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nEspi reacted faster than Kana, surrounding her with its body, the little snake threw the conditions set up by Aster away, the half lavender colored pattern was replaced by a full green-yellow one as it used the solid wood attribute to block the spirit energy radiated by the lizard.

n“Booom!”, the violent clash between the little snake’s spirit energy and the lizard’s one, created a loud explosion which made both parties fly backwards a few dozens of meters.

nKana who was about to ask Espi if it was alright, suddenly felt an unpleasant scent on the air, she also stopped keeping two attributes since that was diminishing her battle prowess, and then her pretty wings shone on her back.

n“Hisss”, Espi who had a faint trace of blood coming out of the corner of its mouth, let out a comfortable sound when Kana’s fragrant wind cleansed the poison released by the spirit energy of the lizard.

nUnfortunately, the pair of snake and girl didn’t have a chance to relax as they found themselves surrounded by spirit beasts in all directions, mostly reptiles such as multiple lizard species and snakes as well.

n“Hrghshhh!”, the lizard which had just advanced loudly shouted as it released its pressure akin to a Genesis Manifestation spirit beast, the ones that had just arrived bowed their heads towards it after a second of contemplation, and thus a new overlord for this area of the jungle was selected.

nEspi hissed a couple of times at Kana explaining the situation, apparently the lizard originally was hunting down the wind jaguar and when it found them being attacked by it, helped because it wanted to use them to kill the boa.

nBut it didn’t stop there, from the very beginning the lizard was also targeting them, or more accurately the little snake, having noticed its lineage was of a much higher rank than its own.

nSo, it guided them into a trap, it saved its strength and waited until Kana and Espi had used quite a bit of spirit energy, to then come out to finish the boa, feigned to be harshly wounded to get to eat the boa, and advanced on the spot.

nAnd now that it has recovered to its prime and gotten stronger, while they were tired and they had fulfilled their purpose, it was time to kill and consume them, as there was a chance for the lizard to obtain Espi’s lineage and use Kana’s lineage to further improve itself, it was a rare chance to jump from being a jungle lizard to a dragon subspecies, so of course the lizard wasn’t going to let it go.

nThe worst part, is that all the other spirit beasts were being blinded by greed too, since they smelled the blood coming out from the little snake’s mouth due to the previous clash, so their previous positive disposition towards Kana was left aside, in front of benefits.

nEsmeralda who was watching everything, from afar along with Aster, felt his unwillingness to let them go through such a bitter experience, it was obvious that it took all his self-control to not chop down the lizard into pieces when the little snake bled.

n“The result was as expected”, said Aster with a cold voice.

nHe was the one that prepared the meeting between the lizard and those two, yes, but Aster’s interference stopped the moment they encountered the boa, from that point onwards Aster stopped suppressing and controlling the lizard.

nThe lizard apparently didn’t know that the boa was wounded, but when it saw it, it decided to take advantage of Kana and Espi to get rid of its previous boss, to raise to the position of overlord.

nUp until that point Aster didn’t really mind, those two needed to pass and the lizard wanted the throne, their goals aligned, the problem is that the lizard, despite receiving the kindness of the little girl, it was still blinded by greed and decided to backstab them.

nTo be honest this was the result Aster expected, in this dog-eat-dog world, those who can remain loyal in front of benefits might not be inexistent, but they aren’t common either and most of the times it’s not a matter of yes or no, but of finding the correct price.

nFrom an objective point of view, the lizard couldn’t be blamed, it was following its instincts, seeing an opportunity and seizing it, it’s the most basic survival rule that exists in the cultivation world.

nSeeing Kana slightly biting her lower lip with a frustrated expression on her pretty face, Aster knew she was having a hard time believing that a spirit beast which she helped, was trying to kill her not too long after.

nUltimately the sharp light on Aster’s eyes faded away, he sighed and then sat down once again on the branch of the three where he was standing a second earlier.

n“It’s for her own good, I will be there for her as much as it is possible, but keeping her isolated in a glass cage it’s not love, there will be a time where she’ll have to fight her own battles, I’d rather have her go through this when I can be there for her, than learning about her being taken advantage of, or worse being harmed because I wasn’t strong enough to let her grow by experiencing the cruelty of the world”, said Aster.

nOverprotecting someone isn’t love but dependency, loving someone means teaching them how to protect themselves, while of course being there for when it is needed or asked, as surprising as it might sound, that’s something Aster learned from Lilia.

nWhile she would go to the end of the world to kill whoever tried to harm her children, it is also true that as soon as she could, she started to teach both of them how to protect themselves, no matter how much she loved to spoil Aster, she never hesitated to make him go through a hellish training as it was for his sake.

nAster completely agreed with what Lilia did, but he can’t speak for others, since he was conscious since this was his second life so he couldn’t use himself as an example, as for Alice, well, that wild sister of his has always had a few screws lose, in part probably because of her dragon lineage.

nBut Kana wasn’t like that, the little girl was genuinely innocent and pure to the point of being naïve, and while Aster wants her to remain like that, she has to see the dark side of the world, if she can remain loyal to herself even after seeing the cruel reality, then she’ll be able to overcome any harshness that may appear in her way.

nOf course, he discussed this previously with Sarina and she completely agreed that Kana had to face this kind of situation and the sooner the better, she as her mother should have been the one to teach her but Aster asked to take the responsibility on her stead.

n“I trust that they are stronger than what I want to admit”, said Aster as he focused on what was happening at the other side of the jungle, while Esmeralda remained silent on the surface.

n‘It seems like they aren’t the only ones that had grown, I guess I have to include myself on the list as well’, she thought.

n…

nBack at the other side of the jungle, the lizard gave orders to its new subordinates, who them swarmed the little girl and the little snake from every direction.

n“Hisss!”, Espi hissed and then raised into the air with Kana riding on top of it, the current attributes the little snake had were the first two defensive ones, and while the second one granted it an offensive ability in the form of yang flames, Espi hadn’t mastered it yet.

nWhich is why, Espi was taking care of movement and support while Kana was in charge of offensive, that was the basic teamwork those two trained, but that didn’t mean Espi was uncapable of attacking, it originally had the ability to control the terrain, thanks to being in part a sand wyrm.

n“Crack!”, the ground suddenly exploded as Espi hissed, rock spikes raised from below and impaled quite a few of the enemies that were coming after them, but the number didn’t diminish enough for them to be able to escape.

nThat being said their counterattack wasn’t over yet, Kana pointed her bow upwards and then a large amount of wind spirit energy gathered on the arrow which she then shot towards the sky.

n“Booom!”, the arrow exploded and then sharp shards with small whirlwinds rotating around them, rained down through the whole area, many were avoided by the spirit beasts, but there were others that pierced through their bodies, some were nailed onto the ground, some were killed on the spot as the shards of the arrow pierced their heads, eyes or necks.

n“Hshhhhhghr!”, the lizard saw a large batch of its newly acquired subordinates being killed or heavily wounded and it was enraged, it opened its mouth and a large tongue was shot out of it, piercing both Kana and Espi at the same time.

nUnfortunately for the lizard, the Kana and Espi which it just killed, dissolved turning into wisps of lavender colored mist, the real pair of little girl and little snake, had moved out of the range of the lizard and were both gasping for air after using another chunk of their reserves of spirit energy.

nKana saw that the saliva of the lizard sizzled upon contact with the ground, which confirmed her theory, the boa got angrier and lot focus quite a bit during their fight, not only because of Espi’s lavender mist’s provocation, the lizard used its spit to cause chemical burns on the scaleless stomach of the boa from below the ground.

n“Hghrshhh!”, the lizard knew that giving time to Kana and Espi was a bad idea, so it bit the bullet and viciously ordered its subordinates to charge, ignoring their lives while it jumped becoming a green flash that disappeared into the thick vegetation surrounding the open area that has been created due to the boa previously destroying the nearby trees.

nThe lizard originally was melding itself with a tree when Aster found it, also it attacked by hiding underground, so its obvious that its attack pattern consisted on surprising its preys instead of actively hunting, in part that’s why Aster chose it, a lot can be known about a spirit beast just basing on how it behaves.

nAster wanted to use a cunning one to test Kana, and just as expected the lizard backstabbed the little girl as soon as it got the chance to, despite Kana having helped it twice already.

nKana slightly clenched her little fists and then she dispelled her wings, instead of that her body shone in a pretty light green light and the next second, she had become a few years older by entering her Elemental Synchronization state.

nOf course, the spirit beasts that were coming towards them didn’t just patiently wait for Kana to complete her transformation, Espi raised earth peaks around them to act as obstacles, while the little snake flew changing their position, avoiding the long-ranged attacks of the spirit beasts.

nAs a result, a few large trees were blown away by the missing attacks of the spirit beasts, creating a curtain of dust, which was then blown away by a stream of green-yellow flames that came from behind of it.

nThe spirit beasts which didn’t react on time were hit by the stream of flames and immediately exploded in flames, needless to say but those who were ignited by the flames let out pained screams and tried to put out the flames, the vast majority of spirit beasts in this jungle had either, poison, wood or earth attributes, some a mix of the previous like the lizard.

nUnfortunately for them, the fire stream which was shot from Espi’s mouth, wasn’t fire based, but yang based, and yang burns on vitality instead of just inflammable material, in other words, any organic thing was like gasoline for those flames, so you can imagine the result of a living being burned by it, the moment the flames touched their bodies it was like adding fuel to the fire.

nSome spirit beasts roared as they retorted on the ground trying to use dirt to extinguish the flames, while others tried to blow the fire way by using their spirit energy, but it didn’t work, to put out a yang-based flame, they had to either overwhelm them with a yang-based element, like Aster, or counter it with an equally strong yin-based element.

nUnfortunately, though there were female spirit beasts among the bunch, they didn’t cultivate their yin, so their attributes weren’t effective against Espi’s flames, a couple of them steeled their hearts and did what they had, they bit off the parts affected by the flames to stop the propagation.

nThe continuous stream of flames didn’t last long, but the results were devastating, a couple of dozens of spirit beasts ended up succumbing to the flames and died burned to a crisp, filling the area with the smell of burned meat.

nThose who survived had a limb or parts of their flesh missing, since they had to discard them to not burn like the others, needless to say but they were terrified of the little snake who was revealed at the other side of the curtain of dust.

nEspi had a tired expression, which was understandable, those flames might be incredibly effective, but they also consumed a lot of both spirit energy and vitality, though the little snake didn’t suffer permanent damage to use them, since it had gained the wood-yang attribute, meaning it could replenish the vitality it used, it had reached the limit of what it could use and got naturally tired due to it.

nKana who was aiming her bow at the remaining spirit beasts, saw the tired expression on the little snake’s face and she let go of the string.

n“Majestic Wind Arrow!”, a horizontal violent whirlwind was shot by Kana’s arrow, dragging the surviving spirit beasts into it, and ripping them into shreds as it pierced through around a kilometer of the nearby jungle.

nAt the same time, the lizard which had been waiting for a chance, opened its mouth and spat a barrage of poisonous blobs towards those two.

nKana grabbed Espi and jumped out of the tree where they where standing, the whirlwind impacted the lizard at the same time as one of the many blobs fell onto those two.

n“Boooom!”, the result was a loud explosion followed by three different sounds.

n“Hshfhghh!”.

n“Hisss!”.

n“Espi!”.

nFirst the lizard’s lower body was dragged into the whirlwind, though it had lost some strength after cutting the flesh and bones of other spirit beasts, the legs and a part of the lower body of the lizard were turned into a bloody mist.

nThe second sound was produced by Espi using whatever spirit energy it had left, to create a wood attribute barrier around itself and Kana, which successfully blocked most of the attack of the lizard.

nSince the little snake prioritized the part of the barrier that was protecting Kana, some of the poisonous spit splashed its scales, melting a few of them, forcing a pained hiss out of Espi.

nAs for the third sound, it was Kana seeing Espi getting wounded to protect her, unfortunately, the explosion separated those two since the shockwave was quite strong, so for a second everything blacked out for Kana.

nThe next thing the little girl knew was that she was laying down on the ground with a slight headache, since that attack had depleted her reserves of spirit energy, she was still in Elemental Synchronization state, in fact it was Esmeralda’s power what kept her conscious, since she was dry at this point.

nBut none of that mattered for Kana right now, she immediately ran towards a large tree which had fell on top of Espi, who had lost consciousness due to the blocking most of the shockwave.

nKana saw the burning marks on Espi’s back and she gritted her teeth, her hands shone in a dark green light and where then covered by a layer of a green jade.

nShe then crouched down and surprisingly was able to lift the large tree that was pressing down Espi, with her bare hands, of course the little girl wasn’t physically strong to do something like that, without spirit energy, which she didn’t have right now.

nWhat allowed her to do something like this, was the green jade attribute which she could use thanks to Esmeralda, this was the reason as to why Esmeralda abandoned her singular path in the wind attribute and put so much effort in obtaining an element which belonged to the earth attribute.

nEarth was technically wind’s weakness, the group of elements that related with earth had the highest

/sturdiness defense properties after all, while wind related elements mostly focused on swiftness and sharpness.

nWith a bit of effort, Kana tossed the giant tree aside and helped took Espi along with her as she walked towards a tree to sit down and rest, but then she heard some sounds coming from afar and then she was reminded of one of the first lessons Aster taught her.

n“Never claim victory until you see the life leaving the eyes of your enemy”, she mumbled, Kana gently put down Espi around a tree, though it was unconscious, the little snake had started to heal itself thanks to the wood attribute it obtained, it’s worth mentioning that despite the burning marks, there was no internal damage, which is understandable, Espi integrated the crystals derived from the Diamond Bone Orchid.

nThough it couldn’t use the attribute obtained through it yet, its bones and flesh were reinforced, so this level of injuries shouldn’t be a problem, it only lost consciousness due to the shockwave making it dizzy.

nKana turned around just to see the lizard whose lower body was ripped apart by her previous attack, crawling towards them, it was munching on the flesh of one of the many other spirit beasts that were killed by Kana’s arrow, trying to obtain enough nourishment to not hold and consume either Espi or Kana which would for sure save its life.

nThe little girl saw the wounds on Espi and then angrily glared at the lizard, whose eyes were bloodshot.

n“Hrhsghhh!”, the lizard mockingly returned the glare to Kana, as wounded as it was, it could see that Kana no longer had any spirit energy left, so it considered itself to be the ultimate winner.

nBut that stopped the moment it saw Kana aiming her bow towards it, the green jade gauntlet that covered her left arm dissolved and then transformed into a green jade arrow, while she kept the gauntlet on her right hand which she always used to pull the string of her bow.

nThe lizard felt the danger coming from that arrow and put on a pitiful front in a try to trick Kana, to then use its tongue like a whip to kill the little girl, Kana was on her last strands, so her reaction wasn’t as fast as it needed to be for her to dodge the attack of the lizard.

n“Hissss!”, but then, Espi who somehow had regained its consciousness, hissed and then it was as if the world had slowed down, for the lizard at least, as a mountain-like pressure fall on it.

n“Hrgshhhh!”, the lizard had blood coming out of its mouth, eyes and nose, the attack of its tongue slowed down enough for Kana to shot the green jade arrow without an ounce of hesitation.

nUnlike the previous arrow which turned into a fierce whirlwind that dragged everything in its way, into it to then torn it apart, the jade arrow became a green flash that pierced through the tongue, scales and skull of the lizard killing it on the spot and coming out of the other side of the head of the lizard, to then disappear into the jungle.

n“Boooom!”, the arrow only stopped after exhausting the momentum behind it, by heavily clashing against a giant boulder making it explode due to the impact, causing a small tremor in the jungle, which scared quite a few of spirit beasts.

nKana’s vision blurred, Esmeralda’s wind dispelled and she returned to normal, to then fall backwards since she had used the last bit of what was keeping her standing, Espi was the same, after that loud hissing sound, the little snake trembled as it fell asleep once again.

nBut before they both hit the ground, a golden flash appeared behind of them, preventing them from falling.

nAster who had the little snake which was now soundly sleeping with a comfortable expression, as it coiled around his neck, carried Kana like a princess as he observed the result of the battle, especially that last attack from the two of them. 𝑜𝐕𝓵xt.𝒸𝑜𝐌

n“Did you teach her that?”, he asked to the green wisp on top of his head, to which Esmeralda shook her head to then say.

n“No, I haven’t taught her anything that wasn’t wind related yet, back then I helped her manifest the green jade attribute so she could beat that bastard black and blue, she instinctively learned to change my wind into the green jade but just around her hands, I can’t believe she freely changed its form into an arrow”.

n“I told you, my Kana was a genius”, proudly said Aster, which made Esmeralda giggle, she couldn’t do anything but agree with Aster, especially because that green jade arrow wasn’t a normal attack, she… used intent.

nThe little girl who has been stuck for quite some time, unable to unlock her intent, finally took that step and managed to use intent, she probably did it unconsciously, but still, a twelve-year-old girl who is capable of using intent, besides Aster himself, she is the second youngest to achieve that, as far as he knows, since Alice was thirteen when she learned sword intent.

nOf course, Alice might have been delayed because the sword isn’t her thing, but on the other hand, Kana didn’t train at all for the past five or so years, it hasn’t been that long since she started cultivating seriously.

n“She shouldn’t be able to manifest ghost arrow as she pleases yet, but having successfully used it, still qualifies her as a level one arrow intent user”, proudly said Aster as he patted the little girl’s head a couple of times.

n“Mm~”, Kana let out a cute sound as she accommodated to rest her head on Aster’s chest, in her sleep she looked for the most comfortable way to rest, which Aster found rather cute.

n“And Espi isn’t behind at all either, that wasn’t dragon aura, but spirit pressure, it used its bloodline to apply pressure onto the lizard, beasts without wisdom can’t use cultivator abilities like spirit pressure and unlike humans, other beings have to obtain cultivator traits one at the time, to finally obtain human form”.

nThe previous is why one of the most popular things to form a strong family, is having offspring with a spirit beast that has already obtained human form, dragonkin for example have the advantage of not having the need to go through the whole process of obtaining a human form, but there is also a problem with them, which is their lineage naturally thinning as the generations go by but enough of that, the little snake deserved all the attention now.

n“It was already amazing that she could use spirit sense even when it was a sand wyrm, but a Mortal Transcending spirit beast that hadn’t even reached the infant stage properly, which is able to use spirit sense and spirit pressure already… according to the book it shouldn’t even be possible, as expected of my little snake”, said Aster as he petted Espi.

n“Hiss~”, of course Espi tightened its grip on Aster’s body, as if it didn’t want to be left aside, which was quite amusing, those two earned a good rest, and their date wasn’t over yet, so Aster flew towards the hill where they had their breakfast earlier.

nThe idea was to place those two on the ground on top of the bedsheet, but they clearly didn’t want to let go of him, so he limited to laugh and then laid down on the ground, with those two hugging him to sleep, while a barrier made out of annihilation isolated them from the outside.

nNaturally the previous fight caused a turmoil in the jungle, but Aster didn’t care about that, he just observed the cute little girl and the cute little snake, have a well-earned rest, while he prepared the gifts, he had in store for them.

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