After Tanner left, Aster and the others continued with their breakfast, like normally Kana sat on Aster's lap while Lilia took her official seat at her son's right side, the left one however today belonged to Aria, while Alice and Sarina sat next to them, and lastly Camila, Eris and Mylene.
"Mm?", Camila and Sarina who were drinking the juice of a spirit fruit, noticed Tiana looking at them, which made them look back at her.
"If you don't mind, could you tell me how much time were you preparing for your breakthrough?", she asked with a curious look on her face.
Camila and Sarina exchanged gazes before they bitterly smiled.
"We didn't prepare for it", they both said at the same time.
"I had a certain problem which made my cultivation regress, and only returned to my peak a couple of weeks ago before advancing".
"In my case, I jumped from the Stellar Axys realm to the peak of the Star Tribulation, also a few days ago".
Ritz who was munching on a piece of cured meat, nearly choked, he is now a peak Mortal Transcending realm cultivator, who can cross realms to fight a Sea of Knowledge and even then, he is sure that his spirit energy purity and density was still lower than them.
'I had to refine my spirit energy for about one hundred years after reaching the peak of the Star Tribulation realm, before I attempted to advance', he thought as he inwardly sighed.
Ritz wasn't the only one surprised here, Erick already knew about it, but he didn't mention it, as for Tiana and Felicia they were both in awe.
Felicia reached the peak of the Star Tribulation realm about ten years ago, and since she couldn't advance due to the limitations set by her constitution, but it was that same constitution which helped her reach shorten that period of accumulation to one decade, which is already really praise worthy as she didn't have any high-grade resource to help her.
'They are both below one hundred years of age, just like me, and they seem to have a constitution too, our battle prowess should be about the same limit, the early stage of the Genesis Manifestation realm, so the only variant here is…".
Felicia's eyes fixed on Aster who was being personally feed a piece of a pancake by Lilia, three recently advanced early-stage Mortal Transcended, with similar powers, but two of them didn't have to go through the process of accumulation, and their constitutions weren't energy oriented, so there was something else ongoing.
Aster who was listening to their conversation instantly noticed the common thing between Sarina and Camila, despite Camila not being one of his lovers, she "drank" some of his blood, or assimilated it with her body constitution to be more accurate, something which probably had to be with the fact that mixed with his Drage lineage and the Paragon body, there was also the Alpha Booster branch from the Wolfstein.
'Luckily you refined the materials of the sword with Rigel's flames, or you would have had a clingy Camila to deal with, it would have been poetic justice after all the pranks you pulled on Aria's father'.
Rya lately has been meditating quite a bit, suddenly laughed and teased Aster, making him bitterly smile.
'You could have told me that Rigel's flames would eliminate that lewd dragon part, out of my blood you know?'.
Rya shrugged as she stretched her body on laid down on their bed at the highest point of Hyperion.
'I didn't know it would, others can't handle more than one or maximum two lineages, you are an abnormality… Aldebaran is helping you integrate them in only one, but it takes time, the fact that you can make all these types of bloods to peacefully coexist in your body, is something you seem to have by innate.
Aster thought about it for a second before he shrugged, everything will be solved when his evolution ends, besides right now he had other things to deal with.
Originally everything was calm, the palace has a barrier after all, but a few seconds ago the thing broke and now the walls were trembling a bit.
Aster looked at Ritz who was clearly feigning ignorance of whatever was happening outside, before saying.
"Senior Ritz, will the patriarch be okay, or do you need us to step in?".
Ritz immediately shook his head, with a nostalgic expression on his face.
"Don't worry, they should be ending anytime soon, they do it every time they meet".
'This time that crazy woman seems to be truly angry though', inwardly added Ritz.
A couple of minutes later, the door of the palace opened and a slightly haggard Tanner entered followed by a tall blond-haired woman with a sulky expression.
She glared at Aster before her gaze became softer as she looked at Tiana, but that somehow made her get angry again.
The woman approached them and sat in front of Aster, making Ritz move aside to open a spot for her before she looked at Tiana.
"Little girl, we still haven't gotten to the sect and you already ditched me, I even agreed to take your brother with us, would you tell me what happened… are you perhaps being threatened or something?".
Agnes was really happy to have found a talented girl to be her disciple, and a couple of days before she went to pick her up, Tanner sent her a message saying that the deal was cancelled, of course she rushed all the way to the Barbarian Heart sect to ask for an explanation.
"It's not that, my brother is going to the sect and wants to attend to the admission trial, so I will be taking the trial too".
Listening to Tiana's explanation, Agnes calmed down, shew knew Tiana worried about him.
"I won't restrain you in any way… so why did you resigned to be my disciple?".
This time Felicia stepped in for her daughter.
"We have a debt of gratitude, we'll simply follow our benefactor, it's not personal, Agnes".
Agnes saw Aster practically ignoring them and she also noticed all the beautiful women which surrounded him, besides that Kana was sitting on his lap and Lilia personally giving him food, she also felt somewhat positive towards him, which made her frown as he was the origin of this whole situation.
'The descendant of a dual cultivator', she thought, there are sects dedicated to dual cultivation which aren't evil, both men and women are free to choose their partners, of course it's not like there aren't cases of some young master using his status to get a girl he took a liking to.
And Agnes couldn't help but think of Aster like that, he had two "bodyguards" on the Sea of Knowledge realm and another two Mortal Transcended, so her conclusion was that Aster was a dual cultivator which found Tiana pretty and helped Felicia advance, with the condition that they followed him.
Lilia was now showing her true cultivation in the energy path at least, in other words she was a middle stage Void Manipulation cultivator, which was the reason as to why Agnes thought Aster was the son of some dual cultivator bigshot, both Aster and Alice resembled her after all.
Agnes sighed and then after slightly bowing towards Lilia spoke to Aster.
"I can pay their debt, please let them go… Tiana's talent is related to battle, it would be a waste to not exploit it to its fullest potential".
While maintaining a respectful tone, Agnes didn't show servility, dual cultivators are known for advancing fast but have really low battle prowess, in other words they have high realms, but can be easily defeated by weaker people, their strength relied on numbers, as the most outstanding had a large harem to aid them in battle, something that applied to both men and women.
Thinking about it, Aster perfectly matched at least in the part that he had a really high cultivation for his age, and having a lot of girls to aid him in battle if needed, but the difference was that his personal strength wasn't lacking at all.
"They made a soul oath; besides I'm not forcing them if that is what you are thinking, Erick is my friend after all", said Aster before he continued with his breakfast.
Agnes froze in the spot, she looked at Felicia as if she was crazy, she didn't know about their constitutions, so in her eyes, she sold her daughter just to shorten the time needed for her to advance.
Still, it wasn't her place to speak about it, but she couldn't bring herself to let such a talented disciple to be limited to become a bed warming partner instead of a fighter.
"Then at least allow Tiana to train in the sect, she will be more useful to you if she is strong right?".
Tanner suddenly tapped his hand on the table as he interfered.
"That's enough Agnes, Aster is an honored guest of my sect and if you think I will treat someone who doesn't deserve it with respect, then you are free to leave", of course he was worried, the story of Lilia destroying a planet on a whim was still fresh in his memory.
Listening to Lilia and the other girls giggling at him, Aster sighed.
'Since when, I became a lustful third grade villain in other people's eyes', he thought, this was also one of the reasons as to why he decided to not hide his talent now that he will be entering the stage of the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant.
Because if he doesn't let others know, he'll be pestered by a lot of "heroes" trying to save the girls which are being "forced" to stay with him.
"Let's speed up things", he mumbled, as he let out his spirit pressure making Agnes jump from her seat, she rushed at Aster's side and then touched his face with her hands before she jumped with an excited expression on her face.
"You are a soul cultivator!".
"What is your realm, how old are you…?", Agnes kept asking questions, until she noticed the weird way in which the others were looking at her, only then she realized she has been holding Aster's face the whole time.
She cleared her throat and then let go of him before she returned to her seat.
"Ahem, I'm sorry about that, let me present myself, I'm Agnes Fey, an elder of the battle peak of the Myriad Occupation sect".
'How small is the Heavenly Quadrant nowadays', thought Lilia as she giggled.
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