After the girls returned, they ate some of the snacks the maid brought earlier before Aster decided it was time to leave because he saw his mother getting bored, they got back to the inn to greet the old man Sebastian since he was an important family member for Aria.
Aster presented his mother to the old man which made him laugh and pat Aster’s shoulder.
“Hahaha, the youths nowadays surely are fast on their movements, but that is also a good thing, now that Aina’s girl has found a good family instead of those selfish idiots this old man can finally relax a bit”.
Aria’s face turned red immediately, she ran away with the excuse to go pack her things since she was going to live with Aster in the castle for some time, Alice accompanied her too because she wanted to keep some distance from her mother because she knew the hell that was waiting her once they return.
Sebastian returned to his office while Aster sat on a couch to wait for Alice and Aria, of course Lilia sat at his side, he closed his eyes and entered the mind space for a moment to speak with Rya, but he didn’t see her anywhere.
“Rya?”, he called her out loud and after a couple of seconds he heard her sleepy yawning voice echoing in the mind space.
“Mmmm… sorry, it seems I used more energy than what I thought so I returned to the core of Hyperion to cultivate”.
Aster wanted to know more of secrets of the sword but that was subject for later so he only asked what he needed to know right now.
“I wanted to ask; will it be a burden for you if I use the attribute that is radiated by Hyperion to train? I want to start practicing my offensive while integrating annihilation in my sword”.
Rya doubted for a second before answering.
“It doesn’t affect me, the energy being radiated from Hyperion is the excess of what it creates every second, normally I would be able to produce mine but I just recently became able to cultivate so I had to use some of it to accelerate my recuperation, however I recommend you to use cheap swords to practice because annihilation is a quite hard to control attribute, earlier you were easily able to avoid your mother to be harmed by it because you didn’t want to use it in a offensive way but since you will be using it to attack this time… well let’s just say that those swords won’t last long.
After confirming that she won’t be affected by it, Aster left the mind space and while he was thinking how to get cheap swords for his training, seeing Aria and Alice coming down stairs made him remember the commercial district they bought clothes before.
“Ladies, I need to go to the commercial district to buy some disposable sword for my training, do you want to come with me?”.
The three of them immediately agreed and Alice even suggested to order some take away from the fragrant pavilion to eat on the castle after Aster finished buying the things he needed, of course they asked the old man Sebastian to send someone for them.
Once they arrived at the commercial district Aster asked one of the guards for a decent store dedicated to sell weapons and he was directed to a place called “Kraft Armory”, which was affiliated to one of the four big families the Kraft family.
Lilia knew quite a bit about the four families and the most renowned blacksmiths on the near planets were from the Kraft family so she told her son to follow the guard’s recommendation, luckily the armory was actually near the store where they bought clothes before so it was easy to find even if the commercial district was quite big.
As they entered the store Aster saw some barbarian looking guys that reminded him of the ones that insulted Kail back then, they started talking between them when they saw him until one left the group and got near Aster.
“Hi brother, aren’t you the one that gave that Kail Rein bastard a lesson?”.
Aster was in trance for a second, the guy in front of him looked like a young man who frequented gyms excessively, his skin was tanned and he wore a wolf-like animal fur on his waist, while his chest was practically bare except for a couple of ornaments made out of bones of spirit beasts, but that’s not what attracted his attention but the fact that his voice… sounded childish so it didn’t match his appearance.
It was a bit hard for Aster not to laugh at the big contrast but he didn’t want to cause any misunderstandings so he simply answered.
“Yes… it was me; I don’t mind getting to know more people but I didn’t come here alone so if you need something from me, please say it”.
The muscular guy laughed out loud.
“Hahaha, see this I the kind of people our Asher family should get acquittanced with quite “straightforward”, I heard your story from some of my tribesmen and I wanted to meet you, my name is Eric if you don’t mind, can we be friends?”.
“Huh?”.
Aster was confused, “this guy seems to have a few loss screws” he thought, one normally doesn’t simply approach a stranger and suddenly ask to become friends, just when he was about to answer a tall savage looking old man came out of a door that was at the end of the corridor, the old man moved his head as if he was looking for someone until he saw Eric but when he saw Aster’s confused expression, he hurriedly rushed towards them.
“I’m sorry if my stupid nephew has caused you any problems, please don’t be mad at him he is just… ten years old”.
“Bullshit”, Aster thought, although he looked older than his true age it was not to the point where he could be mistaken for someone’s father like Eric.
The old man saw the doubtful expression on Aster’s face and he sighed.
“It’s true young man… haizzz I have had to deal with so much misunderstandings due to this stupid nephew of mine but you can ask the patriarch of the local Ghale family and he can confirm my words”.
Lilia didn’t want to lose more time so she took the initiative to explain her son.
“This guy is telling the truth, the… kid has a special body constitution so he is different than other people of his age”.
The old man was surprised, only a few people in his family knew about his nephew condition but the woman in front of him could tell only by looking at him, which made him a bit cautious of the situation, he turned to see Eric and asked.
“What did you do this time, you idiot brat?”.
Eric seemed pretty relaxed as if he was already used to this kind of situations.
“Nothing uncle Egil, some days ago one of my big brothers told me the story of a guy in the same age group as me who gave that Kail Rein idiot a good beating so I wanted to be friends with him and luckily I got the chance to meet him today hahaha”.
Now that Aster was aware of the real age of Eric, he didn’t know what to think, he wasn’t crazy he was just… a kid, although he didn’t mind getting to know him right now, he was in a bit of a hurry.
“It’s fine, I was only a bit surprised first because I thought he was older; however, I have some things to take care of today but we can talk more in other occasion if you want to”.
The old man saw Aria and he had a good idea.
“Of course, in fact we came to Ghaleria to attend the birthday ceremony of the Ghale family patriarch so I will be glad if you could spare some of your time on that moment to get to know my nephew a bit more.
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea”, Aster answered.
Egil Asher looked in his spatial ring for a moment before he took out a black medal with an axe engraved on it which he handed to Aster.
“Take this as a sign of friendship, since you came to this store it is safe to assume you want to buy some equipment, you might not know but my Asher family is the one that supplies raw materials from spirit beasts to the Kraft’s who use them for their blacksmithing so we have some privileges, this medal will give you a 20% discount on any sale that is below 5000 gold coins”.
Aster received the medal, although he was rich enough to not care about the discount, it was not respectful to reject a clear sign of goodwill, he decided to use it immediately after excusing himself he asked one employee to show him the most basic sword they had in the store.
After a moment the employee returned with an average looking long sword, the handle was adorned with black leather and the blade was made from a material called “wild iron” which was created by combining iron ore with the blood of spirit beasts, resulting in a low-grade mysterious rank material.
Aster handed the sword to Lilia before asking.
“Mom, I will train to add my attribute to the sword, do you think this will be able to resist enough for that purpose?”.
Lilia inspected the sword for a moment before returning it to Aster.
“Yes, it will work, just take into account that at the beginning they will be destroyed at the slight touch of your attribute until you manage to properly control it and even then they will become unusable after a couple of minutes due to their low rank”.
Aster nodded then he turned to see the employee.
“I want three thousand pieces of this model”.
Silence fell into the store.