Aster who was lost in his thoughts, returned to the real world when he felt a soft tug on the right side of his shirt.
"Mm?", Aster looked at his right just to see the little girl trying to drag him along with herself, towards Angela.
"Aren't you going to go with sister receptionist, like the message said, big brother?", asked Kana, which made Aster chuckle.
"Don't worry about that, you might not notice it but she has been checking the mission board through her authority ring since she heard that message, so we don't have to worry about it, isn't that true "sister receptionist"?", jokingly said Aster as gazed at Angela who nearly drowned with her drink.
'Uhhh, was my soul energy so easy to detect', inwardly screamed Angela, unaware that Aster didn't even bother to use spirit sense nor his dragon eyes on her, just with his bare eyes he noticed how she stole a gaze at her ring at regular lapses of five seconds, since earlier and guessed correctly.
Still the receptionist girl, did her best to keep on a professional front, clearing her throat to then say.
"Ahem, of course, since a certain someone hired me to become his personal receptionist, I have to earn my payment".
Poor Angela didn't expect that such words, would make a series of sharp gazes to be aimed at her, well, the girls also stole gazes at Aster since they mistook her words with him flirting with the receptionist girl, but Aster was shameless enough to be immune to that, while Angela wasn't.
Seeing Angela who seemed to be about to cry, due to some especially intense gazes, Aster finally decided to interfere.
"That's enough, don't scare away our new team member, unless you want to be the one in charge of paperwork, accounting and other tedious stuff", said Aster.
As expected, the one whose gaze was the most "intimidating", namely Alice, immediately changed to a much more welcoming approach, the lazy dragon princess was delighted to hear that someone else would be in charge of such matters, since lately her mother has hinted that she would be required to learn about such things, speaking of Lilia she also became more interested in Angela, she was in dragon mode when Aster invited her to the valley but even her dragon self, had a good impression of her.
However, she didn't know what Aster had in store for her and he apparently had great expectations of her, which she approved, after all she witnessed firsthand how Angela wasn't moved by personal gain, she could be trusted with managing the finances of the valley, as of current Sarina and the other mothers as well as Helena were the ones managing the backbone of the stores, but that wasn't their specialty.
Sure, for a small business they were more than capable but Aster wanted to expand the influence of their store, which would be a huge project that needed someone talented in such matters and the one he chose was Angela.
Luckily for Angela, who wanted to dig a hole to hide, the announcement that the whole sect has been expecting finally arrived, just in time to save her from all the attention she was getting.
A trumpet resonated throughout the whole Battle planet, making everyone, staff, disciple, deacon or elder, look upwards at the sky only to see a giant rectangular black board with golden letters engraved on it.
[Due to recent events bringing changes to the four Heavenly Quadrants, a mission limited to the top hundred disciples of the Heavenly Ranking, has been issued by the four Ancestors of the sect, the first twenty to register will be given an extra privilege, we remind the top hundred inner disciples to open the envelopes that were given to them, yesterday, good luck]
Unlike other times when an announcement was given to all the branches of the sect, this time it didn't end with the message being read by the elder from the neutral faction who is in charge at the time, but a second message was broadcasted to each branch of the sect.
Soon, a firm and valiant feminine voice, with an impossible to dispute authority behind of it, took over.
"To all the disciples, this mission will be unlike anything you have experienced before, for those of you who wish to witness the outcome of this event, basic information about the vastness of our world will be provided, the official spaceships of the sect will take you to the respective areas designated to each peak".
"Given the rank of the mission, for those in the top hundred ranking, participation is mandatory, cowards and deserters will be exiled and punished on the spot, further information will be provided once you all arrive at your designated location, the glory of the sect will be in your hands, so don't disappoint us".
With those words, the message ended and as expected the whole Battle planet exploded in a turmoil, but first things first, the mentioned participants rushed to the Mission Halls in order to register as fast as possible, in order to get the extra privilege mentioned by the generic message of earlier.
But by the time the first one got the desk of a receptionist, the first ten spots were already taken, names weren't shared but the name of the receptionist who did the process did appear on the records of the sect, seeing the name "Angela" repeat ten times with fractions of seconds between each other, caused a diverse number of reactions.
For example, Angela's friends who were left in charge of the second floor at the Mission Hall in the Central Capital of the sect's main branch, sighed while they thought "As expected of senior sister", this was a whole five minutes before they felt the urge to cry as a tsunami of people arrived at the Mission Hall, between inner and core disciples and their friends, followers and lackeys, who wanted to register, secure a spot and the like.
But that's of no interest for us, back at the Twin Sword Valley, more accurately at the party area in the forest, most of the present people were all lost in their thoughts, Aster included until he heard the mischievous voice of that Dragon mother of his, teasing him in his mind.
'I didn't expect that the first thing you'll hear from one of your godmothers would be a threat of expulsion~'.
Aster bitterly smiled in response, he already supposed that the second voice belonged to one of his dear godmothers, of which he had no idea what to expect, anyway while he was indeed surprised to finally get to at least hear the voice of one of the original sole two people Lilia considered her sisters, he had more urgent matters to tend to.
Like the fact that authorities of the sect, not only allowed the existence of the "Four Heavenly Quadrants" to be openly mentioned but that they will even given basic knowledge of the structure of power that has been kept in secret for countless of years, only half known by those who ruled their respective, Star Clusters and Stellar Systems.
Even in the Myriad Occupation sect which was backed by princesses from three of the four ruler families, the veteran disciples only knew that the Ancestors had "big forces" supporting them and even then, they at most became aware of some of the high ranked Stellar Systems, only those who were personally scouted by said big forces, were told about the bigger picture of the world, like Edward.
But now, even the junior disciples got to hear about it and anyone who attended to the mission as a spectator will be given basic knowledge of it, not to mention that the participants will obtain further information for sure.
In other words, the information restriction that has been kept since the Ruler families stablished their reign, was for one reason or another becoming obsolete, just that will definitely change the dynamic between the Stellar Systems, after all who wouldn't want to migrate to a much higher ranked place with better opportunities.
'Those guys for sure didn't take the initiative to change one of their fundamental rules, so whatever this mission is, the implications it brought are insane', thought Aster.
That's right, even after Angela registered the core disciples present here, the only information they got was a location and the fact that the top hundred core disciples will be participating, if there were someone dropping out, their spot will be automatically given to the next in line, also the participants were urged to leave as soon as possible, since arriving earlier will benefit them.
That being said, there was a second important event ongoing right now, which Aster noticed after seeing his mother as well as Mikaela focusing their attention on a specific spot, or more accurately on a specific person, namely Angela.
The receptionist girl who has been silent since earlier, opened her eyes which were glowing in a pretty white light, giving her already charming hazel toned eyes a mystic charm.
"Ahem, ladies can you help me bring these two inside?", asked Aster to Sarina and the others, only to be met with giggles and the half jealous half teasing voice of that dragon mother of his.
"Sorry darling, but they are your dear guests after all, so we'll leave it to you, good luck~".
And with those words, all the girls left to the castle, even Nerissa who was guiding Iris, the other red-haired girls and Lieze, couldn't help but give Aster an apologetic gaze as she left, apparently all the girls reached the mutual agreement to leave Aster to deal with the mess, well the little girl and the little wyrm weren't guilty, they simply followed Sarina into the castle.
Aster sighed, Angela wasn't too troublesome, she had it hard to move by herself, but was conscious, Mikaela on the other hand was half asleep already.
"Oh well, it's not like I have any ulterior intentions", said Aster as he snapped his fingers, his soul energy turned into an invisible force that gently carried those two alongside him, as he flew towards the castle.
"Woaah, this feels as if I'm flying!", shouted Mikaela before she actually fell asleep, making Aster and Angela exchange gazes to then softly laugh.
"I have never seen miss Mikaela relax in anyone's presence, besides her personal maid of course", said Angela, she once caught a glimpse of a slightly drunk Mikaela by accident, when she went to receive her contact lenses, but that's beside the point.
"So, are you going to tell me what happened earlier?", asked Aster, he was still confused as to why he couldn't detect the change in Angela's eyes earlier.
"Mm, to be honest I know very little about it, since I was born my eyes were special, my parents... left me with my aunt due to that, no one knows the name of my body constitution, so I called it "Heavenly Revelation Eyes", normally it increases my processing speed and parallel thinking, but from time to time I'll get "revelations" like the one you saw earlier", she said.
"Oh, so you are a natural Mystery Master?", asked Aster, among the aspects in which a Soul King might choose among to specialize, their branch of specialty focuses on locating objects or people, as well as finding information through seeing into the "soul" of things.
Basically, they use something related to the thing in question and then do a throughout search, on large areas, this of course requires not only a really high talent in the soul path, but also an insane capacity to process information.
They are one of the rarest soul experts and are quite sought by high ranked forces, since a Mystery Master can locate one's enemies regardless of where they hide, under normal circumstances, of course there are limitations and it requires time as well as a lot of resources, not to mention there are ways to hide from them, if one can pay the price.
All the previous made Aster wonder why, would her parents leave her with her aunt, if she would have been found a high ranked force or family, she would have been raised like a treasure with all the care of the world, on the other hand based on how she didn't make her condition public, there must have been more about her constitution than what met the eye and his suppositions were confirmed a second later.
"Under normal circumstances yes, my parents were really happy when they learned that I had a really rare talent, but then one day I had my first "revelation", which basically confirmed that my father was cheating on my mother and my mother married my father because she wanted to obtain the resources of his family for her cultivation", she said to then add.
"Not only I can't control when the revelations come, unlike what Mystery Masters do, my information is not limited to the present... past or even future can be extrapolated out of them, some are very specific while others are like the one from before, simple hints, it depends on the importance of the subject".
"Also, when I get a revelation, I'll end up in a weakened state, it's better now though, before I reached the Genesis Manifestation in the energy path, I would end up unconscious for a month...".
Aster couldn't help but be surprised by her words, this also explained why she only focused on a single path, which though allowed her to get a high realm at a young age when compared to others, made them look down on her, since she was weaker than her peers as a sole path cultivator.
It's not like she didn't want to start in a second path, but she had to get a high realm to compensate and she chose the energy path which naturally restrained the soul one, her capacity to use soul path specialties like parallel thinking and high-speed information processing, derived from her talent alone, at least as of current.
Seeing Aster's slightly worried expression, the receptionist added in a hurry.
"It's been a while since that, my contact lenses numb my soul senses enough for me to not have revelations and they don't happen apply to me, so as long as I am alone nothing will happen".
"You should have worn them since earlier, or at least you could have told me this was going to happen", said Aster, she put them on after her revelation before losing strength in her body.
Angela bitterly smiled in response, she fidgeted for a second before saying.
"Even when wearing my lenses I still get a certain "sensation" any time a revelation would have been triggered, I became a receptionist in part to deal with a lot of people everyday to get used to that feeling, but lenses or not, I don't get that with you, apparently besides myself you are the only other with whom my ability doesn't work with".
"Oh, so to whom was that revelation related to?", asked Aster just to see Angela shake her head.
"It was a rather vague revelation, apparently the subject is really important so I only got hints, as far as I can tell many of the present people were involved", she said to then add.
"I forgot to ask earlier but, can I also stay to sleep and tag along for the travel?", she shily asked, only to feel her heart clenching when she heard Aster's answer.
"Don't bother asking, of course you can't... leave in that state", he said, Angela who went from hell to heaven due to how Aster phrased his answer, pouted knowing he was messing with her on purpose.
"Humph, my head is killing me and here you are teasing me, what a tyrannical boss", she said to then softly laugh at Aster.
"You didn't ask earlier, but you do have everything you need to stay for the night and leave at morning, right?", he said.
Angela's smile froze on the spot, she looked away before saying.
"I... need to make a quick stop at my house, all my clothes are there", it was Aster's turn to laugh at her.
"For someone who can see the through past, present and future, you can be rather clumsy sometimes", he jokingly said.
Seeing Angela whose face was red as an apple, Aster chuckled, they had arrived at the castle and reached the living room.
"Just let me leave miss Mikaela on the couch and then we'll go to your house", with those words, Aster carefully let Mikaela down on the couch to then use his authority to leave the castle, leaving behind a pair of shocked girls in the form of Aria and Tiana who arrived at the living room just in time to hear Aster say "we'll go to your house".