604 Aria’s soothing cold & Mira’s warm heart (part 5)
Seeing Aria and Mira's proudful expressions, Aster inwardly chuckled, it's not like he wasn't going to give them the gifts he prepared for them if they didn't win that little game, they succeeded in cooperating and Aria's flames advanced to the next level according to what he could see.
Besides even if that was the case, this was a win in Aster's book as he got to see those two being all cute and competitive, so he didn't mind to accept his defeat.
"Okay, it's your win, ladies", he said.
Aria and Mira smiled at each other and only then those two sat down next to the other, after all the previous they were exhausted after all.
"Heh, were you two really that worried of not getting your rewards?", said Aster with a playful voice.
"Humph, of course not, I lost against you the last time, now we are even...", mumbled the ligress girl, Aria limited to giggle while she played with the new flame she has obtained.
Aster bitterly smiled, the ligress girl was quite stubborn but that was part of her charm, besides he now knows how to get to her without having to resort to the cuteness mass destruction weapon also known as Kana, so the next mission was bound to be a fun one.
Aria saw the little smirk on Aster's face and she couldn't help but sigh on regard the ligress girl.
"Ahem, let's leave that aside for now, that "feeling" you mentioned earlier was caused due to this ice, right?", asked Aria trying to divert Aster's attention from teasing Mira.
Aster smiled in response, with a snap of his fingers a wisp of blue flames lit up on his right hand, unlike Aria's flames which had become much smoother and fluid, Aster's had become livelier, the thing swirled on his hand just like the origin of the flames always dances around Aster's Soul Avatar inside the mind space.
"Mm?", Mira's eyes widened a bit, without she doing anything, her ears and tail which she had hidden earlier, manifested and then two streams of spirit energy left her body on their own, at the same time the flame on Aria's hand as well as a stream of her spirit energy also left her, in Aster's case only the flame escaped his grasp.
The different yet ice attributed energies clashed and mixed on the air, resulting in a really small silvery blue particle of light, those two had a hard time discerning it with their bare eyes, but Aster's dragon eyes showed him the real appearance of that little thing in detail, it was snowflake.
The moment the snowflake touched the, a new layer of ice immediately covered the giant ice tower extending all the way from the point of contact as its center, the temperature also dropped quite a bit once again, to the point that cold mist was starting to appear in the area.
Despite the previous, nothing happened to neither of the three people who were sitting not too far from the origin of the freezing wave that caused such an incredible phenomenon.
After having enjoyed Mira and Aria's amazed expressions to the content of his heart, Aster took the initiative to explain.
"The result of our teamwork not only combines the properties of our energies, but also magnifies them, I call it "Absolute Ice", incredible right".
"How in the name of the heavens did you do that!", exclaimed the ligress girl who couldn't contain her surprise anymore.
Cultivators of similar or complementing attributes joining hands in order to use combined techniques is not common at all, but it isn't unheard off either, at least on the high ranked Stellar Systems there are known cases of it.
However, what happened earlier isn't like that, for the previous case, all the participants must act in synchrony at the exact same time, it has to be done consciously and on purpose, but earlier her spirit energy casually left her body without she doing anything.
For a second the ligress girl's heart sank thinking that Aster had broken his promise and used the informal contract that was stablished between them when he spoke her true name, to control her, but that thought disappeared as fat as it appeared as the ligress girl inwardly shook her head.
'No, he might be a huge pervert but he... wouldn't do that, besides I didn't feel any displease when my spirit energy left my body', thought Mira, her eyes sparkled with curiosity as she gazed at Aster.
"And here I was thinking a certain someone will scratch me on the spot", jokingly said Aster.
"I-I'm not a cat you know!", exclaimed Mira, she felt like choking Aster knowing that he was doing it on purpose, however she calmed down after seeing the honest relief in his eyes.
'He knew what I was thinking... no, he could tell from my reaction, his senses are really monstrous', thought Mira, she also had spirit beast's ascendence so she also has sharper instincts than other cultivators, but she had to admit that Aster was on another level, she related it to the fact that he is a soul cultivator unlike her.
"I... know you aren't like them, happy, now tell me what is going on", mumbled the ligress girl.
Aster softly laughed to then produce more blue flames, this time instead of a wisp he created two different streams, which to Mira's surprise immediately moved to orbit herself and Aria.
While Aria was all smiles as she looked at the pendant, Aster turned to see Mira who looked away at the thought of receiving such an "inappropriate" thing from a man.
Aster inwardly smirked as he opened the remaining gift, just for the ligress girl's heart to nearly jump out of her chest at the sight of a ring with a light blue gem similar in color to Aria's rapier.
The difference lied on the fact that it was obviously crafted for her, the thing had tiger and a lion engraved on it after all.
"Y-You, I'm not one of your girls!", exclaimed the ligress girl, that being said her interest on the ring was impossible to hide, her ears cutely twitched a couple of times as a proof of it.
"The ring is quite pretty, but what's inside is what's important, is something that all the members of my family have", he said.
Mira softly growled but she couldn't resist the curiosity and sent her divine sense into the ring, to look what was stored in it.
The contents included a large set of transparent elixirs and a few bottles of a light blue liquid.
"The transparent elixirs are used to heal, as long as you are below the Heavenly Realms, if you are still breathing, they will completely heal you, flesh, meridians, soul and dantian included", said Aster.
"What!", it was Mira's turn to exclaim in surprise this time, with her exalted status she of course has heard of alchemic products with incredible healing properties, she has even used some before, but the amount inside the ring was of around a thousand, even if it was limited to the mortal realm, it was too much, not to mention Aster said that the elixirs cured every aspect while each elixir should focus on a sole thing.
'An elixir that can cure every aspect at this grade wouldn't lose in price with a peak Mortal one and he gave me a thousand of them, where did he even get the ingredients?', wondered Mira.
But that wasn't all, Aster continued with the introduction a second later.
"The blue elixir is something especially made for those whose bodies aren't used to spirit energy, it's basically a way for you to refine spirit energy enough to be good enough to recover your original realm, it will also prevent your meridians from drying up".
At this point Mira didn't know what to say, all the issues she knew she will be facing soon since her reserves of divine energy were bound to be depleted sooner or later, were solved just like that.
Seeing the ligress girl lost in her thoughts, Aster closed the case and handed it to Mira.
"Here, I trust you'll use it correctly", he said, which made the ligress girl slightly blush, but ultimately, she directly gazed at Aster to then slowly say.
Mira's eyes sparkled for a second, she opened the case and activated the formation to change the ring's size, then to Aster's surprise she slid the ring until it was decorating the middle part of her cute tiger's tail.
08:55
"Thanks... Aster", it is the first time that Mira calls Aster by his name instead of "he" or "you", she didn't do it on purpose but while she has called Aria and Kana by her name, she didn't do the same with Aster until now.
Aster nodded at her in response.
"Its size can be adjusted so if you don't want to use it on your finger, you can use it as a wristband too".
Mira's eyes sparkled for a second, she opened the case and activated the formation to change the ring's size, then to Aster's surprise she slid the ring until it was decorating the middle part of her cute tiger's tail.
"Such precious elixirs have to be kept safe, t-that's all!", she exclaimed to then hide her tail, thus also hiding the ring, what she said had some logic, even with his eyes, Aster couldn't tell how Alice or Lilia kept their tail and wings hidden, respectively, the ligress girl probably also had some kind of mark on her lower back like Alice from where her tail manifested.
That being said, she kept her fluffy ears out and while doing her best not to look at Aster's eyes directly she said in a low voice.
"The castle is safe right, I-I'll keep my ears out when we are there... you can see them but if you touch them without permission, I'll break your hand".
Aster chuckled in response, truth to be told earlier he nearly unconsciously petted her head to caress her fluffy ears, it was his dragon instincts trying to pull a fast one on him, luckily, he regained control like always or the ligress girl would have probably gotten angry at him.
'Well, at least now the punishment isn't losing a hand but just breaking it, I guess that's an advance', he thought.
And with that their date came to an end, they still had time before the sunset, but they had to leave this planet before other elders noticed they had entered without permission, they were using it under Agnes's name with William's token of authority, she'll have to enter at least a few hours during the day to not raise suspicion, since she reserved it for a whole