A few seconds later the scenery of the mansion, changed to the lively streets of the Central Capital, naturally such a large group immediately got the attention of the bystanders, not to mention they recognized Agnes and Aster at first sight.
Some of the male disciples who were unpacking goods or doing other jobs, were immediately attracted to the group of beauties that popped out of nowhere, or at least that was until they saw Aster with them.
Rumors are faster than light, is an old saying, and following such principle, the fact that Aster robbed the members of the punishment hall in the Treasure Planet, back then when he was having his date with Camila, had spread like wildfire in a matter of minutes.
And everyone was told the exact same thing "That guy nearly killed all the people around, because his time with one of his girlfriends was interrupted for a couple of seconds", not only that, those poor guys were left practically only with the clothes they were wearing as a result.
Aster's reputation was originally quite bad among the male disciples, but now they feared him, if he could kill someone over a small interruption, what will he do to those who actually so something to piss him off, is what they thought.
The male disciples forced their eyes to chance their focus, who knows maybe that demon will feel offended if they look at his women and kill them on the spot using a lousy excuse, in contrast, the female disciples were as lively as always, there were some from the Green Lotus faction who kindly greeted Aster on the way.
Not to mention the girls from the Black Sword faction whose intentions were clear, they wanted to have a go and see if they could become a part of the group, naturally the challengers were driven away by Alice and Aria.
"I swear, we should have made you use a veil or something, everyday there are new proposals, and I'm going to be left alone with all of them", jokingly said Alice.
Aster chuckled, he indeed found the situation amusing, in any case this also worked as training for the girls, since experience in dealing with other cultivators is a must, not to mention Alice and the others were having fun by doing so.
They soon arrived at the mission hall and directly went upstairs, unlike the first floor which was crowded, at the second floor the number of people was really low, which could be guessed by the fact that out of the three receptionists available, only two were currently tending to someone.
The girl in charge of one of the counters who was currently accepting a disciple's mission submit, turned to see Aster's group as soon as they appeared, her eyes glowed with entertainment before she said.
"Sister Ange, your date is here~", the girl in the third counter which was free, froze on the spot, she gave her junior an accusatory gaze and then greeted Aster.
"Good morning, Aster, I compiled the missions you asked me to... also please ignore my junior's words, she likes to mess around, but don't worry I'll make sure to "discipline" her later", said Angela with a smile which wasn't a smile on her pretty face.
The girl who announced Aster's arrival trembled a bit, she then accelerated her pace as if she wanted to finish her portion of work quick so that she could leave for the rest of the day.
The girls with the exception of Aria went to the board to look at the missions just to kill time, while Aster who was holding Aria's hand went to the counter.
"Thanks for the hard work, Angela, have those idiots came to look for trouble lately?", asked Aster as he received a bunch of papers with the details of the missions from Angela.
Angela covered her mouth with her hand and then giggled.
"Not really, since everyone got news of the "mysterious deaths" of Victor and that poisonous woman, anyone from the Purple Lotus faction who were the ones giving us more trouble, vanished, now they only take missions from the branch of the mission hall in the city of their faction".
Aster nodded, the last time, that girl who was acting as Iris's friend, tried to force Angela to transfer the spot in the mission Julian created, which Aster had previously taken, so Aster taught her a little lesson.
Since that day the disciples of the Purple Lotus faction came to try and stir up troubles, naturally they didn't dare to go too far, because since the previous incident, Salazar sent a couple of disciples from the punishment hall to act as guards.
Those two tower-like tall guys were still at the entrance of the mission hall, giving everyone intense gazes, thanks to them, the guys from the Purple Lotus, could only resort to petty words to try to get back at the receptionists.
And that stopped the very moment news of Victor's death made their way to the sect, which was practically when Aster and the others left the secret realm, since Aster personally killed Victor which made his soul lamp break.
The reason as to why it was a "mystery" is because the soul lamp couldn't capture the image, or any trace of the one who killed Victor, so no matter how much the people of the Purple Lotus faction tried to put the blame on Aster, they had no evidences.
Not like they didn't try to do it, but the answer they got was "Are you saying, a disciple managed to trick the formations personally set up by the Rune Mastering Ancestor", the records of the mission stated that no one above the Genesis Manifestation participated in the mission, so such a thing was impossible.
Julian and also Iris vehemently denied that Aster killed Victor, and even if that would have been the case, besides a possibility of a personal vendetta from Victor's family, which couldn't take place within the planets property of the sect unless they wanted the executor elder to reap their lives, nothing else would have happened.
That is also why, the woman from the Purple Lotus faction which accompanied Edward, held a grudge with Aster, she refused to believe her brother who wasn't weaker than Iris died without leaving any trace behind so easily, if the survivors of the mission didn't do it, they must have plotted something, or so she thought.
The truth is that Aster killed him with annihilation, so there was nothing left of Victor that the soul lamp could use to mark Aster, this is a trick Lilia taught him, a flaw that the soul lamp's design which was created by the grandmother of one of Aster's godmothers, purposedly added in secret, at the petition of her granddaughter.
It was originally meant as a gift for Lilia and required a certain level of "destruction" and the heart of the target to be destroyed first, so that the lamp would always show an unknown result, that's how Lilia easily killed the law enforcer without anyone noticing what happened to him.
Still, Aster confirmed that annihilation worked better, the soul lamp couldn't activate if there was no soul left, and that was it.
Leaving that aside, Aster started going through the missions which Angela compiled for him, he already had the Fritz Stellar System as his target since Tomas, the elder from the Atria family he helped at the border station of the Rodia Star Cluster, told him that the Diamond Bone Orchid, one of the materials needed for Rya's new body has appeared in the Fritz Stellar System before.
Aster suddenly stopped leafing through the pieces of paper in which the information of the missions was written, the one he was looking at right now, was different than the others, it was marked to show that at least three teams have tried and failed before, which increased the reward.
But that wasn't what called his attention, the rewards were mere middle grade spirit jades, he had more of those than what he could count, what caught his attention was the objective of the mission itself.
[Explore the middle area of the Extreme Silicon Forest and bring five kilograms of White Silicon ore with you, the reward includes a weapon personalized by the core elder Olivia from the Blacksmith peak]
'White Silicon is a peak Stellar grade material, it's valuable because it can only form in the rare places where yang, earth and nature elements converge, which is the perfect soil for the Diamond Bone Orchid to grow', thought Aster.
Rya mentioned some tips and other things regarding the materials she needed to Aster, to make it easier for him to find them.
Angela saw the mission Aster was holding and she bitterly smiled, out of the little she has understood of Aster, she knew he was going to chose the hardest mission of the bunch.
"That mission is especially hard, because we can't always enter the Extreme Silicon Forest, it only opens for about a month starting a the end of august and it closes at the end of September when autumn starts, nobody knows why this cycle always exactly repeats though, but the Fritz family limits the number of outsiders that can go in, as it is used as a training ground for the elites of their Stellar System, our sect has a certain number of spots, which are limited to be used when a core elder or above inquires a mission related to that place".
"If this elder wants the material so much, why not go to that place herself?", asked Aria.
"Because unless the resource is brought back by a member of the younger generation, everything gotten inside the Silicon Forest must be sold to the Fritz family and if done like that, the members of the old generation can't buy them, they have a formation that can see through lies and detect things coming from the forest, as long as you have materials that grew there, you'll have to follow their rules".
"They aren't tyrants though, there has been disciples that explored the outer area of the forest and were lucky enough to find some resources that had escaped the sight of those who previously visited, and they weren't bothered in any way and were allowed to leave, the current first ranked disciple is one of them".
"You could say they nurture their young generation a lot, which makes sense, since the Fritz Stellar System is among the next ones that can aspire to become a high ranked one after the top three, they were pushed behind, since the Tsarai Stellar System suddenly raised their strength", confidently said Angela, it is clear she looked into the mission rather than choosing it for Aster, just because it took place in the Fritz Stellar System.
Aster smiled, Angela did more than gather these missions, she even looked into the background of each one of them, it was praise-worthy.
"By the way is there a penalty for not completing the mission and how many people can go at once, also is there a limit of cultivation realm to enter?", asked Aster.
"No, since entering the middle area of the Silicon Forest is extremely hard and can normally only done by luck, there is no penalty in case of failure, in fact if you manage to get a letter explaining how good was your performance from the gatekeeper elder of the Fritz family, you'll even get merit points despite failing, we have ten... no nine spots available currently, the cultivation realm doesn't matter, apparently you'll get your realm suppressed to the Mortal Transcending realm at most", answered Angela.
Aster nodded and then he handed Angela the paper of the mission.
"Okay, I'll take it, my group consists in seven people this time".
"Mm, please show me your ring for a second", said Angela as she placed the paper of the mission on her counter, the formations activated and she registered Aster's participation on the mission.
"Humph, you want to take my benefactor's spots, dream on", Angela softly snorted, apparently another receptionist was about to register a team of three for this mission, at the same time as her.
Under Aster's slightly surprised eyes, Angela suddenly sped up the process, the formation required her to input certain information and her credentials by using her spirit sense, the way she was processing the information right now, was only possible if she a skilled soul cultivator.
'I didn't inspect her before, she chose the soul path as her main and hasn't started cultivating in a second path, what an interesting choice', thought Aster.
That's probably why Angela lacked in battle aspects against that poisonous woman who was an energy cultivator, she is a pure soul cultivator as of right now, a rare sight to say the least.
That being said, Aster was convinced by her processing speed, which wasn't any worse than his, maybe she was naturally talented in that specific aspect of soul path, which is unfortunately not the one people tend to look for, telekinesis, illusions and enhancing are the ones practically everyone try to develop.
'That would explain why she was able to gather and order so much information in such a short period of time', concluded Aster.
He only asked about this mission, but he was sure Angela had as much information if not even more, from all the other options she presented to Aster, it's worth mentioning that there were around 100 papers in the bunch she handed to Aster.
"It's done, this is the entry pass, you'll have to show it to the gatekeeper elder~", said Angela with a smile as she handed Aster a card with a black sword as well as the emblem of the Twin Sword valley engraved on it.
Angela looked happy since she won her battle for the spots, Aster had to admit she did a good job, she had to input information, register him and issue the pass all at the same time.
Aster kept the card in his spatial ring and then said.
"Thanks, I'll invite you to a meal at my valley so you can meet the whole group once I return, if you want to, of course".
Angela was taken by surprise, but she nodded with a bright smile on her face.
"Sure, it would be fun to brag to my family, that the mighty Lord of the Twin Sword valley invited me to his domain", she jokingly said.
Aster laughed and then he said goodbye before leaving followed by the girls, now that they have solved the mission, they have other things to do as well as some preparations, since the Silicon Forest will be open in about four or five days, which is practically the time it was going to take them to arrive at the Fritz Stellar System if they departed tomorrow.
Once Aster's group left, the two girls at the other counters left their spots and approached Angela, they grabbed her hands and said.
"The spring has finally come for sister Ange, ah and it is with the idol of our sect no less~".
"Sister Angela, tell us how did you do it, there is long a line of sisters from the sect that wish to be "closer" to senior brother Aster, and you seem to be in quite friendly terms with him, you even call him by his name, tell us is there some back store in between you, maybe a childhood friend who you only recently met after many years, did you two just simply got along at first sight".
The two girls then grabbed Angela's shoulders; their eyes were practically sparkling with curiosity.
"Can't you give us your junior sisters some advice... ouch!".
Angela pinched the cheeks of the two receptionists, though they weren't assisting anyone right now, there were still other people in the second floor.
"Stop reading those romantic novels and don't go around creating misunderstandings you two".
"Fine keep it a secret, in any case if our sister Ange ends up becoming important for the Lord of the Twin Sword valley, our team and our salaries will be improved anyway~", said the two girls as they stuck their tongues at Angela, who sighed in response.
"You two have too much free time, you'll be processing all the reports today as a punishment", she said with a smile.
"Ah, no fair, sister Angela is the only one who can finish those things before our time to leave, by older sister will beat me up if I don't arrive in time for her party!".
"Ah, my reservation for the Stargazing Pavilion is at 7:00 PM, if I arrive even one minute later, they will auction it on the spot, mercy please I used a whole month of salary to get the seat!".
The poor receptionists tried to appeal to Angela's gentle nature, but they were met with more work to do, which normally she does on behalf of them, since she gets bored after finishing her portion easily early in the morning.
This chapt𝒆r is updated by free(w)ebnovel(.)com