While they approached the path toward the underwater city, Embera asked to be sure. "Are you sure that it will work on me as well?"
Kali shrugged with a gentle laugh. "I don't know. It's my first time speaking with spirits other than Valeria. The few little ones I can summon are all mindless, after all. So, we'll need to test. Even if there is any problem, at most, you will boil a small area of the sea, right?"
Embera nodded. "Well, you are right. It's my first time going underwater, so my instincts are a bit twitchy. Sorry for asking so many times."
Kali shook her head. "It's only right to do so."
Soluna blinked and asked Kali with interest in her harmonic voice. "You can summon spirits?"
Kali waved one of her tails and used her summoning skills to call ten small green spirits without a specific shape. They were like blobs of green light that floated around Kali gently.
Soluna clapped, her exotic eyes glowing beautifully. "Oh!"
Yasenia looked at her, and a small laugh escaped her. She patted her head and commented. "Cute."
Soluna smiled shyly and clung to her again. Our dragoness was walking with Tatyana at her right, and Soluna at her left this time.
The nature spirit raised her leafy eyebrow, approached one, and poked it. Delighted, the unnamed and non-sapient spirit began bobbing up and down. The nature spirit laughed. "Very cute. But… They have no ego."
Kali explained. "They come from a skill, so they are naturally non-intelligent. They can follow orders and have basic instincts that help them follow my commands better. For example… Go there and explode."
One of the green spirits flashed where Kali pointed, creating a very small explosion on the sand. From the area where they exploded, grass and other types of common flora sprouted.
The spirits blinked a few times, looking strangely between Kali and that spot. The nature spirit coughed. "I see."
Kali looked at them, confused. "What's wrong?"
Embera commented with a laugh. "It's just… strange to see spirits exploding. While they can't even be considered the same species as us, for you, it would be similar to seeing a small kali-shaped, semi-conscious doll go to a place because someone ordered it to and then explode..." Kali was about to say that it wouldn't be much, but Embera added. "… splattering the doll's small organs around."
Kali swallowed her words and apologized with twitching lips. "Sorry. I won't do it again."
No matter how much a cultivator was desensitized to seeing gore, that image would still be uncomfortable to look at.
After that small setback, they all walked toward the ocean and began entering into the water.
When their feet touched the water, and the waves slowly crashed on them, a pleasant sensation of feeling the sand moved by them caressed their skin.
The water quickly increased in depth as they walked forward along the path pointed at by the Ascending Ocean City. It used clever structuring to use plant life to limit the path's edges while also using oceanic rocks that wouldn't be swallowed into the sand with time.
It was an exotic and interesting path to walk through, with vivid green, purple, pink, and yellow colors usually found in oceanic materials.
Thanks to the pill, they didn't float and continued to walk as if they were on land. The crashing waves were not annoying as their immense bodily strength could take such forces as if they were nothing but soft gales.
The girls looked at Embera, who was looking around dazed. "My body is not reacting with water at all. Impressive."
No matter how good a fire's spirit control was, entering a body of water would always feel uncomfortable because of the increased Water energy and almost non-existent Fire energy.
Being underwater didn't mean that Fire, Magma, or similar energies didn't exist. There were underwater volcanoes, and water needed a certain amount of heat to remain in a liquid state, so it wasn't completely absent. Still, if outside there were, let's say, 100 units of Fire per breath, inside the water, there were 5.
The water spirit was also impressed. "Usually, I would always need to waste a bit of energy to accompany fire spirits into the water. To avoid that altogether… your alchemy skills are impressive, Kali."
Kali smiled gently, taking off her veil for the first time they met. "Thank you." The other girls followed suit, all of them taking off their veils.
Underwater, it felt strange to have it on as it moved up and down, blocking their faces if they weren't careful. Balancing whether to be bothered sometimes by stupid people or all the time by the veil, the girls decided that the former was less of a hassle.
Still, the spirits paused as they looked at Kali with widened eyes. Out of respect, they hadn't looked at any of the girls beyond the veil of those who didn't remove it until now, so it was the first time they saw her scarred face.
Embera frowned and asked, concerned. "What happened?"
Kali blinked, taking her a second to understand what they were asking about, and then realized. She smiled gently and shook her head. "Don't worry about it. It's all in the past."
The spirits saw that Kali didn't want to talk about it, so they didn't ask anymore. However, they made sure to treat Kali at least a bit more gently. Kali quickly realized, but she didn't stop them, silently taking their care with a happy heart.
To reduce the spirit's carefulness even more, Yasenia approached and kissed her lips in a deep kiss with a smile. After a few seconds and a cough from one of the spirits, Yasenia chuckled and spoke. "Let's go deeper, shall we?"
Angel waved her hand around, feeling funny at the strange sensation. "I can feel the water resistance, but at the same time, I can't see it. My hands move the same as inland. It's really strange, haha."
Kaleina and Flame followed Angel's example, moving their limbs with curiosity. With a laugh, Kaleina began swimming around our dragoness, using her serpentine body to move. "Hahaha! So fun!"
Flame was not as eager as her wings flapped behind her, and her face became confused. She grabbed one of Yasenia's hands tightly, looking around cautiously. Yasenia asked. "Is anything wrong, love?"
Flame shook her head but added. "Just. I feel somewhat restless."
Her instincts toward water environments were quite influential as a pure Fire Phoenix woman. A Fire Phoenix was king in the sky and the land, but they could become quite helpless in the water.
So, her body was sending signals to Flame, telling her to get out of the water, which made her a bit uncomfortable. Yasenia leaned down to hug her and whispered. "If you don't want to come, don't be shy and tell me, okay, love? I'll ask a maid to send you back home."
Flame hugged Yasenia's neck and shook her head with a large smile. She felt protected and loved in the dragoness's soft embrace. "Don't worry, Aunty. I can easily bear it."
Yasenia picked her up with a smile, kissing her cheek softly. "You are so brave, Flame. I'm really proud of you." Flame blushed and smiled happily, her red wings flapping behind her. Yasenia added. "However, love. Remember that bearing something and not speaking about it or undermining it is not the same. If you feel bad, you need to tell your close people, and then you can talk about bearing the discomfort. If not, small signals can snowball and become large problems later, okay?"
Flame nodded seriously, remembering Yasenia's words. "I will."
Yasenia asked with a smile. "So, how do you feel?"
Flame said honestly. "Hm… I feel slightly anxious and constricted. Even when I spread my wings wide, I feel like I'm not stretching at all. It's a strange feeling. But it's getting better with time, and even now, I feel much better than when we just entered."
Yasenia kissed her again as a reward while she carried her in her arms. "Perfect. Great job, Flame."
Flame blushed up to her ears, making her red hair and skin seem almost indistinguishable, and she buried her face in Yasenia's neck. The feeling of discomfort almost disappeared when Yasenia took her in her arms, but she left that small detail for herself.
'Being in Aunty's arms is so nice~.'
On our girls' part, only Andrea was mildly uncomfortable. Still, it was a sensation that quickly disappeared.
A merman guard stopped them while they walked forward, about 500 meters into the ocean. They could see the ocean floor dipping down on a steep slope. It was the first significant plunge point since they entered the ocean.
Looking around, they could see a few tens of relatively high-level guards looking around, making sure that no one deviated from the path initially set up.
On the plunge point, our girls could see quite a lot of traffic in the form of wandering merchants. Instead of stalls or similar, they were water creatures that had signals written that read what they sold.
Once they arrived, a merman approached with armor and a large spear with sharp edges. With that shape, swinging it around in water wouldn't be much of a problem. Yasenia's eyes moved toward the merman's hands and saw a small layer of scales, which probably protected his hand from being cut to the duller edge on the gripping section.
"Halt. What business do you have for entering the Descending Ocean City?"
Yasenia blinked and realized. 'So, the inland part is called Ascending Ocean City, and the underwater part is called Descending Ocean City.' She nodded in her mind. 'Good name.'
Meanwhile, the girls had their lips twitching at the simple but effective naming. It reminded them of Tatyana's and Yasenia's naming sense. Andrea even recalled how Yasenia almost called Kaleina "Purplegold" because of the color of her scales. 'Scary, scary.'
Yasenia took the leadership of the group as usual and spoke. "We are tourists. We have never been in an underwater city, and because we came to participate in the summit, we decided to check before it started."
The guard was startled and looked at the group of 70 gorgeous beings gathered in front of him. Looking at the strange earth, light, and darkness male-shaped beings, he asked himself. 'Why are there only three males?'
The guard asked. "Please, tell me the name of your sect, group, or clan so that I can check if you are indeed one of the participants. We will also need the names of the leaders."
Yasenia commented. "Astral Sky Sect. I'm the leader, Yasenia Dravory."
Embera took a step forward and commented. "Embera from the [Spirit Cradle Group]."
The guard looked at the list and saw those two names almost at the top, showcasing that they were extremely important people. The Astral Sky clan was even marked as being a powerful ally and a group that couldn't be offended regardless of their actions. If something happened, the guards were to first look for a superior before taking any action.
His face changed, instantly changing his attitude, becoming extremely respectful. "I'm sorry, Lady Yasenia. I didn't intend to offend you when I stopped you."
Yasenia smiled. "Don't worry. You are just doing your job. If anybody were to become angry at that, they would be the unreasonable ones."
A shrill voice came from the side. "What did you say!? How dare you call me unreasonable!?"
Yasenia and the rest turned to the side, seeing a relatively large woman with crustacean characteristics, about four meters tall, swim at her with her own entourage of almost 200 people. Most of those looked like guards because of their uniform clothing.