Just like Eris was really curious about the mind space, as all the runes which are used for the creation of a spatial ring she knows off, create small waves in the space when they activate, Mylene was interested in Rigel’s flames.
While all the girls know of the existence of Rya, Eris, Mylene and Camila believe she is powerful cultivator from a higher plane than theirs, Aster hasn’t told them about the stars nor the powers they grant.
So, for Mylene, Rigel’s flames were probably a spirit flame which Aster’s “master” in other words Rya, somehow tamed and gifted him, something deemed impossible as spirit flames would never follow anyone’s commands.
That’s why those alchemists who are lucky to find one just absorb a spec of it, contain it in their dantian and feed it with their spirit energy to produce a degraded version of said spirit flame.
Originally Mylene thought Aster was the same, but she has seen him use Rigel’s flames to do so many things it was impossible to be a degraded version, she was finally convinced after seeing the spirit furnace, he used to purify spirit energy to the point that it was near to what she and Eris needed to cultivate.
Finally, she couldn’t hold back her curiosity and asked him to show her his flames.
“Can you show me your flames?”.
Aster felt rather amused by Mylene who was doing her best to not show how curious she was about Rigel’s flames.
He nodded and a wisp of Rigel’s flames appeared in front of him, but then a rare phenomenon happened.
Rigel’s flames suddenly expanded covering and twirling around Aster as if they were protecting him from a sworn enemy, the temperature of the room dropped as signs of freezing appeared on the floor.
“Mm?”, Mylene’s eyes widened, her flames retracted back into her dantian as if they were afraid of something.
‘No way, a beast flame might have some instincts of the beast from which originates for the sake of keeping their special properties, but it isn’t alive, so how come it reacted on its own’, she yelled in her heart.
Still, she wasn’t the only one surprised, Aster had previously thought that Rigel’s flames were sentient, but this was the first time he has seen them acting like this.
“Now that I think about it, yours is the first alchemic flame I have ever seen, that might be why Rigel’s flames are acting like this”, said Aster after a moment of contemplation.
Mylene doubted for a moment before saying.
“Can I touch them… Kana told me they are harmless for others as long as you want them to be”.
Aster ordered Rigel’s flames to return to his body, but they resisted his will, only after he frowned the thing seemed to notice he was getting angry and it followed his orders, leaving behind just a little wisp of it.
‘I wonder if Orionis is a bad influence to the other stars’, thought Aster as he inwardly laughed.
Since Orionis appeared, the other stars have been more active, he saw Cygni and Orionis fighting over the other stars within his inner universe, Rigel actively purified his soul energy and also orbited his soul avatar on its own.
Surprisingly the only one who hasn’t shown any sign of self-awareness is Pollux, which is weird considering is Alice’s star and she will never fall behind Lilia, there was also Aldebaran but it couldn’t be considered inactive if he takes into account the fact that the twins are still inside the black book.
Anyway, after being “reprimanded” by Aster, Rigel’s flames returned to their usual state, Mylene tried poking the wisp of blue flames and just like Kana told her, it was an interesting sensation, there was some slight resistance and it gave off a fresh sensation at the touch.
“I have heard of someone using lightning to refine a pill before, but a cold flame is unheard off, will it really work as an alchemy flame?”.
Aster was actually wondering the same, so far, he has only used Rigel’s flames for spirit blacksmithing, no, more accurately he has only used it to mix materials and shape them in the form he needed, as he wasn’t a rune master before.
He took out one of the cauldrons he got from Riga, apparently one of his godmothers gave quite a hefty amount of them to Lilia as a gift in case he or Alice were to be interested in alchemy, but Lilia forgot to mention it, which ended in Aster taking the ones from the treasury of Riga.
‘Anyway, there is no problem is this one break, which is probably going to be the result’, he thought a she followed Mylene’s instructions.
“Normally the process would start with you heating up the cauldron as much as you need to, there is a spirit formation which will tell you the temperature, also the amount of heat a cauldron can manage depends on its grade”.
“We’ll attempt to concoct a low ranked spirit replenishing pill, try to heat the cauldron to 250° grades, then throw two cups of catalyst, a pair of petals from a blue orchid, a low ranked mana stone and a leaf of gray birch tree”.
Aster first tried to do as she told, but after exposing the cauldron to Rigel’s flames, the spirit formation didn’t show that the temperature was going up even a bit, so it was obvious his alchemy wouldn’t be like the one of other people.
Then decided to invert the order, Aster put in the ingredients, the catalyst was basically water with a few drops of the blood of a spirit beast, as for the other things, they were common low ranked spirit herbs and a spirit stone, nothing luxurious.
Once the ingredients were inside the cauldron, Aster put the lid and then made Rigel’s flames cover the cauldron, he even made it rotate with his soul energy, to make the ingredients mix.
Mylene’s nose wrinkled a couple of times, to her surprise although there was no heat involved, she could notice the characteristic smell of a pill being prepared, coming from the cauldron.
Unfortunately, Rigel’s flames didn’t adapt to the times she has read about the ingredients of this plane of existence, so when she told Aster to stop, the ingredients had turned into a black dust, in other words they “overcooked”.
“Mm, you will have to discover and memorize your own times, this book contains the average times for quite a bit of materials, I took it from the library back at the Wolfstein castle”, said Mylene as she handed Aster a green book which contained a list of the concocting temperatures needed for a variety of ingredients.
Aster opened the book and the firs thing he noticed were a lot of handwritten notes, stating some errors in the way of refining some of the ingredients, including some insults towards the author.
“You really like alchemy, don’t you?”, Aster couldn’t help but smile as he read some of the comments, which made Mylene scratch the back of her head with a slightly shy expression.
“Ahem, please don’t pay too much attention to that… it’s a bad habit of mine, sometimes I get a bit heated when it comes to alchemy”.
Aster softly laughed, Eris was the same, whenever the subject has something to do with rune mastering, she always gives her all, like when he asked her to set up a formation around the planet for protection but in the end, she added quite a few surprises to it, to the point that it needed manual.
Mylene too, she seemed to really enjoy talking about alchemy, probably because as far as Aster knows, the one that taught her alchemy is the only one in which she trusted in her family.
Leaving that little episode aside Aster took out a sample of the ingredients listed from the many shelves displayed, before he started comparing the time needed to make the ingredients expel their properties using Rigel’s flames.
When a pill is concocted, the catalyst and some specific parts of the ingredients are what mix and compact to form the pill, all the rest becomes impurities which can be either separated or integrated in the pill depending on how skilled is the alchemist.
A few of hours passed while Aster was busy trying to figure out how much difference did Rigel’s flames brought to his alchemy, in most cases the time needed to make the ingredients expel their properties was practically cut in half.
“When I started, I was able to reduce the refining times of almost all ingredients in one third, that flame is quite something else”, mumbled Mylene as she saw Aster going through the list way faster than what she expected.
Bottles with the refined materials kept piling around Aster, alchemist often refine materials beforehand to have them ready to just do the concoction process, of course only the most common or lower ranked pills can be created like that, but it’s better than nothing.
At the captain’s cabin Lilia which was meditating slightly opened her eyes, a moment ago she saw through her spirit sense that the gates were being activated one by one, as for the one to the Veluri star cluster it was rather crowded.
Countless of guards lined up around it opening a path for a white spaceship as if they were escorting it, Lilia noticed there was also a mortal transcending middle aged man standing there with a bright smiling expression as he sent away whoever was riding that spaceship.
“Time to go”, she mumbled as she transported herself to the alchemy floor, as soon as she appeared her nose wrinkled a bit as she noticed a sweet medicinal smell floating in the air.
She looked for the origin and saw Aster sitting as about one sixty cauldrons floated around his body, with Rigel’s flames surrounding them and a dumbfounded Mylene who was watching from the side.
Even Lilia who has gotten somehow used to her son being outstanding in everyway possible, couldn’t help but be surprised, while being a soul cultivator isn’t a need to become an alchemist, as a strong body is needed to endure high temperatures.
A soul cultivator also has a certain advantage using soul energy to manipulate objects in a more precise way compared to energy cultivators, but dividing one’s attention so much while being a “mere” spirit opening realm cultivator should be impossible.
“As expected of my darling, I wonder what would her expression would be if she were to see him right now~”, said Lilia as she giggled.