Aster looked at the charming expression in Lilia’s face and he patted her back a couple pf times.
“We’ll leave that for tonight mom, I want to start learning rune mastering… we’ll be going to a higher star cluster and I need a way to start earning some spirit jades, I have a lot of girls to whom I need to provide after all”.
Alice chuckled, “Who told you to have such a “big heart” my beloved brother ♥”.
Eris heard the words “rune mastering” and her eyes glowed for a moment, it was her time to shine now.
“Ahem, we can start the lessons right now if you want Aster, but we need a place where there won’t be any interruptions”.
Eris noticed everyone was looking at her after that vague declaration and she immediately explained.
“Ahem, rune mastering requires concentration and the use of soul energy, that’s why we need a silent and calm place!”.
Aster nodded, his soul avatar inside the mind space was still a mystery for him, the manual he was using was the “might of the dragon king” which was focused in the energy and body path, so normally he shouldn’t have advanced in the soul path.
But he didn’t think too much into it, because Rya told him that what normally restricted others didn’t affect him, when the twins started their evolution.
Lilia knew once her son took a decision, he won’t easily change it, but that didn’t mean she was just going to leave him out of the hook.
“We can use the library, since all the elders should still be fearing for their lives no one will bother us”.
Aster rose one of his brows.
“Us?”.
Lilia stuck her tongue at him as she answered in a charming voice.
“I’m also interested in rune mastering and you have used my talismans before, so of course I’ll go too darling ♥”.
One of the only two friends which Lilia considers her sisters is a rune master, that’s why she has enough knowledge about rune mastering to be considered peerless on the Rodia star cluster and probably be outstanding in middle ranked star clusters.
But in high ranked ones she was considered to be just a student level rune master, because she could at most create things with the power to affect genesis manifestation cultivators.
Aster noticed that the other girls were about to ask go and take the lesson with him, especially Alice and Kana, so he stopped them.
“For now, only me and mom will learn about rune mastering, you all have others things to focus your attention on right now”.
“Sis, you need to focus in cultivating your body and Kana your goal is to reach the star formation realm as soon as possible, Aria you will focus in absorbing the yin from the rock I found thanks to Eris in a couple of days you should reach the star axys realm and Sarina has to modify her inner universe according to the manual left behind by Aurelian”.
The girls nodded, last time Alice had to use all her spirit energy to defeat a star tribulation realm enemy, but now she also had the paragon body so she wanted to reinforce her close combat skills, as someone with dragon blood her body was bound to grow stronger just like Aster, but it will take some time.
Aria on the other hand felt a bit pressured because Alice now reached the stellar constellation and she hasn’t broken through yet, her manual put a lot of emphasis in the purity of her ice so she needs to refine it more and more, and now that she can use Rigel flames advancing it’s going to be easier for her.
For Kana the reason was obvious, even if Lilia’s spaceship had protective spirit formations on it, the minimum required to travel through space was the star formation realm, so Aster has been protecting her with the paragon body, and although he didn’t mind, it was still better for her to hurry up.
Lastly Sarina, she had to focus in changing her internal universe to a better version of itself, and that’s not all… after the inspiration she got earlier she was getting ready to go through her star tribulation, so the Rodia star cluster might be able to witness the birth of a mortal transcending realm.
“Fine”, they all said and went to Lilia’s bedroom, Mylene also accompanied them just in case, while Lilia, Aster and Eris walked towards the library of the Wolfstein castle.
This day Aster has seen more of this castle than in all his previous eleven years of life, luckily Lilia knew where the library was, so they didn’t have to ask the maids to guide them.
Once they were in the library, Eris told them to sit while she remained stood and started her explanation.
“Although Lilia already knows the basic, what I will be teaching you might differ with that since in my case it will be divine rune mastering, so we will start from zero, okay?”.
Both mother and son nodded and Eris continued.
“First let’s start with the most basic element of a spirit formation which are runes, a rune is the representation of something in a way which is recognized by the heavens”, she then drew something which looked like a small flame using her spirit energy.
The draw then became a small wisp of orange fire which lasted for a few seconds before disappearing.
“That is what in native place we call an “incomplete rune”, it does hold the same mean which is “fire”, but it’s basic and archaic… for what I have seen, in this mortal plane everyone uses incomplete runes, which is understandable since there is no one above the heavenly conqueror realm currently living here”.
“Now let me show you the difference between an incomplete rune like that one and a “divine rune”, she said as she made some gestures with her left index finger forming a similar rune but with a more complex design.
With a wave of her hand the draw transformed into a deep blue flame which made the temperature increase a bit before Eris dispelled it.
“As you saw, the power of a divine rune is far greater than the one of an incomplete rune, but if we are honest, a divine rune it’s just an advanced form of a rune which increases the properties of its meaning, such as heat, area of effect, duration and the like”.
“On the other hand, incomplete runes do have an advantage over divine runes, to use them you just have to learn them and learn how to combine them to create a spirit formation, in other words they are merely empiric”.
“Unlike that, divine runes have to obligatory requirements, a small understanding of laws and a high purity soul energy as fuel, in other words to use divine runes is highly recommended to orient your cultivation towards the soul path”.
Eris was very clear with them, she specially looked at Lilia as she explained that part, not because she doubted of her talent or anything like that.
In battle terms, Eris was sure Lilia would have overwhelmed her even if they were at the same realm, and she has yet to fully exploit the potential of her bloodline since she doesn’t have any dragonkin characteristics right now, so no one knows how strong she will be once she matures as a dragon.
But that also meant her focus will be on the energy and body paths, which makes her not really suited to become a divine rune master.
Lilia understood it, to be honest she wasn’t really interested on becoming a rune master, but even if one doesn’t practice something, that doesn’t mean being ignorant on that field is acceptable.
“Don’t worry, I just want to complement my knowledge about formations, because it will be useful for when we are exploring tombs and the like”.
Leaving that aside, now that the difference between a rune and a divine rune was cleared, Lilia still had doubts about the other kind of runes which were covering the chest inherited by the Wolfstein.
“Besides earlier, have you ever seen another type of runes, like those engraved in that chest?”.
Eris didn’t even doubt, she immediately shook her head.
“No, at the core a normal rune and a divine rune are the same, it’s just that one of them is more complex than the other one, but those other things which were protecting the chest are new to me”.
“I have seen variations used to express a same property, like instead of “fire” using “flames”, but ultimately although it might differ a bit once applied to a spirit formation, it’s still a divine rune… but those other ones are in a language which I have never seen before”.
Aster was also quite intrigued by the chest, not only because of those unknown runes but because of the note which was written on the back of the map.
“A note left hundreds of thousands of years ago, in a language which only I should understand in a whole galaxy… all this mystery is getting annoying, and the note said that if I wanted answers, I had to find the location of the map”.
“Aster?”, Aster only came out of his daze when he heard Eris calling him.
“Sorry I got lost in my thoughts, please continue”.
Eris nodded.
“Ok now that you know the differences, I will start teaching you incomplete runes and after you dominate a few, we’ll try to use their divine versions”.
She took out a brush a bottle of black ink and a few pieces of paper and handed them to Aster.
“Directly using soul energy to execute a rune is an advanced technique, for starters try to replicate the fire rune I drew before in these pieces of paper, I will tell you when to stop”.
Lilia didn’t participate in this little exercise since she already knew about this, Aster took one paper, he dipped the tip of the brush into the ink and then drew the little flame symbol he saw before.
“I feel like a kid doing calligraphy exercises”, he thought as he repeated the process again and again.