The rise of the pervert primordial
Chapter 616 Felicia’s intangible gauntlets & Alexandra’s reflection armor (part 4)
seeing alexandra''s cute indecisive expression as she considered to halt the full focus training on the body path she has adopted, aster chuckled before saying.
"of course, by telling you to retake the energy path as your main priority, doesn''t mean you can''t keep your current advancing speed on the body path as well".
"are you serious?".
as immersed in her thoughts as she was, alexandra couldn''t help but gaze at aster, his words carried too much eight after all.
advancing on one''s secondary path is way harder than doing so in the main one, this is especially true for anyone who has entered the transcending realms, this is an iron set rule and for a change it isn''t a limitation set up by the heavenly law, but a natural occurrence.
the more a person circulates spirit energy through their bodies, the higher their existence becomes, and of course the harder cultivating becomes, reaching the mortal transcending realm, means surpassing the limits of a human being, after all lineages can be created by the sole reason of reaching a high cultivation realm.
a big leap in power comes with it yes, but also big challenges, as to why most cultivators still choose to enter the transcending realms with their main path, before either starting to cultivate a second one or focusing on it, that is to extend their years as members of the youngest generation.
the young generation is different according to one''s realm, for the mortal realms, below eighty years it is, for the earthly realms the number increases to three hundred years, for the transcending realms the number goes all the way up to two thousand years as for the heavenly realms the number goes up to five thousand years, there also exists a "youngest" generation, just cut the previous number in half and there you go.
anyone past the young generation is part of the current generation and past that there is the old generation.
amusingly enough, despite there being mothers in the group, each and every one of the girls is still either part of the youngest or young generation, anyway the point is that for a cultivator who has entered the transcending realms, advancing in their secondary path requires all their focus, thus halting their progress in the main one, which is why aster''s words had such a big impact on alexandra.
alexandra was brought back to the real world by aster''s next words.
"yes, i am, however i can''t just give you such a valuable information for free, you''ll have to earn it, let''s see mm, you''ll have to make me use my strongest defensive mean", he playfully said.
"you mean that giant version of your golden armor?", mumbled alexandra, only for her pupils to constrict when she saw aster softly laughing in response.
"nope, the expansion of the armor is an application of my paragon body, which i developed for support, as it amplifies the techniques used in that state, while it does indeed enhance my defense past the level of my battle prowess, that isn''t the peak of my defense".
alexandra was rendered speechless by aster''s casual explanation, she saw what the golden giant version of the armor could do, in a rough calculation she judged it to be able to fight void manipulation realm beings, to what extent it was unknown, but still there is a really big gap between genesis manifestation and the void manipulation, beings, after all the former is only the transition to the late transcending realms, while the latter is part of them.
and yet, a technique that allowed aster to jump that chasm-like breach, wasn''t the peak of his defensive means, it was insane.
''wait, that would mean that he has a way to go against a law integration enemy! but he isn''t even at the peak of the earthly realms!'', inwardly screamed alexandra.
the mastery on her innate ability to combine a hundred pieces of black heavenly gold into one, making it strong enough to store the power akin to an attack from a law integration cultivator, is something she obtained after reaching the peak of the star tribulation realm, not too long before she entered the mortal transcending realm.
aster was still far from that and yet he was capable of something similar to it, it was a bit too much, strangely enough she didn''t feel defeated nor down about it, past the initial shock of her conclusion, her desire to compare her defense against aster''s, grew higher.
"fine, against a monster like you, using anything but my strongest technique would be meaningless", said alexandra, all the black metal plaques floating around her, returned to her body, then a nail sized black piece of metal came out of her chest.
unlike the other ores of black heavenly gold that aster has seen alexandra use, this one not only looked way more refined, but despite its relatively small size, aster could see that it was actually an octagonal plaque conformed of many even smaller plaques joined together, like a perfectly done puzzle.
''mm, if the black spheres are raw "ore", then the result of combining a hundred of them it''s a refined "ingot" i would say, interesting'', thought aster.
alexandra who looked strangely down for some unknown reason, gazed at aster to then say.
"be careful, i''ll stop restraining this little one''s effect on our surrounding".
aster nodded and what followed was a huge pressure descending upon the nearby area, aster''s golden pupils shone for a second, the ground cracked below his feet as the pressure radiated by alexandra''s black heavenly gold, rained down upon him.
"it lacks substance, but this is still physical pressure akin to what a void manipulation spirit pressure would radiate, not bad", he said as he stretched his body.
"mm, i was able to sort out a few dangerous situations with this "bluffing", though it lacks the mental suppression that a real void manipulation can inflict on weaker beings, you''ll be surprised on how coward is quite a lot of people~", happily said alexandra.
aster chuckled amused at her clearly bragging about having found such an interesting application to her special attribute, it was an imitation but such a thing aligned with the soul path, since it was an "illusion" kind of technique, intimidating possible enemies by making them believe you are stronger.
anyway, this level of pressure wasn''t enough to render aster immobile, alexandra knew it, but she hoped that it was enough to reduce the gap between their speed, after all while she does have a movement technique, she is sure the same applies to aster so she needed to close the gap.
''humph, why did you made me think we were going to take things step by step, if you were going to make me go all out next'', was the thought that kept repeating in alexandra''s mind, the more she thought about it the more bitter she felt, her legs tensed and spirit energy cladded them before she flashed towards aster.
"boooom!", aster''s pupils contracted, the extra weight pressing down on him certainly got in his way, but while his speed was reduced, his mind was working as fast as ever, so he punched leftwards meeting alexandra''s delicate fist which had an almost impossible to see, micro black metal plaque floating a few millimeters in front of it, with his golden armored fist.
in case you wonder why was there an explosion and a resulting impact this time, that is because alexandra is on the offensive this time, she was releasing the power stored within that special combined piece of black heavenly gold, naturally she couldn''t absorb and release at the same time.
that being said, the result was enough to make up for that inconvenience, alexandra''s eyes sparkled as she saw cracks appearing all over the golden light protection around aster''s hand, which only made her increase her fierceness, as she kept exchanging punches with aster.
"don''t try to mirror it, absorb it, i have only tested this with my mother before and until not too long ago, it wasn''t viable for combat, so let''s not take risks, okay?", alexandra was surprised by aster''s sudden seriousness, contrary to his usual carefree and playful attitude, his voice was though firm, caring, making her unable to react for a moment.
"mm", she limited to say, in a marvelous display of ability, the hundred different fragments of black heavenly gold that conformed the whole piece, separated and surrounded her.
due to their really small size, they were hard to notice until they all sprouted thin branches that expanded and connected each other, resulting in a spherical kind of barrier formed by a lot of octagonal black metal plaques, since she was told by aster to fully focus on defense, alexandra took a stationary position.
aster nodded; this is something he has only tested with lilia''s help before, but with his previous capacities it wasn''t a viable technique for combat, what changed you might ask, well, the paragon body changed after that time when he used the expansion to fight together with camila and the others, and also with a 92% fixed strength output, he should be able to pull it off.
felicia who was enjoying the show from afar, saw aster''s legs explode in lightning before he continuously flashed appearing some kilometers away after a few seconds.
''don''t tell me he is going to...'', felicia''s thoughts were interrupted by the ground below aster''s feet exploding, sending debris flying in all directions, making felicia immediately think on summoning a black hole in front of her, but she stopped as she saw her body glowing in a warm golden light, which made her pout.
"you could have simply told me beforehand, mr. tease lover", she mumbled, being protected by the golden light and adding her own physical defense as a body cultivator, she had no need to do anything else, so she instead focused on what was about to happen.
alexandra was isolated from the outside world by her barrier, focusing on absorbing as aster told her, so she was unaware, but felicia watched the whole thing, aster accelerated towards alexandra and at the last second, a different much more solid golden glow enveloped him.
"boooom!", contrary to let alone aster, but even alexandra the moment that golden projectile clashed with her barrier, there was an explosion, but that wasn''t the most eye-catching thing, but the fact that a one-hundred-kilometer sized piece of the ground behind the black spherical barrier, was blown away, ascending into the skyless atmosphere.
and the surprises didn''t end there, alexandra along with her barrier were pushed backwards a whole fifty meters, that being said there was no damage to the barrier, in fact the thing looked way more solid than before.
aster waved his hand and dispersed the dust that was raised by the impact, he looked at the surrounding disaster zone which might make people believe a meteor had fallen from the sky.
"it''s not as wide ranged as an attack from a law integration, but an "unstoppable" object moving at high speed, surely causes similar damage to it", concluded aster.
he then walked towards the spherical barrier that was resting fifty meters away from its previous position and knocked on it a couple of times.
"are you okay?", he asked.
"...", after a few seconds, alexandra''s happy voice could be heard from within the black sphere, before the thing dissolved.
"yes~", a smiling alexandra could be seen a second later, she ignored the world-ending disaster zone surrounding them and gratefully gazed at aster, that attack from earlier fully charged her main plaque of black heavenly gold.
"you know, you could have asked my mother to that, right?", said aster, which made alexandra''s smile freeze on the spot, how could she say that she felt embarrassed to ask someone she just barely met to attack her, not to mention she still felt awkward with aster and it was painfully obvious that the ethereal black haired beautiful woman was dangerously close to him, so she wasn''t sure if she held it against her due to how she treated aster back when they met.
agnes, eris and mylene could probably help her as well, but they would need to dedicate themselves to it for at least some hours, so she couldn''t bring herself to ask them about it, instead she chose to recharge her black heavenly gold through the spars with camila and the others, it wasn''t as slow as her previous method but it was still going to take around a week.
seeing her troubled expression, aster chuckled to then say.
"on the other hand, mom can be rather hard to handle, besides our abilities perfectly complement each other, so how about we train together from now and onwards, it will only take a few seconds a day anyway".
alexandra''s eyes sparkled, part of what slowed down her training with her heart''s meridian black heavenly gold, was the fact that it took her around a whole month to replenish the power in it, and she couldn''t leisurely use it since it was her lifeline.
but now, if aster helped her with it, she could fully use it and then charge in a second, literally, just with that her mastery over her attribute would advance in bounds and leaps.
"you make it sound as if i was the perfect sandbag... thanks, i''ll really appreciate it", said alexandra as she looked downwards, avoiding aster''s eyes.
''he is for sure laughing at me'', she thought, but then she was reminded of the information he promised to give her, if she made him use his strongest defensive mean.
still after receiving this much help from aster, she couldn''t bring herself to ask more, so she decided to remain silent about it.
''heh, despite having earned it she is aware what she had gotten already and isn''t greedy for more, i like her darling, go for it~'', said lilia from within the mind space.
aster bitterly smiled in response, he wasn''t testing her, alexandra has proven to not be moved by material possessions or benefits already, despite her collaboration at the silicon forest, she not only didn''t ask for a single crystal but even emptied her spatial ring for aster after he cured her mother, of course aster didn''t accept any of it, a new trustable addition for his team is more valuable than any amount of money after all.
"mm?", alexandra felt a gentle poke on her forehead, she raised her gaze only to see aster smiling at her.
"i already said it before, never hesitate to ask about something you need", he said.
alexandra''s cheeks reddened a bit, she felt a warm sensation lingering in her chest, at least until she heard his next words.
"besides, i was going to give you the method needed to keep advancing on the body path, even if you are focusing on the energy one anyway, it''s included in my gift for you~".
alexandra''s lips twitched a bit, she softly snorted and then left towards the rock where felicia was sitting, not without giving one last grateful gaze at aster.
"that was enough "date" for me for a day, he is all yours", said alexandra to felicia as she summoned her heart meridian''s black heavenly gold, isolating herself in a black sphere, leaving those two alone to continue with the date.