"Ahem, you ladies can bath first, I’ll go after you had finished, I trust you won’t find unbearable sharing the sa mattress as , there is a lot of space on it after all", said Aster, leaving those that were used to sleep cuddling with Aster, which were basically his lovers and the pair of little girl and little wyrm, there was a wide variety of reactions to his words.
So didn’t seem to mind in the slightest, like Alexandra, Nerissa or Iris for example, so looked enthusiastic about it like Agnes, so were interested on it like Vivian and the sister in the middle Mina, so had reddened faces due to it, like Camila, Angela, Tiana, Dahlia and the youngest of the three sisters Nina, so were amused by the situation, naly Mylene, Eris, Felicia and the motherly blond woman, Sarina.
Then there was the group who were more surprised by the fact that there was no insta-negative answer to the previous, which consisted in Mikaela, Valentina, Layla, the oldest of the three sisters Lina and the top disciple from the White Sword faction, Lieze.
"Is this perhaps a "normal" situation here?", couldn’t help but ask Lieze, the rumors about Aster being a lustful skirt chaser might not be believed by practically any of the girls that still remain in the sect, they respect and admire him after all.
But that doesn’t an, he could just ask a bunch of girls to sleep in the sa bed with him and expect for there to be zero reluctance about it, unless he went for the junior disciples who are completely inexperienced in the ways of the world, of course.
It’s not a matter of trust, Lieze has absolute confidence in her eye for people and in a short period of ti, she has deed the Lord of the Twin Sword Valley to be an extrely reliable person, and honestly wishes to be in friendly terms with him, but she doesn’t harbor romantic feelings for him, curiosity towards him would be the best way to describe her interest in Aster.
And she is sure there are others like that, among the present people, for example the girl with grayish pink eyes, who to her surprise was the one who answered her question.
"You better forget about things like "normal" or "common sense" when it cos to that guy, he is the type that would honestly not show even the slightest lust at a woman with a charming yin type body constitution, and yet would be over the moon by seeing two girls getting along...", said Alexandra referring to both her mother’s case and her own situation with Camila earlier, to then add with an exasperated voice.
"The only danger around him is that he is a tease-loving bastard".
"I’ll take both comnts as a complint", said Aster, only for a certain ligress girl to softly snort.
"Humph, If you try to peek, I’ll freeze you to death", said the grumpy ligress girl who decided to stay here as she raised an ice wall around the bath, this was a tent prepared for Aster so, just like the mattresses which were "intimately" connected to be a single giant bed, the bathroom was only surrounded by a thin veil, which would normally allow for silhouettes to be seen from the outside.
That being said, if Mira even had the slightest doubt that Aster would actually peek at her, she would have left without even saying anything, so the fact that she even spoke was a sign that she trusted him, on the other hand she also thought that veil was quite a lewd thing.
"That would be a sha, now that I can enjoy the sight of a certain soone’s fluffy ears and tail as much as I want, wouldn’t it?", jokingly said Aster, Mira had started to unconsciously not hide her tiger ears and tail when in private, like right now, she didn’t even notice it, and they were out already.
"Grrrr!", Mira softly growled in response as she rushed into the bathroom, making Aster chuckle at her cute reaction.
"You see, and the worst part is that you won’t feel any ill intent from him, so you can’t even get angry at him, it’s so damn annoying", added Alexandra while sighing, as she followed Mira into the bath, which made quite a few of the girls giggle.
"You can go in together, I’ll wait and bath with Ast... hey, let go you damn ice princess!", Alice who was hugging Aster and had obvious intentions, was dragged away by Aria the next second.
"Dear heavens, you need an ice-cold shower to cool that body of yours", said the ice princess as she took Alice with her to the bathroom.
"What a sha, I like when big brother helps wash my hair, but I can ask big sisters Vivian and Dahlia to do it this ti instead, right mom~", happily said Kana, as she urged both the white-haired poison girl and the brown-haired girl from the Green Lotus, to co into the bathroom with her.
"Now, don’t trouble little Vivian and little Dahlia too much, I’ll help you three wash your hair, instead", said the motherly blond woman as she patted Kana, Vivian and even Dahlia’s heads, apparently, she took in the role of being a motherly figure for those three.
Which had a good reason to be, Vivian basically never t her mother and this was a new experience for her, one which she was liking so far, as for Dahlia, her parents had never been ntioned and Helena treats her as her daughter, so there must be so backstory there, of course Aster won’t intrude, she’ll tell them when she feels comfortable about it.
For now, she kept quiet but the slight smile that she had when Sarina patted her head, was an obvious sign that she wasn’t against it.
"Mmm, hey Aster, wouldn’t it be just fine if we wear towels instead of being completely naked?", Vivian on the other hand, dropped a bomb with her words, as always, her boundaries with Aster were... questionable, it’s not like she didn’t know about the matters between n and won, to which the treasure girl imdiately exclaid.
"O-Of course not!", poor Camila could barely withstand being kissed by Aster, she didn’t want to think on how embarrassing it will be to just wear a towel in front of him, on the other hand her innocent maiden’s heart couldn’t help but skip a beat at the thought of reaching that point in their relationship in the future.
"Yeah, that would be a bit too much", said Nerissa with a calm voice, as she walked into the bathroom, followed by Iris and two of the three sisters, it’s worth ntioning that they stole one last gaze at Aster before disappearing behind the ice wall.
"You say that Cami, but there is a lot of expectancy in your eyes~", jokingly said Mylene as she walked towards the bath, alongside Eris who nodded in agreent with her.
"But we have wore swimsuits for Aster before, how is it different than that", mumbled Vivian, to which Felicia laughed, finding her way of thinking amusing.
"You see Tia, you should be that proactive if you want to capture a man’s heart~", said Felicia, making Tiana stomp her right foot on the floor.
"M-Mom!", she exclaid as she rushed into the bath.
Angela didn’t say anything, she quietly entered the bathroom as if she was trying to blend with the background, unfortunately Aster smiled at her, resulting in the receptionist girl blushing to then "calmly" rush into the bathroom, nearly dropping her glasses in the process.
All this under the eyes of the ones that didn’t understand how co all those beauties had no guard when in presence of a mber of the opposite gender, that’s normal they all are girls that haven’t gotten to spend ti with Aster, until now and or are cautious by so really valid reasons, like Lina for example.
"So, we are the weird ones here, you surely are one dangerous fellow, oh well with those eyes of yours there wouldn’t be a need to put this much effort just to take a peek at us anyway", said the oldest of the three sisters, since Iris had already shown her stance, and her sisters were for so reason completely okay with it, she choose to join the "winner’s side", by shrugging to then join her sisters in the bathroom.
And that basically only left Valentina, Mikaela, Lieze and Layla, well Agnes hasn’t entered the bathroom, but she was completely fine with it, after all she has shown Aster the real appearance of her soul avatar, staying in the sa room as him is not as embarrassing for her as that.
"Are you ladies waiting to enter with ?", jokingly said Aster, which made Valentina sigh, her disciple "betrayed" her and was already inside the bathroom, while her younger sister was enthusiastically waiting for her to join.
’You little girls with zero loyalty... it seems like he does indeed like teasing others a bit too much’, she thought to herself, as she gave up and followed Agnes into the bathroom, Mikaela followed right away, wondering how she ended up here to then put all the bla on Aster’s Fey godmother for making that weird elixir which she swore was "clouding" her reasoning.
"I... am sorry if my question sounded offensive, I honestly already knew the answer but I wanted to see it with my own eyes", said Lieze as she joined the other girls, to which Aster chuckled as he fell onto the bed.
...
After the girls had their bath, Aster took his and then went straight to sleep, of course Sarina and the others cuddled with him, which wasn’t as strange for Valentina and the newest addition to the groups as they thought it would be, basically because Kana was in the mix which gave the scene an absolutely wholeso effect to the situation.
And thus having gained such a new experience, everyone entered the land of dreams, though they had twelve hours of rest, it’s not like they could use all of that to sleep, they needed to rest and prepare to walk before the next trial started, so a few hours later the girls from the sect started waking up to then wash their faces, and have breakfast, while feeling refreshed due to the commodities of the tents, before going out to gather together.
"Now that I think about it, did older Sister Valentina stay in the sa tent as senior brother?", asked one of the younger disciples, making a few girls blush as they got lost in their imaginary worlds, the elders and senior disciples on the other hand were more "realistic", knowing that or more accurately thinking that even if that was the case, there were divisions stablished.
That being said, when they saw Valentina coming out of Aster’s tent, followed by the others, Aster included, they couldn’t help but let their imaginations run wild for a second, but didn’t dare to say anything, since Valentina had her strict and responsible usual expression, which was amusing considering that she looked younger than normal.
What they didn’t know is that Valentina could feel the piercing gazes of all the younger disciples, who for sure wanted to ask her to tell them in detail about the past night, and was fighting with all her might to not expose the burning sensation she felt on her pretty face.
’These girls... can’t they at least hide their intentions a bit’, thought the lightning princess to then say.
"Ahem, elders in charge, make a headcount and if everything is okay, let’s start advancing", she limited to say to then turn around in an "elegant" way to hide the reddish tone that had appeared on her pretty face.
She wasn’t the only one though, Mikaela and even Layla were at their wits end as of current, why you wonder, well, they wanted to wake up early so that those curious girls wouldn’t see them coming out of Aster’s tent but... they slept so nicely that they simply couldn’t wake up.
The reason is simple, they were all bathed in the yang energy that Aster unconsciously radiated, which relieved the stress and fatigue of their bodies.
"Heh, look at them acting all indifferent, when they were the last ones to wake up, not that I bla them, that was the "best night of their lives" after all~", casually said Alice as she hugged Aster’s right arm, nearly making those three miss their next step and trip on the ground.
"Don’t tease them too much", said Aster to that wild dragon sister of his, how could he not know that Alice wanted them to leave so that she could demand so love from him, she’s been like this ever since she could sohow know when Lilia is in the mind space, which basically guarantees she is enjoying her ti with Aster, like past night for example.
Leaving the pouting dragon princess aside, Aster looked at the other party’s side, as he expected the majority of those that had cultivated the soul were rather worn out, it’s normal, those ghosts robbed them of a big portion of their soul energy.
And their "lodging" wasn’t exactly focused in commodity, thus even if they rested and sowhat recovered, their mood wasn’t the best to say the least, add to that the fact that they simply had dried at or grain pills as both dinner and breakfast, while they saw the girls from the sect, eating cookies and pastries as they ca out of their tents, courtesy of Aster.
Not everyone was in that bad of a state though, the rcenaries who are used to live like this were pretty much fine, the sa could be said of the "elites" among their side, like Wade’s group, the guys from the Iron Hall and Fawn whose subordinates happened to have kept so of the food they bought from the stalls at the temporary city, in their rings, and the groups from the Marius and Teles families, had a much tolerable ti.
Of course, unlike the girls from the Myriad Occupation sect, they kept their stuff for their small groups, which caused friction among their supposed allies, the Teles’s family guys even took the chance to sell so of the warm als they brought at inflated prices to others.
"Senior brother, why are those guys following us?", a few hours into marching through the road ahead of them, a girl from the Orange Lotus faction mustered her courage to approach Aster’s group to directly ask him what was in the mind of a bunch of the younger disciples.
"Because they are scared after having suffered a loss yesterday, but they basically asked for it, only idiots blindly charge without having enough understanding of their situation after all, never forget that being reckless is not the sa as being brave and cautiousness is not cowardice", said Aster in a voice that all the girls from the sect could hear, this was a "lesson" for all of them.
And while it helped the younger disciples to mature a bit, and made the elders and senior disciples to softly laugh, the people on Wade’s side, the soul cultivators that ended up in a ragged state to be more accurate, saw red on the spot.
"Don’t listen to his nonsense, he was simply able to take advantage of the situation because he received help from the ones that set up this place, but now we also know what’s this whole thing about", said Wade with a calm voice, to which Aster smirked to himself before saying.
"I’ll give you another important lesson later so do look up to it".
"Thanks, senior brother~", answered the young disciples in unison, which made Wade slightly grit his teeth, Aster was basically saying that he was going to screw up, in front of everyone.
’Damn cocky bastard!’, he cursed to his insides, that was the only interaction between the two groups, but it was enough to entertain the girls from the sect for the whole six hours that they were marching through the road, given that they had a lot of fellow disciples to talk to, even the girls from the Purple Lotus who had isolated themselves earlier, opened up a bit, because they were told by their senior sister whom Aster t in the battlefields earlier, that he had no resentnt towards them for what Victor and his cousin did.
All in all, the atmosphere at the side of the Myriad Occupation sect was more harmonious than ever, even the elders were in a bright mood which only made those at Wade’s side feel more bitter.
"What the hell, it’s like they are on a pleasure trip, I couldn’t even replenish the yang energy I used", cursed a male elder from the Pleasure Palace.
"Forget about that, my head is still killing due to the large amounts of soul energy those damn ghosts stole from ", added an elder from the Blazeheart, in his eyes, the guys from the Pleasure Palace were complaining just because they didn’t get to have sex with the female elders for one night.
Which is not a lie, but the Blazeheart elder is forgetting that those guys are dual type yang cultivators, they quite literally need to have intimacy with their partners to recover faster, unless their bodies produce much more yang energy than what they can use, like Aster, but that’s not their case, and the female elders from the Pleasure Palace were in a horrible mood, not to ntion that they had no proper rooms to do the deed.
Naturally, since both parties were in a "sensible" state, conflict exploded almost instantly, which made Wade feel a headache coming his way, he knew what was the real source of the troubles that were arising as of current.
Those two guys were among the ones that "voluntarily" stepped out of the chance to participate in the energy and body trials respectively, in order to lower the difficulty of the trials, so they were complaining over the smallest things to vent out their displease.
"Blazeheart leader and Pleasure Palace leader, control your damn subordinates...", Wade’s words were interrupted by a loud shockwave and the ground shaking below his feet.
"Aghhh!", a loud scream made Wade and the other leaders look in a specific direction where a Mortal Transcending elder had been sent flying and was screaming as he crashed on the ground, the clothes on his right shoulder were torn apart and there was a dark bruise on said shoulder.
"Am I seeing things or did that rock just appeared out of nowhere?", said a mber from the Bayer family as he pointed at a five-ter rock that now protruded from the ground, it’s worth ntioning that while there were pebbles and earth, there were no big rocks, or anything to hide behind for the trials in the road.
So, there is no way people would have missed such a big rock like that one, the answer to their doubts ca in the form of dozens of rocks of the sa size which raised from the ground, surrounding Wave’s group from both sides.
The rocks trembled for a second before they grew arms which they then used to force their way out of the ground, resulting in nearly ten-ter-tall piles of rocks with arms and feet, they appeared to be similar to the golems used at the four Heavenly Quadrants, but didn’t have a humanoid form, they were just piles of rocks mashed together that could move.
Also contrary to what their appearance suggested, those things were really fast, as the guys that just saw them appear in front of them, screaming for help, suggested.
"H-Help!", a rcenary saw the incoming rock fist aiming at his left shoulder and scread as he turned around to escape, but was too slow to dodge and the fist landed on his body, sending him flying into the distance, his life was not in danger but he ended up with a bruised shoulder, which rendered his left arm useless, like it happened to the previous guy.
And as if that was so kind of sign, all the rocks forced their way out of the ground, turning into nearly a hundred of those things.
"What are you waiting for fools, follow the instructions given earlier!", shouted Wade, which woke up the mbers of his group from their stupor, in a matter of seconds they split up in half and then the two resulting smaller groups, lowered their numbers by a certain number of people taking their distance, before they were replaced by disciples below the Transcending realms.
The two groups went from having nearly fifty people each, to only twenty, and just as Wade expected, the number of those golem-like things diminished, not as much as he wanted though, there were still around thirty of them surrounding each group, but sixty enemies were way better than a hundred.
"Everyone take care of one of those things, elders in charge take two each, rember to only use physical strength, spirit weapons are allowed but don’t use spirit energy on them!", ordered Wade.
He judged this to be the Body Trial, since the golems were brawling with whoever they targeted.
It’s worth ntioning that Aster and the girls from the sect were calmly observing the situation, because this ti the enemies ca from behind of them, and since Wade’s group was following them, they were attacked first.
’Oh, so that’s the thod you guys ca with, not bad... if this was the Body Trial’, amusingly thought Aster as he punched in a random direction were a rock suddenly raised from the ground.
"Booom!", a loud explosion drew the attention of the girls from the Myriad Occupation sect, their eyes sparkled as they saw Aster’s fist clash with a giant rock fist.
"Crack!", the result was that the arm of the golem glowed in a dim golden light before it crumbled apart.
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