eris who standing at the front, exchanged gazes with mylene just to see her cunningly smiling at her and she inwardly gritted her teeth.

''you little... getting back at your friend after you benefitted from going with aster first'', she thought, before saying.

"t-this will be an interactive lesson aster, i need the help of a spirit blacksmith since the scales must be forged and i don''t have a beast flame like mylene", she shily said.

aster didn''t know it, since he isn''t knowledgeable in customs and formalities, he normally only deals with his family and close people, and with them there is no need for such things.

but normally, women tend to have better control over soul energy, the reason is unknown but out of 10 cases 7 fall in that category, so the most renowned rune masters un the heavenly quadrants are actually women, for example the senior who created the spirit formation lilia used to get pregnant without the need of a partner.

anyway, since that is the case, there is an unspoken rule so to speak, a rune master always looks for a spirit blacksmith as a partner, since their professions completement each other, and so rune masters don''t directly work with a spirit blacksmith unless they fully trust him or consider him a potential partner.

eris who was practically raised by her grandmother, who is the one who has taught her about rune mastering of course also mentioned it, since it''s a tradition.

by the way, engraving already created things doesn''t count, since they aren''t done from scratch as a couple, in fact aster probably didn''t notice it, but this is the first time he''ll be creating something with eris from zero, as the previous times he just handed her the swords and other things he crafted for her to engrave them with runes.

aster nodded in response.

"sure, just give me the instructions, it will be a waste to destroy such rare materials as espi''s scales, after all".

"mm", eris whose face was slightly pale nodded, she handed aster a couple of espi''s scales, while she endured mylene''s mocking gaze.

"ahem, then first please heat the scales and refine them until the impurities are gone, then give them the shape you want, make sure to polish the surfaces so the engraving might be easily done, please", said eris.

aster nodded and then lifted espi''s scales with his soul energy, with a wave of his hand blue flames covered the scales, espi''s scales are of a white color, but it''s more on the bone tone than a bright white, that is because espi''s attribute is a generic earth, not sand or rock, like ixas, but earth, probably a result of the little things variation, as it was a white wyrm.

originally the scales eris and mylene brought were of the size of a mattress, but after a couple of seconds of being refined by aster, they shrank to the size of a hand, not only that, but espi''s spirit energy as well as the impurities were cleansed out of them, resulting in the scales gaining a crystal white color.

they honestly looked more like gems than scales at this point, aster nodded happy with the result and then he absorbed rigel''s flames back into his body, but the process wasn''t over.

he now had incredibly stronger flames than before, and he wanted to make eris and mylene a little gift, while mylene went with aster and she had not time to even cultivate as things got pretty intense quite fast at the secret realm.

that and though aria who also has rigel flames stayed behind, her flames focus in freezing instead of purifying, so eris had to make do with the spirit pagoda aster made for her to cultivate.

that''s why he decided that today he''ll be making them some containers for rigel''s flames, so that those two can cultivate even when he is on a mission, though eris will be coming with him on the next one.

and so, the next process was to change the shape of the material into the desired one, aster grabbed a large hammer he saw among the tools and then placed the scales on top of a couple of anvils, before he started hammering them.

"clang!", the sounds of metal colling as well of sparks flew every time aster hit the scales with the hammer, but he didn''t stop and continued giving form to the scales, aster was surprised by how easy it was to mold them into the form he wanted.

"this will do the trick", mumbled aster, as he took out a bottle with a transparent liquid from the mind space, it was none other than the result of refining his own blood.

he then spilled a couple of drops in each of the two scales that he was molding, before he mixed two other different materials on each, it''s obvious he wanted a different result for both of them, despite the fact that the base was the same.

eris''s eyes widened a bit after she finished, she then looked at aster and was in a loss of words for a moment, before saying.

"sixty percent... you managed to bring out two thirds of the potential of a dragon subspecies scales in your first try!", she exclaimed.

"what!", eris wasn''t the only one surprised, mylene grabbed the bracelets from the hands of her friend and did a round of inspection herself, though she isn''t a soul cultivator, she also has divine sense, which is the evolution of spirit sense, so evaluating mortal grade treasures was a piece of cake for her.

mylene''s eyes glowed, she turned to see aster as if he was a rare treasure, aster saw the intense gazes of those two and he bitterly smiled.

"if you keep looking at me like that, i won''t be able to marry you know", he jokingly said.

spirit blacksmiths are on a league of their own, for example, in alchemy they use the term "purity" to classify pills, low, middle, high and perfect, each tier represents 20% of purity roughly speaking, because a pill with 100% doesn''t exist, the best ones round the 97-98% of purity, mylene has even seen a 99% one once in her whole life.

for rune masters is the same, they use the same tiers to classify how much power can a rune master draw out of a rune and the sum of that becomes the quality of the resulting spirit formation, but a spirit blacksmith is different, their "effectiveness" use the first 100% as zero, why do you ask, because unlike rune masters who can use runes even directly on air or through talismans on paper, a spirit blacksmith always needs a physical vessel for their creations, call it a weapon, armor, a spaceship and so on, before they combine it with a spirit formation to make it a treasure, therefore their 100% is actually 200%, it is related to the fact that a sentient weapon is equal to having a second cultivator of the same rank as an ally.

spirit blacksmithing is considered the hardest of the three basic professions for that same reason, and that is also why treasures of the high immortal grade are so scarce, and the sentient spirit weapons like the halberd used by lilia''s are stupidly rarer and can''t be created at that level, but have to be developed through generations and generations.

because they require at least an 80% of effectiveness from a spirit blacksmith, that works with heavenly conqueror rank materials and such a person doesn''t exist in the heavenly quadrants, in other words the base for them is a physical vessel than can excel 180% the potential of its materials, giving the user a 100% boost which is the base, and the rest used for the treasure itself.

mylene sighed as she returned the bracelets to eris.

"our lifespans will be shortened if we keep getting surprised, i''ll just assume there is no such a thing as impossible when it comes to you", she said as she gazed at aster.

"mm", eris nodded, agreeing with her friend, which made aster laugh.

"it''s not like i was suddenly able to do it, i failed and burned a hell ton of money to practice, just to make my training swords you know, so much that i lost count at about the two millionth something failure".

eris and mylene stared at each other, they know about aster''s past since they have gotten closer to the others, lilia of course has told them since when he son became interested in spirit blacksmithing.

"the fact that you could do that much swords in three years is already amazing, how did your soul not collapse by manipulating rigel''s flames to such a extent, it beats me", said eris, she a former soul queen could estimate how much soul energy should have been used, by the unexperienced aster of back then to manipulate the blue flames, and the result was an insane amount of it.

aster shrugged in response.

"well, a dragon shouldn''t be able to cultivate its soul but here i am, maybe my soul is as sturdy as a dragon''s physical body", that''s the best theory aster could come to, with the information he has, since even rya who was with him back at earth was surprised when she saw him entering the body path and maintaining his dragon lineage at the same time, a fundamental impossibility.

"anyway, these bracelets are one of the two memories i want you to have, for the runs i suggest "storage", "dome", "amplification" and "effectiveness", my spirit pagodas are more apt for breaking through than for continuous cultivation, since i can''t keep on controlling rigel''s flames after a certain range yet, with this you''ll be able to make your own schedule for cultivation, and recover at a better pace", said aster.

eris and mylene couldn''t help but feel warm in their hearts, as the say goes a piece of coal in times of necessity is worth more than a piece of gold in times of prosperity, when they were princesses of their families, if they asked for something a line of people would form and fight to give it to them, not like they ever accepted such "gifts" that obviously came with strings attached to them though.

but in their current states, let alone receive a decent treatment, they would be lucky if they don''t get captured or taken advantage of, by those same people.

but aster was different, any other guy would have done it so they depended on him, he has the means to, since they can''t cultivate without his help and nobody else in the mortal planes has the ability to refine spirit energy in such a way, and yet he was sincerely giving them that freedom back.

the two didn''t say anything, they just engraved this gratitude in their hearts and sweetly smiled at their friend.

"mn~", eris then started her work, she was eager to recover to the peak of the transcending realm in the energy path, so she can finally show it to aster, what does being a soul queen means, especially now that one of the newest additions to the team brought such a contribution to aster''s growth as a live demonstration of third level intent, in the sword which is aster''s weapon as well.