Chapter 620 Felicia's intangible gauntlets & Alexandra's reflection armor (part 8)
Chapter 620 Felicia's intangible gauntlets & Alexandra's reflection armor (part 8)
Confusing Alexandra's inner doubts with curiosity over the promised gifts, Aster looked
at their surroundings, after his battle with Felicia the place was a mess, craters and debris everywhere not to mention the cracks on the floor that threatened with collapsing below their feet at any moment.
"Before that, don't you think we should change our location first, ladies?", said Aster, which made those two realize the state of their surroundings.
"I second that, we went quite wild earlier, said Felicia as she flew towards the east. Seeing Alexandra who was still lost in her thoughts, Aster waves his hand in front of her.
"Hey, I don't think she can wait any longer", he said.
"Y-yes, let's go", Alexandra who returned to the real world thanks to Aster's voice, became a flash of light which followed Felicia's trace.
"Mm, perhaps she used too much physical energy earlier, and this planet doesn't help, a nice meal should do the trick', mumbled Aster he jumped into the sky, just in time to avoid falling into a pit that formed below where he was standing a second ago, the nearby area was too damaged after all.
Leaving that aside, he flew in the same direction as those two and found them sitting atop a hill, since the atmosphere of this planet was incomplete, there were no vegetation or whatsoever, the soil was gray and lifeless, despite having absorbed spirit energy from the space, it was too chaotic to give birth to life, that being said it's not as if this place didn't have its good points.
"I have to admit it, after listening to all those fantasy-like storied about their dates from the others, I thought you were making fun of us when we arrived at this place, but this is not bad at all", mumbled Alexandra as she gazed upwards.
Since there was no sky due to the incomplete atmosphere, with one's bares eyes, the space was fully visible, well for cultivators, mortals would probably only able to see a gloomy darkness above them.
But for Alexandra and Felicia, they were now witnessing the marvels of the starry space, including but not limited to a few comets, stardust and a couple of specially dazzling stars.
"Well, you two needed some pressure from the surroundings and this was the only place pleasing to the eye which I found nearby, also I always take my dates seriously", Aster's words made a little smile appear on Alexandra's face, at least for a second before he added.
"That being said, it was indeed fun to see your initial reaction".
Alexandra's right eyebrow slightly trembled in response, but she ended up softly
laughing as she mumbled.
"Whatever, it was fun... but the next time you better choose an interesting place", this of course earned her a few giggles from Felicia.
"Heh, miss "Why would I go on a date with him", now is yearning for a second one, how cute="
Alexandra went rigid on the spot, knowing that all the girls that frequented Eris and Mylene's sleepovers were going to know about this.
"F-Forget about that miss Felicia!", she exclaimed as she jumped out of the rock where she was sitting, unfortunately judging by the mischievous light in Felicia's eyes, it was too late for Alexandra, so she ultimately chose to give up and sat down with a defeated expression on her pretty face.
Seeing Alexandra being defeated beyond the point of return, Aster decided to intervene by taking Felicia's attention away from her.
"Ahem, as promised this is what I created for you", with a wave of his hand a black crystal case appeared floating in front of him to then fall down.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om
To Felicia's surprise, the black case half sank into the ground upon the slightest contact, a sign of how heavy was the thing inside, now imagine her reaction when Aster opened the thing to reveal what was inside, a small pair of black fingerless gloves with golden lines
Aster who saw the confusion on her eyes, which was understandable as the box had the size of an arm but the gloves occupied a really small part of that, felt amused at her reaction.
"These gloves were made with the same technique and base materials as Tia's glaive, try them on".
Felicia nodded, she leaned down to take them out of the case, the moment her hands made contact with them, her eyes sparkled and she put them on as if she was afraid of Aster taking them away from her.
A second and the small amount of soul energy which Felicia had managed to recover, later, the golden lines of the gloves lit up, then the soft leather-like material of the gloves hardened changing into metal scaled armor that covered all the way up to Felicia's elbows.
Aster snapped his fingers and a stream of his soul energy left his body, just for it to be immediately absorbed by the gauntlets.
"What is this, it feels like an extension of my body, I thought it was a leather type material but it changed after taking my soul energy in, also that wasn't my innate ability but the process and result was too similar to it!", she exclaimed.
Feeling amused at Felicia looking like a child in Christmas, Aster softly laughed before saying.
"This time manifest your soul condensed gauntlets but also channel physical energy into them".
Felicia nodded; a black inked substance covered the armlets expanding them as they took the oversized monster-like appearance their soul condensed counterpart has, before those metallic scales appeared over them, the result was a stylish and
fear-inspiring black clawed gauntlets.
Before Felicia could ask what was in her mind, Aster spoke first.
"Now use your new technique to pass your hand through something solid before releasing it".
Felicia raised an eyebrow but she did as he say, her left hand sank into the solid rock where Alexandra was sitting and then to the latter's surprise, since she hadn't saw her new technique in action.
Now imagine Alexandra's surprise, when Felicia cancelled her intangibility and instead of her hand being trapped into the rock... a clean and smooth half spherical hole appeared
on the rock.
Seeing the clean shave on the rock, which stopped a few centimeters from her, Alexandra glared at Aster with a "You knew this was going to happen" gaze.
"Don't look at me like that, the affected surface was perfectly calculated, to be safe for you, the rock didn't even collapse after all", jokingly said Aster before he focused his attention on Felicia again.
The energy constitution mother was still in awe at the result, her new technique externalized the source of her innate ability, allowing her to bring herself into anything that contained spirit energy, but there was the flaw of changing back while being inside a physical object, as she experienced earlier.
However, it seems like Aster's gift solved that for her.
"It was already amazing that you managed to make a spirit treasure that was compatible with my soul energy and emulated my innate ability through runes, but this... how did you get a secondary completely different effect on the same spirit treasure?", she
couldn't help but ask.
"Well, you have to thank a certain little wyrm for her the extreme adaptability property contained in her scales, so now you can drag, spirit, physical and even soul energy", said Aster, which made Felicia's mouth cutely open in awe.
It was understandable, he emulated her innate ability but used a formation to modify the result, the gauntlets dragged soul energy and accumulated it into them.
Normally that wouldn't be surprising, since soul energy is supposed to affect soul energy,
but in Felicia's specific case, it wasn't like that, so to achieve such a result it was obvious that he studied her soul energy quite a lot, not to mention he had to find the materials needed and process them in a way which she had never heard about in the four
Heavenly Quadrants.
As if feeling Aster's praises, the little wyrm woke up inside of the beast space in the emblem, Espi looked at her surroundings and happily hissed as she peeked her head out
of the emblem.
"Hisss-", the little cute snake gazed at Aster with puppy eyes, making him look in his
pocket to then give it a little nail sized red candy.
After accepting the candy, Espi licked Aster's hand a couple of times before returning to
the beast space, not before Aster patted her head a couple of times, so far, the best material to manage more than one type of energy which Aster has worked with, are
Espi's scales.
And that is a lot to say, considering that some Immortal grade materials are included in the experiments he has done in the mind space, the results were naturally of a higher grade, since Espi has only entered the Transcending realms not too long ago, however the energy cost, conservation and conversion ratio, are really bad in comparison. "So did you like my gift..., Aster stopped midway as he saw Felicia playing with her gauntlets, she shoved one of her fingers on the ground and then released her intangibility, resulting in an inverted dome clean shave on the solid rock, clearly, she enjoyed playing with her new toy.
"Yup, I love it, thanks~", said Felicia with a smile, which gave Aster a bad premonition.
Hehe, I wonder if that fun-killer aura of yours will still protect you against this', she thought making Aster feel a slight chill running down his spine.
Alexandra felt a strange bitter sensation lingering in her chest after witnessing the previous, she knew that Aster didn't have a personalized spirit treasure for her and she was okay with that.
In fact, she was felt nothing but gratitude towards him earlier, because she was going to have the chance to improve with her innate ability a lot faster than originally, not to mention he even supposedly had something that would allow her not to stagnate on the body path at the same time.
"What is this, am I angry to see miss Felicia receiving those gauntlets?, she wondered, unaware of the fact that she was experiencing jealousy for the first time in her life. Aster of course noticed the gaze on Alexandra's eyes, it was easier for him to understand her after he exchanged moves with her, they both had a defense type body constitution and clashed with them, so it became an instinctive thing, for Aster at least, because you
know, dragonkin.
"I might not have a personalized treasure for you now, but that doesn't mean I didn't. prepare anything, here as promised, said Aster as he took out a small jewelry box out of the mind space to then open it for her.
"I-Is that a r-ring?", mumbled Alexandra, stating the obvious, the content of the box was
a golden ring. "This is the symbol of being part of my family, inside you'll find a few things that are
exclusive to us, like an elixir that can cure any wound as long as you are below the peak of the Transcending realms, pills to fully recover your spirit energy in seconds without side effects and a few other little welcoming gifts, one of them reserved for body path cultivators to accelerate their body refining, I recommend you to use it when you are alone though", said Aster as he handed her the little box.
Only now Alexandra stole a gaze at Felicia's hand, noticing she had a similar ring, but hers had a different decoration, in other words while the design was similar, the details. were different for each girl.
Alexandra looked into the ring and after reading the descriptions of the bottles of pills
and elixirs there, she was at a loss for words, if she had found something even half as effective as those things affirmed to be, she could have cured her mother a long time ago, in other words they were things that should only be available for people with high statuses in high ranked Stellar Systems and not in this quantity.
"What the hell, this is too much... I shouldn't accept this', she thought but before she
could say anything, Aster spoke.
"This is something I only give to those I consider trust worthy, if you consider me a
friend then accept it, I'll prepare one for your parents later". Alexandra lowered her head and limited to slightly nod.
"Mm", with a soft sound, she looked at the little obviously light box and felt the heaviness
of the meaning behind of it, any of those alchemic products would cause a bloodbath given the correct circumstances and she had a large shelf gifted to her just like that. "Now that you mention it, I have seen others wearing different rings, I wonder if we can get those as well-", jokingly said Felicia only for her to freeze as she hard Aster's answer.
"Well, those are engagement rings, I can make one for you two if you want to, but unlike these gifts, those come with a prince", he mockingly said. "Humph, engagement at a third date, I'll have to warn Tia, you are way more dangerous than what I previously thought", mumbled Felicia.
'If she knew how Aria and me fell for each other practically after meeting each other,
amusingly thought Aster, but he limited to chuckle.
With the two girls happy with their gifts and more importantly having had a really fun time, Aster snapped his fingers and a portal appeared in front of them. "Before returning to the valley, let me treat you two ladies to a nice meal, I can't return
you to your daughter and mother respectively, in such conditions", said Aster, Felicia had no soul energy left and she used a lot of physical energy too, Alexandra was similar but with her spirit energy reserves being near zero in her case.
"Mm-", with a nod, those two agreed in unison and then the three of them jumped into
the portal.
The travel didn't last long this time, because Aster knew the destination beforehand, the same restaurant to which he took Tiana of course, for a good reason of course. They appeared in the center of East Sky city, right in front of the eyes of a bunch of junior disciples, who recognized Aster the very moment he became visible for them and that wasn't all, they also recognized Felicia who was accompanying him.
"Isn't that sister Tiana's mother?".
"I... didn't know she was also dating senior brother",
And similar whispers could be heard coming from those curious girls, in all directions
making Alexandra laugh at Felicia who felt the urge to find a hole to hide.
"This bastard did it on purpose, bringing me to the same place as Tia', she thought as she
saw Aster smiling at her.
While inwardly gritting her teeth and refusing to lose, she actually grabbed Aster's right
arm, making all the nearby junior disciples blush while they made their own deductions.
Alexandra didn't go as far but she held onto the side of his shirt, while Felicia just like innate ability, dragged Aster away towards the biggest restaurant in the city where she ordered the whole special menu.
Aster happily observed those two enjoying their food without any restrains, the bill was
quite something of course, but Aster is loaded so it was nothing, besides it was worth to see them fully enjoying till the last minute of their date.
"Time to go back, ladies", said Aster as he paid for the food, only for those two to stop him before he could open the portal back to the valley. "Mm, is there a problem?", he asked only to see hear them say. "Thanks, it was really fun", in a sense it was a first for the two of them, Felicia didn't.
come with Tiana for a change and for Alexandra, she never imagined she would come to be so comfortable with a boy much less she thought she would become a friend with one, for obvious and completely understandable reasons.
Aster smiled and then the three of them disappeared from the restaurant, of course the
rumors that he was dating both mother and daughter, spread like wildfire among the girls of the Black Sword faction.
Something that would produce some interesting results for Aster, sooner than he
expected by the way, but that's beside the point.
...
Their scenery changed from the restaurant to the living room of the castle, where of
course some of the girls were already waiting for their return. Among which of course were Tiana, Tamara and Thomas.
"Hi mom, dad, I'm a bit tired so I'll go to sleep now, good night!", shouted Alexandra as
she rushed to her room, not without the others noticing the dazzling golden ring that adorned her hand.
Felicia felt her daughter's gaze and she softly smiled as she said.
"Why are you looking at me like that Tia, I was already past the ring stage, so of course I
got a different "gift" from him-".
"Mom!", contrary to Alexandra's case, this time it was Tiana the one who felt embarrassed as she dragged her mother away, not without deathly glaring at Aster like
saying "You better not have done something to her.
Aster wanted to laugh, at least until he got the same kind of gaze from Aria and the
others, specially from a certain dragon mother who was waiting for his arrival, inside his
room.
'Go spend some time with mom before she kills someone, said Alice through the mental connection, even she had to admit that Lilia's bright red eyes were a bit scary, even if she remained in control of her impulses now.
"Ahem, I'm a bit tired so I'll take my leave, good night", said Aster imitating Alexandra, the
difference is that he didn't rush at all, he already knew what was waiting for him and it was good for him.
And as expected the moment he opened the door of the room, a black figure flashed towards him, tackling him right at the entrance.
"Darling", the next thing Aster heard was Lilia's blissful voice as she tightly hugged him,
burying his face between her breasts, her long black wings spread behind of her, folding to form a black sphere that isolated them from the outside world. Aster felt sleepy all of a sudden just like yesterday but he didn't try to resist, knowing pretty well that he was going to need be well rested for tomorrow's events. Hehe, that's right, rest darling, we'll have plenty of fun later, thought Lilia as she cuddled with Aster.