Aria’s soothing cold & Mira’s warm heart (part 5) historical

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.

"When my girl's become stronger so do I, Aria's flames resemble her which is why they gained "harmony" as their property, but as you saw earlier my flames are different to hers, and so is their growing path, what my flames gained is "instinct" and as I said before when our energies combined the result wasn't as simple as adding one plus one, it was an exponential change", said Aster with a bright smile.

"Are you trying to tell me that our energies gained conscience, because that is not possible…", Mira's words stuck in her throat, when an unthinkable idea hit her like a bolt out of the blue.

"Unless those blue flames of yours were turning into a spirit ice, but that's impossible, spirit elements are considered natural treasures, a cultivator can't raise one as they are created spontaneously by the nature and the heavens", concluded Mira, she knows about it more than anyone, since one of her parents is a spirit ice.

"Mm, they don't feel like Esmeralda's wind but it is true that my flames had moved by themselves before this already, on the other hand mom said that they reminded her of a spirit fire before, whatever there is no point in wondering about it, with time the truth will be revealed", casually said Aster as he shrugged.

In any case, Rigel's flames are Aria's power as a Star Maiden, they will never be detrimental for them, the best thing to do was to keep improving them, so they could get the answers they wanted.

"Seriously, my own birth is supposed to be a miracle among miracles but if that's the case what the hell are you", said Mira with a bitter smile on her pretty face.

The ligress girl more or less understood how it happened, now that she knew that both of their flames are linked, it means they are incredibly compatible even if their natures are different, Aster isn't compatible with her energy as a spirit ice, but Aria is, on the other hand, Aria isn't a spirit tamer so she isn't compatible in that aspect with Aria, however Aster is and to a certain extent they are in an informal contracted sort of relationship currently, in other words, their energies acted as a bridge for each other.

That explained the amazing result of their combination, as for the strange primitive self-aware that Aster's flames added to the mix, she couldn't begin to imagine how it happened, so she decided to put the matter at the back of her head.

"Don't think too much about it, your head will hurt if you try to rationalize the things that happen around him~", said Aria as she sweetly smiled at Aster.

"Pffft~", both girls laughed at the same time, Mira still hadn't brought the subject of entering a contract with Aria, but the fact that she is know enjoying spending time with them is more than enough for Aster, for the time being at least.

Also, it would be a lie to say he wasn't happy when she said that she trusted him, which reminded him that he had something for them.

"Here, I have something for you ladies", said Aster as he took out two different cases out of the mind space, one was quite large while the other was the size of a palm.

Those two's attention was immediately drawn towards the two cases, Aster first opened the large one to reveal a pretty ornamented rapier, the hilt, guard and other pieces of the main structure were made of a silver metal while the rest which included the whole blade and the engraved details were made of a light blue colored crystal, which both Mira and Aria somewhat recognized.

"Where did you get such a pure yin accumulation crystal?", asked Mira with genuine awe in her voice, she knew Aster took a large quantity of yin accumulation crystal from the place where she was confined back at the Silicon Forest, but due to the damage caused to the formation the crystals produced were mediocre, of course that is from Mira's point of view, what she considered mediocre was something that could only be found on a handful of Stellar Systems in the four Heavenly Quadrants.

Aster slid his fingers over the light blue edge of the rapier with a proud expression on his face.

"It took quite a bit of effort but I purified it myself, of course I left the formations to Eris and the maintenance elixirs to Mylene, the result is a peak Stellar grade spirit weapon, unique in its kind, I leave the name to you though", said Aster as he pushed the case towards Aria, who immediately took the rapier from the case.

The formations engraved on the whole thing immediately came to life, which made both Aria exclaim in awe.

"It's powering by itself!", she said before she immediately deactivated the formations, to her surprise the rapier actually shrank, a blue lace appeared around it as it turned into a pendant.

"I have heard of people that likes to show off their wealth, but that is a bit too much", added Mira.

"Only the best of the best for my family", said Aster.

Aster wasn't lying when he said that this rapier is a weapon unique in its kind, no one else in the four Heavenly Quadrants would do something like this, he used around half a ton of yin accumulation crystal to purify the four-meter piece that was ultimately transformed into the rapier with all its decorations.

The result was a spirit weapon that didn't need its user to use its spirit energy to power it, but it will have a limited number of uses as it will consume itself, the relation cost efficiency was really bad, just like Mira pointed this was basically slapping other people's faces with spirit jades.

However, for Aster this was a triumph card that could save his Aria's life, so he couldn't care less about the price.

Seeing Aria's cutely worried expression, Aster smiled, he extended his hand and gently caressed her face. "Don't forget that your husband obtained a yin attributed star, just give me some time to improve my spirit blacksmithing, let alone a sword, just for the sake of spoiling my cute Aria, I will make a castle purely made with yin crystal".

"Dummy~", Aria's face blushed on the spot, she knew that Aster wasn't joking, there was no point on arguing with him, so she smiled and then softly pecked him as she accepted her gift.

Aster grabbed the pendant and put it around Aria's neck, he couldn't help but nod a couple of times, admiring the contrast between her pretty pale neck and the accessory.

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.

: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