Aster enjoyed his time flirting with Sarina, whispering sweet things at her, drinking, chatting and even kissing, his heart felt bliss whenever he saw her laughing, as she told him all the things she has done while he was on a mission.
She focused on her, since the other girls probably had their own plans to catch up with Aster on their dates, to begin with Sarina extended her pretty hand and placed it a few centimeters away from Aster.
The tips of her fingers then glowed with a dim dazzling golden light, one that Aster perfectly recognized, since it was annihilation or that's what Aster used to believe.
"Now that I see it up close it's different than mine's", mumbled Aster making Sarina brightly smile.
"As expected of husband, you noticed it~", cutely said Sarina, she has seen Aster mowing down the lives of enemies, spirit formations, weapons and practically anything in his path with that terrifying golden light of his.
It's impossible to get rid off the shocking impression caused by Aster's annihilation once seen in person, of course those who have gotten to see annihilation and are still alive are Aster's friends and family normally, his enemies were reduced to nothingness.
And because of that strong impression, Sarina incurred in the same honest mistake Alice had committed, she tried to imitate Aster originally, but the annihilation she could control was obviously not as strong as his.
Rya has mentioned it before, though there are others that have had the ability to use annihilation, no one has been "liked" by it, in fact many ended up being killed by it, she used a technique to be able to wield it but even then she can't directly manipulate it.
Aster on the other hand not only can wield it with ease, he can touch it and play with it without being affected at all, everything which is deemed as a part of "him" is resistant against annihilation, and past a certain threshold it becomes immune to it, it's something even Rya can't understand.
The fact that his soul can interact with annihilation which is the doom of anything without matter, is even more freakish, a fundamental impossibility, but a dragon who can cultivate in the soul path is too, so at this point she has given up in considering Aster a pure dragon.
Anyway, returning to Sarina, her soul constitution is related to emotions, love is what allowed her to control a certain amount of annihilation for a period of time, depending on how strong her feelings were for Aster the effect would amplify.
But ultimately, she isn't Aster, so she thought in her own way to do things and the result was an application of annihilation even Aster hasn't thought about before, but which he has somewhat "seen" in practice earlier.
"Mm?", Aster saw the originally pure golden light in Sarina's fingers gaining an ash-red tone, then the space near her hand started waving, no, it wasn't that, what was waving was the spirit energy floating in the air.
Under Aster's surprised eyes, the originally light blue spirit energy that roamed free in the air, was dyed ash-red and then entered Sarina's body.
Aster was speechless for a moment, which made Sarina proudly smile as she got to impress her lover with the path, she has created for herself.
"This is my "annihilation", unlike yours which is loyal to its name and completely vanishes its target, mine returns what it touches to spirit energy which I can then manipulate, for the time being I can only do it a bit and only unanimated objects, but it's the same concept my wings use to turn things around me in that red mist~", she cutely said.
Aster was beyond words, Sarina found a way to use a purely destructive attribute to construct something.
'A caring woman till the end, others would call is a degraded version, but the truth is that this is a version of annihilation which isn't deathly for living beings, perhaps you have been influenced by Aster to do some crazy things too, Sarina', said Rya from the mind space, making her and Aster laugh.
"Of course, my Sarina is the gentlest", said Aster as he rubbed his face against Sarina's making her giggle.
Needless to say but the daughter noticed all the attention the mother was getting and she wanted some too, a little cunning smile flourished on her face, and then her pretty wings appeared on her back, Kana's figure then vanished and then both Aster and Sarina were knocked down from the chair by a soft breeze of wind.
Of course, the fall didn't hurt at all, since they fell on the soft grass of Helena's garden, not like Aster's absurdly tough body would have been harmed by such an insignificant fall though.
Aster laid there on the ground with Sarina in his right arm while Kana laid down on his left arm, with a cute pouting expression.
"Don't focus just on each other, play with me too~".
Aster and Sarina exchanged gazes and then they both laughed at the fact that the little girl was jealous of both of both of them.
"She is right husband, let's play with her too", said Sarina with a smirk as she started tickling her daughter's belly.
Aster smiled and then joined the attack softly tickling Kana's sides.
A moment later the happy voice of Kana filled the area, all this while Dahlia looked at them with an amused expression, she saw Aster and Sarina flirting and was a bit shocked to see they were apparently lovers, but now that she saw how much Kana seemed to like Aster, she understood why Sarina was with him.
'Something cherished to that point by that little girl can't be a bad person… regardless of those rumors', she thought, this garden is hers and her aunt's most important thing, for her, she has seen how the flowers and herbs grown here "accept" Kana as if she was the one that raised them.
…
The time passed quickly and after about an hour or so of playing on the grass of the garden with Kana, an activity both Aster and Sarina enjoyed a lot, the sales of the day finished and Helena entered the garden.
Aster patted Kana's head, they got up from the ground and then went to take a seat at the table in front of Helena and Dahlia, this time Kana sat on Sarina's lap, while she munched on some cookies Dahlia brought for her.
Aster noticed the troubled expression on Helena's face and he chuckled.
"I have seen your most treasured herbs and even know about how you got this place, what could make you worry more than that?", he jokingly asked.
Helena softly smiled, as she took a sip of her tea.
"I guess you are right, I have witnessed what you can do when you brought back little Dahlia safe and sound, the problem is…".
Helena proceeded to inform Aster of some rumors that have been going around the Blacksmith and Rune Mastering peaks.
In part it was related to the raising popularity of the store, naturally the competitors felt threatened, so of course a little dirty war started, since Aster was always seen together with a lot of beauties, the rumor that he was a playboy and other things that would affect his public image started spreading through the sect.
Unfortunately for the ones behind such rumors, all the female new disciples as well as the majority of the veterans who idolized Agnes's cousin, in other words those who were there when he attended the introduction lesson, not only denied such vile claims, they even challenged those who they found spreading the rumor, to a fight, pretty much the style of the Black Sword faction, if they didn't like something they will show it with their weapons.
The next attack towards Aster came after the store became popular, they started to get personalized requests which were of course not accepted since they didn't have an spirit blacksmith, Eris and Helena were here, so if they would have wanted to, they could have done personalized weapons and pills, but the store was only starting and Lilia told them to wait a bit, in any case their sales recovered a week later.
It was then when the opposite party finally couldn't resist being ignored and directly came to the store to declare a war, they challenged the blacksmith, rune master and alchemist of the store to a duel in their respective fields, the loser would have to close, but the only answer they got was "get lost", before Agnes kicked them out mercilessly.
Once again rumors spread, about how the Lord of the twin sword valley didn't dare to even show his face and the like.
'Oh, so that's probably why Iris gave me the merit of helping her become stronger', thought Aster, that straightforward girl couldn't stand him being slandered, not after having seen by herself how strong he is and how magnificent is his swordsmanship.
Back to the Helena's story, as if premeditated, a shocking announce was made, the Blacksmith peak selected an inner disciple who appeared out of nowhere as… their holy son, in other words a second Lord of a valley appeared, and according to the rumors it was a special exception since the guy wasn't a core disciple, in fact it wasn't even someone like Victor in other words someone considered an "unofficial" holy son, but a disciple who suddenly showed an incredible talent for spirit blacksmithing.
"The Lord of the metal mountain valley huh, and what does he want?", asked Aster to Helena.
Helena tapped her finger on the table as she answered.
"Well, he hasn't come here, I heard he has been practicing every day since he had use of reason and only decided to reveal himself now, because we are getting closer to the tournament between the three candidates to become high ranked Stellar Systems".
"Between the male new disciples, no one is a match for you in battle terms and you are a core disciple as well, so it's safe to assume you'll be representing the sect in those aspects when the time comes, originally no one had troubles with that, or more accurately they couldn't do anything about it, who would dare to claim they could become a core disciple, and they can't fathom the idea of fighting you head on, properly as it is required to get the attention of the sect in that aspect".
Helena doubted for a second before she continued.
"But then miss Lilia announced to the sect that in our store, the best blacksmith, rune master and alchemist of the young generation of the Stellar System, not only the sect, resided… you can imagine the rest".
Aster bitterly smiled.
'It seems mom took my words of "making the store known throughout the Stellar System fast" too seriously', he thought before saying.
"And then, that guy felt I wasn't leaving him anything and so he is now targeting our store or something like that, right?".
"Mm, more or less yes", said Helena, she has been inspecting Aster's expression all this time, and she noticed he didn't even flinch, so she couldn't help but ask with a curious filled voice.
"Aren't you worried, being challenged like this is a serious thing in this business, reputation is a really important thing after all", she said.
Aster smirked in response.
"Well, mom wasn't bluffing in any case, why should we worry if we do have the best on the mentioned fields among the young generation, all together in a single place, the next time they come, we just have to crush them so that they can never again cause us troubles".
"Pfftt~", Helena couldn't help but laugh at Aster's response, she wasn't mocking him of course, but she found it really interesting.
From the beginning to the end, the black haired youth in front of her didn't care about the threats, rumors and other tries to taunt him at all, any other person from the young generation and even a pretty big part of the members of the old generation would have been fuming right now, preparing for a full out war for the sake of face.
But Aster didn't care about it, and that was incredible for a member of the young generation.
New novel chapters are published on fr(e)ewebnov(e)l.com