"And here I was worried that you might be at war with the Drage, but it seems like you just despise them, that’s good", jokingly said Aster.

That being said it’s not like Aster didn’t know where she was coming from, after all the Drage didn’t stop pestering Lilia, not only due to her unprecedentedly strong lineage but also due to her unparalleled beauty, she only managed to shook them off by agreeing to have children to "spread" her lineage, alongside the threat of joining either of the families of her two sisters if they kept pressuring her about it, though those guys will end up getting neither Lilia nor her lineage at the end of the day.

Something Aster got to know not that long ago thanks to his connection to Julian, is that the pure Drage family in other words the main branch, has a really unbalanced ratio of male and female members, most are males so female descendants receive much more attention from the family, for the good or for the worse.

That explained why those guys were so obsessed with Lilia, when there was another princess who though didn’t have innately black hair and red eyes as that was a feat exclusive to Lilia herself, awakened both traits at quite a young age, pure female lineage descendants are already rare and exceptionally outstanding ones are even rarer and then there was Lilia who broke all the records, to the day another one like her hasn’t appeared and it is definitely not because they aren’t trying, as Valentina’s previous words suggested.

"Well, to be fair, no one but me would be able to gain Alice’s attention, but even if they did, it would be impossible for them to handle her in every meaning of the word, this has nothing to do with the fact that we share blood", jokingly said Aster which helped relax the slightly tense atmosphere.

’I can’t help but agree, miss Lilia was known for her fierceness but she was aloof and elegant too, that red eyed girl on the other hand is just... unrestrained’, thought Laila who was returned to the real world by Valentina saying.

"Speaking of which, how come you are so calm Agnes, you are way worse at standing the Drage... you little girl, you already knew it and kept it a secret from me, right!", exclaimed the purple lightning princess which made Agnes look aside feigning ignorance.

’Agh, this little girl in love is going to be the death of me, she mobilized the Sun Diamond’s influence for him back then which is only annoying to deal with if he has no background, but is a series of headaches if he comes from the Drage’, thought the purple lightning princess as she rubbed her temples.

Among the four ruler families, besides the Talis who have the peculiarity of being able to put aside every difference to deal with outsiders, the other three have factions within them, one neutral and one that seeks to expand in power by allying themselves with other ruler families.

The faction within the Fey to which Agnes and Valentina’s families belong is the neutral one, therefore they don’t seek cooperation with other ruler families.

It’s worth mentioning that working and cooperating with other first tier forces and families is fine, Mikaela for example comes from a top five first tier family that is close with the Fey’s neutral faction, the limitation is only for the four ruler families.

And the reason behind of it is simple, strength-wise the top five among the first-tier forces are almost the same as the ruler families, with the exception of their ancestors who are a notch below theirs, however in terms of influence the ruler families leave them in the dust.

So, if the ruler families were to join forces, they would be too dangerous, which would most likely prompt a large-scale war between the upper first tier forces and the ruler families, neutral factions don’t want that to happen for one reason or another but the power faction is willing for it to happen if it leads them to real supremacy, that’s the basic outline of it because of course there are many things in the shadows for both sides.

"Ah, fine, in any case miss Lilia just like cousin, despite the influence they hold, don’t partake in political stuff, so if things come to that we can work around with the fact that Aster is her son and considering that even I didn’t know about it, his relationship with the Drage should be bad at best, right", said the purple lightning princess to Aster who nodded at her.

"Yeah, they probably know I exist but that’s the extent of the information they might have about me, it is not the time for this to be revealed yet, which is why I wanted to have this conversation, like you realized back when we fought over ownership of the gate to this place, besides myself, my close ones are basically unknown in the four heavenly quadrants".

"So, in Alice’s case for example we could simply say that she got a dragon lineage maybe similar but unrelated to the Drage in this place, so it won’t matter if she becomes known during or after this event, the attention she’ll get is nowhere near what it would have been prior to this, after all there must have been other rare and unknown spirit beast corpses coming from the spatial disruptions in other places and everyone witnessed that".

"I see, you are covering it up, just like you did for that white "snake", right?", asked Mikaela, she had visited the valley, so of course she knew about Espi and that she isn’t a snake spirit beast.

Speaking of which, the reason as to why Aster didn’t share that situation and this one as well with others besides Valentina and Mikaela among the elders from the sect, nor the disciples is not that he doesn’t trust them, but because among all of them, the only that most likely would have noticed it were those two, well, there is William and his cousin but like previously stated, the Talis have a unique position among the ruler families.

Pressure or threats didn’t work with the Talis, you either got along with them, didn’t meddle in their business or went to war with them, they are both the hardest and easiest to deal with depending on your stance and they weren’t present here, not to mention that William unaware to Aster already guessed their identities just like Julian, courtesy of Lilia’s little tricks behind the scenes.

So even if Alice were to "obtain" a dragon lineage thanks to her manual or whatever excuse Aster could come with, Valentina and Mikaela would see through it and eventually if not immediately link them to the Drage which could lead to misunderstandings, and since Aster had nothing to hide in that aspect as he is not like the Drage they know about, he preferred to nip the problem at the bud.

"It’s a momentary solution only, but since you plan to reveal it anyway, then it will work, it also aligns with the short-term goals of the sect, once we had established ourselves in a newly ascended high-grade territory, we’ll get rid of the last thorn on our sides and will have much more leisure to work in creating a safe place for all of us", said Valentina to which Aster nodded.

As of current they will have it hard if they were to directly clash with an upper tier force just by themselves, with the backing of the sect they are only a bit lower in standing, since his godmothers do have their own backings untied to their respective families, otherwise the sect would have not been as "free" from external influences as it was.

But once Rya is able to come out and the twins join the picture as well as with Lilia, Mira, Eris and Mylene’s recovering more of their power, things will be different, strength wise, they will be able to compete with the core of an upper first tier force, while being under the label of a recently ascended force from a middle grade Stellar System, which means directly targeting them is forbidden as per the agreements of the rightful factions.

In other words, both the sect and Aster only needed to buy time, everything will fall in its right place if they managed to pull it off, of course if someone tried something "funny" it’s not like Aster lacked a way to deal with it even as of current, but that’s a last resort kind of decision which would complicate things, that’s why he has been using the double-faced implementations of those guys against them, countering force with wit.

"I don’t think there was ever a male Drage that became friends with a Fey princess... not even those hardcore power faction guys tried to establish a connection with them and instead are aiming to work with the Stall", said Valentina as she gazed at Agnes who directly stated.

"He didn’t care about my status and became my, Agnes’s friend not the Fey’s Sun Diamond Princess one and when he learned of my identity the way he thought of me didn’t change in the slightest, Aster is Aster, regardless of what his origin might be", said the sportsy sun diamond princess as she boldly held Aster’s hand with hers, which took Valentina by surprise.

The Fey princesses, at least the outstanding ones shared all two things, they could see through people’s nature and all had outstanding looks, so you could imagine what their impression of the male Drage would be when they met.

It’s not like absolutely all of them were scum, but certainly all of them had a strong interest in pretty women, for the trash ones they could hide their intentions until they had gotten closer to the "targets" that they couldn’t directly just take for themselves, but that didn’t work with the Fey princesses so they were out of the picture.

For the decent ones, their main interest would still be related to their pretty looks mostly as it is an instinctive thing for them, and the princesses would know it, so their impression would be bad in the best-case scenario and it will probably worsen along the way, this was for the pure blooded Drage, secondary branches might get a chance to nurture a Drage and Fey couple, but the elders of the main branch wouldn’t give the secondary branches a chance to rise to their stand by incorporating the lineage of a Fey princess into theirs.

But Aster is different to let alone the Drage but to most people, he appreciates beauty like every other person, but his main concern is always "can I trust this person to be close to my family?", everything else comes after that and he doesn’t waver in that aspect, regardless of how pretty or powerful the other party might be.

And this is not limited to women, in fact it is not even limited to people, every decision he takes is with his family and close ones in mind, leaving aside appearance, talent and shared interests, that’s what attracted Agnes to him.

"Besides, you say that but you have seen it too right sister Valentina, Aster’s soul is pretty, I have never seen or heard about one that is as bright as his, not to mention that the ones of those that surround him are always crystal clear~", added Agnes which made Valentina clear her throat.

"Ahem, that’s just our innate ability, it’s not an absolute thing and it shouldn’t be the only thing with which we measure a person, that being said, I do agree that he is trustable", said the purple lightning princess as she thought.

’I don’t know what’s weirder, the fact that a male Drage got a Fey princess so infatuated with him or the fact that it happened before the princess in question even knew what romantic love is’.

Valentina used to believe that Agnes wasn’t aware of the real nature of her feelings for Aster, and she was right, Agnes thought it was just a strong "interest" until that time when she took the initiative to offer her cheek for a peck, after that the sportsy sun diamond princess has been contemplating about it and recently reached the conclusion that she likes Aster in a romantic way.

Of course that doesn’t mean she automatically decided to become his girlfriend, Agnes still has a lot of things to sort out in her mind, and with her family as well, but she now knows the difference between interest and love, it took her way less time when compared to Aster’s godmother too, but that might also be because she saw many examples of said differences in the form of Aster’s interactions with his lovers, close friends and the girls of the sect, meanwhile that godmother of Aster only had Lilia and their other friend so naturally it took more time for her to understand it.

Valentina didn’t have to go through the previous by the way, the princesses of the Purple Amethyst lineage are less prompt to have this little side effect of their lineage and instead have that extra strong rebellious phase which she also overcame the fastest in the records of her family, courtesy of her responsible nature.

"Once we are back, I will tell the ancestor that I found someone I like, so that the power faction elders stop even thinking on trying to match me with someone of their choice!", said the sportsy sun diamond princess, expressing her determination to make things clear for both Aster and her family.

"Ah, I wonder what love potion did you feed her... cousin and myself will support your claim to the love exception, a Fey princess falling in love is such a rare thing that not even the council of elders can force anything once it happens, not even to such a "special" case as you who are the sole princess level figure of a whole generation".

"I do hope you are ready for the troubles that will come due to this though, they can’t do anything to neither Agnes nor you but "stealing" a lover is justification enough for a personal fight level conflict and you "won’t" have a background for some time", said Valentina as she gazed at Aster.

"Well, the Stall and their copycat sect hate me already, so what if some loser from their side believes he had something that didn’t belong to him in any way or whatsoever, was "stolen" from him", said Aster as he shrugged.

He already guessed this much given how Agnes seemed worried when she asked if he was sure he wanted to "cover" for her in this aspect and Aster didn’t hesitate to tell her that she could "act" as if she was taken, this was just formalizing that and Aster now knew the troubles will come from the Stall and Supreme Elemental side because Valentina herself said that the power faction aimed to form ties with them.

And that was the best scenario Aster had in mind actually, because those two were already his enemies, so he "won" a princess and no new enemies were added to the list, therefore no new plans were needed since dealing with them was already decided.

’Not a second of hesitation, well, any less than this and I wouldn’t agree to leave my dear little sister in his hands, not to mention that he has multiple lovers among which is his sister, well, the horn dogs from the Drage of my generation have thousands of women and I bet they don’t even know the name of the vast majority of them, not to mention that those four really look happy...’, thought Valentina to then say.

"Now that I think about it, why is your sister one of the reasons as to why this conversation was rushed ahead?", asked the purple lightning princess to which Aster chuckled as he said.

"Well, Espi couldn’t help but have her special traits on display at all times and they weren’t particularly noticeable unless used, the same applies to Aria, so Alice had nothing to say about that, but now Sarina can manifest her wings too, so there was no way she would put up with being the only one left behind, you’ll see it in a moment".

"That sounds like a bit too much to deal with for such a reason...", mumbled Valentina to which Aster laughed as he got up.

"I told you, others wouldn’t be able to handle Alice", to which Mikaela agreed, such a whimsical girl without someone that could see so far ahead as Aster, would spell trouble for sure.

"At least I’m a bit more relaxed knowing that miss Lilia is back at the four heavenly quadrants, because while those guys would find it hard to cause trouble with William around, they will for sure try it, however with miss Lilia present, no matter what they do it’s impossible they succeed, in fact they would instantly retreat if they knew about it, after all that’s why cousin and miss Talis purposedly left our side, so that they could draw a few snakes out of their holes", said Valentina.

"If I remember correctly, Camila is supposed to have the same "constitution" as you, is she also a dragon lineage owner?", asked Mikaela, she was the one present when those elders tried to pressure intel about the treasure girl’s constitution so this doubt surged in her mind.

"No, she is related to the lineage from my "paternal" side which is the one of the surname "Wolfstein" which I use publicly, not from the same branch though, I’m from one of the main ones and she is from the other one, so our innate abilities are different", said Aster to which Mikaela nodded.

The group of four then left the tree agglomeration and went to take a shower, in their respective rooms of course, they came out refreshed and with clean clothes just in time for breakfast.

"Can I go out already, or should we have a nice naked breakfast in bed today~", said Alice who peeked her head out of the room just as Valentina and Mikaela were coming out of their room at the same time as Aster.

"Ahem, it’s fine, they already know, I doubt anyone would be more interested in the origin rather than the trait itself, but if they ask just say it was thanks to this place", said Aster.

"Got it", Alice alongside her long black scaled tail which protruded out of the end of her lower back, came out of the room and directly used it to hold onto Aster, apparently, she didn’t just laze around though, with Aria’s help they adapted her clothes so that the tail wouldn’t rip them by accident.

’Yeah, that’s too flashy to be kept hidden’, thought both Valentina and Mikaela who were also confused by the way.

"A tail, aren’t the dragon traits of those guys’s main branch, wings, scales, claws and horns, in that specific order?", said Valentina, when Sarina’s wings were mentioned, she thought Alice also had wings, also it was known that Lilia is the youngest ever to manifest a dragon trait, which were wings, what people didn’t know is that she could have manifested them way long before she did, but kept it a secret, but this tail took her by surprise.

"Oh, I’m unique, well, so is Aster and mom", casually said Alice as she dragged Aster towards the table where breakfast was being served, naturally dragging the attention of a lot of girls due to that tail with which she was holding onto Aster.

"I swear you are doing it on purpose, you shameless dragon princess", said Aria, since she could know openly call her "sister" her preferred way.

"I wonder what are you talking about~", said Alice who was all smiles as she fed Aster a piece of grilled fish from her plate, the wild dragon princess was clearly in a really good mood as of current.

The breakfast’s chatting subject as one would expect revolved around Alice’s tail for the newest additions to the group, while those that had already seen it before, were more interested in knowing why Aster allowed her to openly show it now, but the girls in that category already knew that Aster always thought things through before taking any decision, so they put the matter at the back of their heads for now, in any case if it affected them, they were sure Aster would explain things to them.

"I’ll need more sparring partners, what do you say Tia, do you feel like losing against me today?", said Alice to the energy constitution daughter who snorted in response.

"Humph, very well, I could use some help to adapt my "dragon slaying" spear style to mortal level", said Tiana, sparks could be seen flying between those two, and they weren’t the only ones, the little wyrm and Kana had a rematch scheduled with Alice as well.

All the previous simply further convinced Valentina and Mikaela that Aster’s claim regarding Alice was not him blowing his own horn, she really was such a handful.