While Aster felt the strange connection between him and the two stars which were resonating with each other, he remembered the contents of his cultivation manual.
Just like Lilia and Alice he is using the “Might of the dragon king” manual, although Rya told him to not worry about the manual he used, he still tried to somewhat follow the instructions of the manual, and the lessons his mother patiently gave him.
Although the manual has the generic information as well as advices from others that have walked through the same path on how the reach all the way to the heavenly conqueror realm.
Lilia has limited herself to just focus in what is needed for the realm which comes after the one he currently is at.
According to Lilia, the stellar constellation realm is an important step in the life of a cultivator.
A cultivator creates a star core at the star formation realm, then there is a need to saturate it with spirit energy until it reaches its maximum capacity, the amount can be high or low depending on the “talent” of the cultivator.
But if talent was all what was needed to become strong then there would be no need for elixirs, pills or training, the heavens always were fair and so everyone had a chance to shine.
In this case having a bigger star core wasn’t what decided the battle prowess of a cultivator, but the purity of the spirit energy with which is filled, think of it like this, in one hand you have a big glass full of earth, on the other one you have a small cup with metal.
While the amount of earth is bigger than the piece of metal, in a confrontation of course the metal will outshine normal earth.
That being said, mining a piece of metal is of course harder compared to just grabbing some earth from the ground, hard work has its rewards so to speak.
If Aster wanted to, he could have easily reached the stellar constellation realm in the past three years, but instead of directly filling his star core with the low-quality spirit energy of the azure spy planet, he took his time to refine spirit energy as much as he could with his dantian, before integrating it into his star core.
It took him three years and one month approximately to reach the peak of the star formation realm, that was also the reason as to why his battle prowess outclassed all his enemies so far.
If someone were to tell Aster he only got stronger by luck, he would personally spit in the face of the bastard, during the day he sparred with Lilia until his body was all numb due to the constant clashes between their swords, at night he took advantage of the difference in the flow of time inside the mind space to cultivate, so he made time to train, cultivate and also spend time with the girls.
All because of this moment where he was about to start modeling his inner universe, the other “stars” which are formed in order to reach the stellar constellation realm, are smaller copies of the original one, their size and brightness will never be the same as the original star core, just like not all the stars are equally bright or big in a constellation.
But upon each stage one star will become infinitely close in every aspect to the star core, which means at the peak of the stellar constellation realm, there will be three stars which will stood out from the rest.
No matter the rank of the manual used, the previous won’t change, the difference is in the number of “copies” of the original star core a cultivator can create, from low to high, a mysterious grade manual allow you to form 25 smaller stars, a sky grade means 50 smaller stars, a stellar grade gets you 75 stars and lastly an immortal grade manual earns you the right of forming 105 smaller stars.
All the previous is without taking into account the three bigger stars formed by reaching the early, middle and peak stages of the stellar constellation realm, which means the final numbers are 28, 53, 78 and 108 stars respectively.
Aster then looked at what was happening in front of him and he stopped reminding the past lessons of his mother.
“Those two are fighting with each other even at this level”, he thought seeing his star core which represented his reserves of annihilation and Orionis fighting over the control of the copy which he needed to solidify to reach the stellar constellation realm.
Inside the inner universe besides the star core there are countless of lights, but they are mere illusions, when one of those lights solidify after being injected with spirit energy it becomes a smaller version of the star core and then links itself to it, that is the beginning of the path for a stellar constellation cultivator.
But right now, a dazzling golden star and a mysterious dark star were both trying to drag the first copy to their respective sides, like two children frighting for a toy.
After observing the stars fighting without any of them getting an advantage over the other, he chuckled.
“If I consider Orionis as a star core, then that means…”.
Without thinking anything about it anymore, Aster extended his right hand towards one of the lights and then directed a current of spirit energy at it, after what seemed to be a couple of minutes the light became brighter and bigger, enough to be a copy of a core he guided it towards Orionis.
As if it felt Aster’s intention, Orionis let go of the other copy and instead focused on the new one… but this time the golden star core fought with Orionis for the control while ignoring the original copy.
The “childish” attitude of his core made Aster feel a bit lost, but then he shook his head, while he originally observed from the sides, this is his inner universe and the ruler is him.
Ignoring the fact, the has about to “talk” with two stars his expression became firm as he shouted.
“That’s enough!”.
As if the stars were afraid of being scolded, their quarrel immediately stopped, the corner of Aster’s lips trembled, but he resisted the urge to laugh and cleared his throat before pointing at his golden core.
“You take the original small star”.
He then pointed at Orionis before saying.
“And you take the new one”.
Under the slightly amused face of Aster, the cores took some distance between each other and then linked to their respective copies, what surprised Aster was that original dim yellow color of the smaller stars changed according to the core they linked to.
One of them became golden just like his core and the other turned completely dark like Orionis, just when the last specs of the copies changed to their respective colors, Aster’s eyes widened a bit.
His inner universe trembled before all the matter less lights illuminated the void as if they were celebrating something.
Outside in the real world, Eris and Mylene suddenly took a few steps back, a terrifying pressure fell on the room, then the shadow of a big golden sword appeared covered in a dazzling light behind Aster’s figure.
But then before the girls could be affected, as if it evaluated them harmless for Aster the pressure and the image of the sword disappeared leaving only behind the dazzling golden light which was covering Aster’s body as he smoothly advanced to the stellar constellation realm.
Eris and Mylene which now were a bit pale exchanged gazes before looking at Lilia which wasn’t affected at all, besides the surprise of course.
Eris couldn’t help but let out a sigh of relief, for a moment she thought her heart was going to explode out of her chest after feeling the aura radiated by that golden sword, she has already seen Aster using his golden swords.
Be it the training model or the Dragon buster series which contained a hundred drops of his blood mixed with the materials, she already gotten used to the feeling but what she felt a moment ago was on a completely different level.
The look in her eyes became complex as she evaluated the black-haired youth sitting cross legged with a calm expression.
“That sword wasn’t even being hostile towards us and I nearly suffocated just by being on its presence, Aster… what kind of mythical beast are you”, she thought.
p Mylene on the other hand was a bit shocked, although Aster offered her the option of taking off the collar as long as she made a soul oath to not harm him nor his family, she refused.
She looked at what originally was a “enslaving collar”, but now became the symbol promise she made to herself to never be put on the act of just being the young lady of the Karel family, but “Mylene”.
A moment ago, when she was feeling pressured by the sword, the pendant glowed and she immediately felt relieved as if she was recognized by the sword as an ally.
She softly chuckled imagining the moment when Aster ascends to a higher plane.
“It’s truly impossible to get bored being around you”, she thought.
Leaving those two aside, Lilia slightly frowned her brows, compared to the sky turning golden that time when her son went through his awakening ceremony, this time she saw the phenomenon happened in a smaller proportion, but the intensity was hard to describe.
Although unlike Eris and Mylene she wasn’t affected from the very beginning, she could still a faint trace of the strength that sword image had and it surpassed anything she has seen or felt before… including the force produced by her grandfather a heavenly conqueror.
Under the surprised eyes of Eris and Mylene, Lilia suddenly laughed out loud, she knew Hyperion was something out of this world, but knowing something and seeing or feeling it in first hand are two completely different things.