At this point all the ones who cared about the dangerousness of the mission have forgotten about that, cultivators are bound to face tribulations that’s a given, but getting such a chance as to get a treasure that no one has had the luck to posses before, it was too good to be rejected.

And Julian knew it, someone that could rival the current ruler of the Heavenly Quadrant in the future, might be born due to this mission, but he didn’t care about all that, if the situation didn’t demand it, he would have not opened about this secret… but he was running out of time right now.

“So can I assume you’ll go?”.

“Yes”, Iris and Victor answered at the same time, while Aster limited to nod.

“Very well, you have until midday to settle things, get what you think you’ll need for the mission, you can take one companion weaker than you and two stronger than you as long as they are below the Void Manipulation realm”.

“Of course, the stronger ones would have to wait outside once we reach the entrance to that place”.

After saying that, Julian waved his hand and a spatial gate leading to the center capital exactly to where they were before, appeared.𝞸𝓋𝑙xt.𝓬𝚘𝕞

Once again Aster waited until the other two groups were gone, before he looked at Julian.

“I guess you have already tried it before, but purifying the poison didn’t help at all?”.

Julian sighed with a tired expression on his face.

“It helped, but other antidotes could only delay the symptoms not solve the problem… and at this point I have used all the antidotes that could help once, and they won’t work again, to I need the solution”.

Aster shook his head and then a wisp of blue flames appeared on his hand.

“Not all of them”.

Julian’s eyes glowed as soon as he saw Rigel’s flames, his image flashed from where he was and appeared in front of Aster in less than a second.

“I-Is this your attribute, Lord of the Twin Sword valley?”.

Aster saw the expectant expression in the face of the man that was second to none in a whole stellar system and he knew his bet had paid off.

“Something like that, the rumor has already spread anyway, that I’m to some extent resistant to poison, and this is in part the reason”.

“Can I take a little sample?”, asked Julian.

Aster nodded in response and the man encapsuled a part of Rigel’s flames, and became a flash that entered that carriage which had been here all along.

Not even a second later Julian returned with an extremely serious but at the same time happy expression.

“I don’t have anything else of the list you gave me, but I have information on where to find one of the other things, which I wanted to keep for the sake of my own son… I haven’t told anyone about it, and I will exchange that information for your help with those blue flames, of course I will swear to not reveal it to anyone but you, nor I will get in your way to get the thing, what do you say?”.

Aster was lost in his thoughts for a split of a second.

‘Just as I thought, that sweet smell was poison’, he thought, still he wasn’t the same as before, now that Aria could use Rigel flames too, his mastery over them have improved by bounds and leaps, so now he wouldn’t need to see the patient’s body like it happened with Sarina, as weird as it might sound, that was a special moment he didn’t want to share with other girls, because he felt empathy for her, not because of her situation but because of the love she showed to her daughter despite her bad health.

“Sure, I don’t need to touch nor see below the clothes if that is what seems to be worrying you by the way, but I do need the other party to be in front of me for better control”.

Julian doubted for a couple of seconds, before he folded his left sleeve to show his forearm.

Aster saw that the skin on Julian’s forearm was full of green patterns, and his skin was rather pale and lifeless.

“This is the result of being exposed to that poison, it’s not even close to the real deal and it isn’t contagious, so it will only attack me, but if you are exposed to it, the poison will try to attack you too, if you are sure it won’t work in you, then please lend me a hand, if not I suggest you give me more of that blue fire, the effect is lesser but it still works and I will still give you the payment we agreed”.

Aster nodded, if that poison could infect him, he would have been long affected by it, as he was able to smell it, and the thing knew it, so all this time he was being targeted by it.

Unfortunately, Aster whose vitality and yang was strong enough to nurture a former Heavenly realm cultivator like Lilia, couldn’t be affected by poison, not to mention he now had Rigel’s purifying capacities, if not, holding either Aria in his arms after she used her bewitching snow, or Alessia in general, would have killed him.

“No problem, you can come in as well… in fact let me lend you a hand with that, don’t resist”, after saying that, Aster covered Julian’s arm with Rigel’s flames.

Julian’s eyes widened as he saw a multicolored mist being expelled from his arm, the thing tried to enter his body again but the blue flames engulfed it, and multiplied increasing the strength of the flames, little by little his arm returned to normal, making him nearly jump out of happiness.

“As I thought you didn’t destroy the poison…but purified it”, he mumbled, the reason as to why he didn’t expel the poison in his body nor eliminated it, was because that would harm the person in the carriage, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

But Rigel’s flames nature was soft, they purified instead of destroying, the reason as to why others felt pain when burned by them, was because Aster turned their flesh or bones into their original material resulting in that dust that was left after he did it, and that disconnected a part of the body causing an excruciating pain, but if he didn’t want to, Rigel’s flames wouldn’t harm anything, just like how Kana liked playing with them due to the fresh sensation they gave off.

“Please come with me”, Julian guided Aster towards the carriage and after knocking on it a couple of times, a soft voice came from it.

“You can come in uncle”.

Julian opened the door of the carriage and closed it almost immediately after Aster and he entered.

After coming in, Aster inspected the only passenger of the carriage, it was a bit hard to describe, leaving aside the fact that it was a girl around Aria’s age, the best way to describe her was white and frail.

He skin was pale to the point of being unhealthy, unlike the pale tone of Aria or Alessia cause by their yin-oriented bodies, this girl was clearly sick.

Her body was too slim for her own good, not to the point of being anorexic, but she looked so frail as if a strong wind would make harm her skin, she had white long hair and was wearing a one-piece large white dress too.

Although her eyes were closed, the girl “looked” at Aster, before she talked to Julian.

“Did you bring someone with you uncle, I can sort of smell a different scent, but I’m not sure if it is a person or not?”.

Julian gave Aster an apologetic gaze before saying.

“She can’t see due to her current condition, please don’t take it personal little friend”.

Aster shook his head, he was surprised she could detect him through that, this place was filled with so much medicine that he had to close his nose or his sharp smelling sense would have made impossible for him to stay here.

“Don’t worry, please explain her the process, in her current condition I can’t use any force like I did with you, so I need her to fully cooperate or it won’t work”.

Julian nodded and then proceeded to explain the girl how Aster expelled the poison from his arm, making the girl smile at the end, she was clearly happy that Julian was now clean of that poison, but at the end she still said.

“Uncle you know I can’t get rid of the poison, it’s a part of me, and that isn’t the reason of my current status…”.

Julian interrupted the girl before she could finish her sentence.

“Yeah, I know your cultivation will be gone while the poison regens, but you won’t feel any pain in the meantime, you need to be able to move for where we will be going… besides I found the best candidates in the whole stellar system to get the Emerald Whirlwind, so you won’t need to fight”.

The girl seemed to contemplate things for a moment, but ultimately, she agreed.

“I’ll be in your care”, she said to Aster and then prepared herself for the mind breaking pain she experienced every time, she drank an antidote to lessen the poison in her body, which ironically was bad for her health but needed if she wanted to move by herself and to take a break from her chronical pain.

Aster raised an eyebrow but he got the permission of both the girl and Julian, and he only was here to get the information on that material he needed for Rya, so he snapped his fingers and Rigel’s flames covered the whole body of the girl.

Julian wanted to say something, but he kept silent and just watched closely, waiting to calm down the girl when the backlash started, but to their surprises what they expected didn’t happen.

Aster was also surprised to no end, but for a different reason.

‘What the hell, her body is basically all poison, how can she survive like this… unless she has a lineage, but then why is she being affected by her own body’.

Aster was surprised, for the first time he couldn’t completely purify a poison, because it wasn’t exactly detrimental, that was her natural state, but for some reason she was not in control.

It was then when Aster was hit by a realization, she was like him, or more accurately like the “he” whose body he took over, the girl’s lineage was too strong for her to handle it in her young years, so it was burning her from the inside.

Aster has investigated a bit about it in the past years, and the result was ironic, being born with a strong lineage as a human can be both a blessing and a curse, a human isn’t apt to possess a lineage as strong as a spirit beast from birth.

That’s why spirit beasts and humans have way different growing periods, according to the legends a dragon is said to be born in the Heavenly realms, but their bodies aren’t that of a baby, newborns would be in their 10’s, to counter such a strong lineage, in exchange their weren’t intelligent like humans and were driven by their instincts until they reached their teenage years.

On the contrary, humans whose bodies are naturally weaker tend to be born with a low concentration of blood, which then increases over the years, Lilia got the best of both worlds because she got both the strong body and attribute of the Drage since her birth, so she grew normally.

In Aster’s case, his lineage was too strong for a human’s body that’s why the original died even before arriving to this world, and Aster had his own lineage from the very beginning was able to adapt, growing differently to others, looking older than what he is.

In other words, both Aster and this girl weren’t supposed to be born, they were contradictions whose existences were against the natural order.