The rise of the pervert primordial

Having finished breakfast, Fawn called Aster as well as Valentina to the side for a moment, well, the purple lightning princess had another thing in mind when she accompanied them.

’Little Fawn is new to the group and she is going to become a princess, perhaps if I watch how Aster interacts with her from beginning until that happens, I will be able to learn how he got Agnes so infatuated with him’, she thought.

It’s not like Valentina believed Aster played some tricks behind the scenes or anything like that, she wouldn’t doubt of the resolve displayed by Agnes whom she considers her real little sister, and she also knows Aster isn’t like that, this is just interest.

Well, it’s a combination of her natural interest on her little sisters as a responsible older sister type and interest in how Aster managed to get Agnes to fall for him.

Despite how the sportsy sun diamond princess seemed worried about the whole matchmaking stuff from the Fey family, the truth is that the options that were presented to her weren’t bad, Aster is not the sole decent guy in the whole four heavenly quadrants after all.

The power faction might be able to press the matter due to Agnes’s unique situation of being the sole princess level figure of a whole generation so any offspring produced by her is expected to be extremely outstanding, however it’s not like they were allowed to just choose whoever they wanted to try and match her with, not only because as a ruler family they put a lot of weight to their reputation, but also because Agnes’s family wouldn’t let them do such a thing.

So, among the different options that were being considered there were a few really decent guys, honestly Valentina would have allowed Agnes to at least meet some of them, if the sportsy sun diamond princess was open to the idea or showed the slightest interest on it, but that clearly wasn’t the case, so as a good older sister she blocked any further advances on that subject with the help of Aster’s godmother.

Still, the elders from both factions were free to keep discussing and modifying the matchmaking options not to mention talk with other families and forces about it, it’s just that Agnes wasn’t obligated to do anything past seeing the information of the possible options, which doesn’t sound that bad until you take into account that she was unable to leave the main influence sphere of the Fey family where she could only interact with Valentina and Aster’s godmother from time to time, so she had nothing to do besides training, meditating and reading the reports made by the council of elders.

It was to get her away from such an environment, that Valentina took her to the Myriad Occupation sect, Agnes still received reports about possible partners and had to read them, however in the sect she had all other sorts of things to do which she liked, interacting with the young disciples or Valentina, scouting and visiting the forces and families of some girls which is how she ended up meeting Aster through Tiana’s scouting, and what’s more she was free to wander in a place that wasn’t controlled by the Fey, in other words she had much more good things in her life than the ones she didn’t like.

Therefore, Valentina simply wanted to learn what was the difference between Aster and those other possible options, which even from her point of view were good enough to at least be given a chance for a face-to-face meeting, as her interests were also taken into account for it.

There were those who mainly cultivated the body, those who were sword maniacs and even those with light attribute like her all with decent appearances and strong backgrounds, not to mention that quite a few were willing to have her as their sole partner for life which while not that hard to see, it is indeed an unpopular thing among male cultivators.

’I get that she is interested in taking Fawn to the sect, but why does her gaze feel so "intense"?’, wondered Aster as he saw Valentina’s pretty purple eyes fixate on both Fawn and himself, anyway both Aster and Valentina were returned to the real world by Fawn’s next words.

"Just a moment ago, miss Regina should have reached the first of the two camps based on the last message I got from her, like we previously discussed, she went towards the east first", she said.

To the east there was the plains and the desert area, as to why it was decided that the giant eagle would first fly that way, that’s because eagles endure cold better than heat, Fawn got her manual at around 9 am, but Regina left a couple of hours after that, therefore she would have to spend less time flying under the sun at the desert and would travel overnight for the majority of time instead.

In a rough calculation, she flew seven hours in a hot environment and thirteen in a fresh one, since right now it’s around 7 am in the morning, this schedule was planned with Kana and Fawn’s help so that Regina would have a comfortable time making her travel.

"Oh, she reached there a whole four hours before it was supposed, well I should have expected as much since miss Regina has been at her prime state through most of the travel", said Aster, which made Fawn smile, she didn’t have to ask for it, before Aster pointed his index finger at her, granting her another chance to activate her technique.

Fun fact, contrary to what Fawn thought, she didn’t need to be awake for the connection to remain, in fact thanks to that she dreamed that she was flying in an endless sky but that’s beside the point, still the technique naturally dispelled itself at around 2 am so the giant eagle flew the next five hours on her own, which is why Fawn was going to ask Aster to give her the activation chance as soon as breakfast finished just an hour after they woke up.

Fawn closed her eyes for a second and the connection was established again, the field of sight of the giant eagle was added to hers alongside the sensation of freedom in the sky.

"Good timing Fawn, I just arrived at the vicinity of the camp at the east, I’m keeping a larger distance than we discussed though because they... have flying birds of prey on their side and that’s not all, I see wolves standing on guard near the entrance to their camp", said the giant eagle which Fawn communicated to Aster.

"How is the environment past the desert?", asked Aster to which Regina answered.

"There is grass all over the place and unlike the plain past the forest back at our camp, I don’t see any trees here besides near the body of water that crosses the area which is a big river".

"Mmm, so it’s a prairie area, it matches with the appearance of wolves, as for the birds they must be harrier hawks, then it would make sense that they could be captured by the other party even without the mastery for it, as they are known to fly at really low altitudes when hunting", said Aster.

He wasn’t surprised to hear about the camp at east having achieved such a thing, because he already had guessed who was there.

"How about the camp and their members?", he asked just to confirm his supposition.

"The camp is rather different than ours, they have a thick defensive wall but its more like a bunch of trees stuck together unlike the organized logs at our camp, their houses are made with few logs and mainly grass tied to them as well, it’s not that they are shabby but rough instead", said Regina to then add.

"As for the inhabitants, they walk on their hind legs and have shapes similar to humans but they are rather tall and much more solid looking, also their skin is similar in color to the grass, mostly green but some vary in tone to a yellower shade, ah wait, I see children... no, they don’t seem like the children of the tall ones, but there are some small versions of the ones I described before and they are being ordered and beaten around by the tall ones, then there is one who is taller than all of others but has grey skin".

"So, it is indeed those orcrary guys, that one might not be Merkel but it’s a grey orcrary like him at least", said Aster, which made Valentina raise an eyebrow at him as she asked.

"Do you know them, I have not heard of such a race before though?", though human cultivators conform the vast majority, there are not only humans in the four heavenly quadrants, the Drage aren’t humans technically for example, and then there are races which exhibit much beastlier aspects, so the green skin description didn’t surprise Valentina, but that she hasn’t heard about such a race and she who holds a position of authority in a main branch from a ruler family, has much more knowledge about the four heavenly quadrants than the vast majority of people.

Mikaela and Valentina even knew for sure that there were places higher than the high-grade Stellar Systems after all, though they didn’t know that their specific name was Divine Firmaments.

"Yeah, I have met their race before and it’s normal that you haven’t heard about them, since they came from a Divine Firmament, their facial features don’t differ much from each other, so I would need to personally see that grey one to know if it’s the same I met before though, but considering that they have managed to even get animals on their side, we can assume that they come from a Divine Firmament", said Aster.

Mortal realms like the four heavenly quadrants are directly below to Divine Firmaments, they are connected, the number of them differs from place to place though, so Aster simply assumed that the smaller guys described by Regina are natives from the mortal realm connected to the Divine Firmament from which the orcrary race comes, hence why they are being treated as servants.

"I see, is the average difference that big between them and those from the heavenly quadrants?", asked Valentina.

Wade’s group while not completely and not formed by the specifically nurtured seeds of the young generation, still had people from high grade Stellar Systems and first tier forces.

And while they screwed up due to their inner conflicts, lack of mortal knowledge and the like, they wouldn’t have reached the point of domesticating animals like that, maybe if Fawn was aware of her own capacity, she could have caught a couple of birds to use but the orcrary had wolves and hawks, so even if Wade’s group would have organized itself properly, they would still be missing in terms of achievements.

Valentina took Wade’s group as an average one due to the previous, and of course didn’t count their own camp because it’s not normal for them to have such an advantage as Aster’s group is, with their knowledge of mortal level stuff and capacities that surpass mortal level even without the manuals as well.

"No, it’s not that, those guys seem to come from a place with a less advanced culture in terms of civilization, from what I saw they live in "tribes" like those planets that are far from the influence of the cultivation world in border Star Clusters, they must be used to survive in the wild, also they are not like Fawn or me, those animals are not allies or friends, they are just "trained" to obey them", said Aster.

"The human king, no, Aster is right, all the wolves are wearing some circular things with spikes around their necks and I see a few birds who had... their wings cut, they are eating some wolves and even those smaller versions of them, they are not humans or at least they are not like our human friends!", exclaimed Regina.

Naturally, such a rare talent as that of a spirit tamer which even took the luan girls by surprise to be found in Aster, couldn’t appear so easily among orcrary, they used one of the common methods to train beasts, which is the one of the carrot and the stick, though in their case it seems like it’s only the stick, considering that those being eaten must be those that didn’t obey and were made an example of.

Now, Aster is not a hypocrite, he allowed Alice to give the black horses quite a beating, but it was nothing they didn’t deserve and even Alice stopped trashing them around once they had learned their lesson, not to mention that he didn’t make any animal eat the meat of their fellow race members, well, the cobras ate other snakes but that wasn’t forced or to instill fear in them, it was because that’s their normal diet.

Even if he would have needed to domesticate or train animals without having access to such a cheat code as Kana, he wouldn’t resort to such scummy methods.

"Within this place, races like those orcrary are among the most troublesome to deal with, they are innately physically strong which should be retained to some extent at mortal level and can adapt themselves easily to mortal environments due to their culture and customs, they are among the races I had in mind to be wary of from Divine Firmaments".

"And the arms that the king of fangs displayed at the end of his fight with Kana and Ember reminded me of those guys which is why I also agreed for miss Regina to go spy on the camp at east first", said Aster.

One of the desert black horses was the one that found the meat and bone that later was turned into the red bone that gave the king of fangs said arms, after further interrogation Aster learned that it was an arm found on top of a dried tree, the rest of the corpse which according to the horse resembled somewhat to the upper part of a human but in a bigger size was already eaten by other animals of the desert.

So, Aster had guessed that the orcrary were the ones living at the camp at the east past the desert, as to how that half orcrary corpse reached that far away, that was probably caused by a tornado, they are prompt to form in places like prairies, that guy was probably unlucky and while exploring must have gotten caught in one.

"Considering that their barbaric ways are kept in the open, they must not be under the supervision of the blue flaming board, so it was for the better that miss Regina didn’t approach their camp", said Valentina to which Aster nodded as he said.

"How big is their camp, compared to ours?", that orcrary Merkel seemed to hold quite a high position, so a group in which he or someone on equal standing is, should be thriving in this place and Aster planned to extrapolate that through the size of the camp.

"Mmm, around a fifth part of the size of our camp", answered the giant eagle after flying from one side to another and make a rough estimation based on how long it took her to do the same but at the camp of the sect.

"Then that guy shouldn’t be there, otherwise their camp should be around half the size of hours, based by their need of larger facilities due to their bigger body size and the strength shown by Merkel back then, still since there is a grey skinned one, they aren’t the average group from their race as well", concluded Aster to then say.

"That’s more than enough for now, to prevent any risks, tell miss Regina to leave that place carefully, the other target is under the authority of the blue flaming board and they are weaker than those orcrary guys for sure, so she can take a look at them more closely".

The camp to the west which should be past the volcanic area where the bear lived, is the one from which James came from, it’s a camp formed by a mercenary group from the Flame Meridian heavenly quadrant which used to be under the watch of the red lightning cloud before the blue flaming board kicked his ass.

Even after they got punished by the blue flaming board for their disgusting deeds, it’s not like they were wiped out, and since they have been in this place for weeks before Aster’s group arrived for example, their camp should still be there and it should be around the level as Wade’s camp before they pulled themselves together due to their lower number of members and the time that should have taken those that weren’t directly eliminated by the blue flaming board, to recover from their punishment.

’They will be a good practice for those cute juniors of mine to deal with human enemies in this place, not to mention that they must be eliminated first, because it’s easier to travel by foot through the solid ground of the volcanic and rocky areas towards the forest than through the desert, I do wonder if we’ll be allowed to attack them just by reaching their camp or if we’ll have to wait for the arrangement of the next week though’, thought Aster.

In other words, if those guys from the group to which James originally belonged put their minds into it, they could reach the forest in a few days of travel but the same couldn’t be said of the orcrary who would rather explore frontwards and avoid the desert, well, there was also the fact that those mercenaries were disgusting for the girls of the sect and that Aster wanted to obtain information regarding the situations of the heavenly quadrants which were involved in the story of the Blood Despair Sovereign, as Soul Sovereigns existed there and that was valuable information.

It couldn’t be provided by Eris, Mylene or Mira, because while they have knowledge on the soul path and Eris even used to be a Soul Sovereign, the manuals and techniques they knew were above the limits of the mortal realms and thus needed divine energy to properly work.

Mira and Mylene were still fine, they were secondary body path cultivators, they could gather, read and adapt information from manuals of the four heavenly quadrants to deduce how to keep advancing, but there is no knowledge regarding heavenly realms in terms of the soul path in the four heavenly quadrants.

And as someone who led the offensive against a Divine Firmament, the Blood Despair Sovereign and the sole one who survived though in a degraded form, he must have been among the most talented soul cultivators within Mortal realms, like Aster always says, only the best of the best for his family.

"Mm, thanks for the activation chance, Aster", said Fawn as she communicated his words to the giant eagle, this signaled the end of this small meeting between Aster and the brown-haired princess who was now chatting and catching up with Regina, as if she was in her own world.

"Looks like that’s it for now, I have quite a few other stops to make so I’ll see you later at lunch miss Valentina", said Aster as he left leaving behind a purple lightning princess who was lost in her thoughts.

...

’If someone should know that those orcrary guys are here now that I have confirmed it, it’s them’, thought Aster as he arrived at his next stop.

"Come on you two, you should be ready for the enemy to play dirty like this at all times~", the amused but still serious voice of a girl with red hair, seemingly closed eyes and a permanent soft smile on her pretty face, was what welcomed Aster.

"I don’t think there is an enemy with dirtier tricks than older sister’s ones...", mumbled another girl with red hair as she avoided a stone which was thrown at her face just to end up with a faint red mark on her clothes as a soft whip made with leather and cloth landed on her, though it missed a vital point since the girl in question changed the trajectory with a short wood training sword at the last second.

"Nina is right sis, I nearly twisted my ankle due to that metal sphere making me slip", added another red-haired girl, this one had a larger but thinner wood training sword and was sitting on the ground, naturally it was the trio of red-haired sisters, Mina, Lina and Nina who were training together.

"Hello ladies, I hope I’m not interrupting", said Aster as he waved his hand at those three.

"Not at all!", the first one to answer was the youngest of the three sisters, Nina.

"Woah, I’m supposed to be the swift one you know", said Lina as she got up to greet Aster as well.

"Yeah, I wonder which love potion did you feed our little sister when we weren’t looking", jokingly said Mina.

"Older sister!", the youngest sharply glared at Mina, her face slightly red due to embarrassment, to which Aster chuckled.

"It’s amusing that this is the second time I hear that today", he said.

"I’m more surprised about this only being the second time you hear it in a day if you ask me", added the oldest of the three sisters.

"Jokes aside, I come with information that I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear, it was just confirmed with the help of miss Regina that... orcrary have come to this place", said Aster.

Unlike previously when only Nina was so obviously staring at him, once those words left Aster’s mouth, both Mina and Lina intensely gazed his way.