oblivious to the little devil that was whispering to rya''s ears regarding aster''s next long visit to the mind space, aster and the girls walked towards the entrance of the castle that protected the second node.

naturally the barrier which was barely keeping the castle together due to the combined attack of the elders and the two spirit beasts, prevented them from entering as they pleased.

the runic oak had already told them beforehand, even if aster used his abnormal yang radiance, the castles will only let those who are in the same frequency as it, to enter, previous to aster arrival that only included the oak, but now...

aster took out the yang chain link from the mind space and showed it to the castle, which then welcomed them by opening a small breach on the barrier for them.

originally aster was curious about why the runic oak didn''t retrieve this chain link from the forest, but apparently, it''s not like it didn''t want to, but it couldn''t, one of the few configurations that survived the explosion caused by the blood despair sovereign and the other heavenly realm experts, was that one person could possess only one chain.

it was a method used by the yin azure palace in case the "ants" managed to overwrite the control of the formation, the chains will require for them to kill their respective owner individually.

naturally not in a million years they expected that the sacrifices from a heavenly quadrant without the backing of a divine firmament, will decide to explode themselves to take everything with them.

the whole branch of the yin azure palace including the holders of the chains, the chain and almost all the formation itself was destroyed, they might not have won as they didn''t get to kill the people from the main branch, but both sides lost, indeed they resisted to the very end.

anyway, the oak took possession of one link which was probably from one of the strongest ones, and unfortunately the one buried in the forest belonged to another chain, so it couldn''t take it.

it even tried to use one of the crystal trees to trick the runes on the chain link, but it didn''t work as the trees shared the same firm of energy as the oak, so ultimately it left it to nurture the forest, it was buried into its territory so the trees will protect it from the yin beasts, and if the beasts that could destroy the crystal trees appeared, the oak will notice and will stop them.

but now the chain link had recognized aster as its owner, of course if anyone stole the last the last "free" chain, the runic oak would have immediately confronted the new owner, since it couldn''t allow others to break in the three castles, but the oak saw aster''s group battle prowess and actions and instead decided to ask for a cooperation, and so far it was the right decision, somehow the feeling the of the one that lead the human group, made it see him in a good light.

leaving that aside, now that the castle confirmed they had a chain link aster and the girls were allowed to enter.

though the walls of the castle had some cracks here and there, they had already started to self-repair, but at a slow ratio since the connection between the chain links and the three suns had weakened a lot and now yin energy was outmatching the yang in the atmosphere.

the group walked through the corridors looking at their surrounds, the castle was pretty much the same as the one of the runic oak, with the difference that there were many parts covered in transparent pretty crystals.

those crystals weren''t spirit jades nor yang or yin accumulation crystals, instead they seemed to be a gem of some kind, which aster had decided to harvest later, he had to improve his blacksmithing abilities and these crystals will for sure be a decent material to make some jewelry for his girls.

they soon reached the main hall of the castle, and just like the one in which the main body of the runic oak resided, there was a large open area and at the center there was both, the material to which the chain link of this node was attached and the chain link.

what laid in the middle of the room was a human sized flower made out of transparent crystal, the flower was reflecting the light that came from the three-meter bright yellow chain link that floated above it, making it dazzle with lights of many colors.

it was such a pretty flower that aster was sure kana would have loved it if she was here, not to mention that the aura it was radiating has nearly surpassed the transcending realms.

"that is twice the size of the one which was found before", mumbled alexandra, it would be a lie to say she didn''t want to take the treasure, she was sure this was enough to cure her mother''s ill body, but at the same time she has seen agnes and eris fighting... no, in fact she now didn''t trust of even being able to defeat the other two women who were in the same realm as her, in other words camila and felicia.

though in age they looked a bit older than her, being in their middle twenties, while she appeared to be in her early twenties, meaning they probably advanced to the mortal transcending realm after her, the difference shouldn''t be that much, they should also be under one hundred years old, and their battle prowess was really high too.

she also saw aster fighting and more or less could understand why a group fully conformed by people that would outstand on their own, gathered around him.

''tsk, it''s harder to make dragon aura circulate than spirit energy, how weird, energies doesn''t have mass, unless they have liquified or crystalized, but this thing is clearly in gas state so then why does it feel so damn heavy?'', thought aster.

leaving his questions for later, he saw one different ray coming towards him, unlike the others this one had one meter of diameter, the orchid had concentrated all the rays into this one.

aster first tried to dodge it since it was a straight line of light, but then to his surprise the thing hit one of the crystal deposits on the walls and was reflected, as if it had a life of its own it chased aster.

"hoh, so that was the purpose of those crystals", mumbled aster, he then stopped moved and left the ray hit him, the sudden impact made him go back a few meters, but the ray didn''t explode.

"here have it back!", shouted aster, he then grabbed the ray of light and actually threw it towards the orchid, or more accurately towards the yang chain link which was floating above of it.

the yang chain link was pushed out of the area of influence of the orchid and landed on the ground a few dozens of meters due to the impact, the moment it touched the ground, it started melting it due to the heat it was releasing, but it was temporarily ignored by aster who landed next to the orchid.

rya had taught him the method to unpluck all the herb type materials of the list, normally this is a task that is given to an herbalist or in some rare cases to an alchemist, since some herbs might lose quality or even become useless if they aren''t properly harvested.

aster covered his whole arm with his yang radiance and then used his hand to pierce the ground below the orchid.

"crack!", with a loud sound, aster ripped apart a whole piece of the ground, thin crystal-like roots could be seen hanging out of the piece of rock, the diamond bone orchid, was as its name suggest made of a really hard material, while it can be cut, it will require a long time, also the quality will greatly reduce, only an idiot will unpluck it like that.

so, the best method was to take the whole thing, roots and nearby ground included, it was easier to melt it at the moment of need, but for now, aster sent it to the mind space where rya was sweetly smiling, she was now one step closer to be able to be with aster with a real body.

by the way, the immature orchid that the patriarch of the steel tower sect offered to the castle armored sect was retrieved by using a heavy axe to cut it.

aster then approached the yang chain link, this one was bigger than the one he had taken possession of, he had to cover his hand with the armor instead of just his yang radiance this time.

the thing resisted at first by releasing heat, but besides creating steam because the ground was heating too much, nothing happened to aster, as long as he wasn''t in direct contact with it, there was no problem for his body with which he could swim in lava while being naked, to endure the heat, the yang energy was what could be a pain to deal with, but the armor took care of it.

eris dispelled the barrier and then she approached aster, who casually threw the chain link at her.

eris had to encapsule the chain link in a smaller version of the yang barrier, so it didn''t touch her.

"hey, that thing could have burned me you know", she said with a pout, only to see aster laughing at her.

"you didn''t seem worried about high temperatures when you caused that insane explosion earlier".

eris blushed a bit, her fighting style was indeed quite explosive, that was the reason behind naming it "wood arsenal".

"ahem, i used some soul energy in my previous fight, after a small rest, i''ll put hands to work", said eris.

aster chuckled and then he walked towards one of the corridors, there were empty rooms just like in the other castle, the girls naturally followed him, including alexandra.

"let''s have a rest, the runic oak will tell us when the space has stabilized enough for us to go conquer the next node", he said.

alexandra saw all the girls entering the room along with aster, and she was speechless for a second, but ultimately, she didn''t say anything and just took another room for herself, they didn''t even have doors unlike the ones of the castle of the oak, so she just covered herself with her black sphere shield.