“We’ll be there in two hours darling, you can go do your own things in the meanwhile, the alarm will sound in the whole spaceship when the time comes”, said Lilia as she set up the coordinates for the station at the border of the Rodia star cluster.
“Mm?”, although Lilia said that, she saw that none of them left, Kan, Sarina and Camila had curiosity written all over their faces, but it wasn’t only them, even Eris and Mylene had a couple of doubts.
The place from where they come is quite different in its organization in comparison with the clusters, systems and quadrants of what they call “mortal plane”.
“I can answer your questions but let’s go to the living area of the spaceship first”, said Lilia as she scratched the back of her head, only now she remembered none of the presents besides her has properly travelled through star clusters.
This time Lilia activated all the functions of the spaceship because she wanted to use the concealment formation, so she smiled before saying.
“Living area”, everyone saw a spirit formation illuminating below their feet and after a second, they disappeared from the captain’s cabin and appeared on the living area of the spaceship.
Seeing Kana’s big eyes sparkling with curiosity, Lilia giggled, she took out a talisman which glowed before letting out some runes which attached to their hands.
“Don’t resist it, these are only “control” runes, I gave you all lesser authority, so you can use all the public areas and the transportation formations in the spaceship, besides the restricted areas you can use them to move through the whole place including the bedrooms”.
Kana was about to try something but Sarina stopped her from doing so.
“It’s not a toy Kana, using the formations will drain the spirit jades and stones used as fuel”, she said in a motherly voice.
Kana pouted, which Lilia found cute as she explained.
“Don’t worry, all these functions don’t affect the fuel chamber of the spaceship, with the exception of the energy used to travel at the speed we are currently moving, shields and offensive formations, the rest are self-sustaining.
Lilia then pointed at the walls and roof of the spaceship, where the spirit formations were engraved.
“There are energy gathering formations all over the spaceship, because with its size it would a hassle to move without the short-range transportation function”.
Aster agreed with his mother, the spaceship was about five hundred meters large, two hundred meters tall and one hundred meters wide, in other words it was huge, those who could fly might not take too long to reach their destinations, but having to do it every time would be a bother, that’s why although high ranked cultivators liked to show off building things of incredible proportions like castles, spaceships, training grounds and the like, they set transportation formations all over the place.
Leaving that aside everyone took seat in one of the many couches, Aster, Lilia, Alice, Aria and Sarina sat in one while Kana, Camila, Eris and Mylene sat in front of them.
Mylene was the first one to speak.
“What is this “station” you mention Lilia, back when I was… chasing after Eris, we used our powers to pierce through some kind of invisible walls all over the space, but I don’t remember seeing anyone stationed near those invisible walls, also I remember having heard of star clusters, systems and quadrants but I never really paid too much attention to it”.
Lilia nodded, while Aster probably already knows this since he has asked before, Alice never paid too much attention to the books she added to the library after telling them about their origin.
“We know those walls as “stellar boundaries”, they basically separate one star cluster from other, as far as I know they have always existed and no one knows why, normally those at the Void Manipulation realm or equal should be able to open a small tear in the boundaries to go to the other side, but nowadays that only works in the low ranked star clusters”.
“The stations are cities built in asteroids or planetoids which function as outposts for the families that rule the different stellar systems, in average, every family rules about thirty, star clusters, and the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant is conformed by one hundred stellar systems”.
“Just think of a Heavenly Quadrant as a huge square, the father from the center, the lower the rank of the stellar system, the divisions cover 30 systems, which means that from the first to the thirty are considered high ranked stellar systems, the ranks thirty-one to the sixty are the middle-ranked ones, from the sixty-one to the 90 are the low ranked”.
“The last ten are basically considered wastelands, but even then, they are special from a certain point of view, the spirit energy there is chaotic enough to shred even a Heavenly Transformation cultivator if they are careless, but that also works as the natural defense against other Heavenly Quadrants”.
Eris and Mylene exchanged gazes reaching the same conclusion, “This mortal plane is way different to what we know”.
It’s not like there aren’t what they consider “mortals” from where they come, like at every place there is high ranked and lower ranked cultivators, but their organization is completely different, which lead them to mumble the same question, “Where the hell, did we end up after being absorbed by that space rift?”.
…
The rest of the travel was quite silent, since it was really early in the morning when they woke up, everyone went to rest in their respective rooms.
In the meantime, Aster entered the mind space, yesterday his memories suddenly flooded his mind like a broken dam, to the point that he fell asleep instead of entering the mind space to rest.
Besides that, Rya hasn’t said anything since yesterday which was starting to worry him, Aster opened his eyes inside the mind space.
His body floated towards the highest point of Hyperion and as soon as he reached the bed which he shares with Rya, he raised an eyebrow.
She was laying down on their bed with a slightly moody expression, which made Aster chuckle.
“You look like a wife who waited for her husband to arrive at night, just for him to not do it until the next morning”, it’s what he wanted to say, but he recognized that feeling around her.
It was the same as that time when her tongue slipped and she told him, that she has been with even when he was a normal human back at earth, and about the suffering that being deprived from spirit energy brought her.
He let his body fall on the bed right next to Rya and dragged her into his embrace, while he didn’t regret having taken the decision to reach the zenith in the requirements to advance, be it purity or amount of spirit energy.
The fact was that he chose the slow way while he could have been a star tribulation cultivator by now, if he lessened his standards and his battle prowess would still be higher than his peers.
Rya snuggled in Aster’s chest, feeling his arms wrapping around her body made her feel at ease, not only that, she suddenly smiled noticing a change even Aster ignored.
“You broke through again”.
“Mm?”, Aster which was busy enjoying the soft beauty in his arms, froze in the spot, thanks to Orionis he was absorbing and refining spirit energy all the time, but without the spirit furnace created with Rigel’s flames, the process took more time, so although a couple more of stars had illuminated within his inner universe, he is still far from advancing.
Which means that he advanced in the soul path, there was only one problem with that, he didn’t meditate at all, the only thing he could think off was when he used almost all his reserves of soul energy training with the incomplete hilt of the soul weapon.
Rya giggled at his slightly surprised expression, her previously moodiness faded as she contemplated the man in front of her who seemed to be able to hold up the heavens for his family if needed.
“What happened is that the soul crushing parade was designed for sword maniacs like a certain someone, so you can “train” with it as if you were trying to advance in the body path, just control the soul weapons until you are about to collapse and it will work out~”.
Aster had a weird smile, he whispered at Rya while his hands moved downwards, to fondle that plump ass of hers.
“I’m not that obsessed with swords though, unless we count you as one”.
Rya softly snorted, but she didn’t resist his caresses.
“Says the monster that has mastered two stages of sword intent in three years”, she mumbled as she rubbed her face against his chest like a spoiled girl.
While Aster and Rya were flirting inside the mind space, Kana who was looking through the double-sided windows of the spaceship started seeing different spaceships moving near them, there were of many kinds and sizes, but most of them looked worn out.
The only thing in common they had with Lilia’s was that they were also going to the same direction, Lilia stood up from the bed where she was lying down next to her son.
She approached Kana and pointed at a what from afar seemed to be a star, but after a close inspection turned out to be a city built on top of an asteroid, the light which made it look like a star originated in a semi-transparent white dome which seemed to act as an artificial atmosphere.
Normally with the authority Lilia had as the princess of the Drage family, her token of identification allowed her to bypass all the security measures of the border stations within the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant, but using it will give her family a trace they could follow.
But since Aster decided to “reelevate” whoever allowed the mercenaries from the Lagrae stellar system, to hunt in the Rodia star cluster, they will also be taking a small stop in the city, as Arthur already sent someone to bought them tickets for the space gate, they only needed to wait for the daily activation at midday.