Seeing the mischievous smile on Alice''s face, Aster couldn''t help but inwardly sigh, he thought that Sarina would be thest boss when it came to deal with the aftermath caused by dragon Lilia, but he forgot a simple principle, Alice is… shameless.


    While certainly among the girls Sarina was the scariest when angry, because with her gentle and caring nature, it was rare to see her truly angered, like when she felt the intentions of Ley and his family towards Kana, she had perfect control over herself.


    Aster was surprised to see how they weren''t affected by their bloodline awakening, since he helped them with that, he was sure that in terms of potential, purity and strength, Sarina and Kana wouldn''t losepared to Lilia and Alice, so it''s not like they had weak lineages or anything like that.


    Perhaps it''s a racial trait, or maybe the way their linage developed was differentpared to the ones Aster knew about, which was limited to dragons so far, after all Sarina was recognized by dragon Lilia as a love rival, meaning that her lineage isn''t far from hers in terms of maturity, having reached the infant stage as her pretty wings suggested.


    Anyway, the important part is that while Sarina can be quite scary, she knows when to stop, Alice on the other hand has alwayscked that safety button, she would not take the initiative to stop not to mention the dragon princess is also quite selfish, which is why Aster has to reign her in from time to time, like right now.


    "Fine, but it won''t only be you, we''ll pick clothes for the others too, okay?", he said.


    Alice pouted but then her eyes sparkled which gave Aster a bad premonition, that intensified when Alice happily smiled as she nodded at him.


    "Sure, leave it to me~", she said as she tightly hugged Aster''s right arm with such strength that if she wasn''t a Star Maiden the Paragon Body would have deployed the golden light protection to defend Aster.


    ''She is definitely up to something'', thought Aster as he used his authority to return to the castle, more urately back to his room, the scenery changed from the forest of the valley to Aster''s bedroom.


    "Sit down, I''ll go for the clothes", said Alice as she pushed Aster onto the bed to then rush towards the closet before she started taking outfit after outfit out of it, of course not all the clothes belonged to her, there were stuff from Lilia, Sarina and even Aria among them, what caught Aster''s attention is that she piled everything up together.


    "Sis, what are you…", Aster''s words were stopped midway when Alice suddenly undressed, throwing her clothes aside, to then turn around and walk towards Aster while being buck naked.


    Her tail then popped out of the cute scale at the bottom of her lower back, with a little jump, Alice''s feet weren''t touching the ground anymore, instead she was using her tail to skillfully support her body.


    Alice then crouched down and picked a set of clothes that belonged to Aria, to then slowly and seductively put it on.


    "Ouch, the ice princess''s clothes are a bit too tight on the chest area~", yfully said Alice as she modeled for Aster, she was obviously just bragging about her naturally gifted figure, while showing as much as she could to Aster, since she wasn''t wearing underwear right now.


    ''Hehehe, this way you''ll have no choice but to remember me when you see those three wearing these clothester~, happily thought Alice, what followed was that dragon princess basically trying each and every outfit from Lilia, Sarina and Aria, that fitted her as most as possible, while giving Aster a clear view of her body.


    Aster had to admit that he found cute how that shameless sister of his, wanted to get all his attention for herself, so he yed along and limited to enjoy the view, making the dragon princess cheer up, everything was going well until Aster realized the show actuallysted for too long.


    How did he realized you wonder, because Aria randomly entered the room just in time to see Alice wearing one of her favorite dresses, nearly freezing the dragon princess on the spot, if not for the fact that she acted like a scared child to then hide behind Aster.


    To make things worse, themotion caught the attention of a couple of other girls, namely Sarina and Lilia, so when they entered the room and saw their clothesying on the ground here and there, Aster sitting on the bed with a half-naked Alice hugging him from behind, hell almost broke loose.


    "If you wanted to see someone wearing that skirt without panties, you could have told me, darling", mumbled Lilia, making Aster bitterly smile.


    ''Next time don''t let her treat me like a child~'', said Alice in a voice only Aster could hear, before she happily trotted away towards the bathroom, Aria saw her dress which was now a bit loose on the chest area, since it adapted to Alice''s figure and then chased Alice into the bathroom.


    "Humph, today you''ll bath alone darling, we''ll see youter at the party", said Lilia as she grabbed a long ck and red dress that she wore for special asions and followed those two into the bathroom, not without giving Aster a tempting gaze whole swaying her hips.


    Sarina limited to softlyugh at Aster, naturally none of them were really angry at him, but since he allowed Alice to do as she pleased, he had to "pay", that shameless dragon princess was immune to any kind of criticism and if they tried to punish her, she''ll just brush it off, and get back at them, so it was Aster''s turn to take one for the team.


    "Don''t worry husband, I bet not sharing a bath is more of a punishment for them than to you, y a bit with that little girl on the time being", said Sarina, she pecked Aster and then also followed Lilia into the bathroom, leaving a slightly confused Aster behind.


    He understood the whole "we are angry, get out" roley and was in fact enjoying it, what he didn''t know is why they wanted him to be away until the party started, there were still at least two hours before the guests started arriving, so he had no idea what those four would be doing until then, even if they bathed as slow as possible an hour was more than enough.


    ''Oh well, guess I''ll know when the timees'', thought Aster, before he teleported out of the castle, to join those two little girls who were ying in the forest while looking for stuff to decorate the area for the party.


    ….


    And so, a couple of hours went by, luckily for Kana and the little wyrm, a quick shower with Rigel''s mes was enough to get them ready, also Sarina called the little girl back to the castle to help her dress up, the little wyrm followed, leaving Aster who was wearing ck pants and a white long-sleeved button-up shirt, the pants matched with his ck inked hair and the shirt went perfectly along with his golden eyes.


    His outfit was simple but ssy, not too casual and not too elegant since this was an informal party, also the only time when he didn''t use his jacket was when he was in the valley, so for the guests he would indeed look different.


    Speaking of the devil, Aster saw his authority ring glowing, a sign that someone was requesting permission to enter the valley, meaning that the guests had started to arrive.


    ''Let''s see who came first'', thought Aster as he disappeared from the forest to appear at the main entrance of the valley, Aster''s pupils slightly contracted for a split of a second at the neer.


    "H-Hi, I hope I didn''t arrive too early… here I brought Rainbow Essence tree as a gift!", starting with a timid and low voice to then end with a loud and fast one, Ang extended her hands to present the small tree with multicolored leaves which was nted in a flowerpot, to Aster.


    That''s right, the receptionist girl was the first one to arrive, also she looked amazing, leaving aside the fact that this was the first time Aster saw her wearing something besides her uniform, she apparently was the type to look "thinner" with thick clothes.


    It''s not like she was wearing anything skimpy or too revealing, butpared to her work uniform, which of course wasn''t the tempting one with a big cleavage that you might imagine when thinking about receptionist in a fantasy novel, but was a formal one with a long skirt, thigh highs and a blouse decorated with a white bow, it did suit her perfectly.


    Ang was wearing an elegant olive-green dress that covered all the way to below her knees, not too long but not too short either, you might believe that an opaque color like that wouldn''t be eye-catching, but it made a nice contrast with her dirty blond hair that reached down her shoulders.


    Still the main focus were here eyes, unlike what Aster has seen before, instead of dark brown, they actually had a pretty unique hazel tone, which added a deep charm to them, one would find itself being dragged just by looking into them.


    Aster''s surprise didn''tst long enough for Ang to notice, he extended his arms to ept the gift, but then a slightly ruthless voice interrupted them.


    "Hey, what''s up with your eyes, yesterday they weren''t like that?", it was Alice who just appeared next to Aster, as usual Alice''s presence was rather aggressive, which was entuated by the blood red short dress and ck armored boots she was wearing, her light honey-brown hair cascaded all the way down to her waist while her bright red eyes had a yful light on them.


    Ang shily looked downwards before saying.


    "I wear contact lenses when I''m working", since she didn''t seem to want to say anything else and before Alice could continue her "interrogation", Aster invited her to enter.


    "Come, let me show you around the valley, Alice, you stay here and tell me when the others arrive".


    Alice pouted but knowing that she has caused enough trouble to her beloved brother, she obediently stayed behind.


    Aster carried the flowerpot with the little tree with one arm and showed the way with the other one.


    They raised into the air and slowly flew through the valley; the first part were the castles since they were near the entrance, but before that and to break the ice, Aster took the initiative to speak.


    "Don''t take Alice''s words to heart, she has a sharp tongue but a soft heart, the more she likes you the more carefree around you she bes".


    "So… that was a wee?", asked Ang only to see Aster shaking his head in response.


    "Hell no, but it wasn''t that bad, she spoke to you which is a win in my book", he jokingly said.


    "Pfft~", the tense atmosphere disappeared as Ang softlyughed at Aster''s exnation, her way of seeing things was much more logical than other girls her age, she expected to be given the cold shoulder by Alice and the others, after all she was personally invited by their lover, while there were countless girls who were fighting to get just a bit of the sect idol''s attention, but were being kept at distance by said person.


    That being said, she was in for a surprise, the fact that Alice didn''t ignore her like she did with all those junior disciples meant a lot, but that''s forter, right now, since the atmosphere has gotten way more rxed, Ang looked around and was amazed at the valley.


    "Howe weird, as far as I knew each valley should only have one main residence, but yours has two, not only that, I have visited the other valleys when I was training to work at the mission hall and the concentration and purity of the spirit energy wasn''t this good", she enthusiastically said.


    Aster inwardly chuckled at the genuine curiosity that sparkled in her eyes, Ang was the type that liked to learn and analyze everything she got to know, in fact Aster was sure she was making countless theories of why his valley was different than others, the two castles were inspired on the name of the valley, but the second one which is the one in which practically everyone lived, was recently built, it had better structure and better craftmanship, than the other one.


    As for the abundant and vibrant spirit energy that gathered her, it was caused by different factors, the little wyrm unique multi-elemental breakthrough which happened not too long ago, the Constetion Paradise Array and even the Runic Oak Nim which had taken root in the forest, not to mention the birth of a new Law Line which was a surprise even for Aster.


    Seeing that Aster was smiling but not saying anything, Ang pouted, which only made Aster''s smile widen.


    "Come on, where would the fun be if I simply told you like that, instead I have a little surprise in storage, it will be up to you to notice it, though", he said as he descended from the sky into the forest.


    Ang mumbled a couple of things, before following Aster, the moment her feet touched the ground, she nearly screamed in surprise.


    "T-This, a newborn Law Line!", she eximed before she realized her mistake.


    "Ahem, I mean, the spirit energy of this ce does match the description I read about such a phenomenon, some time ago, if that''s the case then this valley will reach a quality that would equal the private areas of the Treasure, also the decoration is really pretty did you hire someone from the Green Lotus faction?", she added as she looked at the tables and chairs that seemed to be extensions of the forest, giving the ce a pristine and natural charm.


    ''How cute'', thought Aster but he didn''t show it on his face and instead choose to ignore the fact that she just noticed something that would require the ability to sense things, that a Vision King would have, what''s more she didn''t use spirit sense at all.


    "Well, you could say that I have a couple of little girls with a thing for nature", said Aster, just in time for the pair of little girl and little wyrm to appear out of thin air.


    "Big brother~".


    "Hisss~".


    Kana and Espinded on Aster''s back and shoulder respectively, Kana hanged from his neck while Espi coiled around his arm, continuing what Alice interrupted earlier.


    "Don''t forget to introduce yourselves, we have a new friend visiting us, today", said Aster as to those two.


    "Mm, hi receptionist sister, I think we have met each other before, my name is Kana", said the little girl as she let go of Aster and slightly rose the sides of her white and green dress, as always Kana looked cute beyond words, her manners were perfect but she had that innocent clumsiness that characterized her too, the perfect representation of a little princess.


    "Hisss", as for Espi, she slid all the way from Aster''s arm to his hand, and then lowered her head towards Ang while softly hissing in order to greet her, naturally the little wyrm couldn''t wear clothes perse, but she proudly used the golden gem decorated ne that Aster gave her as her "formal" outfit, which actually did make a nice contrast with her pure white scales and green eyes.


    "I am Ang, it''s a pleasure", gently said Ang as she smiled at the adorable little girls.


    "Here, Ang brought us a new addition for your garden, why don''t you show it to her?", said Aster as he patted Kana''s head while showing her the Rainbow Essence tree to her.


    "Woah, what a pretty tree and it smells like fruits~", said Kana as she snatched the flowerpot from Aster''s hands at light speed, if there was anything that could put up a fight with Aster in terms of attention in the little girl''s mind, that would be spirit herbs.


    Aster saw the charmed gaze on Kana''s eyes and he stole a gaze at Ang, whose face reddened a bit, of course Aster knew that Ang was aware of Kana''s passion for nature and that she weighed in his heart, in other words this gift was prepared in order to "bribe" the little girl and earn a good impression in her heart, making it easy for her to get along with Kana.


    She at least wanted the little girl to be weing regarding her, since she expected to be rejected by the others, as calctive as that sounded, Aster had no doubts that it wasn''t done with malice, otherwise he would have noticed it, it''s futile to feign kindness or hostility in front of him, at least when ites to members of the opposite sex, due to his dragon instincts.


    That being said, the biggest proof of it was that Ang had the word guilt written all over her face due to having "taken advantage" of Kana''s hobby for her own benefit.


    "Thanks, big brother, let''s go nt it right now sister Ang~", happily said the little girl as she pulled on Ang''s right sleeve and so with Aster nodding, Ang was dragged away by those two little girls.


    "Meting Alice first wasn''t in the n but luckily that little girl can do miracles", amusedly mumbled Aster before he teleported to the entrance, as he got a message from Alice saying that a "Parade of redheads had arrived".


    Despite Alice''s rough way to describe them, Aster did admit that it wasn''t far from reality, since the ones that were waiting at the entrance of the valley where a total of five girls all with red colored hair, naturally they were Iris, her cousin La which Aster met yesterday and the three sisters who were Iris''s maids, though she considered them as her family.


    "Hi, sorry for theteness, I couldn''t decide on what to bring as a gift so I took everything", said Iris, she waved her hand making her base white dress with red sleeves and red decorations, as well as her long red hair, flutter a bit, despite the pieces of light pieces of armor that were actually a part of her outfit, she looked quite different from usual, though she still had her sword hanging from her waist, she at least didn''t have the chest te nor the leg armor like usual, so this was her casual version of her favorite outfit.


    Aster bitterly smiled at the five-meter pile of coffers, those things were filled to the brim with precious materials and resources.


    "Ahem, a single thing would have been more than enough", said Aster, he wasn''t going to reject Iris''s goodwill, since he knew she was a frank and direct girl, if she wanted to give all of that to him, there was no use in rejecting it, she''ll probably throw it away if he didn''t ept it.


    Also, after a quick scan with his spirit sense, he could tell all those things were the stuff that she collected to try and cure Nina, since she had no use for it anymore, she gave it all to him, it was also a way to say thanks to him, which led to the next.


    "If you keep staring at me like that, you are going to cut a hole through my face", jokingly said Aster as he extended his hand towards Iris, who slightly chuckled in response, she took out a sack from her spatial ring and handed it to Aster.


    The sack contained around twenty hand sized orange and brown spheres, all those were cores of magma golems.


    "Ahem, just two were enough, I used only one to cure the one who had the worst symptoms", said Aster.


    "Mm, I know, but I was a bit angry back then so before I noticed, we had collected that many", answered Iris as she shrugged.


    This interaction was observed with interest by La and the three sisters, while Alice narrowed her eyes at them, Iris wasn''t new to the team, but this is the first time she has a casual meeting with Aster, which is why she found strange that she was quitefortable around him, her attitude reminded her of… Nerissa.


    Speaking of which, Iris''s fiery red eyes shone and she unsheathed the sword which was hanging from her waist, something that didn''t surprise Aster at all, since he saw a certain blue haired girl rush through the sky towards them, with his spirit sense.


    With a "swosh", Iris shed upwards turning into a fiery red meteor which shed against a blue stream.


    "ng!", the sounds of metals colliding echoed through the sky, followed by a show of red and blue light exploding in the sky.


    "Are those two aways like that?", asked Aster to La, the ones who were shing on the sky were Iris and Nerissa, despite how fierce it looked, they were only using their respective sword intent, instead of a battle it would be more urate to say they were measuring each other''s intent.


    "Yeah, they belong to enemy factions so technically they should be at each other''s throats, but their fights always only consisted onparing their sword intent, so they are more rivals than enemies".


    Aster chuckled, he refined a pair of cores with Rigel''s mes and gave the resulting orange small crystal to the remaining two sisters, Lina and Mina, curiously their names where in alphabetic order, Lina being the oldest, followed by Mina andstly Nina who was the youngest, also despite their ages by somewhat apart they really looked too simr to each other.


    Seeing her sisters eating the crystals by themselves, Nina''s face blushed remembering La''s story of how Aster personally fed her not only the crystal but also an elixir, she didn''t remember much of what happened yesterday due to her sickness on top of it.


    "Thanks", said the two sisters in unison, to which Aster nodded, honestly for him it was nothing to refine those cores, but for others, transforming a resource into a soft nurturing product was actually a big thing.


    "How is the score, out of two hundred matches we have tied a hundred and I have won fifty-one times, right?", said Iris who just descended from the sky as she sheathed her sword.


    "Humph, then you woke up, a hundred ties, fifty victories each and this is our hundred and one tie", said Nerissa whonded a secondter.


    ''Luckily these two didn''t fight until things got "even", or things could have gotten a bit bad'', thought Aster, he helped Iris intent improve first, so if Nerissa would have fought with her before she also reached the peak of the second level, she could have ended up with the short end of the stick due to his interference, but now things were fair and square.


    "Come in you five, let Nerissa guide you to the location for the party, I have to wait for the other guests", said Aster.


    Iris gazed at the two sisters whose faces had a way betterplexion, the slight signs of emaciation werepletely gone, unlike Nina they didn''t need a special supplement to recover, a nice meal should suffice and they were lucky as they would get to eat food prepared by the motherly talented spirit chef apprentice Sarina.


    "Sure, I bet miss Sarina''s food will help a certain someone improve her information retention", said Nerissa as she gazed at Iris.


    "Humph", with a soft snort, Iris followed Nerissa towards the forest of the valley, La and the three sistersughed and then also soared into the sky.


    Now only there were only two remaining people to arrive, the elder from the White Sword faction and the plus one she asked to have, well there was another one, Agnes had to leave to attend a meeting with the other authorities that stayed behind on the sect and she said she would return along with Mika so there was that too.


    Speaking of which, Aster frowned, it was already around 3:00 PM and there hadn''t been any announcement from the sect, or the mission hall, otherwise Ang would have already told him about it, also Agnes hadn''t returned so things shouldn''t be going as expected.


    "Ahh, damn that was boring, as if it wasn''t bad enough to have to look at those disgusting women''s faces, it had to get extended for nothing", just as Aster was wondering what was happening, Agnes''s angered voice could be hearding from the direction of East Sky city.


    "For being elder Valentina''s cousin, you two are really different from each other", added a second calm voice, which Aster recognized, as it belonged to Mika.