aster saw the motivation burning in eris''s eyes and he chuckled, though he didn''t know why she seemed to be suddenly so excited, he was happy to see her genuinely enjoying the date.

that was the whole point of it, for the girls to enjoy some time with him, while both parties improved or showed their advances, not to mention it was a delight for the eyes to see these beauties smiling from the bottom of their hearts.

the following wasn''t as surprising as seeing aster''s achievements in spirit blacksmithing, despite not only his young age but the fact that he was self-taught, not because eris''s rune mastering isn''t amazing.

she is amazing, she can construct the four runes at the same time and engrave them at the most fitting places in the bracelets, all in a matter of seconds, without sweating at all, it was indeed a sight to behold.

it''s just that aster has already seen her doing it, so it has become normal for him, that''s why eris wanted to show him the huge difference that a soul queen can produce when it comes to rune mastering, since both she and mylene can''t show their might as cultivators above the heavenly conqueror realm right now.

that being said, it''s not like eris doesn''t have anything to show for her normal rune mastering, and judging by her current smiling expression she did it.

the spirit blacksmith isn''t the only one who contributes for the creation of a good treasure, though is the one that determines the effectiveness of it mostly, when both the rune master and the blacksmith have good compatibility there is a chance of improvement, and such is the case for aster and eris.

but there are some conditions for it to happen, it must be on the moment before the properties of the resulting treasure stabilized, so prior to this time where they were being a team, eris didn''t know if it was going to be the case.

"effectiveness sixty-five percentage, it''s an incredible result considering we are working with one of the hardest materials to tame~", happily said eris, as she saw the results of aster''s blacksmithing and her rune mastering, the maximum a rune master can contribute to effectiveness is through runes is around ten percent, in their first try she achieved half of it, of course she was happy, even with her grandmother, the first time she didn''t even got a whole one percent of increase, when dealing with materials of similar caliber.

many things affected the result of engraving a spirit formation, the materials where it was placed being one of the major factors, dragon scales are among the best conductors for spirit energy, but they are hard to engrave, dragons don''t soul cultivate but that doesn''t mean they are weak against soul cultivators.

that''s why dragons are among the strongest races, even their "weakness" isn''t exactly a weakness per se, they can''t cultivate their souls, but their scales defense is universal, meaning that even against soul energy they are not easy to pierce, though it is indeed not as hard if compared with the amount of spirit energy needed to it.

the "might of the dragon king" manual which lilia, alice and aster use, talks a bit about it, for those who have the black hair trait, in other words talent for body cultivation, can develop "dragon aura" and that is supposed to work against soul cultivators, though aster hasn''t gotten to the part where it explains how, since the pages of the manual only open after the requirements are met, as for alice, she has the red eyes trait so her talent excels in the energy path, which is strong against the soul path, so she doesn''t need it, and she shouldn''t be able to develop it... if she was following it as normal, which isn''t the case.

''i guess i now have an idea on what to base my date with sis now, she can''t always depend on aria to defend her from soul attacks after all'', thought aster before he returned to reality.

to eris and mylene''s surprise, he didn''t give them the bracelets immediately, seeing those two''s cute pouting expressions, aster laughed.

"come on, don''t look at me like that, i still need to charge them with rigel''s flames, i promise they will look even better when i personally put them on you, okay?".

"mn", the two girls were convinced by aster, if he said it, then there should be more than what the eye meet, but he apparently wanted it to be a surprise.

"engraving runes in dragon scales is still a pain, i used a lot of soul energy, mylene, your tu said eris as she returned to her seat, giving mylene the stage light.

mylene gladly accepted and jumped onto the stage, she took out her own personal cauldron, one which as you can imagine was made specifically for her by aster and eris, the one at the store was just a "generic" one.

or at least that''s how she called it, despite it being the best model that is publicly sold in galatia, agnes gifted a few of them to her, when she heard aster was opening a store, since they were just accumulating dust in the storage of the black sword faction anyway.

to get a better one, one must go to an auction to see if the renowned spirit blacksmiths and rune masters, had created a new piece, since they are simply not available prior to that.

it''s the same principle as luxury goods back at earth, there is always a highly renowned brand which mass produces and then there are the master artisans who only do a few pieces once in a while, not only it helps to keep their work being highly valued due to the high demand and low offer, but it also increases the competence, since it motivates other people in the same line of work to improve until they reach that level, it''s a win-win situation for the development of a stellar system, so the rulers support the ideology.

"since you mentioned you already have something in mind, i''ll let you choose what we will be making today, do you have the recipe?", asked mylene to aster, trying to make it not so obvious that she was happy, it was going to be a gift for them.

"i wonder what would the guys that got their asses handed by those unladylike punches and kicks of yours when they asked you to brew something for them, would think if they heard that, it makes me look up to the next mission where i''ll be tagging along more~", jokingly said eris, as she cutely stuck her tongue at her friend.

mylene resisted the urge to choke eris for saying something so embarrassing for her, and instead waited for aster to give her the recipe, so they could start with their lesson.

what mylene was manipulating were her flames, a beast flame is different than the alchemic fire used by the "traditional" branch of alchemy which always use soul energy along with a fire type treasure, since it originates from a spirit beast, whose strength relies in its body, what she uses to control those pink flames of hers, is her body cultivation.

aster focused his attention on mylene again, the current of flames returned to the cauldron and at the moment of impact, a sweet scent was released into the room, mylene then snapped her fingers and her flames which were containing the solid leftovers, including the rests of espi''s scales that were discarded during the concocting.

"it''s done, i changed it a bit, but the result should be even better after using such "premium" materials, its name will be purple bliss elixir", said evangeline.

aster laughed, the original name of the recipe was "meridian bliss", she changed it because the result of their flames mixing was a light purple color, this giving the elixir the same tone after it being finished.

aster then approached the cauldron and took out a couple of jade bottles, once he filled them, he took out the two bracelets that had finished absorbing rigel''s flames inside the mind space, and handed one bottle to them, as for the bracelets...

he walked towards them and stood a few steps in front of them, eris and mylene both offered their right hands to aster, who then put them the bracelets, they were captivated by how the bracelets looked.

aster wasn''t lying when he said that after some waiting the result will be better, espi''s scales adapted to water when they were travelling through the river at the secret realm, so aster got this idea, if he used rigel''s flames to purify and refine them, then shouldn''t the scale show some kind of reaction.

and he was right, in eris''s case, the blue roses were shining in a pretty blue light, as for mylene, the trees looked like something brought out of a fantasy tale, also shining in blue light.

"so, do you like it?", asked aster.

"mn~", the two of them smiled in response, for the rest of the day, besides teaching aster more about their respective professions and also discussing about other products they will be making to sell for the store, also he caught them gazing at the bracelets quite a few times, which was honestly cute, without realizing the time flew and soon the sun was setting, which marked the end of the date, but not of the fun, since before returning to the mansion both of them looked at aster before they each grabbed one of his arms.

their faces were red like apples, and aster obviously laughed due to that, making mylene say.

"what, agnes grabbed your arm like this earlier, so why can''t your alchemy teacher do it~", she shily said.

"mm, this is also one of the duties a student has with his teachers~", added eris.

aster shook his head.

"i don''t know if i would let my teacher get this close to me, but my friends can as long as they are comfortable with it", he said, which again made those two''s faces redden, before returning they took advantage of being in the store which is located at the central capital, since they still had some time, they just walked around.

a lot of the disciples were having fun here and there, despite it being mainly an all-female sect, the atmosphere of the sect wasn''t like those of women who fiercely defend their purity and cultivate yin, which would have been the best option for aria if she hadn''t met aster, but more of a friends enjoying their time together kind of sect.

at least that''s what the early night scenery of the sect looked like for aster right now, along the way of course many people saw him walking while being hugged by eris and mylene, the female disciples pouted and blushed, or felt motivated to challenge alice and the others.

not all of course, since they were people from the purple lotus faction and the red sword faction, but their numbers paled in comparison with the girls that saw aser as their idol, there were also another faction that wasn''t exactly happy of see him enjoy the company of such beauties, which consisted in around 90% of the male disciples, the rest were the new disciples who he didn''t kill in the admission trials, let alone showing any negative feeling against him, they didn''t even dare to look in his way, though some have started to admire him.

aster saw the sun disappearing into the horizon and he turned to see eris and mylene before saying.

"let''s go back, i bet those three have prepared a good dinner for all", both eris and mylene nodded, but they also had something to say.

"it was fun, would it be okay to make all our lessons like today... aster?", they both asked.

"sure, but after all those gifts, you two better at least go out with me, or mom is going to think i''m not treating you well", he jokingly said, which made both of them laugh in response.

"you''ll have to put more effort~", said eris.

"mm, we aren''t the princesses of our clans for nothing you know~", added mylene as they both dragged aster along with him for a few meters before they disappeared from the central capital, returning to the mansion, where the girls obviously were surprised to see those two being so close to aster.

''i recognize that "friend" gaze from a certain ice princess, so even the rose girl and the tree girl are competitors now'', thought alice as she sighed, her and aria''s turn was the next, finally.