Once Aster finished his preparations he went to the dining room and the first thing he saw was his mother sitting waiting for him, he took a seat next to her while she looked at him lovingly, they waited for Alice to arrive to start having breakfast.
After a couple of minutes, they saw Alice approach them, normally only Lilia sits next to Aster while Alice takes a seat in front of him, however now that their relationship had deepened, she decided to sit next to him just like her mother.
Lilia felt a bit annoyed when she saw her daughter interrupt her moments with her son but she had already noticed that Aster did not like seeing them against each other, so instead of scolding Alice she decided to take a different path, she simply had to spoil him enough so he would only have eyes for her.
When Aster was about to start eating his breakfast he heard his mother speak in a charming voice.
“Wait darling, since you’ve perfectly fulfilled the responsibilities of a good husband so far, this time let mommy act like a good wife ♥”.
Aster was on the ninth cloud hearing Lilia call herself his wife, and he was even happier to see her use her silverware as she asked him to say “ahhh”, that’s right Lilia was about to personally feed him as a diligent good wife would do.
While Aster enjoyed his mother’s attention, Alice realized Lilia’s intentions, and thought.
“It’s not fair, she always wants to keep Aster to herself, but since he promised to take care of me too then …”.
Aster saw Alice copy Lilia and feed him personally, at first he was happy to receive the care of two beauties but then he realized that he miscalculated how competitive they were, in the end he had no choice but to eat everything they gave him.
Once they finished breakfast Aster told his mother that he could feel a possible advance in his cultivation, so he would lock himself in his room to meditate, he actually needed a moment alone to check on the changes that had happened in his mind after he absorbed the aura of the giant sword.
Aster entered his own room which he almost never used because he slept in Lilia’s bed for as long as he can remember and sat on the floor, he concentrated and after a few seconds he could see the giant sword inside his mind but in the space around, which was previously blank, there was now … a universe?
Not only that, he could notice that there were thirteen giant lights that stood out in all that universe, when they were seen from his perspective by drawing lines between each one, they formed a sword and between the thirteen giant stars while twelve emitted white light one of them more specifically, one of the two stars that formed the guard of the sword was shining in golden light.
As he tried to figure out what all this meant, he saw the golden star light up and then he heard a somewhat mechanical voice in his head.
“You who protect, have earned the recognition of the Pollux star and its blessing”.
“The invincible golden body”, will grant you ten seconds of protection against any damage, however the amount of protection you receive is proportional to the level of determination you have, if your will is weak you will only hurt yourself but if your will is strong then no there are no limits to what you can achieve”.
Aster was in awe after all to be “invincible” even for only ten seconds and with activation conditions, it was an incredibly useful ability, this perfectly complemented his fighting style which was essentially focused on offense, after all he was a swordsman.
Not only that, he also realized that his cultivation had advanced and now he was in the late stage of the nascent soul realm.
“It seems that I can be recognized by the different stars after facing certain situations and with their help I can also advance faster but I don’t understand why did I just crossed a stage instead of advancing to the soul manifestation realm” he thought.
Naturally being recognized by Pollux would not give him such a small advance, however each final cultivation realm of the different divisions had certain conditions that had to be met, such is the case of the tribulation that one must face in the star tribulation realm.
To reach the realm of soul manifestation one must first find that which defines him as an individual, something that is carved into his essence and then create a soul idol with that form.
Aster had a clear image of what he will use as the model for his soul idol, just imagining his mother’s surprised expression made him grin.
“It seems that I will be able to surprise mom in a couple of days”.
He immediately began to meditate while thinking, what defines me? what makes me who I am? and so, time passed while he was lost in his thoughts.
Out of Aster’s mind as time passed, Lilia began to worry and when night came, she couldn’t resist anymore and broke open Aster’s bedroom door only to find him in deep meditation.
She carefully inspected her son’s current state and she frowned her eyebrows a bit.
“What is happening, why would he enter this state, at his level it should not be necessary to enter into such a deep contemplation?”.
What Lilia thought was correct, after all a child who has reached soul manifestation usually forms his soul idol based on the few memories he has, but in Aster’s case his past life was a big part of what shaped his personality so it would take him some time to analyze his memories in order to form his soul idol.
But that will also give him a better result in the formation of his soul idol, there were not divisions for that, but the quality of the soul idol would be different for each person.