the next day to the debut party nia arrived again at shiva's mansion. as she was escorted to the training area she saw faes in the centre of the training area sitting with her legs folded, her back straight and eyes closed. the mana around her was chaotic but when it entered her body it turned calm, tamed.
nia paused at a distance wondering if she should continue moving forward in fear of disturbing faes.
"greetings, your highness, princess nia" faes. had already sensed nia due to her hightened senses and as nia paused she opened her eyes greeting her sister.
"lady aster, did i distrub your cultivation?" nia asked but faes merely shook her head in denial and stood from her position.
"you did not, i was merely waiting for your arrival" faes waved her hand and called some pills and potions out of her space inventory.
these pills and potions were prepared by her and sky for nia.
"here take these, they would come in handy. if you need more you can buy some from nature's blessings or request me for them directly." faes gave the pills and potions to nia who stared at them confused.
"but these seem to be expensive, and i am sure you need these yourself for your cultivation"
faes merely smiled "i assure you, even if i kept. them they are of no use to me. they are simply ineffective to my current body and cultivation."
nia fell silent. she understood that aster was strong enough that these pills and potions were of no effect to her! nia observed the medicines in her arms and inspected them. though she does not have a proper knowledge on these, she had used enough pills and potions to understand that these are of higher quality than what she had ever seen of.
"sister nia. i would ask you once, do you want to get stronger? in what sense? and what would you be willing to do to get stronger?" faes asked. she was merely trying to be intimidating but from nia's look it was effective. this made faes satisfied, she was clearly strong enough that even her sister didn't recognize her and was intimidated.
"i want to get stronger to protect the people of my kindgom. i want to get stronger to protect my sister who i failed already. i want to become the greatest ice mage there ever was and will be. and i would do my best to make it possible" nia replied seriously as she kept the medicines in her spacial pouch.
faes smiled, she was merely trying to be intimidating who knew she became a teacher figure for nia.
"then we would get stronger together." faes grinned and released her aura slightly enough to make nia have difficulty moving.
nia paled when she sensed the aura, she was not expecting faes to be so strong! it even made her have difficulty in moving and breathing!
"do i have to fight you lady aster?" nia asked but faes shook her head and grinned.
"we are not going to fight yet, we are going to read first."
"read?" nia frowned confused as the aura vanished.
"to get stronger you first need enough knowledge. i know you have enough knowledge already but what harm is it if we read more books? you want to become an ice mage. for mages their intelligence and understanding of their elemental dao is their greatest skill. you need to have more knowledge about your element and understand on how to use it properly" faes smiled as she retrived several books regarding ice magic she had collected from her library in mystic fog castle.
"i would lend you these books to read while you are training with me. i am sure they might help you in a way or two"
and thus the two sisters began bonding. training together and getting closer.
in the two months they trained together faes did not cultivate, she merely practiced her weapons without magic and also tried to master other weapons that she barely used.
she also sparred with cleo and lucas who lost more miserably than last time as faes didn't even use her magic this time to fight.
cleo, lucas, belle, and even alison joined them in their training with occasional interference from asuna who got a proper beating when he tried to secretly attack faes once.
that incident left the others who were there to train in shock. asuna had attacked faes when she was fighting with lucas and had pissed her off. she gave him a good beating though she had to use her space magic. after being beaten, asuna had drank a potion to heal from the minor injuries amd needed to rest a while. others were not pleased with asuna but faes merely waved them off. they could also not do much about asuna as he was of the highest cultivation in their group. and he was quite difficult to deal with.
now alison and other royal children have left to go to their own kingdoms. and faes was left with nia.
sky had been busy in the mystic fog castle, she was focusing more on alchemy and research. faes too wanted to join sky but she had been busy. she was wondering if she should tell nia the truth or even go back to the royal palace to deal with those people.
her cultivation had been consolidated in this time and she had mastered many weapons.
nia had broken through to king establishment stage in the past two months. nia was soo happy that she even took faes and sky for shopping and got the two many of their favorite dresses and many snacks to eat.
now nia had went back to the royal palace to continue cultivating on her own and faes finally had some time off due to asuna mixing poison in her food again.
faes decided it was time to deal with the royal family and those people in her castle.
'stay prepared, the great princess is going to return soon'