chapter 566  vivian’s soft heart (part 3)

    naturally, aster was no chef, back at earth he ate simple basic meals most of the time except when he had the luxury to eat out, at the orphanage the food was made in bulks, so even if it wasn''t bad at all, he never got to experience a nice home cooked meal, until he reincarnated.

    which is why he really appreciated when lilia cooked for him the first time, not to mention sarina who had a natural gift for it.

    ''tsk, i guess this really represents stepping on top of a gold mine and not being able to spend it'', he thought.

    the formations engraved by his godmothers were quite something, his spatial ring which was gifted to him by lilia, was of a superior quality than any of the ones that could be found on middle ranked stellar systems, and yet it was actually blocked from working by the formations of the trial.

    which made sense, since the one who made it was probably one of his godmothers, that being said, those formations couldn''t affect the mind space, so if he so whished to, he could have taken out some of the lunches that sarina gladly prepared for him beforehand.

    but that would be against the purpose of the date, so he did what he could with what he had, luckily vivian found some herbs that could make up for the lack of spices, which aster pulverized with his bare hands to then apply it on the fish using a stick he washed in the river.

    when he had finished seasoning the fish, he stuck a few of them on the twigs and shoved them on the ground, to let the heat of the campfire cook them.

    vivian was having quite some fun, just observing aster using some basic outdoor survival skills, that being said she didn''t just watch from the sides and used her soul energy to cut the fruits she gathered, they had to wait a bit for the fish to cook after all, so these diced fruits would be good snack in the meantime.

    "here~", vivian was having so much fun that she unconsciously offered some of the fruit to aster, without trying it first, naturally aster accepted it without a second of hesitation, unlike other cultivators, meal time is a sacred moment of the day in his household, not to mention he was feeling rather hungry.

    seeing vivian''s smile almost unnoticeably tense, aster inwardly sighed, he was well aware of what happened in the mansion while he was gone, courtesy of the after-sex bed talk with that mother of his.

    maybe lilia didn''t involve herself too much with the younger girls of the group as she instead prefers to be as much as possible with her beloved son, but she had stablished a nice rivalry with someone that does, the motherly blond sarina, who is in the main chef of the mansion.

    among the things that vivian had always wanted to try before, a lot can be considered "mundane" simple activities, such as preparing a meal with her own hands, go to public places in person, or simply stroll around with friends.

    and while she has progressed quite a bit thanks to alice and the others, who had no prejudice towards her, things aren''t that easy, sarina who is the most thoughtful among the girls, couldn''t help but notice that even when it was vivian herself the one asking to help from time to time when preparing the meals, she ultimately ended up only passing things like plates, or other cookware, nothing that involved directly dealing with food, also she wore her silk white pair of long sleeved gloves all the time.

    others might confuse that with disdain towards helping in the kitchen, but how could sarina who saw the little girl hiding her troubled expressions, for around seven years, while she was bedridden, be fooled by her expressionless fac?ade.

    like mother like daughter after all, while kana remained around vivian helping her be confident that her poison wasn''t going to randomly explode, since she was there, sarina was the one that asked alice to approach vivian more actively, though is still unknown whether that was a good decision or not...

    anyway, since today she was on a date with aster, vivian unconsciously wore less things than usual, not in a lewd way, but she usually doesn''t expose any skin, for obvious reasons, her dresses are quite long, though that doesn''t diminish her charm at all.

    for her date, she chose to wear a short-sleeved dress, and she didn''t wear gloves, of course she didn''t expect to be in a situation like this, but that was the idea, to help this introvert pale girl open up.

    "don''t make that face, my body is strong enough to ignore poison and i know for sure that vivian wouldn''t harm me, here try out the fruit is quite refreshing", said aster as he picked a cube of fruit and offered it to the slightly perplexed vivian.

    of course, she knew that her poisons wouldn''t really harm aster, but she didn''t want to ruin the food that they got together, by mistake, earlier she went with the flow and even cut the fruits, only when she saw aster eating, he fruit she was reminded of her constitution, which is what caused the slight troubled expression, that immediately disappeared after listening to aster.

    "thanks", after a second of being surprised by aster''s words, vivian smiled and happily accepted the offer, by leaning frontwards and munching on the fruit directly from aster''s fingers.

    "it''s actually quite refreshing, more please", she cutely said as she slightly opened her pretty lips to wait for aster to personally feed her", making aster chuckle.

    "julian is going to declare war against me if he sees this, you know", he jokingly said, to which vivian softly laughed.

    "it''s fine because is aster~", she confidently said.

    the idea was that she took the fruit from him to then eat it, but she too actually ate it from him, not that he minded but he certainly didn''t expect such a daring move from vivian, that being said he obliged and personally fed the white haired girl to the content of her heart.

    it wasn''t only the act what made vivian lively, the fruit was quite delicious, to make up for the difficulty that should be, find one of the few edible things that had zero side effects, just eating a couple of fruits should be enough to recover whatever stamina one had spent up to this part of the trial, but it wouldn''t be enough to fill one''s stomach.

    after finishing the diced fruits, with vivian eating the most of it, aster checked on the fish which were just ready to be eaten.

    "here, i''m not as good as sarina, but it shouldn''t be too bad", said aster as he handed vivian one of the sticks.

    he also grabbed one for himself and took a big bite of it, surprisingly the herbs gave it a nice taste, also the fish was soft and juicy, probably because of the river, those fishes were really healthy, which enhanced their flavor.

    vivian''s eyes sparkled as she repeatedly munched on the grilled fish, her palate was quite unexperienced, due to her poison making food tasteless for her most of the time, only recently she started enjoying the delight of having delicious food thanks to aster and sarina, prior to that the "tastiest" things she ate were the antidotes she had to take regularly to keep her constitution under control.

    so, while she certainly loved sarina''s food, this kind of simple grilled fish was a new experience for her, and she seemed to like it quite a bit.

    ''alice and aria were right, food does taste better when aster is the one giving it to you, i will ask for it from now and onwards'', thought the pale girl as she slowly but surely ate quite a few grilled fishes, seeing her taking small bites and put on a joyful expression at the taste, was a delight for aster''s eyes.

    not only the river that ran through the plain, openly for anyone to drink from it, ended there, as there was a small fall, making the river go underground, but the sensation of the forest over all was way more suppressive and dangerous than that of the plain.

    and for a good reason, the poisons and obstacles that were inside the forest were on a different level compared to the ones in the plain, also unlike the plain where it was hard to hide and ambush others, the tall trees with their giant tops were the perfect places to hide.

    but that wasn''t all, unlike the plain where the only other living beings that roamed freely, besides the participants, were the harmless insects and the fishes in the river, poisonous spirit beasts were free to move inside of the forest.

    which is why there was a barrier set up around it, with entrances at different parts of the barrier, since not all the participants appeared at the same spot of the green plains.

    "wait a second", said aster as he approached the river and filled the empty pill bottles with water, to then close the lids and keep them in the improvised back he made with the cape, he took from one of the random guys that attacked him earlier.

    they also had some fruits they gathered on their way, just in case, because unlike others, aster could tell that the intensity of the fatigue causing formations, increased quite a bit inside of the forest.

    just as aster was about to speak, vivian took the initiative, earlier some people tried to attack them, and she let aster take care of them, because she was leading the way, but now they were static at the entrance of the forest.

    "the barrier only stops the spirit beasts and poisons inside of the forest from coming out, so you can come out, or be forced to come out when i attack", she said as she glared at a few trees.

    "tsk!", with a loud tongue-clicking sound, a group of people wearing blazers with the emblems of the purple lotus faction, the light blue anvil faction and lastly the red sword faction, came out from behind some of the trees.

    there were around forty people, both male and female disciples, they were strictly covering a respective area of the entrance, so that they completely blocked it.

    "hey "senior brother", i''m afraid that this entrance is under maintenance, i suggest you go find one that is properly working", said the one that represented the group from the light blue anvil faction, a girl in her middle twenties who had dark gray hair.

    "yeah, currently only female disciples can cross through this door, so you can leave that cutie enter if you want to, but you have to enter through a different part of the barrier", added the red haired guy who was leading the group from the red sword faction.

    for a change the less annoying one, was the group from the purple lotus faction, but that could be, because their eyes were burning with hatred as they glared at aster, after all, their male core disciple candidate, died in a mission were aster participated, and recently their female core disciple, died in a similar situation.

    though aster did kill victor for allying with ley and the other scum from the tempest family, he had nothing to do with the death of that poisonous woman that was in cahoots with edward, but since he crushed her arm back when she tried to poison angela, he was the principal suspect of her death.

    of course, edward won''t admit, that his teammate died due to his own incompetence, he already lost too much face, after he was found trying to commit fraud to claim the reward of a mission, so the supreme elder of the blacksmith peak couldn''t have him take the blame for the death of a disciple in the top ten of the heavenly ranks, which ended up in rumors of aster being the one to cause her death to sprout here and there.

    naturally those were baseless rumors, but it was enough for those among the purple lotus faction, who idolized that woman, to come look for trouble, he couldn''t kill them inside of the sect after all, so they thought they had the upper hand.

    for the red sword faction, it''s actually been a while since they came to bother aster, this was probably the response from having closed the door on the face of the elder from the red sword faction, during the incident regarding the sell of the white silicon ore.

    as for the light blue anvil faction, it was edward''s backyard, so there was no need to think too much, they didn''t need reasons to cause him troubles.

    unfortunately, their choose a bad time to come and try to play tricks, because vivian was having fun in her date with aster, and these guys were getting on the way.

    "spirit venom, vampire cobra lily", though vivian''s mellow voice didn''t inspire fear, the red snake-like pattern that covered her two arms.

    unfortunately for those guys, when they turned to see vivian who wasn''t even their target, but just "collateral damage", their bodies froze.

    small white particles of spirit energy were released by vivian, looking like petals that covered the whole nearby area, it was a pretty spectacle, until the first scream sounded of course.

    "aghhh, no what the hell is this!", one of the members of the red sword faction, screamed as the white particles, stuck to him, turning into small razor-like fangs that then turned red, the body of that poor bastard shrank as his skin turned gray lifeless and his hair fell, he went from being in his twenties to look as if he was in his eighties, not to mention foam came out of his mouth as he fell from the tree, landing head first on the ground.

    "what are you waiting for, destroy these damn things!", seeing the miserable destiny of that guy, the three leaders immediately shouted as they released their spirit energy to keep the white particles away from them.

    just to be horrified at the fact that the white particles pierced the protections they created with their spirit energies, and then drained it, turning into red petals, it was a though beautiful, terrifying spectacle.

    they all tried to attack the white particles, using their different attributes, just to see the white particles, gnawing at their attacks, and after finding an opening they were attacked by them, turning into dry older versions of themselves, as those red petals bloomed.

    naturally they tried to attack vivian, but she was fully surrounded by those white particles, that were swirling around her, preventing the enemies from approaching her, and blocking the incoming attacks, all while casually swirling around aster harmlessly.

    "ahhh no help, get away from me!", the girl from the light blue anvil faction, saw one of her junior sisters end up in that state and she turned around to escape, but vivian simply pointed at her, and the previously calm and spread white particles swarmed the girl, engulfing her making her scream, before her dried self fell from the air to the ground.

    needless to say, but the life-saving formations activated, taking all those poor bastards out of the trial.

    vivian softly snorted and then snapped her fingers, the red petals then exploded and dissolved together with the white particles, cancelling each other, as the red snake-like pattern on her arms faded away.

    "let''s go!", she enthusiastically said, as she smiled at aster, who was amazed at that poison she just used.