mom said that, but it was probably smart to keep my mouth shut right now.
Mom then waved her hand, and some sort of barrier seemed to envelop both the courtyard and shrine before disappearing. She then turned around and walked into the house.
I wanted to run into the library after this and avoid Mom for now when I heard her voice come from the door of the house asking, "Didn't you want to go through all the body cultivation techniques I gathered for you?"
At that, I decided to risk Mom's potential wrath and ran towards the house, chasing after her.
Once inside though, I was dragged to the dining room and forced to sit there and watch as Mom and Yuki ate dinner.
I was not that upset by this, however, as I got to see something that I was pretty sure Mom did not see due to her renewed feud with her plate. This was, of course, my little 'gift' to Yuki, manifesting in the slightly visible incorporeal form of a set of fox ears and tail for a few seconds as Yuki stared at her plate. They disappeared a moment later as Mom bit into her food and started the meal.
The meal itself did not last long as Mom and Yuki seemed to start having the same problem that I did after a while, which I emphasized by handing both of them a towel after they finished eating.
It definitely did not help my situation, but Mom seemed to take it better after a moment of thought.
After that, Mom asked me to sit down in the living room and wait for her.
Doing as she asked, I ended up waiting for about ten minutes before Mom and Yuki both walked in. Mom sat down on the couch across from me while Yuki stood off to the side, waiting for something to happen.
Mom then waved her hand once more, and multiple piles of books appeared on the table and ground between us, with a few of them floating in the air. She then said, "All of these are the complete collection of body cultivation techniques from the entire Sect. Now, would you tell me what you want to do with them?"
Seeing all of these, I could not help but be a little overjoyed by what I was seeing, and I wanted to start immediately. However, I held myself back and replied, "I want to test out a part of my system which I have never used before."
That seemed to surprise Mom for a moment, which did not last long as she quickly calmed down and asked, "Then, is there anything else that you need before you start?"
I did not think about that, so I spent a few seconds pondering over it. Then, I replied, "I would like for the front door to be open."
Mom looked at me, confused when I said that, but Yuki moved immediately and opened the front door while grabbing a few blank notebooks and a pencil.
Seeing that, I smiled before mentally asking my system to detect any skill books in my area.
The moment after, I thought that my vision was flooded with messages about all the cultivation books around me before one message appeared over the top of them all.
[Would you like to learn all of the available body cultivation manuals around you?]
Seeing this message, I chose yes without a moment's hesitation, and immediately, all of the other windows closed themselves. It was then that all the books started floating in the air and flipping pages back and forth by themselves as information started streaming into my brain.
If the first few techniques were any indication, I was definitely going to want to punch a few holes through some old flea bags using a 150 MM cannon after this.