Needless to say, but all the girls with the exception of Sarina were surprised to see the blue transparent “tower” which was now surrounding them.
And when they saw the thing light blue mist that resulted from the condensed spirit energy which was purified by the furnace, they nearly lost it.
Specially Eris and Mylene to their surprise, their dantians reacted to it for a split of a second, before they returned to their normal lethargic state in which they had been since they arrived at this “mortal plane”.
They exchanged gazes just to see the surprise in the eyes of the other, if what was needed for them to be able to cultivate here would have been as simple as just gathering spirit energy and purifying it, then they wouldn’t have been trapped here for countless of years.
Eris as divine rune master of course tried to create a chamber which allowed her to cultivate, but even after absorbing the energy of countless spirit jades and purify it with a spirit formation… the result wasn’t fitting for cultivation.
,m They nodded at each other reaching the same conclusion, “We’ll have to talk with Aster about this later”.
Leaving aside that little exchange, Aster asked Lilia to engrave a spirit formation to extract the energy contained in the yin accumulation crystal, but about ten kilometers away from where they currently were standing, only after that he approached Sarina and caressed her face with his hand.
“If I understand correctly, the star tribulation is different for each person, for some people it might be a literal disaster which can cause the destruction of a wide area, others have to overcome something that blocks their cultivation path”.
“But you already overcame something like that once, so there is nothing to be worried about”.
Sarina rubbed her face against Aster’s hand, she endured the pain caused by corruption, even when the predictions were that she should have only survived two years, by sheer will she resisted more than three times that.
Until that fated day when she met the black-haired youth in front of her, which with that relaxed smile, as if it was something normal affirmed, he could cure a disease no one in the history of Prasil managed to cure.
Lilia suddenly stopped moving her hands, a series of different symbols glowed on the ground below their feet, she then flew back to where Aster and the others were waiting.
“It’s done darling… we need to get some distance or the tribulation might be affected by our presence”.
Aster nodded at his mother and gave Sarina one last kiss, he pulled as much spirit energy as he could before leaving.
“I thought you were going to tell her that her star is about to wake up?”.
As Aster left the spirit furnace, Rya who was watching from the mind space decided to ask what was in her mind.
Inside the mind space she saw the star which reacted to Sarina after they spent the night together for the first time, and unlike previously, now it was changing from being a blank template, to have its own glow and form.
Aster inwardly smirked.
“No, if my supposition is right, the condition needed for that star is… Sarina surpassing the star tribulation realm”.
Originally Aster noticed Sarina was unconsciously feeling a bit inferior to the other girls and that was why the star wasn’t completely accepting her.
Which was understandable, out of all the girls she and Kana are the only ones that come from a “normal” background, but at the same time Sarina never showed something like being depressed or jealous.
Only a moment ago when Kana was breaking through, she showed a slight tinge of jealousy which immediately faded, she actually overcame her own weakness by herself just like that.
Even Rya recognized her strong will.
“She might not be the most talented, nor the youngest out of all… but I must admit that in determination she wouldn’t lose to anyone”.
Aster nodded remembering how he learned sword intention, thanks to Lilia… no thanks to his family he overcame all that sadness and anger which he felt during his life back at earth, and Sarina was going through something similar.
Cultivators are bound to encounter a lot of tribulations in their lives, the mark of a genuine cultivator isn’t how fast it breaks through, but how many of those situations it can surpass.
Countless geniuses have fell before reaching the pinnacle because of that, without a strong will, all the talent of the world is meaningless, that is one of the first lessons Lilia taught Aster.
Although she put a bit of emphasis on it, because she thought Aster wasn’t going to recover his bloodline until some years later and she didn’t want him to feel inferior, it wasn’t a lie.
Aster and the other girls flew until they were at least five kilometers away from the spirit furnace.
Sarina was now floating while being cross legged, her eyes were closed but her expression was firm and calm as the yin energy from the crystal and the condensed and purified spirit energy, twirled around her.
Lilia saw the confident expression in her son’s face and she hugged his arm to wait until the show started.
“Mm?”, not even ten minutes after they left the spirit furnace, all the presents noticed the sky clouded, which wouldn’t have been that shocking, if it weren’t for the fact that the clouds weren’t gray… but of a bloody red color.
While outside of the furnace everyone looked at the sky, inside of it, Sarina was feeling a bit weird.
Her body felt light as feather, although her breathing was a bit accelerated but her mind was clear.
She then opened her eyes and shouted.
“I will never doubt again!”.
“~Rumble~!!!!”.
The sky seemed to tremble, electric currents started appearing on the clouds, the earth started shaking and violent gusts of wind whistled, it was as if the world was about to end.
Lilia frowned, the Rodia star cluster was strong enough to resist the existence of an early-stage genesis manifestation cultivator.
But right now, her eyes which could see through the clouds saw black cracks appearing in the sky, and she couldn’t help but smile.
“She is… deforming the space barrier of this star cluster, a girl who has been accepted by my darling can be anything but regular”, she thought seeing the proud expression in her son’s face.
But she didn’t have time for that right now.
“Mylene take the south area, Eris you take the north, I will protect the east, darling I leave the west to you!!!”.
As if everyone previously discussed it, they took their respective positions and extended their hands towards the furnace, although interfering with the star tribulation of someone was a horrible idea, since it would make the heavens double the difficulty of it and affect the “invader”.
The area of a star tribulation differed from person to person, but there was a constant in all of them, as long as people stayed five kilometers away from the one who was going through the tribulation then, they wouldn’t affect it.
Right now, Aster, Lilia, Mylene and Eris created a square barrier to protect the area from those exact five kilometers, without covering the sky or the ground of course.
Camila, Alice and Aria limited to observe, although they weren’t weak, their reserves of spirit energy weren’t as big as the ones that were in charge of maintaining the barrier, even if Alice used the golden armor, the area she could protect was small compared to her brother, since she only got the paragon body not too long ago.
All the red color from the clouds converged above the furnace, then the whole world seemed to became silent before a huge thunder sound echoed through the sky.
“Booom!!!”.
A red pillar of light with exactly five kilometers of diameter fell from the sky, if it weren’t for the fact that Aster knew Sarina wasn’t in any danger, because of the connection he had with her, he would have rushed all the way to her side ignoring the tribulation.
But that wasn’t needed, although the light seemed dangerous and it made everyone feel a bit apprehensive, Sarina was different, she bathed on that red light for exactly five minutes before all of it converged in her body.
“What the hell!!!”.
Camila, Alice and even Aria couldn’t hold back their reactions, the all the ground which used to be around five kilometers below Sarina was gone.
She was now floating above what seemed to be a bottomless crater, but then something even more amazing happened.
The ground closed by itself and not only that the density and quality of the spirit energy in the atmosphere increased.
This day will always be remembered by the natives of the Rodia star cluster, and Sarina was going to become a legend for all the people that lived in the Azure sky planet… as the pioneer who opened the path for cultivators to reach higher levels in what used to be a low ranked star cluster.