The giant eagle soared high into the sky under Fawn’s eyes which seemed to be sparkling, that being said and contrary to what one would expect, she didn’t keep them open and actually closed her eyes to then be lost in her thoughts.

"Little Fawn?", asked Valentina after seeing Fawn keeping silent for almost a minute, which startled the brown-haired potential princess back to the real world.

"S-Sorry I got lost in the feeling of "freedom" that is transmitted by miss eagle...", mumbled Fawn to then add.

"It’s as if I was the one flying in the sky, I can see, hear and feel what miss eagle feels, it’s amazing!".

"Scree!", the giant eagle let out a sharp sound which could be heard by everyone, however for the first time, without Kana’s help, Fawn was able to understand exactly what she was saying, or more accurately it was transmitted to her mind directly.

’It’s the same for me, I can see, hear and feel the same as Fawn, though instead of the unlimited freedom of the sky, I feel the vast and comforting embrace of earth from your end’.

"I can understand miss eagle perfectly now and she can understand us as well", said Fawn which made Kana happily smile to her.

"Good, now there is more people who can play with miss eagle and the other birds~", said the little girl.

"How about price and duration, how long do you think you can keep the technique ongoing?", asked Aster, he didn’t want to interrupt the happy atmosphere, but if they tackled the "boring" stuff first, then she will be free to experience with her technique as she pleases, so this was for the better.

"Mmm, I actually have a question regarding that, I honestly didn’t feel anything being "taken" from me when the technique was activated, I think I was dizzy for a second because I was synchronizing with miss eagle, so I don’t know about the price, in fact if I had to say it, I feel more relaxed than before, the slight tension I felt after sparring with sister Agnes is gone now".

"You little girl, making others worry needlessly...", mumbled Valentina, earlier she had a little scare jump when she saw Fawn suddenly losing balance for a second, thinking the strain was too big.

It’s not that she doesn’t have trust in Fawn’s strength, she does and in fact that’s also why she has gone quite far to help her, but the purple lightning princess is the responsible older sister type, she can’t help but look after others.

"Ahem, how about duration, do you feel any kind of time limit of sorts?", asked Aster to which Fawn shook her head.

"It’s also different than I expected... I don’t feel like it’s ending any time soon, if I had to say it, I don’t think the technique will lose its effect until tomorrow", she said which took everyone by surprise.

"Certainly, it’s not a battle related ability but still a whole day for a single activation and without putting any strain on the one using it, it feels too good to be true... but then we have a certain someone capable of cutting down whatever he wishes within kilometers so I guess everything might be possible", said Valentina as she gazed at Aster, who chuckled in response.

"My ability does come with a high price though, I think we are not looking at it from the correct angle only, is there something "special" besides the sense sharing aspect that you two can notice?", asked Aster to Fawn and the giant eagle who was listening to the conversation through Fawn.

"In my case it would be the "sky", I feel free and unrestrained", said the brown-haired princess.

"It would be the "earth" for me, I feel comfortable and protected", said the giant eagle, which made Aster nod.

’As I thought, rather than just sharing senses, they are "connected" to each other’, thought Aster as a theory formed in his mind after he took into account what Fawn mentioned about feeling more relaxed since the technique was activated.

"I think that might be the "price", this feeling is both a good thing and a bad thing, you two enjoy it because you are used to the opposite in a large quantity, miss eagle has a strong affinity with the sky and the same applies with Fawn for earth, normally since the roles are inverted you should experience a sensory overload the longer the time the technique was in use, however your tolerance is not normal, so it’s become a good thing in a sense, still however far it might be, there is a limit, it’s a mind type of price", said Aster to then add.

"And there is something else to it, the "sky" being transmitted by miss eagle relieves Fawn’s mental fatigue, so the "earth" being transmitted by Fawn should have an effect on miss eagle as well".

"Mmm, if I were to say what feels different than usual is that I don’t feel the need to land in order to rest, slowly coming to me at all", said the giant eagle.

Mortal eagles normally fly in periods of two to four hours continuously, under exceptional circumstances this can extend up to twelve hours but that’s not normal, now, eagles in this place average to the extreme of the previously mentioned normal estimation, so four hours it is.

And then, the giant eagle more than doubles that, she could fly for around ten hours without landing in a normal basis, and if she were to force herself that number will double, but it will come with a toll on her body of course, mind wise she would be fine, but she will end up dead tired after that and would have to leave her wings rest for a day at least.

However, and as "long" as a ten-hour flying period might sound, the giant eagle still felt the need to come down to rest over time, it’s an instinctive thing to keep her body healthy, but now, she can’t feel that necessity coming any time soon.

"Then we can conclude that the "earth" relieves body fatigue instead, quite an interesting dynamic, you two are covering for each other’s "needs", definitely a nice team set up", jokingly said Aster.

"Scree!", the giant eagle descended to land on Fawn’s shoulder making the brown-haired princess’s eyes sparkle.

’As I thought, she is so regal’, she thought, forgetting that there was a connection between herself and the giant eagle as of current, so the king of flying beasts couldn’t help but ask.

"What does "regal" mean?", said the eagle making Fawn’s face cutely blush at the realization that her inner thoughts were also transmitted, Aster who could guess where this was coming from based on the admiration in Fawn’s eyes every time, she looked at the giant eagle up-close, chuckled to then say.

"It’s a word used to refer to "royalty", Fawn is basically saying that you really give off the aura of a queen among flying birds".

"Oh, so it’s something used to refer to a leader, I like how it sounds... I have decided, my name from this moment onwards will be Regina!", exclaimed the giant eagle.

She has been thinking on how to call herself and was given a few examples of girl’s names by Kana, but couldn’t think on something that truly represented her, until now as she adapted the word "regal" to have a female ring to it, thus she is now Regina.

"It’s a pretty name, congratulations miss Regina~", said Kana, she was really happy that the giant eagle had reached this point, and the little girl wasn’t the only one to "congratulate" her.

A dim blue glow enveloped the giant eagle, whose eyes brightened for a second.

"It appeared, that "mission" thing to obtain the power from my profession type manual!", exclaimed Regina.

Just like the old king cobra and the young anaconda leader, she had also officially joined the group, therefore, she was given manuals, her profession type manual was called "Master of the Sky" by the way.

Aster who could also see the details of her mission, a privilege of being the leader, almost laughed out loud.

’What a perfect timing’, he thought.

"We need to verify two completely opposite directions to see how are the camps in those areas faring, one in the direction of the desert and one towards the volcanic area where the bear used to live, if my guess is right, it would take us two days of travel with the help of the horses while resting in between to reach them, however it will for sure be faster by air, a single day per camp at most".

"So, what do you say, how about I leave this task to miss Regina and the recently appointed captain of the guards and patrol unit", said Aster making those two exchange gazes to then exclaim.

"Yes!", Fawn wanted to continue using her technique to train on it and trigger the mission so that she could activate it by herself, as for Regina she wanted to attain her technique, so this was perfect.

It’s worth mentioning that the giant eagle’s mission was something along the lines of "Fly for eighteen continuous hours without putting your health at risk, two days in a row", which is not easy at all, but with Fawn’s assistance it can be done right away, do note that this was the difficulty already lowered down by the rewards from the daily evaluations, probably the original mission was flying for two complete days without resting.

Seeing those two filled with enthusiasm, Aster couldn’t help but find them cute, still he didn’t forget to remind Fawn.

"Remain in a visible spot at all times, if the technique starts putting a strain on you, deactivate it immediately, miss Regina can fly for ten hours without your assistance without any problem so you two can work out a proper schedule based on that, just remember that I can only grant two activation chances for the profession manual, per day", said Aster.

"Mm", Fawn nodded and then started discussing how they’ll organize with Regina, Kana also joined them by saying that she was going to prepare a snack so that the giant eagle can eat something while flying, this way she won’t need to lose time hunting.

"Don’t forget our spar, let’s have some fun before you focus on your manual", said the sportsy sun diamond princess as she joined those three, the giant eagle needed to achieve 36 hours of continuous flight in two days, it was around 9 am so while the schedule will be a bit tight, there was time for Regina to properly prepare before leaving, she had to inform her son and subordinates about this as well.

Seeing the three "little girls" filled with excitement, as in Kana, Fawn and now Agnes, Valentina couldn’t help but softly smile as she said.

"Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on them".

"As expected of miss Valentina, I’ll leave them in your hands then", jokingly said Aster as he left, he now had to face one of his biggest enemies ever... the kitchen.

As in if he wanted to present something good for the blond motherly roc girl as his "courting offering" for lunch, he better put hands to work as soon as possible.

"Out of all the possible things, cooking...’, mumbled Aster as he sighed, still it’s not like he is unprepared, he of course had a few plans up his sleeve, and for that he made a short stop at the pink-haired girl’s workshop.

"Hi, I didn’t think I would get to catch a glimpse of your face until dinner, aren’t you in a tight schedule?", jokingly said Mylene, to which Aster shrugged.

"I am and speaking of which, you have finished proper samples of "those" things I asked right?", he asked making the pink-haired girl sigh.

"Yes, let me tell you that it was quite a headache, after all I had never used my alchemy knowledge for something like that", she said as she looked into a safe below her own working table to then take out a hand sized bag and pass it over to Aster.

"You are a lifesaver, I’ll make sure to make up to you for the trouble, thanks Mylene", said Aster as he looked into the bag to then carefully hold onto it.

"D-Don’t mention it... but if you can, why not helping me work in a couple of projects tomorrow?", mumbled the pink-haired girl to which Aster nodded.

"Sure", he said as he bid Mylene farewell to then leave the workshop, leaving behind a pink-haired girl whose face was slightly blushed at the thought of doing some alchemy alone with Aster, which resulted in the girls from the alchemy peak that were in the workshop to steal gazes at her while they gossiped between each other.

"To think that sister Mylene who is so authoritative when it comes to alchemy, becomes so meek in front of senior brother", mumbled a girl from the orange lotus.

"I don’t blame her, I would be more than happy to have some private alchemy lessons with senior brother~", added a girl from the green lotus.

"What are you looking at you little girls, didn’t I tell you not to let your eyes wander off from your working tables when you are working!", exclaimed Mylene, her face reddening due to embarrassment, which made those girls cutely giggle to then focus in their respective projects, it was a free day so they didn’t have to concoct the staple elixirs and were free to try their own things after all, Mylene was here to make sure they were safe and because she was also working on her own personal projects.

The pink-haired girl wasn’t the only one being stared at by cute giggling girls by the way, Aster who had gone straight towards the kitchen area after looking for ingredients, of course drew the attention of the girls that were in the vicinity.

"Woaah, I have never seen senior brother cooking before!", exclaimed a few girls.

"Is there something senior brother can’t do~", said other girls, which unexpectedly hit a sore spot for Aster, since he is really an amateur when it comes to preparation, ingredient gathering, slicing things up and every other step is fine, besides the final preparation.

’Ah, the things one does for love’, jokingly thought Aster, he now regretted not having built a separate kitchen area, but he couldn’t add more workload to the girls of the sect just because of personal preferences.

...

Let’s skip a few hours of trial and error as well as being cheered at by the girls of the sect who happened to pass by their obviously "suffering" senior brother, to preserve Aster’s dignity.

In one of the selected tree agglomerations that were within the camp’s territory, close to the one where Aster’s blacksmithing area is, we find a different sight, the trees created a natural barrier which hid a perfectly taken care of "garden" of sorts, with no weeds at all and placed in the middle of the clearing, with a fence surrounding it, and more importantly a tall girl with blond hair, green eyes and a gentle expression on her pretty face tending to it, while she hummed, obviously having a really good time.

"Mmm, it’s almost lunch time, I wonder what my dear "suitor" prepared in order to court me~", said Sarina as she looked towards the entrance of the tree agglomeration where Aster was just appearing right now, he carried a blanket on his shoulders and held onto an arm sized picnic basket, clearly ready for the "fight".

"My lady, I hope this little "offering" is up to your liking, if not this humble one will have no choice but to offer himself instead", jokingly said Aster.

"Fufu~", Sarina couldn’t help but giggle as she saw Aster place the blanket on the ground below the shadow of a tree, to then take out the plates and utensils from the picnic basket.

’He even put the food in a separated container so that I couldn’t see what he cooked while putting up the table~’, though the blond motherly roc girl, though Aster’s girls would be more than happy with anything he did for them, it is true that they liked how Aster paid attention to the smallest details.

"I unfortunately used most of my mental capacity to prepare the main dish, which is stir-fried boar with wild garlic, ginger, dandelion greens, wild onions and a bit of maple syrup, so besides that I only have a simple desert which will be revealed later, however I did prepare a little gift to make up for the lack of appetizers or sides to make this a proper full course meal", said Aster as he took out the container which had the main dish he described to Sarina.

Now, the blond motherly roc girl was already surprised by the main dish prepared by Aster, let’s not forget that he is someone who considers scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes a "hard" to prepare breakfast, so while maybe he stuck to the garlic and ginger flavor which was a hit among the girls of the sect for the boar, he also considered something as complex as balance in a stir-fry of boar by adding the maple syrup and dandelion greens to it.

But when she saw the two small crystal jars that Aster took out of the basket, her eyes sparkled in amazement.

"Is that, what I think it is?", asked the blond motherly roc girl as she received the crystal jars from Aster, one contained a granulate white powder, that was salt of course, the other one contained a liquid instead, it was viscous instead of fluid though and of a pretty and deep green color, that was olive oil.

Only now did Aster remove the lid from the container with the stir-fry boar he prepared, a nice smell reached both Sarina and Aster’s noses, it was clear for the blond motherly roc girl that Aster had used these two little "cheats" for his cooking, it didn’t diminish the merit though.

Sarina has been using animal oil which has a rough taste and replacing salt with herbs to accentuate and balance the taste of the food made with wild meat, which is of course way harder, but Sarina being the genius chef she is, managed to do so with ease, that’s why Aster used a container, she would have been able to immediately tell if she got the slightest wind of the stir-fried boar Aster prepared.

"I asked Mylene and with a bit of good old alchemy and a lot of trial and error, we got a good result, I hope you don’t mind me being the first one to use it though", said Aster.

Sarina sat down next to Aster, signaling that his "courting offering" was more than welcomed and as proof of it, the blond motherly roc girl served the food in a single plate and then used a fork to pick up a piece of boar which she offered to Aster.

"Thanks, I like it a lot~", she said as she fed Aster the boar to then slightly open her lips clearly waiting for the same.

’Well, it’s good that she won’t "eat" me, until later’, jokingly thought Aster as he gave Sarina a piece of boar.

Those two got all lovey-dovey while they enjoyed their meal, Aster prepared a sumptuous amount of stir-fried boar and they ate till the last bit of it, by the end of the lunch Aster was laying down while resting his head on Sarina’s lap, which was a well-earned joy, he squeezed his brains to prepare the main dish after all.

The blond motherly roc girl who was gently stroking Aster’s hair, looked into the basket since it was time for desert and couldn’t help but giggle when she saw what Aster had prepared, it was simple, strawberries sweetened with syrup and a bit of mint leaves, a good light and fresh desert and perfect to cleanse their palate from the taste of meat.

"Humph, you and your schemes...", mumbled Sarina as she fed Aster a strawberry to then eat one herself, the mint not only went well with the strawberries and syrup, it left them with a fresh mouth which was perfect for a kiss.

"Mm~", like the one Sarina just gave to Aster.