Seeing Lilia who was practically coiled around Aster in a "protective" way, as the change on the scenery was too fast, Alice who was laying down on the couch while playing domino with Aria, raised an eyebrow.
"Whoa, is that a new kinky play between you and mom?", Alie shamelessly said as she got up from the couch, although she said that, her true intentions were leaking out, she wanted to embrace Aster in such a tight way as Lilia was currently doing so, making Aria who was about to win the game, softly snort and mumble at her.
In case you wonder, Aster's whole body was being enveloped by Lilia from behind, since she had grown "bigger" it wasn't hard for her to do so, her arms crossed in front of Aster, practically covering his upper body.
"Grrr", Lilia let out a slightly wary growl, today was the first time dragon Lilia completely took form and earlier when Lilia let her instincts take over at morning, dragon Lilia didn't even register the existence of Alice and the others, she was completely focused on Aster so she was "seeing" them for the first time now.
Aster originally planned for this to happen later, but since dragon Lilia somehow evolved to better control herself, he decided to do it now, especially since he could tell she wasn't going to come out like this for quite some time, as she'll go to sleep, so he wanted to give her a nice gift to commemorate their first date.
That being said, Alice was too much for a Lilia who was new at this, so Aster snapped his fingers, making both himself and Lilia disappear from the living room to appear outside at the forest of the valley, meeting with a pair of little girls who were rushing towards his previous location, like the wind.
Literally, Kana and the little wyrm appeared out of thin air, both surprised to see Aster coming at them, unlike their usual routine in which they jumped at Aster when he returned.
"Mm?".
"Hisss?".
Kana and Espi both had to stop themselves from jumping towards Aster, since they saw the towering figure of dragon Lilia still enveloping Aster like earlier.
"Who is that older sister, big brother?", curiously asked the little girl, of course she saw and recognized her as Lilia, but Kana could tell it wasn't the "Lilia" she knew, the same could be said about the little wyrm who noticed the changes on Lilia.
For Kana, Lilia actually treated her like her daughter, it was a recurring joke that Kana was the daughter she never had, since the dynamic between Alice and Lilia wasn't the average one between mother and daughter.
And the little girl was used to that vibe, but now what she perceived from Lilia was curiosity and playfulness, similar to what she felt when she met the little wyrm, not like she minded the little girl was always open to get new playmates after all.
"She is a new sister, I brought her so you can get to know each other, come on, go and play with them a bit", said Aster to Kana as he looked upwards at Lilia's face while he patted her sides a couple of times.
Dragon Lilia had a slightly confused expression on her pretty face, but ultimately her curiosity won and she actually let go of Aster and approached those two little girls, to inspect them from head to toe a couple of times with those bright red eyes of hers.
Then she grabbed Kana and Espi and placed one bellow each of her arms, before jumping onto a tree, disappearing into the forest not too long after that, the merry laughs of Kana as well as happy hisses from the little wyrm could be heard from within the forest as Lilia skillfully moved between trees at high speed, giving those two a ride throughout the virtually endless forest.
Aster sat down and amusedly enjoyed the sight of Lilia playing around with those two, it was a bit rough looking but he could tell Lilia was instinctively being careful through and though, since she was handling "children".
'I guess I was right about her, she is "younger" than mom', thought Aster, dragon Lilia was the manifestation of Lilia's dragon lineage which had gained wisdom, it hadn't been long since it happened and Lilia's lineage has only recently reached the infant stage.
Unlike the usual Lilia she is still quite "inexperienced", her are actions based on her instincts so Aster wanted her to grow fond of the others and since she is a part of Lilia, there is no way she would harm them.
Still, Aster wanted to start with low difficulty, so he immediately took her away from Alice and instead came to meet the ones with whom Lilia will have it easier to open up to, in other words the "children" not to mention Kana was especially easy to get along with.
And his supposition was correct, despite she looking and acting like Lilia in various "aspects", there were some major differences, Lilia was way more reserved when it came to others, she mostly interacted with him and some of the mothers, but built a wall between herself and the young girls of the family.
So, this was a good chance for her to overcome that, even if the one who did it was her dragon self instead of her usual one, Aster didn't do this just for fun, besides wanting this to be a gift for dragon Lilia, his instincts told him that it was beneficial for the two of them.
That being said, he was indeed a bit worried that Lilia would just grab those two and soar into the sky at an insane speed or something like that, but things turned out quite good, based on her happy smiling expression while she played around with those two as she was now hiding in the bushes while they looked for her, it was a success.
After around half an hour, Lilia came out of the forest, carrying Kana and Espi in her arms, slowly letting them down on the grass in front of Aster, they were perfectly fine but had moved around too much and were out of breath.
It was an interesting sight, to see Kana who is a bundle of energy getting tired like that, but it's normal, dragon Lilia was practically a perpetual movement machine, also it was quite late and the two little girls have been going around through the valley since morning so this was drop that broke the camel's back, but also a nice ending for their daily routine.
"Hahaha, that was fun, can we play with her again big brother?", cutely asked Kana while she gave Aster puppy eyes, from her current position laying down face up on the grass, Espi who was resting on Kana's stomach was the same.
"Sure, the next time she comes out, we'll do something fun with everyone", said Aster as he patted those two's heads.
"Yeeei!", even if her body was tired, her spirit was perfectly fine.
Seeing that Lilia was now on a good mood and seemed disappointed that she couldn't continue playing with them, Aster inwardly nodded before placing his hand on Lilia's shoulder to use his authority, not without first saying.
"Don't worry, they need to rest a bit, but there are more "friends" for you to meet", dragon looked at Aster confused by the strange playfulness in his tone of voice, but she went along with him.
The next second they appeared deep into the valley, at one of the spots that caught dragon Lilia's attention, the area where the artificial stars created to be the main and first nodes of the Paradise Constellation Array, were placed, this area came with the next "playmates" Aster had for dragon Lilia.
"Hi Aster, isn't it a bit too early?", said Eris who was sitting on a rock, working on new runes for the array.
"Mm, since it was with miss Lilia, we expected to not be able to catch a glimpse of you, until tomorrow~", jokingly added Mylene who was just retrieving her aura since their work for today was done.
They were right, while the sun had already disappeared back at the planet where Aster took Lilia for their date, at the Battle planet the sun was still leaving the sky as of current, which is why not all the girls were at the castle yet.
Anyway, besides Eris and Mylene there was also another person here, the ligress girl Mira, which though was acting as if she was tagging along with those two, was in the forest because she was playing with Kana and Espi earlier, but she didn't want Aster to see her doing it, so she deepened into the forest when she noticed Aster's presence at the same time as the little girls.
Little did she know that Aster saw her playing with Kana and Espi, because those two were the first on his list for dragon Lilia to meet, but for a change Aster decided not to tease the ligress girl... directly.
"Hi you three, here there is someone I want you to meet", said Aster as he pointed at Lilia who was curiously gazing at them.
Eris and Mylene were a bit confused but Mira on the other hand seemed to easily that the Lilia in front of her wasn't the one she knew.
"What the hell, her linage is completely different than yesterday, just what did you do to produce such a change in a short amount of... nyaaah!", Mira who was amazed by Lilia's change was taken by surprise when Lilia pounced at her.
"Wait, I'm a friend!", exclaimed the ligress girl as she jumped backwards, managing to dodge Lilia by the skin of her teeth, but before she could continue Lilia rushed towards her, making her run towards the forest.
And this created the comical scene of Mira being chased around by Lilia in the nearby area, at least until she jumped to the highest branch of a tall tree, which made Lilia momentarily stop her chase.
"H-Hey, can you tell her to stop", said Mira to Aster only to see him laughing at her from the sides, Eris and Mylene did their bests not to laugh, but it was impossible.
"Sorry, it seems like she wants to pet you", jokingly said Aster, which made a blood vessel pop on Mira's head.
"I'm not a cat!", yelled Mira, unaware that her ears and tail had come out since she lost her focus during the persecution, which made Lilia's eyes sparkle.
Speaking of Aster, seeing the sparks fly between those two, he bitterly smiled, dragon Lilia was too prideful to solve this with violence, she also had Lilia's emotions so she considered Sarina not an enemy but a rival, but he didn't want their first meeting to go wrong so he intervened.
"Be nice you two", he said.
"Mm, yes husband~", Sarina pecked Aster's cheek and then let go of him.
"Grrr~", Lilia cutely growled, she approached Aster and licked his other cheek, not without exchanging gazes with Sarina.
Next came the pair of energy constitution mother and daughter, in other words, Felicia and Tiana.
Lilia first approached Felicia, her eyes narrowed and then to everyone's surprise she crouched down until her face was in front of Felicia's abdomen, she intensely gazed at it, before she turned to see Aster with an accusing gaze, this repeated a couple of times and ended with Lilia growling at Felicia and surrounding Aster with her wings like she did when she met Sarina, which resulted in everyone else looking at Aster for an answer, especially Tiana.
"Y-You, what did you do to my mom?", she asked, it didn't help that Felicia played along and shily covered her face with her hands as if she was ashamed of having been caught red handed.
"No, how can I face my family now~", she jokingly said, making Tiana's face redden realizing that this was for sure a misunderstanding on her part.
"Ahem, I simply helped miss Felicia with her innate ability by letting some of my soul energy in her inner universe, I didn't expect the image of myself to be that bad in your eyes, Tia", said Aster with a clearly feigned "offended" voice.
"How can it be my fault when you seduced little Kana's mother...", mumbled Tiana with an apologetic voice.
"Hahaha, sis is already a pain in the ass as it is, good luck dealing with a jealous version of her, brother Aster, ouch!", Eric who was laughing the whole time was sent flying by Tiana kicking his face on the spot.
Lilia on the other hand still suspiciously gazed at Felicia, but the latter limited to smile at Lilia, so the dragon mother had no choice but to leave her be.
And now it was time for the daughter, Lilia directly approached Tiana and crouched to inspect her abdominal area, to look for traces of Aster in her, only after confirming she was "clean", Lilia smiled and then patted Tiana's head, so the result was that Tiana was considered a child by Lilia.
"I was treated like kid, but she looks at you as if you were a baby", mockingly said Alice, making Tiana softly snort, while Aster determined that it was caused because Tiana only recently started dealing with the impulses of her lineage, meaning she isn't even at the infant stage, so she was classified to be around the age of Kana and Espi in Lilia's eyes.
The next in line was Vivian, Lilia showed confusion towards her, she made a few turns around the white-haired girl and poked the white pale skin of her neck a couple of times, only after confirming that she wasn't "sick", Lilia nodded and then treated her in a similar way to Camila, trying to hide her with her wings.
"Your constitution is quite unique so to the treasure room you go", jokingly said Aster, earning a few giggles from Vivian and a complain in the form of a soft growl from Lilia, since she knew she wasn't going to be able to keep Vivian.
It was Agnes's turn now, the physical training maniac girl stood her ground, trying to not look intimidated by Lilia who rushed to her side, but couldn't help but show a slight rection when Lilia pinched her biceps, before flexing her toned but soft and elegant arms.
As if to claim superiority in terms of physique, which was understandable, dragon Lilia was all about physique, even her innate ability was related to it, so it was normal that she took pride on that.
"Hey, besides Aster I have yet to meet a non-body cultivator who can keep up with me in terms of physical strength in my range of age!", exclaimed Agnes, only for Lilia to softly snort.
"Humph", Lilia then tightly held onto Aster's arm giving Agnes a provocative gaze, lighting the latter's competitiveness, it was a strange but acceptable result.
The next girl was Nerissa, who more or less guessed what was going to happen after seeing how Lilia reacted to Felicia, luckily Lilia's place of interest was less prompt to misunderstandings this time.
"Mm?", Lilia approached Nerissa and inspected the blue diamond shaped seal on her forehead, from which she could feel remaining traces of Aster's presence, which was understandable, he deepened into her cultivation manual which was stored there not too long ago.
Soon Lilia deemed that Aster hadn't done anything else with her, so despite the suspicious filled gaze with which she looked at Nerissa, she showed curiosity towards the mark on her forehead.
Alexandra was next, having heard from Mylene how she bribed Lilia with a candy, she came with a method to have her go easy on her, she took out a hand sized piece of black heavenly gold and offered it to Lilia.
Lilia accepted the thing and smiled at Alexandra which made the latter inwardly let out a sigh of relief, luckily, she wasn't growled at like her mother, but her happiness was short lived, when she saw Lilia scratching the piece of black metal with her claws.
"Wait a second, if you do that...".
"Crack!", naturally a regular piece of black heavenly gold, couldn't endure Lilia's sharp claws and was reduced to scrap in a second, still Lilia's black inked nails looked a bit more lustrous than before, in other words she used Alexandra's unique metal attribute to sharpen her claws.
With an amused but also slightly defeated expression, Alexandra returned to her mother's side, Tamara was covering her lower face while laughing at her daughter's misfortune.
Last but not least was Sofia, she had it easier than most of the girls, since she was clearly "marked" with Eric's energy, Lilia didn't consider her a potential "threat", so she acted rather friendly with her, making some of the others feel wronged.
As for Eric and Thomas, dragon Lilia was surprisingly neutral towards them, probably because those two didn't look at her with lecherous eyes, one was a musclehead who was practically shotgun engaged since he accidentally sneaked a peek of Sofia's naked figure but ended up liking her later on and the other wasn't affected by the yin constitution of a woman which was focused on tempting and dual cultivation constitution, so they were rather unique in a way.
According to Mira who could more or less understand dragon Lilia, she considered those two to be Aster's trusted allies/aides, which is why she wasn't in an aggressive stance towards them, it also helped that they "reduced" the competence by taking Sofia and Tamara, which left a positive impression on dragon Lilia.
It's also worth mentioning that Nim also had a little interaction with Lilia, the runic oak presented its respects to the first wife like usual and its small clone was then almost taken away by Lilia, because it's a treasure, luckily Lilia lost interest after Nim started bombarding her with endless questions which she didn't understand.
Since the first meeting event was over, everyone sat down at the table to share a nice warm meal, resulting in the amusing sight of Lilia half drooling over Sarina's delicious food and half fighting with her for Aster.
Resulting in a feathered wing surrounding Aster's left body while a black scaled one did the same on the right one, Alice and Aria were next and the pair of little girl and little wyrm were sitting on his lap like always.
Camila sat at the same side as Aster but she still kept some distance, in part because she was still a bit too shy to be fed directly by Aster like the others and in part because dragon Lilia kept eyeing her with greed, since she was the biggest "treasure" in the room.
All in all, it was a nice dinner with the whole family, everyone had their fill and before they noticed, dragon Lilia had a sleepy expression on her pretty face, so after giving her one last piece of meat, Aster got up from his chair and carried her in his arms.
"It's been a long day so I'll take my leave now, good night, everyone", said Aster as he walked towards his room.
Alice, Aria, Sarina and Kana exchanged gazes, she quickly finished their food and then excused themselves, following Aster into their room, catching up with him before he entered the room.
Dragon Lilia who was being carried like a princess by Aster, opened her eyes as she felt the others arrive.
"Tsk", Sarina and the others heard her click her tongue and they softly snorted, the hole in the wall was still there, but Lilia would be perfectly capable of using her wings to keep Aster for herself and also block the entrance, like yesterday, which is why this time they followed.
Aster softly laughed as he entered the room, letting Lilia down on the bed, seeing her eyes slowly closing, he knew their time has come to an end for now, so he pecked her lips one last time and then gave her a ring, which dragon Lilia recognized, it was the ring containing the six thousand high grade spirit jades from the reward.
"Here, you won that battle so this should be yours, eat one from time to time until we meet on the outside world again", he said.
"Wuuuh~", with a cute sound, dragon Lilia licked Aster's face one last time as she accepted the ring, and next her eyes closed, a second later when they opened, Lilia was back to normal.
"Thanks for spoiling "us" darling~", said Lilia as she dragged Aster into her embrace, Sarina and the others also joined them, this time they all cuddled together, Aster smiled in between the softness that enveloped him whole, with a thought the lights faded, allowing them to enter the land of dreams.
And thus, the day ended for them, while things were perfect at the Twin Sword Valley, the sect had a strange atmosphere surrounding it, some suspected it but no one could have known that the news arriving tomorrow would shake let alone the sect, but the four Heavenly Quadrants as a whole.