The fox leaned back slightly, tails curling lazily around its body, eyes still gleaming with quiet excitement. It flexed its claws, watching the storage pouches hover patiently before it, faint remnants of Yin thread still clinging to their mouths.
"Hmn," it murmured, voice low but sharp. "Maybe… maybe I can find a similar—or even *better*—use for the other items later."
It tapped a claw against its chin, thoughtful. "But that can wait. Patience. Everything in its time."
A spark flickered through its eyes as its gaze swept over the floating pouches, calculating, assessing.
"…No," it muttered, a grin creeping onto its muzzle. "What I *need* to do first… is see what kind of good stuff is actually in these things."
With a flick of its paw, a single pouch drifted closer. Its ears twitched in anticipation, tails swaying with restrained excitement.
"Time to find out," it said softly, "just how lucky I really got."
The fox's eyes gleamed brighter—almost dangerously—as it loosened the mouth of the pouch with a careful twist of its claw.
Then—
*Whoosh.*
Spirit stones poured out in a glittering stream, clattering softly across the bed and spilling onto the floor like rain on tiles. Mostly low-grade, with a handful of mid-grade mixed in, their glow immediately lighting the room.
The fox's ears flicked.
"…Not bad," it muttered.
More followed.
A bundle of talismans slid free—defensive wards, concealment slips, emergency escape seals—stacked together and still faintly warm with residual qi. After that came pill bottles, rolling out one after another: healing pills, qi-recovery pills, and even a few sealed with noticeably finer craftsmanship.
The fox stared at the small pile for a moment.
Then it let out a short breath, half a laugh.
"So this one was the cautious type," it said. "Prepared—but not *clever*."
Its gaze swept over the contents, already sorting them mentally by value and utility. Nothing extraordinary, but solid. Practical. The kind of supplies cultivators carried when they expected danger—but not betrayal.
The fox nudged the stones into a neater pile with its paw.
"…Alright," it murmured, tails swaying. "Let's see if the next one's any better."
Without hesitation, it reached for the second storage pouch, curiosity easily outweighing any lingering fatigue.
The fox cracked it open.
Again—
Spirit stones.
Talismans.
Pill bottles.
Its ears drooped just a fraction.
"…Hmph. Same type," it muttered. "Careful, but uninspired."
It swept the contents aside and moved on.
The third pouch.
Then the fourth.
Each told the same story—resources, backups, escape measures. Useful, certainly, but nothing that made the fox bare its teeth in satisfaction.
Until—
A small jade bottle rolled free and came to a stop near its claw.
The fox froze.
Its pupils narrowed as it picked the bottle up, turning it slightly. The seal was refined. The qi inside was dense, stable—unmistakable.
"…A Spirit Condensation Pill."
Its tail flicked once.
"So *that's* how they did it," the fox said quietly, understanding dawning. "An earth-tier pill… just to force a temporary human form."
A short, almost offended snort escaped it.
"For a few hours of pretending to be human?" it scoffed. "What a ridiculous waste of spirit stones."
Then it paused.
Its mouth curled into a grin.
"…But now it's mine."
The fox tucked the pill away with care—far more gently than it had handled anything else so far—and continued.
Pouch after pouch opened.
Some held better pill varieties.
Others carried more refined talismans.
One even contained a respectable defensive charm that made the fox pause long enough to nod in approval.
Still—nothing *dangerous*. Nothing that would have threatened it in hindsight.
As it worked, faint, wet sounds echoed from the other side of the room.
The lizard continued eating—methodical, silent—jaws tearing through flesh and bone with unwavering patience. Every so often, qi stirred subtly around it. Barely noticeable, but real.
The fox didn't look back.
It trusted the lizard to do what it did best.
By the time the fox reached the final few pouches, a respectable haul had formed on the bed—stones stacked by grade, pills grouped by type, talismans layered neatly.
The fox rolled its shoulders once, stretching its neck.
"…All in all," it said, glancing over the spoils, "they really did come prepared."
Its eyes gleamed faintly.
"Just not prepared for *me*."
Satisfied, the fox began sweeping the sorted piles into a single high-grade storage pouch. Spirit stones vanished in glittering streams. Pills clinked softly before disappearing. Talismans slid in last, perfectly stacked.
*Clean. Efficient.*
Once everything was stored away, the fox straightened—and its ears slowly lifted.
"…Since the experiment worked," it said, voice low and thoughtful, "there's no reason to stop there."
Its tail swayed.
"Let's see how far this can go."
With a flick of its paw, the fox produced **more storage pouches**.
Not a few.
Not ten.
Nearly **twice** as many as before.
They spilled onto the bed in a loose cluster—old and new, high-grade and low-grade, some still faintly whispering with foreign soul imprints.
The fox's eyes shone with sharp interest.
"If it works on thirteen," it murmured, "there's no reason it shouldn't work on *all* of you."
It lifted the bundle of **refined Yin threads** once more. The thread unraveled smoothly—dark, cold, humming faintly with Yin energy. With practiced precision, the fox looped it across the mouths of each pouch, linking them one by one into a single network.
No rush.
No wasted motion.
Each knot was exact. Each cut clean.
When the final pouch was bound, the fox pressed a **soul-thread talisman** against the central junction where all threads converged.
The talisman flared faintly—then dimmed.
The fox stepped back, examining its work.
"Yin binds yin," it muttered. "Soul imprints are Yin-aligned. Storage pouches retain residual soul resonance…"
Its gaze sharpened.
"So if one collapses—"
It didn't finish.
Instead, it closed its eyes.
Divine sense unfurled—thin, controlled—slipping into **one** pouch at the edge of the network. Carefully—*deliberately*—it began erasing the soul imprint within.
The room fell silent once more.
Only the steady, wet rhythm of the lizard feeding remained.
Then—
A faint tremor ran through the Yin thread.
Not violent.
Not unstable.
Connected.
One imprint vanished.
And like a pulled thread unraveling cloth—
**the rest followed.**
Cold light pulsed through the network. One after another, the soul imprints collapsed, erased in a smooth, cascading wave.
All at once.
The fox's eyes snapped open.
For a heartbeat, it simply stared.
Then its mouth slowly curled upward.
"…Hah."
A soft, disbelieving laugh escaped it.
"It scaled," the fox said quietly.
Its ears twitched, barely containing its excitement.
"It *actually* scaled."
It looked down at the now-neutral pouches—silent, obedient, stripped of all resistance.
"This wasn't just a trick," it muttered. "This is a method."
Its tail flicked sharply.
"…I really might be a genius."