The next day I didn't wake up until the sun was already setting. Li Kai gave me a break from training for once. He was also the one who ordered me to bed, so it made a little sense. Vivian had gone to work, of course, she may even be on her way back home. Rosie seemed to be wandering around too. No wonder it was so chilly. That and I still had dried sweat on my skin. I had forgotten to take a bath after all the vigorous exercise. I took a sniff of the air and knew why Rosie had run off. I stank! I had a maidservant take the bedding to be washed while I took another bath, this time warming the water myself straight out of the tap. Such a useful ability.
After the bath, I ran down to the kitchen. They were preparing dinner. My stomach was still too asleep for dinner, so I grabbed a couple of dinner rolls and some bacon and sat down at a table we had in the kitchen for informal eating. I found Li Kai already there with a similar meal.
"Funny meeting you here. Are you not eating dinner with everyone else?" I asked.
"I certain young girl kept me awake all night and so I had to sleep through the day." Li Kai replied with venom.
"I'm sure that young girl was just excited about her birthday presents, you should go easy on her," I teased.
Li Kai smiled at me, "I agree."
Rosie came over to me now that I smelled good and I had food. Sometimes I wondered if I was her master, or if food was her master.
"So, umm, Li Kai, I was wondering, how much did you see before you interrupted me? Did you see anything unusual about me this morning?" I asked tentatively.
"Ahh, you must be referring to your humanoid fox form. You did surprise me a bit. That's an advanced use of the Lunar Beast Form physique. Though I'm starting to grow numb to your surprises. Wait, why do you look relieved?"
My face which had relaxed when it was clear he hadn't fully seen my fox demon form snapped back to panic, "No reason. It's just this bacon tastes really good obviously." I tried to lie.
"Uh huh, the bacon wasn't even in your mouth. Did you decide to learn how to taste by osmosis through your hand?" Li Kai said unimpressed by my lie.
"Uh yes, absolutely, that was one of the several things I learned last night," I replied, even though I knew I was caught.
"That's not a thing. Your physique isn't lunar beast form, is it?"
"Umm, no. It's not." I said while staring at my hands to avoid his glare.
Li Kai sighed, "I swear you're like an onion. Every layer I pull back, there are more layers, and they all make me cry. What's the grade of your physique."
"Supreme," I squeaked.
"Of course it is, I should've been suspicious when it didn't match your sister's. You seem to know your abilities without using any tools. Maybe you could save some time and tell your preliminary examiner what your talent and providence are so I don't have to guess them?"
"Before I tell you, you wouldn't be one of those people that would try to consume my talent as your own if it was too outstanding would you, or perhaps gift me like a tied hog to another disciple to consume?" I said with worry while hugging my knees to my chest.
Li Kai's hard face immediately softened, "That was why you keep lying to me and everyone? Why you kept being so secretive? You've been worried about being turned into a cultivation furnace for being too outstanding?" He said with concern.
I nodded my head while it was still buried in my knees. Without warning Li Kai picked me up, put me on his lap, and hugged me tightly. "I would never harm you. No one in this villa would harm you. You can trust us. How long have you had these worries? Has it been since you reincarnated?"
I nodded again. I was still panicking, like a rabbit caught in a trap. Li Kai was peeling back my secrets and I still didn't know if I could trust him. I'd known him for most of my life now, but he had only known me for an insignificant speck of his life.
Lin Kai knew I was having a panic attack so he simply sat there in silence hugging me. He had started stroking my long hair while we sat there. The strokes helped calm my nerves.
When Li Kai thought I was calm enough, he turned me around and looked me directly in the eyes, "I'm sorry we ever made you feel like you had to hide yourself. I mean that sincerely. You are not wrong that the world is a dangerous place with all sorts of nefarious characters out there. Your family, the guards, and the servants here are not among them. They all love you. Vivian made sure that not a single person who would harm you came anywhere near this place. She has been doing that since the day you were born. I'm going to be honest with you though, if you had shown all the talent you have on the day I first met you, I don't know if I could've controlled my greed. You made the right decision then to hide from me. It didn't take long for you to steal a piece of my heart and now it doesn't matter to me how talented you are. I will vehemently deny that if you tell anyone at the sect though, I have an image to maintain."
Li Kai finally got a giggle out of me. I started to relax. Li Kai was right. Honestly, I knew from the day he stalked me to the capital and saved me that he was 100% team Zoey. It just felt safer to keep my secrets to myself.
"Do you think you're ready to tell me what you're really capable of?" Li Kai asked. I could see the pain in his eyes that I didn't trust him.
I decided to share my secrets with Li Kai. Worst case scenario, I'd reincarnate and start over with a little more experience right? I told Li Kai everything, everything except the existence of the system and the events preceding my reincarnation. He knew I had something keeping me informed of my abilities, he just didn't know what.
"Divine talent and providence?" Li Kai asked rhetorically, "That's just broken. You also upgraded your cultivation technique to divine grade and forced your physique to produce a divine form. Broken, just broken." Li Kai now seemed to be the one in need of consolation. "Can you go back in time and slap the Li Kai that dared to pry? I wish I didn't know now."
I was now sitting on the table in my fox demon form swinging my hooves off the edge, while two of my hands were braced against the table, and the remaining two were folded in front of my chest expressing disapproval. "Now Li Kai, would you really condemn your disciple back into the solitude and fear of keeping such a big secret by herself?"
A few of the cooks wandered by and craned their heads curiously before deciding they were better off not knowing why I was part fox.
"Well when you put it that way, I suppose I must accept this burden." Li Kai played along.
Li Kai and I worked out a shared story about what my abilities actually were to the sect. We decided to keep with the superior physique, not because I needed to hide my supreme physique, but because they couldn't detect it, it would just seem like boasting. The divine roots would inevitably be revealed, but Li Kai had the previous measurements showing they were supreme so it could be proven that they were only artificially divine. He would state my talent as supreme to give me more freedom to develop, stating it as divine would only cause trouble. As for providence, he would state it as unknown, which was fairly normal. That being said, if Li Kai were honest, he could grade it at supreme or even quasi-divine with all he knew about my abilities now even without me telling him the grade directly. My concealment, stealth, and divine sight techniques would all be kept secret too. While my cultivation technique would be said to be the original I had sold to the sect. Essentially we needed to avoid telling the sect about anything divine or that helped hide my abilities.
I spent the rest of the day learning the fire techniques I had taken from Fred. Unsurprisingly they changed into a mixed yin and fire technique when I tried to practice them. What was more surprising was that the system prompted me to merge the techniques when I learned them all. Curious, I decided to merge them with only a little hesitation. Soon I had a new technique.
Frostfire Sutra (Supreme-Spirit Grade) [Initial Success]: The frostfire martial arts. +20% Fire Damage, +20% Yin Damage, 20% chance of inflicting freezing condition, 20% chance of inflicting burning condition. 100% chance of inflicting frostbite. The chance of inflicting a condition is reduced by the opponent's resistance.
Cost: 8 qi per minute
Frostfire Burst Attack: +200% Fire Damage, +200% Yin Damage, 20% chance of inflicting freezing condition, 20% chance of inflicting burning condition. 100% chance of inflicting frostbite.
Cost: 50 qi
This wasn't as simple as coating my body in frostfire or letting out a burst of frostfire. This was a whole set of martial arts movements and breathing techniques that just implanted themselves in my head out of nowhere. I even had a new skill associated with it.
Frostfire Martial Arts Lvl 1
I immediately forgot about the other things I wanted to accomplish and practiced the new set of martial arts diligently.