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Chapter 609  Tiana’s flashing spear & Nerissa’s flowing sword (part 5)

Tiana bit her lip, Aster obviously meant no harm, but the fact that she was powerless against him was what made her feel frustrated, her whole life it was always she suppressing others, even when she met Alice and the others, she still was able to resist but with Aster it was different.

'This bastard is taking too many liberties with me!', she inwardly cursed, she also blamed Felicia for pushing her into the cave of the lion alone.

"Humph, as if you are the first one to try, go ask Erick what happened to the bastards that tried to test their luck with me", she mumbled.

Aster limited to softly laugh as they flew towards the spear area of the Treasure Graveyard, to be honest, though this place was indeed large, it was designed so that the ones who participated couldn't move by flying, so while at foot moving from one area to another one, it would take quite some time, if one could fly, it would be a matter of minutes.

It was supposed to be like that, the travel to reach one's respective area was part of the trial after all, but from Aster's point of view that was something that only those whose intents were at the first level or too far from the second one, needed and in his family, the only one in that situation was Kana and it wasn't due to a lack of talent, but because the little girl only started taking cultivation as a serious matter.

Unlike Nerissa whose advance was "deviated" from intent to the soul path, due to the conflict between her manual and her intent itself, meaning that her true advance would manifest as intent if she managed to solve the wall that was blocking her right now, Tiana had advanced in the body path and her spear intent was only in the early stage of the second level, so for her to improve during this date, intent couldn't be the main focus.

Luckily for her, Aster had already seen her unique abilities during their previous date and her fighting style and techniques during the daily spars that the girls hold, so he came prepared to give her a nice "gift", well two of them, but he could only guarantee to give her the material one, as for the other one, it would depend on her.

After all, Aster could only create the opportunities for others, ultimately it depended on them whether they could make use of them or not, that being said how could those talented and prideful girls not improve as long as there was a chance for it.

Aster took a glance at the vast land with countless spears buried ahead of them and he descended along with Tiana to then land the next moment.

Seeing Tiana immediately jumping a few meters away from him with a wary expression on her pretty face, Aster smirked, his image then flashed and before Tiana could react, she felt a gentle pat on her right shoulder.

"Mm, you certainly have improved in terms of parallel thinking since that day, but even before you could reach a decent synchrony between mind and body, your body cultivation improved again, I guess you have been putting quite some effort during your body tempering sessions".

Listening to Aster's playful voice coming from behind of her, Tiana's gray-blue eyes contracted a bit, her black hair turned white-silver on the spot as she used her soul energy to activate her innate ability and "repel" Aster.

Aster chuckled at the flustered reaction of Tiana, but he didn't resist and allowed himself to be send flying a few meters away from Tiana due to her ability, it's worth mentioning that there was no impact, for Aster it was more as if a soft breeze carried him away.

Of course, Tiana had no such intentions, unfortunately without using her weapon or any technique, her innate ability couldn't cause any harm to Aster's monstrous physical body, not to mention he was using the armor, well the legs section of it to be more accurate.

"That's not fair, you still haven't given me my spear", mumbled Tiana with an aggrieved voice, she felt that Aster was teasing her too much, in contrast to the previous date they had where her mother was present.

Aster smiled in response, though he was indeed enjoying her cutely frustrated reactions, he wasn't just messing with her for his own pleasure, the first time he and the pair of energy constitution mother and daughter, spent time together, they focused on the soul, while the second time he gave them a way to improve their body cultivation.

This wasn't done on a whim, both Felicia and Tiana could control spirit energy using their soul energy, thanks to their energy constitutions, meaning that for them to be able to use aspects of the three paths for their techniques, which was the current goal of the whole family, they only needed to improve their own two paths, in other words they actually had it easier to achieve the goal compared to the others.

As for why they had to focus in both paths, that's because the ratio of exchange between the quantity of soul energy needed for them to manipulate spirit energy was not the best, so they needed to have a strong support from their body cultivation, to be able to freely use their soul energies.

The pair of mother and daughters might share a lot of similarities, but just like their attributes, their points of view were quite opposite from each other, despite they both using the body path as their main, from the very beginning Felicia has been really proficient in the soul path.

As a proof of the previous, she is really good at soul condensing and parallel thinking, which she combines with her high physical abilities to further enhance her battle prowess, of course that is also because she had reached the peak of the Carnal Disaster realm quite some time ago and since she was unable to breakthrough, she could only put all her focus on the soul path, before meeting Aster.

But that doesn't diminish the fact that she is incredibly talented in the soul path, Aster was honestly curious to see how much she has improved since he gave her his blood to help her temper her body.

But enough of the mother, Tiana is the complete opposite of Felicia, though she is also a soul cultivator, maybe unconsciously but she put much more focus to her body cultivation than to the soul one.

And that's not necessarily a mistake, since her strength had indeed increased thanks to her advance as she helping her team gain the upper hand at the last moment, against Alice and the others, suggested, but that doesn't mean she isn't wasting her potential.

"It's probably related to your constitution, but once again you are neglecting your soul constitution, previously it had improved but now there is a huge "flaw" in your fighting style, you were only able to win against Alice because you took her by surprise, the next time I can guarantee you'll lose and it won't be close defeat but a crushing one", said Aster.

As expected, Tiana frowned on the spot, but even if she might be a bit too proudful she isn't stupid, so she didn't think that Aster was looking down on her nor insulting her, such was the "good" impression she had of him.

"Why?", she limited to ask, to which Aster nodded to then say.

"You are too unbalanced, your body is too strong and your mind can't follow up, so you can't manage to obtain an exponential enhancement when you use aspects of the three paths, unlike miss Felicia".

"But the difference in the realms just got wider…", listening to Tiana's mumbles, Aster smirked his image flashed once again and the next thing Tiana knew, was that he was poking her waist with his index finger.

"Well, fortunately for you, the soul is the most flexible out of the three paths, there is no need to breakthrough to improve on it, and the difference in realms matters the less on it", said Aster.

"Kyaaah!", as expected, Tiana's reaction was a surprised shout, followed by she running away like a scared rabbit, leaving behind a laughing Aster.

Aster waited until she had calmed down before continuing.

"Soul energy and intent are two of the few things in which even a mortal could defeat a cultivator, because they don't depend on cultivation but mind, experiences, determination and the like, an old farmer who has endured the roughest life conditions will for sure have a stronger mind than someone who has never had to struggle for anything".

"Sure, in a direct confrontation, the old farmer won't have a chance, but what if their souls were to clash, even if the other party were to have a large sea of soul energy a single wisp of the soul energy of the old farmer would for sure obliterate it, that's how big the gap caused by the difference in standing can be when it comes to the soul path".

Unlike the energy path which relies on the spirit energy in the atmosphere or the body path which requires external stimuli to shine, the soul path is self-sufficient.

Crossing realms to fight using the soul path is both the hardest and the easiest thing to do, the hardest because obtaining a stronger soul is an inner battle, something that can't be done with external help and the easiest, because once achieved, there would be no point of comparison between that person and others in the same rank.

The previous is why Aster, despite his still earthly realm soul cultivation has yet to meet someone whose soul is strong enough to threaten his, so far, and that includes even Eris who used to be a Soul Queen in her prime, of course he has yet to find himself in front of a real proper Soul King cultivator, but that speaks by itself, as there is more than a whole major realm between Aster's current soul cultivation and that.

Even if it's not an all-round rank ignoring aspect, like what the Paragon body, Annihilation and the like can do, it's worth mentioning that the previous is just soul purity while the latter are things like the fiercest attribute or a extremely high ranked body constitution.

"In other words, you need to improve your mindset, that is the biggest flaw I can see on you as of current and the aspect with more potential which you can exploit at short term", said Aster as his vertical pupils returned to normal. n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"You have an energy constitution, which makes it harder for you to cultivate the soul by innate, but that also means that your talent in the soul path is incredibly high, it's just that the difficulty for you to improve is also greater than to others", said Aster not without inwardly adding.

'Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that Felicia would have already reached the Transcending realms in the soul path as well, due to all the accumulation she did before meeting me', Aster returned to the real world as he heard Tiana's voice.

"So that means that you'll try to anger me to death", she mumbled as she warily gazed at Aster, just to see him shaking his head as he threw a spear at her, that was her weapon which Aster was keeping for her so that the buried treasures didn't react.

"Nope, I just like to see a girl's flustered reactions, but this time it amusingly aligns with the goal, so we'll play a little game, you'll have to prevent both the spears and me from reaching you~", he playfully said to then add.

"Of course, you can't use anything physical to deflect, the only thing you'll be allowed to use will be soul energy, which I will also use to get you, of course to motivate you, every time you fail there will be a little "punishment", don't worry with my parallel thinking I can play and punish at the same time with ease, so there won't be interruptions in between".

"That's bullying!", exclaimed Tiana just to see Aster raising his hand.

"Of course, I can't bear to push our dear "Tia" too far, a minute, if you can prevent both the spears and me from reaching you for a whole minute, you win and of course you'll get a reward, in fact just by playing I assure you, you'll get something really useful", he said.

Tiana's eyes sparkled for a second, despite she gritting her teeth at Aster casually calling her "Tia" and the fact that this whole game was designed to mess with her, she had to admit that she found the idea interesting.

If she succeeded, she will definitely improve not only her soul energy's purity which would make up for the harder requirements for her to advance on the soul path, but she will also get that "something" which Aster mentioned, she knew that he'll always prepare a gift for their dates, so that something must be another thing and since he mentioned it, then it was a truth and period, that's how much she trusted Aster's words.

"Ah right, if you can't achieve the winning conditions in the next hour, then from now and onwards you'll have to let me call you "Tia" in public", casually added Aster, which made Tiana feel her chest fill with anger.

'He is doing it on purpose!', she thought, but ultimately, she nodded in agreement.

"Let's do it", having grabbed her spear and used the first level of intent, ghost spear, the treasures buried on the land started showing reaction and before she noticed, feeling the familiar presence of Aster appearing at her left, she unconsciously smacked her spear towards him.

"Clang!".

Aster caught her spear with his armor cladded right hand and casually dejected it, to then sigh before saying.

"This is going to be a long hour", he said, which made Tiana's face cutely blush in embarrassment, the training just started and she already screwed up.

"T-That doesn't count okay, it was an unconscious reflex!", she shouted not without thinking.

'Whose fault do you think it is, after doing all of that, of course I would start to unconsciously react in order to keep up!'.

Aster slightly shrugged, he didn't mind giving her a little head start, in any case, based on what he just saw, she was going to have it quite hard for the next hour.

With a little tap of his right foot, Aster's image flashed, Tiana warily looked at her surroundings trying to predict from where would Aster's "attack" come, unfortunately her focus wasn't the right one and so the next second, she felt a ticklish sensation coming from her nose which Aster was poking.

All the three paths have their ways, as a body cultivator Tiana has a really good battle instinct, which allows her body to react without the need of her mind to interfere, when she detects danger.

Unfortunately for her, Aster already took such a thing into account, thanks to that violent sister of his, he knows how to rule it out so that Tiana can't "cheat" her way to victory, the only way she'll be able to dodge Aster is if she improves her parallel thinking.

"This is not a life-threatening battle, my intentions are genuinely good so battle instinct won't work this time", jokingly said Aster, before Tiana could react, he had already disappeared from where he was standing and was now behind of her playing with a lock of her pretty now white-silver hair, the result of she using her innate ability.

"Humph, good according to who", said Tiana while she slightly gritted her teeth to then jump frontwards, naturally Aster let go of her hair to not hurt her, he softly laughed, amused at her reactions.

Tiana's eyes slightly contracted, for a split of a second, due to the previous outburst, her spear intent went from the first to the second level, normally it wouldn't matter since she is not actively attacking, the problem is that in this place, that attracted the attention of a lot more of spears than before.

"Damn it", as a result of it, she had to jump into the air to avoid the first round of spears, the second one wasn't tricked so easily and followed her, forcing Tiana to use her spear to deflect them since she didn't have enough time to repel them using her ability.

"Hah!", with a swing of her spear a heavy shockwave blew away the incoming spears, as if she was venting her anger on the poor treasures, a few of them exploded on the spot, making sharp metal fragments fly all over the place.

Aster who was observing everything, stood there, continuous "dings" could be heard every time the sharp metal which was raining down clashed against his bare body.

"Luckily this time we entered with permission", he said, Tiana landed on the ground a second later, her spear had returned to be cladded in the first level of intent, which didn't attract enough spears to put her in an uncomfortable situation, at most the treasures were using their aura to pressure her, though that was enough to slow her reactions down.

As much as Aster wanted to give her a second to recover, that would go against the purpose of this whole thing, so with a small jump he arrived in front of Tiana with the intention to pat her shoulder to comfort her, just for Tiana to grab Aster's hand at the last second.

"Humph, I got you", she said as she raised her face which was previously impossible to see, since she was looking downwards, unfortunately the surprised expression she expected to see on Aster's face, wasn't what welcomed her, but a surprisingly not annoying smiling expression, still his next words made her right eyebrow twitch.

"I don't mind getting to know each other, but you know that to win you need to escape from me, right?".

Tiana slowly looked downwards just to see Aster's free hand placed on her waist, as for the other one, she was tightly holding onto it, resulting in a strangely compromising pose, it looked as if they were a couple about to have some kind of intimate dance.

Ignoring Tiana's red face, Aster actually complimented her.

"You still allowed your emotions to drive you at the last moment, but before that your reaction time wasn't that bad".

This time Tiana didn't push Aster away, she slowly let go of his hand and then gazed at Aster's hand which was still holding onto her waist, after realizing that Aster wasn't going to let go, she inwardly sighed.

"What, you think I'll let go of you to have a little chat, if you want this game to mean something, you have to avoid me during each and every second of that minute, this is all for Tia's sake, how could I not do my best", he said.

"Pfft~", Tiana couldn't help but let her laugh escape from her, but she pursed her lips the next second after noticing Aster's smile widen due to that.

She calmly took a step backwards as she gazed at him.

"And of course, you aren't taking the opportunity to take any advantage", she jokingly said, the gaze in her eyes had a subtle change that even she didn't notice, but Aster did.

'Why can't all lineage owners be my like Sarina who is perfectly capable to control the impulses caused due to her ascendence, oh well, she is still better at it than Alice and mom, though that might be due to the difference in races', he amusingly thought.

That's right, another one of the reasons as to why Tiana was having it harder to increase her proficiency in the soul path, was that she had some kind of ascendence of wild nature, that could also be why she is so adept to the body path.

What caught Aster's interest is that neither him nor the others noticed it so far, he only realized now that he obtained his dragon eyes, well it was still a supposition based on a hunch, since the feeling he got from Tiana wasn't like Alice, Kana or Mira and the others who were related to legendary spirit beasts.

Which might be why Tiana herself didn't feel anything wrong, she didn't have beastly impulses like Alice nor a wild nature like Mira, but she certainly didn't have it easy when it came to the soul path.

"Oh well, a step at the time', thought Aster as he flashed towards Tiana once again.