To be honest, after feeling on the edge of the blade over the supposition that something might go wrong with Sarina and Kana's awakening, Aster was feeling a bit tired, but there is a lot of things in his pending list and he can't just laze around the whole day.
Earlier when he refined the materials with Rigel's flames, he got to see how strong the flames had become due to the advance in his soul cultivation, but he still needed a more practical measurement.
This one of the problems of his cultivation realm not reflecting his actual strength, a way to precisely measure battle prowess didn't exist, besides of course fighting with others, once you reached the point where you found the opponent to be on equal standing that was the answer.
Luckily for Aster, he had a parade of beauties of different levels right here, so he just needed to ask them to lend him a hand to see how far has he progressed.
'Mm, the training room should be able to handle it', thought Aster.
This place has high ranked defensive formations and self-repairing formations, in case the different landscapes and the platforms are destroyed or damaged, which has proven to be useful as all the girls, with Lilia's exception have trained seriously here and the room is still in perfect conditions.
Then there was just one last thing to take into consideration… how to motivate the girls to give their all during the fight, and he had a good solution to that.
…
And that's what led us to the current scene where Aster is standing in front of all the girls below the Genesis Manifestation realm, in other words, Alice, Aria, Camila, Felicia, Tiana and Vivian.
Alice's eyes were burning with enthusiasm, why do you ask, because Aster told them that the one who manages to touch him directly first, will be the one who will get the first date tomorrow.
Alice and Aria were of course the first ones to volunteer since they were more than interested in the prize, but then to their surprise Camila and Vivian joined too, then Felicia dragged her daughter along.
Of course, Aster wanted to have some fun while they sparred, so the rule was to touch him directly, they had to attack him but they could also steal the chance from the other girls, so they were both his enemies and allies.
Aster saw Lilia pouting from the sides and he softly laughed., Eris and Mylene didn't participate because they had already recovered to the peak of the Genesis Manifestation realm, and Aster was sure they were stronger than him in a fight head on, also they already had their date with him and didn't mind to be put at the end, so the only one that didn't want to go along with Aster's plan was Lilia.
'That's not fair darling, I can suppress my cultivation to the Sea of Knowledge or even the Mortal Transcending like Camila and the others', said Lilia through the mind connection.
Before Aster could answer, Alice and Aria did.
'That would be unfair mom, you got to meet Aster before than us, you even had it for yourself for about a week', said Alice as she stuck her tongue at Lilia.
'Mm, Alice is right, miss Lilia can't hog Aster for herself all the time', even the normally reserved Aria, stood up her ground this time.
Lilia turned to see her son with puppy eyes, as she spoke in a pitiful voice.
'Darling, they are bullying me~'.
It was obviously acted, but Aster had to admit his mother's "sad" voice touched the fibers of his heart, still Alice and Aria were right, Lilia is the one that has spent the most time with him after his return, she even went to the mind space, so the other girls deserved to be the focus of his attention too.
Aster then smirked, Lilia maybe knew how to get to him, but the same was truth for him.
'My first wife must prioritize the overall wellbeing of the family, so be good, I'll dedicate a day just for you later okay'.
Lilia honestly stopped paying attention after the words "first wife", she forgot about everything else and flew towards the stands where Eris and Mylene were sitting.
"I'll be the referee, fight to your heart's content for the next 30 minutes~", she yelled from the sides.
The girls on the platform raised an eyebrow, wondering how did Aster "tamed" the dragon, but they then focused on Aster again.
Aster stood there in front of them with his usual relaxed smiling expression, waiting for Lilia's greenlight.
Lilia waved her hand and a flare made out of her black flames was shot at the sky marking the start of the match.
The girls separated in "teams" at the sign of the start, Alice and Aria were used to fight Aster together so they took one side, Felicia and Tiana took another and Camila and Vivian seemed to had reached some sort of understanding.
Aster laughed, seeing the girls coordinate was nice, he sharpened his spirit sense and followed all of their movements, his soul cultivation was only second to Vivian's, but while Vivian focused on manipulating things with her soul energy, a result of all the years she could not move her own body too much, Aster was more focused on parallel thinking and insane reaction speed.
Aster's body was suddenly clad in a golden armor, as he blocked with his right arm at the height of his chest, Alice fell from above, she did a roll in the air and her tail manifested at the end of her lower back.
"Booom!", the arm protector on Aster's forearm clashed with Alice's tail and a huge shockwave echoed through the room, sparks flew all over the place, just like how her scales were soft and comfy when they were making love, Alice could harden them to fight.
Aster saw the ground below his feet crack and the wild smiling expression on Alice's face, and he chuckled.
"Aren't you a bit too excited, sis?", he asked.
Alice laughed and then her body leaned frontwards, she was trying to brute force her way through the golden armor, using the physical boost she got from her dragon lineage, but then she flew backwards, avoiding by the skin of her teeth an ice rapier that aimed at Aster's left side of his chest.
Aster smiled, he took out one of his training swords and firmly grabbed it with his left hand, using it to block the tip of Aria's spear.
"Clang!", a loud sound of metals colliding made its way into everyone's ears, but that wasn't the end of Aria's attack.
Creaking sounds came from the tip of Aria's rapier, as black ice covered the place where it was pushing against Aster's sword.
"Bewitching black snow, from the very beginning, even my cute Aria is being too serious", said Aster.
Aria whose body was softly glowing making her look like an ice fairy, giggled, she tapped her foot on the ground and ice peaks raised from the ground trying to get Aster, so that she could win the spar.
Unfortunately for her, Aster firmly smacked his right foot on the ground and the platform trembled.
"Boom!", Aria was sent backwards due to the shockwave, she blocked the explosion a layer of ice but her ice peaks exploded.
Aster then jumped sidewards, he rolled his sword and blocked Tiana's spear with one side of the blade, while he dodged a black claw that tried to grab his leg, Felicia tried to capture him but she was a second too late, and her daughter's spear wasn't heavy enough to subdue Aster.
"Oh, the mother is control and the daughter is the direct offensive, that's some good balance", said Aster.
A black vortex appeared next to Aster and Felicia came from within it, she had her eyes closed and had that gentle smiling expression, but her arms were covered with a pair of black gauntlets, with a sinister design.
"It's hard to find a marriage candidate that can survive five minutes alone with my daughter, of course I need to give my all~", playfully said Felicia, as she scratched towards Aster's shoulder.
Aster laughed, his eyes became serious, those black gauntlets weren't armor, but a condensation of soul and spirit energy, while the daughter was focused on the body path, as the spear pressing down against his sword trying to bury him on the ground suggested, the mother was focused on the soul path, and she was able to manipulate spirit energy, despite she not being a soul cultivator, maybe because she has an energy constitution.
Felicia then frowned as she felt something blocking her gauntlet, her eyes glowed with surprise, soul energy condensed could bypass physical defenses, so the only way to block it was with soul energy of the same level of condensation, or slowly wearing it down using spirit energy.
Aster smiled, he summoned the incomplete black sword soul weapon from the mind space, to block Felicia's attack.
Felicia's body suddenly sank a black vortex that appeared on the ground, at the same time Tiana used the impulse on her spear to jump backwards, Aster felt the air pressure changing and a giant silver-golden appeared from above.
Aster jumped into the air dodging the spear, but then he covered his sword with Rigel's flames.
"Hisss", drizzling sounds could be heard as Aster's sword clashed against Vivian's ribbon, which was covered in purple flames, both flames cancelled each other releasing a colorless mist due to the reaction.
"Mm?", Vivian's ribbon coiled around Aster's sword and pulled him to the side, Camila who was integrated into staff of the metal spear, jumped out of it and pushed her the headless part of her own spear at Aster's stomach.
Aster was surprised, Camila used such a large spear as a distraction, they made him jump into the air where Vivian was good to maneuver, she sealed his sword with her ribbon and then Camila jumped out to give the last attack.
Aster smiled, his aura exploded out of his body, he used his pressure to make Vivian step back, but her ribbon didn't let go of Aster's sword, so he voluntarily discarded the sword and used the armor of the armguard to block Camila's spear.
To Aster's surprise, the tip of the spear pierced a couple of centimeters into the golden light radiated by the armor, it wasn't enough to get to Aster's body, but it was surprising nonetheless.
Still, it was to be expected, at this point Camila had refined a lot of the metals mixed with Aster's blood, adding its properties into the spear, at the same time, her metal attribute spirit energy and her first level spear intent, made it possible for her to pierce through the initial protection of the paragon body, which was the golden light radiated from the armor, without any problem only being stopped when it touched armor.
? Unlike Tiana who used her war spear to crush her enemies with her physical strength, Camila focused on piercing through defense and armor.
"Not yet!", Camila didn't want to give up, she recently became a soul cultivator when they were returning from the secret realm, due to a certain realization she came to, her soul energy was still to weak, but she managed to make her spear rotate.
Sparks flew all over the place, making Aster whistle impressed by Camila's wit, his legs exploded in lightning and he became a flash of electricity and stood aside.
Camila was taken by surprise, losing the resistance against her spear, the momentum brought her towards a mountain a few kilometers away from the platform.
A clean hole was pierced through the mountain, as Camila's spear escaped from her hands, she wasn't used to use soul energy to enhance her spear, so she couldn't properly control it.
Camila pouted and then flew backwards, she extended her hands and her spear returned to her by itself, Aster was only defending so he didn't attack her, but she knew that losing one's weapon in a real fight was a big mistake, unless you knew how to fight with your bare hands, and she isn't a body cultivator nor her body is tough like Aster's so it was a loss for her.
Aster saw Camila's cute pouting face and he smiled, the other girls flew and gathered in front of him, they now understood that even as pairs they weren't able to land a proper hit on Aster's body.
Previously Alice and Aria were able to do it, but his soul energy was too strong now, while he didn't notice it, for the girls he was moving and reacting too fast, not only that but his body was able to follow that rhythm , without his brain melting or his muscles tearing apart.
Even when Vivian tried to immobilize him for Camila to ambush him, he was able to think fast and take the decision of letting go of his sword and block her attack.
"What's up with his reaction time, how strong is his soul?", mumbled Tiana, she also used her soul energy to enhance her reaction, to improve her close combat skills, but Aster was on another level.
Felicia nodded.
"Mm, his soul energy is too thick as well, he blocked my behemoth claws, what do you say, do you want to give me some pointers on how to condense soul energy~", she cutely asked.
Aster bitterly smiled, his black sword soul weapon used an insane amount of soul energy to grow just a millimeter, of course it was stronger than a normal condensation of soul energy, created on the spot.
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