With the girls protecting him Aster sat down and closed his eyes to enter the mind space, though he could use parallel thinking to stay conscious in the outside world and also be in the mind space talking with Lilia and Rya, his soul energy reserve was at ground level right now.


    Aster was soon weed with the eternal starry sky of the mind space, as well as Lilia and Rya sitting next to each other, since they enjoyed the previous battle, as if they were seeing some kind of action movie.


    Aster chuckled, they just needed popcorn or some snack and they will look exactly as two friends enjoying a movie, but this strange hobby those two have taken a liking to, could wait to be discussedter.


    Right now, there was something he needed to talk with a certain spirit wind girl, naturally just as Lilia previously stated, her mediation "fee" isn''t cheap, and she was still "angry" that Aster didn''t chose her to try that new technique in which the girls actively participated as a whole by entering into the manifestation of the Paragon Body.


    Luckily, Aster knew how to solve that problem, he sat in the middle of those two and grabbed them both by their thin waists, before dragging them towards him.


    A bright smile bloomed in Lilia''s beautiful face, when her cheek was gently kissed by Aster, before he whispered some sweet things at her, which only widened her smile, Rya was speechless at the fact that Lilia''s mood changed so fast.


    "Lewd dragon woman", she mumbled, but right now Lilia didn''t pay attention to her, she leaned against Aster, as she took out hermunication talisman.


    "Here you go darling~", she happily said, while she cutely rubbed her face against Aster''s chest.


    Aster took the talisman from Lilia''s hands and then activated the, after a couple of seconds in which Aster felt a bit tense since he hadn''t tried what he was about to do before, a clear, melodious and surprised voice could be hearding from the talisman.


    "Little Kana is never going to let me forget about this, but she was right… one should leave asidemon sense when being around you, a way tomunicate while ignoring the dimensional istion of a secret realm, what kind of magical creature are you?".


    Esmeralda was genuinely surprised, Lilia has kept the others informed about Aster''s situation, the little girl was enjoying listening to Aster''s adventures, the battles, the thing regarding the Yin Azure Pce, she told them everything, while just avoiding to mention the term "Divine Firmament" which could incur in the wrath of the Heavenly Law.


    So, they were all aware of the fact that Aster and the others were inside of an ancient secret realm, which could be considered a small independent world, and Lilia suddenly told Kana that Aster wanted to talk with her, Esmeralda was at disbelief, themunication talisman had a range limit, but apparently the mind space could ignore that.


    Even Rya was surprised at this discovery, ording to her, after a certain level, the Star Maidens will be able to enter the mind space and have some control over it, but Lilia had jumped all of that.


    And now she essentially worked as an extension of Aster, imagine it like this, if Aster was the main node, Lilia was like awork repeater, so with her present there, the mind space was present in both ces, as to how was that possible, that could be left forter.


    "As far as I understand mom has already told you all everything, but just in case, I found a spirit element trapped in this secret realm, leaving aside the circumstances of its capture and all of that, have you heard of the cial Liger… well more urately it will be cial Ligress?", said Aster.


    After a moment of silence, Esmeralda''s voice came from the talisman once again.


    "Leaving aside the insanely low chance of meeting a spirit element in a Mortal n, I have never heard of that spirit element before, how does she look, does she have any particr characteristics?", asked Esmeralda, to which Aster proceeded to exin the way the Ligress girl fought, including those clouds that appeared on her paws allowing her to move through the air.


    Esmeralda remained silent for a moment before she gave her opinion.


    "That ability to gather and thenunch a ray from the mouth, I have only heard of one type of spirit element that does it, but it doesn''t make sense, because the Crimson Vulcan Lion, is either a spirit fire or a spirit earth".


    As soon as Esmeralda finished speaking, another person joined the conversation, this time it was Mylene.


    "I have heard of a spirit beast that can move by summoning clouds on their paws, it''s a spirit beast which descends from a legendary being on par with dragons like you, or those two Luan girls whose lineage descend from the phoenix, the Sky Blizzard Tiger, they are said to be able to control the weather, I know about them because their beast me is one of the most wanted ones by alchemists, and no one has been able to hunt one of them to get it so far".


    "ording to you, she appears to be around Alice''s age, she had tiger-like ears and a tail, but she doesn''t have the stipes a tiger normally has on them nor her hair, or they are faded to the point that they are almost invisible, what is her eyes color?", she asked.


    "Amber, her eyes do resemble those of a feline too and her spirit energy looks like cold mist and mes… she has a true name like a spirit beast too, which I was able to partially see after defeating her", answered Aster.


    "…"


    This time both Mylene and Esmeralda remained silent for a moment, Mylene just knew rumors about spirit tamers, as they aren''tmon and the focus in the Divine Feather Firmament from where she and Erise, is either alchemy or rune mastering, but Aster more or less exined what was this new profession he turned out to have talent in, about.


    "Well, it appears that she isn''t only a hybrid in terms of species but of existence itself, I wouldn''t believe it if you didn''t mention the fact that she has a true name, which is exclusive to spirit beasts, but she seems to be the descendant of a spirit element and a spirit beast, cial Liger should be just the name that people gave her", said Mylene.


    "Spirit elements rarely interact with each other, but even if they be a couple, having offspring is impossible, at least that I know of, spirit elements are born out of nature, that is a cardinal rule set up by the Heavenly Law, and any attempt to artificially create one will be punished with a lightning tribtion".


    "If she is a hybrid of a spirit beast and a spirit element then… her spirit element parent would have needed to be quite strong, and the same applies to the spirit beast one, I say that you should make her stay, her potential should be incredibly high", added Esmeralda.


    Though she was talking of a fellow spirit element, her interests were in Aster''s family, not to mention she had already taken a liking to the little girl who was now her host.


    Aster nodded, he had already heard what he wanted to hear, so discussing more about it would wasn''t necessary, the cial Liger will be contracted by Aria.


    Despite Lilia''s unwillingness, Aster closed his eyes and then returned to the outside world, where Aria and the others were sitting around him, chatting and resting, everyone was tired after their battles after all.


    Aster then turned to see the Ligress Mira, who was standing near him with an aggrieved expression on her pretty face.


    "She said that since you ordered her to stand up, she can''t sit until you allow her to, or she will be punished", mumbled Aria who was holding Aster''s right arm while she rested her head on his shoulder.


    Aster was amused at the situation, but he didn''t want to make the Ligress girl angrier with him, so he didn''t show it on his face, instead of that he turned to see her before saying.


    "So, have you thought about it, are you going to willingly ept to form a contract with my Aria, Mirajane?".


    The ligress turned her head away, a glint of resentment shed in her amber eyes.


    "Don''t call my name so casually human, either you or those bastards from the Yin Azure Pce, you are all the same", judging by her cold voice, she really resented the Yin Azure Pce.


    Which was understandable, she was captured before she was technically "born", the moment she came to life, they tried to force her into very, but that block of ice prevented them fromying a single finger on her, the cor was probably put on by mere luck, since it was "beneficial" for her, in the sense that it nurtured her, they originally couldn''t control her actions with it.


    It was until muchter, after the gxy scale formation had weakened the ice block enough, that the cor turned from a positive influence to a negative one, previous to that, the only thing that prevented her from escaping was the yang cage in which she was locked.<novelsnext></novelsnext>


    Aster suddenly stood up and then walked towards the Ligress girl, his hand glowed in golden light, Mira felt the same sensation of dreading from that golden light, as the time the ck-haired youth in front of hernded the finishing blow on the ice block which had defended her from the advances of the people from the Yin Azure Pce, and she closed her eyes.


    But the pain and the suffocating sensation she expected never came, she slowly opened her eyes just to see a hand firmly grabbing the ck cor around her neck.


    "Crack!", Mira''s eyes widened when she saw the cor that has been torturing her for the past thousands of years cracking before it shattered.


    "You can''t leave, but that doesn''t mean you will be treated as a ve, what I want is for you to willingly form a contract with Aria, I already have one spirit element in my family, so maybe you''ll change your mind after personally meeting her, for the time being you''ll get to know Aria", calmly said Aster.


    "Is that an order?", Mira''s rebellious eyes gazed at Aster trying to discern if what he said was true or not, just to see him shrugging.


    "The part of staying yes, the part of getting along with Aria is up to you, now that I have pronounced you true name, there is no problem in others knowing it, so how do you want us to call you?".


    The Ligress girl looked at the strange group of people that were in front of her, besides the man that defeated her who had a body constitution of which she has never heard about, each of them demonstrated to be highly talented, it was a group of monsters in all honesty.


    "Mira", after saying how she wanted to be called, she just walked towards Aria and stayed next to her, but she didn''t talk nor said anything else.


    Aster didn''t push her more, it''s not like she will agree to form a contract with Aria so easily, Esmeralda was originally forced to, since her secret realm was copsing and she will die if she didn''t find a host, to leave, that being said she waster willing to ept Aster as her host, after seeing his limitless potential.


    Aster stretched his body and then looked at the walls made out of yang umtion crystal, he snapped his fingers, making them tremble before one after another started disappearing from where they were.


    But it still took him around thirty minutes to drag each one of them into the mind space, he also took the broken pieces of the yang cage, which made Mira softly snort but she didn''t say anything, all the soul energy which Aster had recovered thanks to the time flow difference between the mind space and the outside world, was used on the spot.


    ''So, this is my current limit… I guess I''ll leave the rest to those two'', he thought, before he turned to see the girls.


    "Time to leavedies, let''s go meet with the Runic Oak", he said.


    "Mm", the girls nodded and they then flew upwards, Eris and Agnes made holes on the roof that reached all the way to the surface, so they didn''t have to take therge route to return.


    Once they reached the surface, they were weed with therge disaster area that resulted from the fight between the Runic Oak and the spirit beast''s army.


    Speaking of the Runic Oak, the moment it saw Aster returning it flew towards him, its attention stopped for a moment on Mira before saying.


    "Who would have thought that the spirit ice was a woman, so did you capture her to be your new partner, are you some kind of all-race alpha, even for a dragonkin that is unheard of, hey, how many races are you nning to integrate in your "pride", what are your preferences, do they…", as always, the Runic Oak will continue shooting weird questions if someone didn''t stop it.


    Aster and the others were somewhat used to it already, so they didn''t pay attention to it, but Mira who listened to the embarrassing stuff it was saying, couldn''t help but let out a soft roar, her nails becamerger and blue colored as she scratched towards the Runic Oak.


    Naturally the tree simply used one of its roots to block the attack, what frustrated Mira was that, the tree kept speaking while the root blocked her attacks, when she was about to start fighting seriously, Aster''s voice interrupted them.


    "I told you human rtionships are way moreplicated than the ones of spirit beasts, Mira you also stop, did you expect a tree to havemon sense".


    The Ligress retracted her ws unwillingly, she red at the tree and then silently returned to Aria''s side, the Runic Oak on the other hand didn''t even pay attention to the girl that attacked him, the words "Human rtionships are moreplicated", were the only thing in its mind right now.


    "Don''t forget our deal, the Liger woman and the Orchid are yours, but you have to answer to all the questions about humans I have", said the tree making sure that Aster wasn''t going back on his word.


    Aster inwardly smirked as he answered.


    "Sure, but you will probably have a lot to ask right?".


    "Mm", the tree nodded in response.


    "Are you aware that I can''t stay here for too long, especially because now that may humans died, there will be a lot of peopleing to investigate what happened?".


    "Mm", the tree nodded once again, practically everything but the tree died in the previous confrontation, because the armies of the four Law Integration beasts, killed all the weak beasts to sacrifice them, the Silicon Forest was only left with nts as living beings basically.


    "Then what do you say about joining my group, I have a way to take you out of this damned prison, even if the portal can''t stand anything above the Genesis Manifestation realm, if you do that, then I can answer to all the questions you have".


    Mira listened to Aster and she inwardly snorted, it was obvious, that Aster as trying to trick the tree.


    ''Humph, not even a kid will fall for such an obvious…


    "Really! that sounds amazing, I''m in, let''s go back so I can fuse with my main body and make the preparations to leave!", the tree''s enthusiastic voice, made Mira''s eyebrow twitch.


    ''I can''t believe I was being "custodied" by this airhead'', the thought, technically while the beasts wanted to free her, the Runic Oak wanted to keep her encaged, it wasn''t personal, the tree just hated the Yin Azure Pce and didn''t want them to retrieve the cial Liger.


    In a sense, the tree helped Mira, because it prevented the Yin Azure Pce from taking her back to them.


    Aster nodded at the tree.


    "Sure, create the portal".


    The roots of the tree constructed a circr gate from which a space portal appeared, they all jumped into it and disappeared from this area.


    Aster didn''t know it, but today''s decisions will bring him many surprises and a couple of headaches, but that is a story for another day.