Chapter 586 Agnes’s soul avatar (part 4)
Seeing, Agnes, Lilia and Rya's amazed expressions, Aster couldn't help but laugh, this is something he trained in secret even from that possessive mother of his, not to mention Rya who is practically all the time on the look.
The reason is quite simple, he practiced while Rya was under her daily treatment or after he had already filled both that lewd dragon mother and his cute empress with his love, so they weren't looking when he trained.
Of course, he basically ran simulations in his mind, which was possible thanks to his insanely skilled soul cultivation, the previous came with a risk though, mental training put a lot of stress in one's soul, since one would immerse into the created simulation.
Basically, the repercussions incurred while in that state, will reflect in your soul instead of in your body, so it was quite an advanced technique for anyone who wasn't a Soul King.
But Aster's soul cultivation method, consisted in breaking the limits of his soul anyway, so for him that was a win-win situation, that being said, the pain of the "Aster" in the simulation having his body being thorned apart, was quite something.
And he had to go through that countless of times before he was able to get some progress.
"Annihilation is both fierce and flashy but strangely stealthy, if I followed a normal path, I would have had to discard one at some point, since they are extreme opposites, but I thought that it would have been a shame, considering how much potential does soul energy which is nearly non-existent, has", said Aster.
Attributes develop based on the paths chosen by their owners, the same fire will have a different result on an energy cultivator than on a body cultivator, Aster's annihilation used to center on the energy path.
And he still remembers Rya's awe, when his soul showed to be immune to annihilation, not to mention the incredible exception of being a dragon who can cultivate his soul, so he didn't want to let that go to waste.
Soul energy can be both stealthy or flashy, the first one favors things like telekinesis, parallel thinking, spirit weapons and the like, while the second one focuses on illusions, condensing, mind attacks etc.
Back then, Aster killed someone using soul energy imbued with annihilation, without anyone noticing, that was a rudimentary form of what he wanted to achieve.
Since the moment he created the black sword spirit weapon, an idea was born in his mind "why not use sword intent with it", technically ghost sword and sharpening could be applied to anything.
The problem is that by doing so, the previous advantage of being practically undetectable, was lessened to its extreme, since his sword intent was on the aggressive side, as proof of it, his Sky Rendering, the technique he created by putting his everything into his sword, manifested as a huge pillar of light.
"Though I ran countless simulations in my mind, it was thanks to two people that I got a hint on how to give form to it, the first one was Esmeralda…", said Aster, his free hand was cladded by his sword intent.
Sometimes when a problem appears to be unsolvable, the answer is to look at it from a different perspective, Esmeralda did it, the path of a spirit element is to develop more properties of the same element they embody.
But she abandoned her comfort zone and instead looked to cover the areas where she was lacking by looking for a connection between her original element and what she desired to obtain, in her case it was the concept of "green".
Of course, Aster couldn't completely follow her steps, since he isn't a spirit element, what inspired him from Esmeralda, is the fact that she linked many different things by finding something they had in common.
"Since I would have had to discard the stealth aspect at some point, then why not completely separate it, without the two aspects colliding wouldn't I be able to maximize both of them, as to what will keep them connected and obedient, that will be my intent", mumbled Aster.
The intent projected by his hand, was then split into two by a line of golden light, resulting in two different smaller streams of intent, the surprising thing is that while in size they of course lacked in comparison with the previous, their intensity, purity and level didn't diminish at all.
Agnes saw the skin of Aster's fingers suddenly rip apart, but since Aster was smiling at her, she bit her lips and remained silent.
"Don't worry, the truth is that splitting my intent doesn't cause me any pain, since annihilation can't harm me, or anything related to me, that includes my intent, the only problem is that my body isn't strong enough as of current to manifest both intents at the same time, because they extremely oppose each other", he said before he dispelled both intents, his skin regenerated not too long after.
in your case the sword, as well as one of your two paths, which in your case it is the energy one, another path can't interfere unless Agnes mumbled a couple of things before saying.
"It can't be as simple as you make it sound, intent is an agglomeration of the experiences attained with its respective focus, in your case the sword, as well as one of your two paths, which in your case it is the energy one, another path can't interfere unless you are…", Agnes suddenly stopped speaking, her eyes sparkled as she intensely gazed at Aster who laughed in response.
"Yeah, the second inspiration was you, the sight of your soul avatar integrating with your Genesis Core is still fresh in my mind, also you can let go of my hand now, you know", he playfully said.
Agnes pouted, he was teasing her again, she looked away but instead of letting go of Aster's hand, she tightened her grip on it, which made Aster chuckle.
"Just like you said, it isn't as simple as I made it sound, since I have only set a foot in the third level of intent, no matter what I do, until I fully enter the third level, my intent is bound to have "flaws", otherwise it won't be a half step third level intent", he said.
"Mm", Agnes who was still "ignoring" Aster nodded, maybe she didn't know about flaws, but when she saw Aster's previous intent when he was still at the second level, she was sure that it was perfect, he couldn't polish it more than what he had done at that point.
But after he set a foot into the third level, small yet important details had to be solved so that he could advance more, she knows it as she did the same back when she hadn't reached the third level.
"It's easier for soul cultivators like us to develop much stronger intents, since our comprehension is naturally enhanced, normally to enter the third level of intent one has to at least solve 60% of the details that appear after setting a foot into the third level, the vast majority of cultivators go along with this, since anything past that it's not easy to achieve".
"However, though the result isn't by any means weak, for the top twenty families of each Heavenly Quadrant, the requirement set is 80% and for the four ruler families, those who don't reach 90% are considered inadequate for an important position and end up being delegated to secondary branches outside of the main territory", said Agnes before adding.
"Just for the records, sister Valentina, cousin and me didn't aim to reach the third level until we solved each and all of the details that were staining our intents, in other words we reached 100%".
Aster nodded in response, while he hadn't inspected Agnes's soul avatar with his dragon eyes until this day, he had seen her intent a couple of times before, as she willingly showed it to him, she is still at the initial stage of the third level but it was crystal clear, without any flaws, of course that will change when she reached her breaking point to the next stage.
"Well, I simply looked for the major flaws in my intent, which were of course related to the fact that fierceness and explosive properties clash with stealth and etherealness, and when I found them, I used annihilation to force the two sides that repelled each other, to separate at a key point".
"The good thing is that after separating it with annihilation, I don't need to do it every time, the stream at its origin is still one I just created another channel to divert it into two different directions right before the clash starts, this way I don't need to start all over again, I'll train it as a whole and get twice the results with half the effort, not to mention that unlike others my limit will be two times that of others".
Let alone Agnes, even Lilia and Rya were speechless at Aster's explanation, he managed to precisely separate his intent by the using the flaws in it as cut marks, not only that drastically diminished the flaws he had to get rid of, since most of them originated on the clash between the two natures of his intent, but this way he developed a double intent of some sort.
"You… I don't even know what to say anymore, there are so many dangers in what you did, it's amazing that you found where to "cut" to keep the structural integrity of your intent, not to mention letting two intents of extreme opposite natures co-exist at the same time puts an immeasurable amount of load in your body".
"It's like mixing fire and water while avoiding the first to be put out and the second to be evaporated, at the same time, the control you need for that will put a lot of pressure on your soul", mumbled Agnes just to see Aster smirking.
"That's a bonus, I really don't like meditation so this is a much enjoyable training method, also what do you think will happen when the two "streams" converge, or what if I add a third one later on", he said.
Agnes wanted to tell Aster that he was doing crazy suppositions, but on the other hand her curiosity won her, besides it's not like there are no precedents of a technique that uses spirit energy and soul energy at the same time to produce a better result, which actually aligns with the next subject.
"Enough of me, I remember a certain someone told me that she'll show me hers if I showed her mine", he jokingly said.
Aster let his body fall backwards on the rocky floor of the mountain, the poor swords buried here were being ignored, even when two batches of them joined hands they weren't able to disrupt Aster's intent after all.
Agnes who was still holding onto Aster's left hand, followed him by letting her body Fall backwards next to him, she observed the sky for a couple of seconds before saying.
"The Fey family is born with an especially high elemental compatibility, similar to the Drage who are said to descend from a legendary race such as dragons, we are supposed to come from some kind of spirits, not spirit elements like Esmeralda, but a different kind of being, there is not much history from ancient times to be honest, but that's the accepted theory of our origin".
"The regular members of our clan are always talented in the energy path and they have the chance to cultivate in the second path they want, be it the body or the soul, however those like sister Valentina or me can't cultivate the body, instead we get outstanding talent in the soul path as well".
"Unlike other families, main branches of the family continue to appear even nowadays, since miss Lilia is your mother, I guess you have at least heard that a talent appears among the Fey here and there, the requirement for a branch to be considered a main one, is someone like me or sister Valentina appearing".
"We divide ourselves based on our attribute, fire family, water family and so on, and the "royalty" of each are those who have a soul constitution, to which's name includes both an element and a gem, for example sister Valentina belongs to one of the eight ancient families, as she has a Lightning Amethyst soul constitution".
"I'm also from one of the eight ancient families, since I have the Sunlight Diamond soul constitution called like that because of the orange shade that our light attribute has, ah right, cousin who is from miss Lilia's generation is also from another of the eight ancient families, one of the two that has existed from the very beginning actually, as she has the Disaster Onix soul constitution", she said before she manifested her soul avatar once again.
Aster found himself surrounded by two Agnes, one at his side while the other was floating in front of him, both quite pretty but only one could talk at least for now.
"Our soul avatars obtain a property per each major division regardless if we reach it in the energy or soul path, starting from the earthly realms, in other words our soul constitutions basically focus on reinforcing our soul avatars".
"As you already noticed, one of the properties of my soul constitution is "solidification", unlike other people's soul avatars, mine can be both ethereal or corporeal, because you know "diamond", it's also called like that because of the… armor it wears, for some reason it's the same for all the ones who have it, like my grandmother, mother and aunt", mumbled Agnes with a slightly ashamed voice.
"The second property is "light conduction" which I obtained after reaching the Transcending realms, that's what I used to integrate my Radiant Sun Genesis Core temporarily with my soul avatar", she added.
Aster was honestly amazed at Agnes's soul constitution, it was quite different from his, her soul avatar wasn't especially vivid for nothing, her constitution centered on it and her family managed to diversify their techniques through it.
Agnes saw Aster looking her soul avatar and she softly laughed before she snapped her fingers, the tall figure made out of orange light, shone and then shrank until it was around the same height as the real Agnes.
"I guess solidification is the origin of your taste for physical training", jokingly said Aster, as he extended his free hand and then touched the hand of Agnes's soul avatar to compare the sensation, just to be amazed at the fact that they were practically the same.
But then he saw Agnes's soul avatar blushing, meaning the real one was doing the same, as for the reason, she explained it the next second.
"Not really, mother and grandmother find body cultivators unpleasant, since they have a friendly rivalry with some people from William's family, I got interested in physical training in part because of my cousin telling me a lot of stories about the adventures she had with her sisters…".
Aster was in awe for a second before he laughed out loud, turns out, it was in part Lilia's fault that Agnes became a physical training maniac, it was understandable though, apparently the young Fey are restrained to be in the main territory for quite some time, before they are allowed to venture out, before that they can't even meet with people from other places, besides when there are special events.
In fact, that's how Lilia met Aster's godmothers, in one of the many events where the ruler families gathered, unfortunately Agnes and Valentina were too young back then and they didn't find anyone from their same generation in the other families, interesting nor easy to get along with.
"Do you know why is it that me and sister Valentina find ourselves comfortable around you, well, besides the fact that we can't feel an ounce of falsehood from your soul?", said Agnes as she looked at her soul avatar.
"Well, I have been told that I'm quite handsome", jokingly said Aster, which made Agnes giggle.
"It's dazzling, the brightness that your soul radiates surpasses anything I have seen before, it's warm and comfortable to the point that even my soul avatar allows you to touch her, even without me ordering it~", she said with a bright smile on her pretty face.
"I see", mumbled Aster, Agnes's soul avatar became a ray of orange light and returned to Agnes's body as if it was running away from Aster's gaze, which he found rather amusing.
"I was planning to use some time of the date to fight using our intents, but I want us to stay like this for a while… can we?", she cutely asked.
Aster softly smiled before saying.
"Sure, why don't you tell me more about yourself, since we have opened ourselves to each other".
Agnes's eyes sparkled, her big "secret" ended up not being relevant in Aster's eyes, so she had no reason to not tell Aster more about herself, from back when she lived at the Sun Sprite Heavenly Quadrant.
…
The saying goes that time sure flies when one is having fun, without Aster nor Agnes noticing, the hours passed while Agnes talked about her childhood at her clan, even after using almost a whole day to it, it wasn't more than a couple of years of events, which could be resumed by the fact that she was trapped at the castle of her family branch.
Now Aster understood why she had Valentina and his godmother in such high regards, Valentina was from a close generation, though from another family branch, she practically spent all her time at Agnes's family's territory, because their mothers were best friends.
As for Aster's godmother, she did what she wanted and since she was kind of a black sheep, most people didn't approach her, but those two could see she wasn't a bad person, thanks to their lineage ability, which ended in them idolizing the one who was considered the strongest of the young generation among the Fey.
Aster enjoyed seeing Agnes laugh as she dug out memories from her childhood, maybe she lacked in terms of quantity when it came to friends, but she excelled in terms of quality.
Before they noticed, the illumination started to diminish, meaning that the end of their date was close.
"Say Aster, since I'm now "taken, would it be okay if I…", said Agnes, her voice lowered by the end until her words were barely understandable.
Even without using spirit sense but just his excellent senses, Aster could hear Agnes's heart racing, her grip on Aster's hand tightened a bit, which he found rather cute.
"Sure, as much as you want…", as Aster was speaking, he stopped in cold as he saw Agnes suddenly laying down on top of him, her eyes were closed and her face was slightly blushed as she placed her left cheek for a kiss.
Aster chuckled before saying.
"I was referring to holding hands".
Agnes's face exploded in red, her eyes opened on the spot but before she could escape, Aster swiftly moved upwards and gently pecked her cheek.
"I-I, y-you, ahhh!", Agnes didn't know how to react, her image flashed as she became a line of light that soon disappeared from Aster's sight.
Aster who was left behind didn't rush after her or anything, in any case she stopped to wait for him at the other side of the entrance of the Treasure Graveyard, she was sitting with her hands covering her face.
"How cute, truly worth teasing", mumbled Aster as he got up, only to hear Lilia laughing at him.
'You are too mean darling, you knew what she was referring to but still teased her by telling her you thought it was about holding hands, be sure to take responsibility~', she said.
Aster laughed to himself, he didn't have the intention of playing with Agnes's heart, but this is as far as they'll go for now, she originally felt attracted by the aspects of his soul she could see, but she slowly but surely has become attached to him, the same applies to Aster though.
"She'll be accompanying me to all of my missions, so we'll have more than enough time to get closer, she was already a part of my family anyway, so I would like to see who dares to try and play any tricks", said Aster as he stretched his body.
No matter how she tried to not externalize it, Aster noticed how much she hesitated at first when she had to talk about her family, she also obviously skipped some parts about her childhood, not to mention she didn't speak about why she left the Sun Sprite Heavenly Quadrant.
But nothing of that mattered for Aster, once a girl had managed to move his heart, he'll pursue her no matter what, he even took Lilia and Rya for himself, from his point of view it was going to be hard for other girls to be more troublesome than those two.
"Oh well, it's time to get back", said Aster as he calmly walked towards the exit, giving time to Agnes to recover from what happened earlier.
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