Chapter 150 (Patreon)

7.5k this chapter took a ton of effort to get right so I hope everything is understandable. Also one of my favorite quotes from a unexpected source (Calamity (The Reckoners)).

Chapter 150

Aster was a bundle of nerves and excitement as she waited in the meeting room they had set aside for Aunt Helen's arrival. Or rather, the room that Leon and Mara had set aside.

There were half a dozen other people also waiting in the room. She didn’t really pay attention to them, but they felt familiar somehow. Though, she didn’t have the mind to ponder where she had seen them before.

Today was THE day!

Years of preparation and work on her bloodline with the help of the dragon's blood had resulted in her advancing far, far faster than normal. That in and of itself wouldn’t be a problem if she wanted to take the path most traveled.

But therein lay the issue.

Aster didn’t want to evolve her race into that of a kitsune, a nine-tailed fox variant, or any of the other standard ice fox evolutions. She had a precious building block in the dragon's blood, and it opened up so many doors for her. She wanted to use it and pave her own way.

Both Matt and Liz were unique and strong in their own right. If she wanted to keep up with them, she needed to use her advantages and press them for everything they were worth. If she didn’t, she wouldn't be worthy of her humans, nor the standard she held for herself.

Her musings were interrupted when Aunt Helen arrived with two passengers in tow.

Aster only glanced at Camilla for a heartbeat before she recognized her, and her attention was quickly drawn to the small bunny resting on her shoulder.

Aster felt the predator instincts start to take over as they met each other's eyes, and Aster set herself and pounced.

Admittedly, she cheated by using her Concept to help her cover the twenty-foot distance. But as she neared Cammie and the Bunny, she noticed that they were only Tier 7, so she adjusted her power and speed.

The chase wouldn't be fun if she just outmuscled the Bunny because of a Tier difference, after all.

The bunny saw her, and instead of fleeing as Aster expected, she only turned around to lash out at with her back feet.

Playing along, Aster let the blow land and send her back a few feet before she created a plane of force for her to stand on. After gathering herself, she wiggled her butt as she readied herself for round two.

The Bunny saw her and froze for an instant before she took off, just as Aster lunged.

That started the best chase of the week!

It took her nearly half an hour, but eventually, Aster had the Bunny cornered, and pounced on her after a false lunge.

With her prize clamped firmly between her teeth, Aster jumped to the couch and curled up around the panting and gasping Bunny before starting to groom it.

It was only fair after a good chase.

When they both got their breath back, the Bunny revealed her foul mouth. “You stupid fucking fox! How dare you hunt me?! It's humiliating!”

Aster perked up. The Bunny was sapient at Tier 7, which meant that her parents had been over Tier 15 when they had her in their own bunny forms. That was rare enough to be interesting.

Aster licked the bunny again before saying, “My name’s Aster! What's yours?”

“Hazel, you oversized and over-Tiered bundle of instincts.”

The two of them were joined by Cammie and Aunt Helen, the latter of whom scratched behind Aster's ears as she said hello.

Cammie just smirked at Hazel and teased her for getting caught.

The Bunny then showed that she had an absolutely foul mouth once again, unleashing a tirade that caused Aster's ears to fall.

Looking to Cammie, Aster asked, “Is she always like this?”

Before Cammie could answer, Hazel snapped, “Only when stupid foxes try to eat me!”

Cammie then smirked and rescued Hazel before dropping her in her own lap and saying, “Hazel, as you can see, is fully intelligent, and hates being treated differently because she's stuck in a small body. You chasing her just hit a sore spot.”

Aster yipped an apology that was grudgingly accepted by her new friend before Aunt Helen pulled Aster away from the group.

When she saw Mara following along, Aster knew her little respite was over, and that it was time to get to work.

Aunt Helen set Aster down on a raised stool at the breakfast bar after they teleported into a new room.

Before saying anything, the older phoenix pulled on an apron and started whipping something up that smelled amazing.

Aster thought the food at the higher Tier restaurants was good, but even the smells from Aunt Helen chopping vegetables were better than those final products.

“What have Mara and Luna told you about the procedure you want to undergo, Aster?”

Aunt Helen's words took a moment to settle in before they penetrated her food hazed mind.

“Pretty much everything. I can go over it if you want.” Aster offered because, for all her certainty that she wanted to do this, she was still nervous.

At Aunt Helen's nod, she started at the beginning, carefully recalling her lessons. “I’m a Rank 1 beast as an Arctic Fox. That means I have one bloodline ability, which in my case, is control over ice. A Rank 0 beast would be a normal fox with no elemental control.” She drooped her ears as she thought for a second before continuing. “A Rank 1 beast doesn't always have an elemental affinity for their bloodline power, but that's the most common. Then there’s Phoenixes- like you! Phoenixes are Rank 2 beasts, and your Rank 1 bloodline power is… fire mana, like I have ice mana. Then your Rank 2 bloodline power is the rebirth stuff.”

Aunt Helen gave her a gentle smile, and Aster continued. “The dragon blood Matt got is…” Aster paused as she looked at the older bird awkwardly, “Did you get any of the dragon blood?”

Aunt Helen reached out of the kitchen and gave her a head pat with a gentle smile as she said, “I did, and thank you for asking.”

Aster perked up and continued. “That big old dragon was really really strong, so we can use its blood essence to refine our own, and take that stronger power to upgrade and modify our existing abilities with other treasures. You two can become Rank 3 phoenixes, and that makes your tears get all heal-y.”

Mara interjected for the first time, and was more serious than Aster had seen her in a while. “Yes, that’s right. But not all of our tears are that powerful, just some of them. Of course, they’ll fix you up just as much as your friend Melinda can, but they still have a healing cooldown, so they aren’t quite as good. Still, pretty strong for something any phoenix can theoretically get.”

Aster moved on. “With the higher Rank blood, I’ve been polishing my Rank 1 bloodline in preparation for either becoming a Rank 2 Arctic Fox, or something else.”

She dipped her head at Liz’s mother as she said, “I don't wanna become a dragon or anything, so I haven’t been replacing my own bloodline with the dragon’s like you did to become a phoenix from a flame sparrow.” Her ears drooped again as she said, “I really want to be a fox. All the racial paths mean not being a fox anymore, even if a nine-tailed fox is still mostly a fox. But who needs nine tails when I have one perfect tail already?”

The two birds were serious as they listened, which helped soothe her nerves a little further. The food had helped calm her down quite a bit. “But the dragon's blood has polished my bloodline to the point that there are few improvements to be made without becoming something more, so it's time.”

Aunt Helen pushed a bowl of soup in front of her, and Aster dug in while she talked. “All correct information Aster, well done. One thing I want to mention, in case you forgot, is that you don't have to become something more to reach Rank 2. You can stay an arctic fox and reach Rank 2. It's just harder, as you are forging your own path instead of walking a pre-existing one. With the dragon being Rank 4, or even higher, you definitely have enough power to draw on.”

Aster nodded. She had thought that was obvious from her own explanation, but was too engrossed with the meal to refute the implication she hadn’t known that.

When she was done, she sat back down and explained her plan to both women. She hadn’t told Mara this either, as she had still been mulling over the problem for the last few weeks. Only Luna knew, as she had been Aster’s sounding board for the viability of her plan.

After all, she was doing something similar to what the void cat had done to her own bloodline to reach Rank 2, except she was taking it a step further.

“I don't want to reach Rank 2 right now. I want to change my Rank 1 bloodline’s element to something stronger to have a better base; it’d be a waste to spend a whole rank on only changing my element. If I use my Rank 2 to have my mana become winter, I’m wasting the entire level of power, even if that's the normal path most bloodlines take.”

That was enough to cause both women to rock back, Mara more so than Aunt Helen, but both were clearly surprised.

Before she could lose her courage, Aster said, “I don't want to make a massive shift, but I do want to change my current element from Ice to Winter while staying Rank 1. It's really not a big deal, and the dragon blood is a big help anyway.” Seeing she wasn’t going to be interrupted, she continued, “It's not just a fancy idea, I have a plan! I want to make my Rank 2 power an Aurora power. Because Aurora is related to spatial mana, I can't go from a two-element mix like ice, which is just water and wind mana, and jump all the way to getting myself an Aurora ability. From what I know, I’d need at least a Level 3 mana type, so I want to add wind mana into my ice again. Changing my Rank 1 bloodline from ice to winter shouldn’t be that hard since it’s almost the same, and just deepens my connection to ice and cold. That should be enough to let me reach Aurora for a Rank 2 power, instead of Rank 3.”

Mara looked concerned, “But why are you trying to add Aurora mana to your bloodline? I can't really see the connection to your current abilities.”

Aster wagged her tail. She knew this question would come up and had prepared for it.

“What’s colder than the depths of space? The chill of nothing. That's what my Concept is about, after all. I want to take my bloodline to the coldness of a dead universe that’s run out of heat. Aurora is the best point to grow from normal ice to space ice.” Her tail paused as she thought about withholding her next statement, but decided against it. “And it would be very pretty, which makes it all the more perfect for me. And Astral Seals can do all kinds of stuff with their affinity, like… like make really pretty illusions! And even change the area around them to make attacks miss! Either would be really strong alongside my ice. Luna said their Rank 3 is even actual space, which is why I want to use the Aurora affinity as a stepping stone. It will help me get to space ice as my eventual Rank 3.”

Aunt Helen put a lid over a pot before walking out of the kitchen and taking the seat next to Aster, giving her full attention to the conversation. “Well, Astral Seals usually need to tap a bit more into the spatial side of their bloodline for their Rank 2 to bend attacks around them. So it's not quite that easy. Space is a hard thing to grasp, but I suppose you’ve already considered that, haven’t you? While I’m happy you did your research, as part of that, you must have realized that there are precious few Rank 1 bloodlines with a level 3 mana, right?”

When Aster nodded her understanding, Aunt Helen asked, “Do you know why that is?”

That question stumped Aster. She knew there were Level 3 mana types at Rank 1, but only knew a handful.

“I know there are things like the Storm Eagle and Swamp Lizard, but not why they’re rare.”

Aunt Helen didn’t seem surprised at Aster not knowing, but answered easily. “That's because a Level 3 mana type is inherently harder to control or find in nature. Ice mana is fairly easy to find. Find a cold place that’s been cold for a while, and eventually, mana of that type will be produced. But something like storm or winter are much more complex mana types. You need to find a place where there’s an endless, and never-ending storm. Or somewhere where it's not just cold, but cold and windy in precise ratios to create winter mana. Those places are restrictively rare, and they’re always jealously guarded by the beast factions with those aspects. In my long lifetime, I’ve heard of five other ice or wind foxes seriously trying to pursue a winter bloodline, and they all had to beg the Winter Wolves for access to their most prized territories. Two eventually gave up, another’s pursuit ended in gruesome tragedy, and the last two both ended up switching to a lupine bloodline instead, after marrying into the pack. Without those coveted sources of winter mana, advancing and strengthening your bloodline through cycling ambient mana is not just hard, but can be nearly impossible. The dragon blood helps alleviate that, but it won’t remove the problem altogether. You understand if you go through with this, your future path will be that much harder?”

Aster nodded. She had thought of that and had a ready plan of action.

“That's why I’ll have Matt make me rifts with my mana type so I can cycle mana there! We already did it with my ice mana. We can just do it with winter, then winter and aurora mana!”

The two birds shared a look before Mara said, “While that's possible, I’ve never even heard of a pure winter rift. Or at least, not a natural one. And storm rifts are incredibly rare already, though that's one of the more common and stable Level 3 mana types. Storm, after all, is just water, wind, and lightning mana. The last of which is a Level 2 element on its own, created by air and fire mana. While it's a complicated mana type, storms are natural on every planet, meaning there are places that have enough storm mana to create a storm rift. I've never heard of a winter, as opposed to ice rift. They are similar, like you said, but they’re so similar that ice dominates an area before winter mana can be born. Plus, from what I understand, winter needs to deeply integrate trace amounts of several other aspects for it to remain stable long term. In some ways, it edges a bit more towards a level 4 mana aspect than a typical level 3. Even for Matt, it might be really difficult to make a stable, high Tier winter rift.”

“And changing your bloodline at all also changes you, whether or not you rank up and change your species, or simply improve what’s already there. I noticed a difference after changing from a flame sparrow to a phoenix. Luna stayed a simple Void Cat, instead of opting for one of the myriad larger and more powerful feline bloodlines, like an Abyssal Jaguar, Hollow Tiger, or Lonely Lynx. Yet, just by adding space to her bloodline, her personality still changed quite a bit. Are you sure you want to change your Rank 1 bloodline? It will change you more than the other two options, and it’s difficult to know how that change might manifest.”

Aster thought hard over the old bird's words before shrugging. “I believe Matt can make the rifts I'll need, and this will let me keep up with them. I trust them.”

Mara’s eyes watered at that last bit, and Aster understood. Bonds were massively influenced by their partners, and often took on similar personality traits that were compounded by the bond, making the beast want to keep up with their humans. Aster was self-aware enough to know her drive was a result of both of those phenomena, but they were still parts of her.

She loved Matt and Liz, and wanted to keep up with them forever. Staying an ice fox wouldn't make that impossible in any way, shape, or form, but she had the chance to become something new, and wanted to walk her own path.

She was named after the stars, and it just felt right to take her bloodline to the coldest place in the universe.

It was perfect.

She would be different after changing her bloodline, but she changed a little bit every day.

Aster quoted something she heard somewhere, “A sunset isn't beautiful in a picture because the nature of the sunset is eph-e-me-ral and ever-changing. I won't be the same person tomorrow as I was this morning. There is no remaining the same, as every day we live changes us. But we’re still just as much us at the end of the day as the start of the next. I'll still be me, no matter the changes to my bloodline.”

It took a few more hours of talking, but she eventually convinced the two that she knew what she was doing, despite them reiterating that staying a fox was the easier route to Rank 2.

Aster remained firm, and they acquiesced to her demands.

Aunt Helen looked to Mara, “This is closer to what you did when you ranked up, so you should explain how this will work. I only have second hand knowledge of this, even if I've helped a few people do the same before.”

Aster didn’t have time to be surprised that Aunt Helen had seen others do what she was doing before Mara, with a serious countenance, explained, “Changing your Rank 1 will be similar to evolving your bloodline. At least in general. You’re taking what’s there and replacing it with something else, or something more. It's similar to letting the dragon's blood take over and becoming a dragon, instead of polishing your own bloodline. I’m not going to lie. This is going to hurt. Badly.”

Aunt Helen chimed in. “Replacing your Rank 1 is going to hurt far worse than what Mara experienced. I've seen it done a few times, and I can say with all certainty that this won't be pleasant. And Mara is correct. The fact that you aren’t yet Tier 15, and still rely on your body's physical functions to live, will make this hurt all the more.”

Aster nodded to show she understood before Mara continued, “When I did it, I had a rift drop me a source of phoenix blood essence like what we got from the dragon. With it, I had two options. Become a better flame sparrow, or turn into a phoenix. Considering that phoenixes are really hard to kill, I went with that option. If I had become a Rank 2 flame sparrow, my fire control would have been a whole lot stronger, as phoenixes sacrifice a lot of their Rank 1 powers to have such a strong Rank 2. I was Tier 16 at the time, and I still was little more than a puddle of blood and flesh when I was done.”

Aster fished around in her spatial collar and withdrew the items she had bought from her portion of the rift proceeds of the last two decades.

The first was more common, and the added wind mana she needed to absorb. A Tier 10 Eye of the Gale was actually a flower that, even in a glass jar, looked like it was being blown around in a hurricane. She actually had three of them, and pulled each of them out before she pulled out the only source of winter mana she had been able to find.

The Heart of Winter was a blue-white crystal the size of Aster’s head, and immediately started to chill the room around them. It was only Tier 13, which was the main reason why she wanted to do this now.

The only source of winter mana over Tier 15 she had been able to find on the market was a Tier 21 item. She just didn’t have the time to wait until after she reached Tier 15. The high ranking dragon's blood was constantly pushing her forward, and she didn’t have a Rank 2 bloodline like Liz, that took a lot more energy to improve. Aster needed to advance to Rank 2, or change her Rank 1 element in the next few months. Otherwise, she’d pop from the pressure.

Now was the time.

Aunt Helen tried one more time to convince her to just use the items to make her Rank 2 bloodline winter, but Aster was firm in her resolve.

She had already spent the dragon's blood, replenished by phoenix bloodline, all she could. She had been constantly widening and deepening her bloodline powers over the years. When they had stopped at Tier 6, and then Tier 8, she had allocated all of the essence that would have been otherwise wasted into expanding her ice bloodline, just like Liz had.

A beast’s bloodline was called blood essence for a reason, after all. To improve one's bloodline powers, you needed to spend a great deal of essence in what was essentially a third path of cultivation that paralleled mana and physical cultivation.

The dragon blood didn’t help with that. Its help as a general higher Rank bloodline was to open new paths, and improve upon the powers that bloodlines gave, but it only made empty containers. It also helped make breaking into higher Ranks of bloodline power easier, but that was a marginal benefit. Essence was the power source of all cultivation, and this was no exception. Even most of the essence spent on bloodline cultivation didn’t really go to properly empowering her. It just went towards expanding the pools of power that she could later put essence into. It was a great thing to do with spare essence, but otherwise, it was almost a waste.

But for all that her work had made her stronger, and had pushed this day farther into the future, she almost regretted it now. She now needed to remove all of that work, and mix a second element into the preexisting power.

This would not be fun.

Mara pulled out a giant plate and put a number of towels on it before explaining the process.

“While it's not exactly what I did, it's similar. You’re going to need to remove your blood essence from your body, and then inject the wind mana into the ice bloodline, while also cycling the winter mana into your mana pool.”

Aunt Helen pushed over a single spoonful of swirly ice cream, saying, “This will help deaden the nerves while not affecting your mind. It should help with the pain. Are you ready? Also, try to keep in mind how your existing Concept relates to your new mana. That will help.”

Aster didn’t hesitate to swallow the ice cream and almost immediately felt her paws go distant.

In the next five minutes, she could barely move, and she partly wished for Matt and Liz to be there, but squashed that feeling.

Humans weren't normally allowed to be told about this until they had been immortal for a while, because they had the tendency to react badly. Or maybe ‘explosively’ was a better word. Humans in the past usually fell into three categories.

Some didn’t care that beasts had a special path of advancement that they couldn't embark on, but they were by far the minority.

Far more common was hate and jealousy. Those people coveted the beasts’ additional powers for themselves, and had the habit of trying to forcefully remove a beast's blood essence, and trying to implant it into themselves. It never worked, and always killed both parties.

The other group, and the most common one, was people who were squeamish about the process of changing your bloodline, and felt that it was unnatural. They usually had what they considered good intentions, but until they achieved their own immortality and had control over their own body for a while, they opposed the process altogether.

Human bonds were some of the worst offenders in that regard, because of the pain their bonds suffered in the process. They didn’t want their bonds to go through something so terrible and almost always reacted badly.

It had become a large enough problem that the Beast Kingdom passed a law that said anyone who didn’t have a serious need to know was to be kept in the dark.

Matt, despite her and Liz asking, had been deemed not in the need to know. If she hadn’t had Liz with her, Aster might have gotten the request approved. But with Liz knowing everything, and present to provide any support Aster might otherwise have needed from Matt, it had been denied until he had at least reached Tier 15.

Still, she could have used his comforting presence now.

When the numbness reached her nose, she started the process, and with her spirit, gathered all the air mana she could. Then, starting at her paw, she wrenched her bloodline out of its normal place in her blood and flesh.

Even through the numbness, it felt like her leg had exploded.

Still, she kept her control firm and then started to weave the two powers together. As the ice and air mana mixed, she felt the pain start to radiate up into her mana pool. When that started, she began cycling the true winter mana into her mana pool.

It was like a soothing balm to the pain in her mana channels, but it was a temporary relief. She quickly ripped more of her bloodline out of her body, and started the process of interweaving the air mana to create winter mana once more.

As she worked up her leg, Aster listened to Mara and Aunt Helen's advice and redid the spots they said weren’t integrated well enough. She didn’t fully grasp why that was important until a healing spell was cast on her to replenish her lost blood and injuries.

That single spell both set the winter bloodline firmly into her, and in the places less integrated, reverted the changes as the healing spell recognized them as foreign.

Seeing parts of her painstaking work undone, Aster wanted to howl, but she didn’t have the energy to move, let alone do something so vigorous.

Gritting her teeth, Aster went back and started remixing the parts of her leg that had been undone by the healing.

She also realized why doing this at Tier 15 would be easier.

Then, she wouldn’t need to worry about bleeding out and dying, so those sloppy areas would be able to slowly integrate, instead of being quickly rejected by the magic healing.

Determined to prevent any further rejections, Aster slowed down to be more thorough.

It helped, only marginally.

She had a large rejection on her tail when she started there next, and the resulting rejection of the new mana blew off a portion of her fur.

Her precious fur!

She was going to be bald if she kept this up.

That thought almost hurt worse than the actual pain. Almost.

When she finished her extremities, she moved on to her torso, and the pain she experienced here was a million times worse than on her legs.

Still, she had things mostly under control, despite the occasional rejection during a healing.

It was when she started working on her heart that she felt the first sign of something being wrong in her Concept.

In theory, to replace a Rank 1 bloodline, a beast needed to break their Concept and create a new one. After all, it was created as a reflection of their bloodline power when they weren’t sapient. Changing the thing the Concept was based off of meant that the Concept couldn't be stable anymore.

Aster had hoped to side step the problem through the simple fact that she was only adding something to what was already there. She was simply moving to a stronger version of what she had, rather than replacing the entire bloodline.

Still, her Concept of the absolute cold cracked as she started on her heart.

Mentally juggling four things was hard, but Aster used her will to clamp down on her Concept, and demanded that it recognize winter as simply ice, but colder. Deeper and stronger than it had been before. It actually worked, and the cracking halted as long as she kept a firm mental grip on her Concept.

Now she only had to merge air mana into her bloodline, cycle winter mana into her mana pool, and keep control over her cracking Concept. All at the same time, while the excruciating pain of removing parts of herself and adding a foreign substance wracked her body.

Still, Mara and Aunt Helen's droning on about the process and words of encouragement were enough to keep her centered.

Aster needed to do this, or she would be wasting her potential.

She refused to take the path most traveled.

She wasn’t a normal fox who just wanted to be pretty.

She was Aster. Bonded to Matthew Alexander and best friends with Elizabeth Moore.

Aster was greater than her origins.

And she wanted to be pretty.

That drive kept her going as a valve in her heart exploded, but she accepted the pain and worked through it.

As her control over her Concept slipped for a second, and the crack widened, she simply re-exerted her control before moving on.

Pain became her world as she reached her head and knew that the hardest part was upon her.

Working on her brain would be not only dangerous, but it also came with serious risk to her wellbeing and recollection of self. But she had saved it for last for a reason.

She had practice. And now, all of that would come full circle, as she couldn’t allow for a single mistake.

To her surprise, Aunt Helen touched her head. “Well done, sweetie. But we can take it from here.”

Aster was in too much pain to understand what she meant, until two greater powers reached in and took control of everything.

She felt Mara’s Concept, Intent, and Aspect reach through her and somehow grab her own fractured Concept, while a different presence took control of her mana pool and bloodline power.

She was cursing the stupid birds for not doing this earlier when she felt a spell put her to sleep.

***

Mara watched Aunt Helen work as she kept the fox's Concept from completely shattering.

Working without a brain was something that only a Tier 15 had a chance of doing, and only because they relied on biology less than mortals. That didn’t mean a Tier 15 could survive a catastrophic failure but the line was pushed further.

Thankfully, converting the bloodline in the brain wasn't necessary for the full completion. It just sped things up tremendously and reduced the side effects.

By the same metric, a stronger beast could assist in the whole process, but anyone who had been through it knew how bad of an idea that was.

Eventually, all beasts would have to go through the process as they increased their bloodline rank. Pain was a part of cultivation as much as it was a part of life. If one couldn't handle it, they wouldn’t go far in either.

It still tore at her heart to see Aster in that much pain.

Truth be told, Aster had done better than expected.

She loved the little fox as both the grandchild she supposedly wasn't, and the sibling to one of her kids she officially was.

But she also knew that the fox was a free spirit who liked to joke around and play when she didn’t need to work.

Mara glanced at Luna, who had remained hidden in the corner, watching the process.

The stupid cat hadn’t wanted to let Aster know how much she cared, and neither Aunt Helen or her were going to cross the old cat though for different reasons.

Still, Mara wished that the cat had tried to talk Aster out of this.

Mara, better than anyone else, understood the drive to keep up with your bond. It was one of the reasons the beast kingdom took bonds for ten years after Tier 15. Time and space were the best ways to reduce that external drive, and let the bond learn who they were without that influence.

Publicly, they just hammered the point about bonds being forced into relationships, but while that was a problem, it wasn’t the real reason they separated the bonds by at least a planet.

A bond needed to be able to see themselves for who they were without their partner, and then decide what they wanted to do.

She had returned to her bond, and they had continued to be delving partners for centuries before their relationship turned romantic.

She hated the separation then, but older and wiser, she understood it was a good thing.

Still, it hurt to see Aster tear herself apart just to walk a new path. Mara respected that choice, though, and didn’t interfere.

Though she would never admit it, she believed Aster made the right choice.

Ice foxes did not have the greatest evolutionary path, despite their variety, unless she wanted to lean fully into the mental charm aspects with the kitsune path, or sidestep into a lupine path. From everything she had seen though, that was not Aster.

And forging your own path was the cornerstone of cultivation.

Growing strong, leaving your own legacy behind, and paving the path for your descendants.

Today, a new breed of fox was born, and as Aunt Helen finished integrating the air mana into Aster's brain, Mara probed the fox with the other two.

Luna spoke first. “I knew she had it in her. For all her play, she has a core of steel. She might bend a bit, but she is firm in her convictions.”

Aunt Helen ran her fingers through the fox that was now covered in blood, and started to wash her with a number of spells. “Aster is a driven woman. I don’t know if I could have pushed through ripping out my Rank 1 bloodline to upgrade it for greater power.”

Mara rolled her eyes, but didn’t correct the bird.

Aunt Helen would have done the same thing. Of that, she had no doubt. The old bird had painstakingly recreated her shattered Concept from metaphorical dust, instead of just starting over. The woman who spent millions of years rebuilding what was broken to honor her dead family would never have hesitated to do the same, or worse.

As Aunt Helen squinted her eyes for a second, and a single, glistening tear rolled down her cheek before she caught it with a finger and dropped it on Aster.

Aunt Helen was old, and was one of five Rank 3 beasts in their realm. Even Mara, despite being stronger in Tier than Aunt Helen, didn’t have the phoenix’s abilities to heal others like she did. Aunt Helen had only managed the feat of upgrading her bloodline to Rank 3 because she had spent millions of years making connections and cashing in favors. She had eventually gathered enough resources to break through the barrier that separated Rank 2 and 3 bloodlines.

Her being a Rank 3 phoenix and able to heal people was considered a state secret of the highest order, and only the royals were aware of it.

Honestly, Mara hadn’t expected Aunt Helen to use a tear on the fox. She hadn't needed to, and the cost was enormous. It would take decades to recover the amount of energy it cost her to make that single tear. Despite Aunt Helen having a stronger bloodline, she was still a low Tier phoenix, which meant she didn’t have the energy reserves to use the ability more frequently. If Mara was a Rank 3 phoenix, she could have used the ability every few months instead.

Mara pulled out a higher Tier hair growth potion and poured it over Aster once she was clean. Technically, that was pushing the rules of The Path, but she didn’t care. No one as vain as Aster wanted to wake up with half their fur missing.

She recognized her own self in the fox at that.

Looking good was important. After all, outward perception could be the inward mirror to those who were their own best selves.

To look good, was to feel good.

Not so much as a means to just preen and pomp for others, but to be your best self in that moment, and appreciate yourself and who you were. Mara had felt this way of herself for centuries, despite her love of fart jokes and making herself explode on the spot for fun, and she was pretty sure Aster felt the same way.

And Aster was going to feel like shit for months, so she might as well look good.

Luna left after ensuring that Aster had settled into her new bloodline, and went back to pretending to be Matt.

Mara looked at Aunt Helen, “How bad is her Concept?”

The older phoenix smiled and started cooking again, but didn’t immediately answer the question.

Mara sniffed, and her stomach rumbled as she smelled a Tier 44 Desert Worm stew that she hadn’t had in thousands of years. From her perspective. Subjective time was the worst.

That worm went extinct ages ago, and the leftover supply was limited, so Aunt Helen only cooked it during important occasions.

Mara paused. She wondered if she could get Matt to make a rift from one of the remaining worm carcasses. She knew that Aunt Helen had a ton of otherwise extinct recipes that he could possibly do the same with.

Mara wanted her worms again.

Leon insisted that eating worms was weird, the prude. But he had been the one to feed them to her when she was young. So really, it was his fault if you thought about it the right way.

When Aunt Helen finished cooking and brought over two bowls of Desert Worm stew, she finally answered Mara’s earlier question. “All things considered, Aster kept her Concept in remarkably good shape. She's a strong-willed young woman. It will take her only a few months to fully heal, I suspect. Though, she’s going to be sore for even more months after. We pushed her healing cooldown hard there, even with my tear helping. She’ll be sore, but that's a good thing in my opinion. The pain will remind her what she earned. She did well.”

Mara sighed. “I didn’t expect her to do nearly as well as she did, to be honest. I doubt I would have replaced my bloodline before Tier 15 successfully. It hurt bad enough when I didn’t need those fleshy bits to live.”

Aunt Helen just patted her hand, but changed the subject. “What do you think of her idea? Staying a fox and diverting her bloodline into a spatial realm?”

Mara had been unaware of such plans before today, and had been shocked. Luna must have known, since Aster had been well informed. Too well informed. When she knew that the cat had a few minutes, she was going to have a serious discussion with Luna about withholding information about her family from her.

That was unacceptable.

“It’s certainly an ambitious goal, but she’s taking the right steps toward it. With the Celestial Dragon's blood, the two of us are all but guaranteed to reach Rank 3 in this realm. I had hardly dared hope for that before, even if it was technically a distant possibility. Wasting a rank to simply diffuse wind into her ice to make winter would have been a waste with its powers.”

Aunt Helen smiled as she hit a sore spot for Mara. “If only we had Talents like dragons. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Mara felt her feathers rise before she lowered them. The stupid dragons were the largest of cheaters in that regard. Most beasts, Aster included, never strayed from their element because they had Talents related to them. Even with her change of bloodline, Aster's Talents would still be about controlling ice, not winter.

She had only allowed the fox's plan because winter mana was essentially just ice with a heaping of wind mixed in, alongside some faint echoes of a few other elements, so she wouldn't have had any major issues. If Aster had tried to shift her mana any further, she would have put her foot down.

Dragons, on the other hand, had their Talents formed in a way that their elemental control and element was dictated by their bloodline, and not set in stone. So a fire dragon who wanted to become a water dragon simply needed to replace their bloodline, and then they would have a Talent for water spells instead of fire spells.

There was a clear reason why dragons sat at the top of the Beast Kingdom’s Rank 2 bloodlines in terms of pure combat power. They could freely change their bloodline to what best suited them, and reset their Talent for the new element.

Mara let the old frustration go. She was born a simple little flame sparrow, and had grown to one of the strongest beings in the entire realm. But Talents were still something set in stone for her and so many others. The only thing she could do to improve her weaker flame sparrow Tier 1 and Tier 3 Talents was ascend, and let that rebirth upgrade her Talents along with her Domain.

The two of them chatted about old times until Aster woke up and groggily cursed at them. “You giant mean birds. If you could have done it for me from the start, why not bonk me on the head and save me the pain?”

Mara smiled at the complaint. From the tone, she knew that Aster was just venting. She understood the feeling, so she let the pup growl and yip.

Instead, she watched how the fox carefully placed each paw and winced as muscles that were pushed too far protested being used once more.

Aunt Helen asked, “How do you feel?”

Aster shoved her face into a turkey that Aunt Helen pulled out from a spatial ring. In between bites, Aster said, “Awful! Everything hurts. And my Concept feels like it owed the wrong person money and they weren’t exactly a fan of waiting for pay day. But—”

A gust of frigid air swirled around the room. “It worked, and my Talent works surprisingly well for controlling the ice in winter. In fact, I think my ice might actually be stronger. Just as I hoped. Winter is a Level 3 mana type, after all. It's better than pure ice. In fact, I thi—”

Aster fell over, snores rumbling forth in the middle of her sentence. Both Aunt Helen and Mara laughed.

Mara stood up. “Let me get her to bed. Are you going to visit Matt after this?”

Aunt Helen nodded, “Once they win a legacy i'll visit them like I do every winner to help them recover. Emmanuel asked me to look in on him, but I doubt much changed. Last time, his spirit wasn't showing the slightest sign of converging towards Mana Concentration for his Tier 25 Talent. If I had to guess, I’d say it was focused towards something more external, but it was too unformed to really say much more than that.”

Mara sighed. Things were never so easy.

She smirked as she scooped up Aster, gently rubbing the little angel’s belly as she snored peacefully into the air.

She had never liked easy.

Things were more fun when you had to work for it.