"Now that you mention it, I don't know the manuals you and Tiana are using to practice, did they include the way to condense soul energy?", asked Aster to Felicia.
The only other manual he has seen which is oriented to soul cultivator's is Aria's, but hers is focused on illusions and mental attacks to take advantage of her innately high charm, also it put a lot of focus in imbuing yin in her attacks, so soul condensation wasn't her strong point, though she could deflect Aster's black sword weapon, since she had soul energy anyway.
Then there was Eris, who is the strongest soul cultivator in the group, despite she not having returned to her prime, because both she and Mylene were focusing on circulating divine energy in their dry meridians, as their bases were the energy path.
Also the copy she had of her manual was destroyed along with her spatial ring, when she was dragged by the spatial rift, the same applied to Mylene, and she didn't feel prepared enough to teach Aster about soul cultivation, since is her secondary path she only chose it as it was a need to walk further in the path of a rune master.
Lastly there is Vivian who just joined the group, Aster hasn't seen her manual as well, but she told him her focus in manipulating things with soul energy, she basically uses her soul energy to make up for her fragile body.
Soul cultivators had many ways to use their abilities and each one focused in different aspects, soul cultivation was the hardest but its benefits were quite ample, mind attacks, illusions, telekinesis, parallel thinking, reaction time enhancement, soul constructions in other words condensation, were some of them and so far, Felicia is the only one besides Aster that has shown talent in condensing soul energy.
He once saw Felicia's inner universe, and it was completely different to the ones he has seen before, she didn't have a star core to begin with, and the colors were inverted, it was blank space with black lights instead of a starry sky like other cultivators.
Also since she broke through to the Mortal Transcending realm in the body path, her originally light gray hair darkened, and now when she used her powers it turned ink black, but it was just when she used her soul energy, it was strange to say the less.
Not to mention she wasn't an energy cultivator but could manipulate spirit energy thanks to her constitution.
Felicia giggled and shook her index finger.
"It's not in our manuals, they are both energy/body oriented, but as you know we couldn't do anything in the energy path, so we chose body as our main, only after advancing I caught an interest in soul condensing, because I can now control spirit energy with soul energy~".
Aster was surprised by Felicia's words, body was strong against energy, energy was strong against soul and soul was strong against body, those were the principles of the three paths, but Felicia jut went against that, to manipulate spirit energy with soul energy it was… unheard off.
And if it wasn't a technique then, it had to be bloodline ability, which reminded him of her constitution, the result of a magic beast and a human having offspring not always ended in the creation of a lineage, like the Drage family for example.
Supposedly when the female was the magic beast and the strongest, the result was a lineage, but if the male was a human and the strongest, the result most of the times will be a constitution, of course this is when and if happened, because all the constitutions nowadays have existed for a long time and there hasn't been new ones appearing since the ancient era, at least not publicly as some hid themselves for a reason or another, like Felicia and Tiana.
"Well, I needed a training partner to train with my soul weapon, because just swinging it on the air until my soul energy is depleted is pretty boring and you are coming in my next mission along with Eris, so I guess it's a win-win situation", said Aster as he pointed at his black sword soul weapon.
Felicia nodded, and now that they had finished speaking the atmosphere tensed up again, the girls all surrounded Aster with fierce expressions on their pretty faces.
"Ahem, what's the problem ladies, what's up with the scary faces?", jokingly asked Aster.
Just to be met with Alice's playful gaze as she said.
"Well, aren't you always telling me you like to see us play like good sisters~".
"Mm, since we can't keep up with your reaction time, then we can only join hands to suppress you… sorry", added Aria.
Tiana's pride took a blow when she noticed her physical strength wasn't enough to subdue him, so she agreed to cooperate with everyone and not just her mother.
"It's your fault for being a monster", she mumbled.
Felicia originally wasn't taking it seriously, she just wanted to help her daughter win, but now she was genuinely interested in seeing Aster using that soul weapon.
"Fufu, being too interesting for women can be dangerous you know~", she jokingly said.
Camila's eyes glowed, she was excited to see if her spear could pierce through Aster's defense, which has proven to be the best in the group, in relation to his cultivation, because Lilia could live in a scorching star if she wanted to at this point.
As for Vivian, she was smiling from ear to ear having fun, she never imagined there would be a day were she could train with another person, as her body deemed even sparring sessions as fights, so the other party would end up being poisoned to death, but now she could at the very least restrain her poison to not be deathly, if she didn't want to, so the worst result would be paralysis and Aria or Aster could get rid of it in case it happened, not to mention he and Kana weren't affected by her poison without doing anything.
Eris, Mylene and Agnes who were looking from the stands laughed, finding the situation rather unique.
"It was a training session, how come they are now getting inspired, it makes me feel a bit jealous, it took me large boring cultivation lessons to think on a way to take advantage of my attribute you know", mumbled Mylene with a pouting face.
"Mm, it was the same for me, by the time I realized mine was integrating formations in my fighting style, my head was about to explode… literally", added Eris.
Agnes didn't say anything, her eyes were glued to Aster's straight like a sword posture, the black soul weapon and his intent which he used to block the ones of all the other girls, the three things she was interested into, Aster had them all.
'Ah, he isn't a body cultivator, just like me and yet he's got such a monstrous strength, his muscles are perfectly balanced too, his intent is so fierce and that soul is… just too much~', she thought.
Lilia was sitting behind those three and of course how could she lose the chance to promote her son.
"Body cultivation wasn't my strong point before, it's something that happened with my darling's "help", he has the ability to inspire everyone around him after all~".
The three girls saw Lilia and though she looked so… innocent, she had this cunning smile they had learned to more or less notice, since they come from high level backgrounds too, but on the other hand they couldn't help but agree with Lilia, being around Aster led to positive changes for them, Mylene and Eris were literally the living proof of that, as for Agnes she has yet to have her debut in the group, but that will change in the next mission.
…
Back at the platform, Aster saw the girls fierce expressions and he scratched the back of his head.
'Maybe I teased them a bit too much he thought'.
Aster was brought back to reality a second later, this time they all acted as a whole, first Alice, Tiana and Felicia who were the strongest in physical terms, jumped at him at the same time.
Aster's gaze sharpened, he used his right arm covered in the armor to block Alice's tail, in his left hand another of his training swords clashed against Tiana's spear, while his black sword soul weapon stopped Felicia's black clawed gauntlets.
Beautiful smiles flourished in the faces of the girls, though Aster blocked their attacks, he was pushed backwards a few meters, Alice or Tiana alone weren't strong enough to equal Aster's physical strength, but both of them together was a different thing, his soul weapon was being stalled by Felicia too, so he couldn't use that to get rid of the body cultivation centered attacks.
And that wasn't the end of it, Aster's eyes glowed as he noticed a huge spear descending from the sky, while an ice hand came from below, then his nose wrinkled and a sweet enjoyable smell assaulted his nose, he turned around just to see Vivian whose arm had a pink petal pattern appearing on it.
"Spirit Venom, Sweet Trap", she slowly said.
This was a unharming poison, that just had a nice smell, there wasn't any other effect and thus the paragon body didn't take it as a threat, it was Aster's fault that he got distracted by it, even if it was just for millisecond.
For the finishing touch, Aria who was riding on top of Camila's spear, entered Aster's field of vision and then her pretty platinum blue hair dazzled along with her pale skin, though her face was reddened, she still did her part and cutely posed, as she winked.
"Bewitching Ice Fairy~", Aster froze for a second, Aria already has this eye-catching aura around her all the time, without doing anything her appeal is already incredible, though different than Lilia's, who is a devilish tease, Aria's pure and pristine charm is enough to melt one's heart, and she was now using a charm type mental attack, it was the first time Aster had seen her use a mental attack.
For a moment it was as if everything slowed down for Aster, the world went gray, he looked at his surroundings, the girls had blocked all the directions, he could escape with the manifestation of the paragon body, or force them to retreat with his sword intent, by skillfully making some "modifications" to their clothes, but he wanted to see how far could his recently improved soul cultivation realm take him, and he had his answer now.
'Unlike before, I should be able to follow a Genesis Manifestation cultivator's speed now, low ranked ones don't have such stable Genesis Cores, with annihilation I should be able to face them', he thought.
The world recovered its color, but there was no explosion or shockwave at all, all the girls placed their hands on Aster's chest at the same time, and their momentum pushed Aster down, with them falling along with him.
His body parried the impact and though the tiles of the platform cracked a bit, the material was strong enough to not explode, thought he current scene of all the girls laying on top of him was quite funny.
"I'm not complaining ladies, but isn't it too early for this kind of things, the sun is still up after all?", jokingly said Aster, Tiana and Camila blushed, Alice licked her lips while Aria hid her face on Aster's chest, she felt like digging a hole to hide as she used a charm type mental attack for the first time, Felicia was laughing at her tomboy of a daughter showing such an expression, as for Vivian she was smiling, the previous was the first unharming poison her constitution produced in her life.
Eris, Mylene, Agnes and of course Lilia joined them in the platform, laughing and chatting with the other girls.
Aster softly laughed, being surrounded by smiling beauties and having fun with them was a bliss for his heart, though there were still a couple of twins, a certain sword girl, Sarina and Kana who were sleeping and a pair of luans that had become his friends too, this reinforced the realization he had in the secret realm.
'I'm really happy to have reincarnated… thanks to that I won't be alone ever again', he thought, for some reason he had the urge to laugh out loud, but calmed down and just laid there on the platform with a relaxed smiling expression on his face.
But then the peaceful atmosphere was disturbed by Alice saying.
"Now we just need to sort who will get the first date, don't you dare to cheat like back then at domino ice princess".
Aria reacted like a cat whose tail is stepped on.
"Ah, you were the one that nearly burned one of the tokens after losing ten times in a row against me", she said with an accusatory voice.
"What did you say!".
Aster saw those two arguing, Felicia and Lilia's cunning smiles as they tried to figure out how to increase the chances of winning in the sort, well Lilia just wanted to see if she could tag along with whoever won and he sighed.
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m