with the girls protecting him aster sat down and closed his eyes to enter the mind space, though he could use parallel thinking to stay conscious in the outside world and also be in the mind space talking with lilia and rya, his soul energy reserve was at ground level right now.

aster was soon welcomed with the eternal starry sky of the mind space, as well as lilia and rya sitting next to each other, since they enjoyed the previous battle, as if they were seeing some kind of action movie.

aster chuckled, they just needed popcorn or some snack and they will look exactly as two friends enjoying a movie, but this strange hobby those two have taken a liking to, could wait to be discussed later.

right now, there was something he needed to talk with a certain spirit wind girl, naturally just as lilia previously stated, her mediation "fee" isn''t cheap, and she was still "angry" that aster didn''t chose her to try that new technique in which the girls actively participated as a whole by entering into the manifestation of the paragon body.

luckily, aster knew how to solve that problem, he sat in the middle of those two and grabbed them both by their thin waists, before dragging them towards him.

a bright smile bloomed in lilia''s beautiful face, when her cheek was gently kissed by aster, before he whispered some sweet things at her, which only widened her smile, rya was speechless at the fact that lilia''s mood changed so fast.

"lewd dragon woman", she mumbled, but right now lilia didn''t pay attention to her, she leaned against aster, as she took out her communication talisman.

"here you go darling~", she happily said, while she cutely rubbed her face against aster''s chest.

aster took the talisman from lilia''s hands and then activated the, after a couple of seconds in which aster felt a bit tense since he hadn''t tried what he was about to do before, a clear, melodious and surprised voice could be heard coming from the talisman.

"little kana is never going to let me forget about this, but she was right... one should leave aside common sense when being around you, a way to communicate while ignoring the dimensional isolation of a secret realm, what kind of magical creature are you?".

esmeralda was genuinely surprised, lilia has kept the others informed about aster''s situation, the little girl was enjoying listening to aster''s adventures, the battles, the thing regarding the yin azure palace, she told them everything, while just avoiding to mention the term "divine firmament" which could incur in the wrath of the heavenly law.

so, they were all aware of the fact that aster and the others were inside of an ancient secret realm, which could be considered a small independent world, and lilia suddenly told kana that aster wanted to talk with her, esmeralda was at disbelief, the communication talisman had a range limit, but apparently the mind space could ignore that.

even rya was surprised at this discovery, according to her, after a certain level, the star maidens will be able to enter the mind space and have some control over it, but lilia had jumped all of that.

and now she essentially worked as an extension of aster, imagine it like this, if aster was the main node, lilia was like a network repeater, so with her present there, the mind space was present in both places, as to how was that possible, that could be left for later.

"as far as i understand mom has already told you all everything, but just in case, i found a spirit element trapped in this secret realm, leaving aside the circumstances of its capture and all of that, have you heard of the glacial liger... well more accurately it will be glacial ligress?", said aster.

after a moment of silence, esmeralda''s voice came from the talisman once again.

"leaving aside the insanely low chance of meeting a spirit element in a mortal plan, i have never heard of that spirit element before, how does she look, does she have any particular characteristics?", asked esmeralda, to which aster proceeded to explain the way the ligress girl fought, including those clouds that appeared on her paws allowing her to move through the air.

esmeralda remained silent for a moment before she gave her opinion.

"that ability to gather and then launch a ray from the mouth, i have only heard of one type of spirit element that does it, but it doesn''t make sense, because the crimson vulcan lion, is either a spirit fire or a spirit earth".

as soon as esmeralda finished speaking, another person joined the conversation, this time it was mylene.

"i have heard of a spirit beast that can move by summoning clouds on their paws, it''s a spirit beast which descends from a legendary being on par with dragons like you, or those two luan girls whose lineage descend from the phoenix, the sky blizzard tiger, they are said to be able to control the weather, i know about them because their beast flame is one of the most wanted ones by alchemists, and no one has been able to hunt one of them to get it so far".

"according to you, she appears to be around alice''s age, she had tiger-like ears and a tail, but she doesn''t have the stipes a tiger normally has on them nor her hair, or they are faded to the point that they are almost invisible, what is her eyes color?", she asked.

"amber, her eyes do resemble those of a feline too and her spirit energy looks like cold mist and flames... she has a true name like a spirit beast too, which i was able to partially see after defeating her", answered aster.

"..."

this time both mylene and esmeralda remained silent for a moment, mylene just knew rumors about spirit tamers, as they aren''t common and the focus in the divine feather firmament from where she and eris come, is either alchemy or rune mastering, but aster more or less explained what was this new profession he turned out to have talent in, about.

"time to leave ladies, let''s go meet with the runic oak", he said.

"mm", the girls nodded and they then flew upwards, eris and agnes made holes on the roof that reached all the way to the surface, so they didn''t have to take the large route to return.

once they reached the surface, they were welcomed with the large disaster area that resulted from the fight between the runic oak and the spirit beast''s army.

speaking of the runic oak, the moment it saw aster returning it flew towards him, its attention stopped for a moment on mira before saying.

"who would have thought that the spirit ice was a woman, so did you capture her to be your new partner, are you some kind of all-race alpha, even for a dragonkin that is unheard of, hey, how many races are you planning to integrate in your "pride", what are your preferences, do they...", as always, the runic oak will continue shooting weird questions if someone didn''t stop it.

aster and the others were somewhat used to it already, so they didn''t pay attention to it, but mira who listened to the embarrassing stuff it was saying, couldn''t help but let out a soft roar, her nails became larger and blue colored as she scratched towards the runic oak.

naturally the tree simply used one of its roots to block the attack, what frustrated mira was that, the tree kept speaking while the root blocked her attacks, when she was about to start fighting seriously, aster''s voice interrupted them.

"i told you human relationships are way more complicated than the ones of spirit beasts, mira you also stop, did you expect a tree to have common sense".

the ligress retracted her claws unwillingly, she glared at the tree and then silently returned to aria''s side, the runic oak on the other hand didn''t even pay attention to the girl that attacked him, the words "human relationships are more complicated", were the only thing in its mind right now.

"don''t forget our deal, the liger woman and the orchid are yours, but you have to answer to all the questions about humans i have", said the tree making sure that aster wasn''t going back on his word.

aster inwardly smirked as he answered.

"sure, but you will probably have a lot to ask right?".

"mm", the tree nodded in response.

"are you aware that i can''t stay here for too long, especially because now that may humans died, there will be a lot of people coming to investigate what happened?".

"mm", the tree nodded once again, practically everything but the tree died in the previous confrontation, because the armies of the four law integration beasts, killed all the weak beasts to sacrifice them, the silicon forest was only left with plants as living beings basically.

"then what do you say about joining my group, i have a way to take you out of this damned prison, even if the portal can''t stand anything above the genesis manifestation realm, if you do that, then i can answer to all the questions you have".

mira listened to aster and she inwardly snorted, it was obvious, that aster as trying to trick the tree.

''humph, not even a kid will fall for such an obvious...

"really! that sounds amazing, i''m in, let''s go back so i can fuse with my main body and make the preparations to leave!", the tree''s enthusiastic voice, made mira''s eyebrow twitch.

''i can''t believe i was being "custodied" by this airhead'', the thought, technically while the beasts wanted to free her, the runic oak wanted to keep her encaged, it wasn''t personal, the tree just hated the yin azure palace and didn''t want them to retrieve the glacial liger.

in a sense, the tree helped mira, because it prevented the yin azure palace from taking her back to them.

aster nodded at the tree.

"sure, create the portal".

the roots of the tree constructed a circular gate from which a space portal appeared, they all jumped into it and disappeared from this area.

aster didn''t know it, but today''s decisions will bring him many surprises and a couple of headaches, but that is a story for another day.