After Angel woke up, Yasenia and Angel talked about the child, and eventually, Angel decided on a name. Going back and forth, a few interesting names were suggested, but eventually, Yasenia liked one of them quite a bit.
Angel laughed when she saw the smile on her lover's face. "Do you like this one?"
Yasenia nodded. "It's nice. It fits the child quite nicely."
Angel looked at her newborn and giggled. "I see. Then… Baby, your name is Aurelia."
Aurelia opened her beautiful eyes, revealing an enchanting golden color. Angel giggled and looked at Yasenia. "She has your eyes!"
Yasenia smiled softly. "And she has your adorable face~."
Angel blinked. "She does?"
Yasenia kissed her temple. "Of course~." Then, she asked. "Baby, how are you feeling?"
Angel muttered. "I am slowly recovering my cultivation. So I feel a bit stronger. But I still feel like even lifting my formation pen would be taxing."
The dragoness chuckled. "I see~. Then, Baby, rest for a while, okay? I'll tell the maids to move you to your room with Aurelia. I'll also visit often, and if you want me to rest with you and our child, just tell me."
Angel nodded obediently. "Okay. Where are you going?"
Yasenia explained her plans for the rest of the day to Angle. "Well, first, I'll go check on Estrella and Tatyana. Then, I will visit Cecile's and Kali's eggs and give them lots of love~, like I am doing with you right now."
Angel giggled as Yasenia tightened the hug, always careful and avoiding to hurt Aurelia.
"When I am done there, I'll go visit Evelyn and Andrea for a while. Finally… I'll probably return to check on you. What do you think?"
Angel smiled widely. "That's nice~."
Yasenia kissed her lips once and said softly. "Be obedient and listen to Selena and the rest. See you later, Baby."
"See you later, Yasenia! I love you."
Yasenia smiled beautifully and answered. "I love you too, Angel."
With that said, Yasenia climbed out of bed and used a blanket to cover Angel's lower half. Then, she called the maids and left to do what she said to Angel.
The day went by quickly, and with that rhythm, an entire week passed. Yasenia looked at the day and was surprised. "A week has passed already? A month since Estrella's birth as well…"
Yasenia looked at the date and also realized that she was already over 60 years old. 'Time passes so quickly.'
The dragoness looked outside, feeling that her sense of time was accelerating more each year. Unnaturally fast at that.
Yasenia frowned, knowing why this was happening. High-level bloodline dragons had practically infinite life spans. Their natural deaths were most of the time due to being too big or strong for their cultivation level.
Therefore, time passed differently for a dragon. A nap for an old dragon might be a few thousand years long. And, when waking up, the dragon wouldn't even know that much time had passed.
Getting distracted for a few moments would eventually become staring at the same place for a few months or years. In short, if they were not interacting with others, they lived with a completely different sense of time.
This became increasingly more noticeable as Dragons gained age. Eventually, a thousand years become nothing but a strand of time during their incredibly lengthy natural lifespans.
'But… I am quite young to start having this happen, right? Or…' Yasenia pondered. 'Perhaps it is not related to age but to cultivation level? Or a mix of both…'
She shook her head and walked toward Kali's alchemy room. Going inside, she saw Kali sitting in front of the cauldron, eyes closed and with all her energy focused on the tool. 'Oh? She is creating a pill in a serious manner. I wonder what she is making?'
The length of the process of creating high-level pills increased with quality. As with everything related to cultivation, the higher quality or rank something was, the more complex it became. And while the ability to discern things related to them increased with a cultivator's strength, the complexity of the heaven path was exponential.
Yasenia walked silently to a corner where she wouldn't bother Kali and watched her for the next two hours. 'Hm. It doesn't seem that she will finish soon. I'll come back tomorrow at the same hour.'
As silent as she arrived, Yasenia left. Kali didn't even notice Yasenia came to visit her. The dragoness went to Flora's room and walked inside. As she had expected, the giant egg was there, protected by Flora, who was cultivating by its side.
Flora opened her eyes and smiled. "Welcome, Young Miss. Here to visit this little one?"
Yasenia nodded and sat by the egg's side, using her tail to coil around it and place it between her legs gently. Then, while caressing it, Yasenia asked. "What is Kali doing?"
Flora answered while preparing a tray of refreshments for Yasenia. "Well…" Flora laughed and continued. "Miss Kali wanted to look better for the little one, so she is seriously focusing on concocting a pill to cure her scars. Or, at least, make them not that harsh-looking."
Yasenia laughed while caressing the large egg sitting between her legs. "That's quite adorable." Looking down at the child, Yasenia smiled. "Good job, little one. Thanks to you, fox mommy will heal her outer and inner scars even better."
There was no answer, but Yasenia didn't mind. Flora asked. "Do you need me to concoct any pill, Young Miss?"
Yasenia nodded. "I actually need you to. Can you concoct a pill that increases my natural energy absorption at the cost of losing speed while cultivating? Of course, not a permanent one."
Flora frowned. "That's… complicated, Young Miss."
The dragoness blinked. "Even for you?"
Flora nodded. "Actually, creating one with the effect Young Miss wants is not that big of a deal. I know at least 100 different recipes that would work. The problem is Young Miss's body. Because of your constitution, Young Miss absorbs the energy from pills and other medical concoctions really well."
Confused, Yasenia asked. "So, if I ingest one, is there a probability that the effects will permeate me much deeper than expected, affecting me in a permanent manner?"
Flora smiled. "That's right, Young Miss. Serious cultivating occupies more than 90% of a cultivator's life. This percentage grows even further as the strength of the cultivator grows. Affecting Young Miss's ability negatively would be enough for any of us to ask for death."
Yasenia hummed. She wasn't bothered about how extreme the maids' thoughts were. It was a clear commitment to their duty, and nothing was more reassuring than that.
"Speaking of maids…" Yasenia titled her head. "How is the training for the personal maid groups for my children going?"
Flora sighed. "Well, it's not bad. However, this world lacks talent. We've tested a few tens of thousands already and only managed to create eight 20-person groups."
Yasenia blinked. "That's not that bad, right?"
Flora complained. "The problem is that most of them lack cultivation. Don't get me wrong. Their potential is similar to ours. However, bringing out that potential will be complicated, even with Lady Tatyana's training methods."
Yasenia hummed. "Well, that's not that bad. We can just train those groups. There will be six children, seven if I manage to get pregnant. We can leave the last group as a secret assassin group that focuses on investigating the other maid groups and reporting to us. It can help with corruption from the inside."
Flora nodded. "That's a good idea. We'll implement it. We'll say to the other seven groups that the eighth group failed so that we can keep them a secret."
The dragoness smiled. "So, what about the pill I talked to you about? I want at least one pill to increase my body's passive absorption temporarily. I've been quite busy lately, and at this pace, I might fall behind a bit cultivation-wise. Moreover, since the time of taking care of children is coming, I will naturally have less time to cultivate for a while."
Flora agreed. "I will gather the other alchemists and come back with a solution, Young Miss. In a month at most, it should be done."
The dragoness laughed. "As quick as always." She placed her child back in the little nest created for it and gave the egg a kiss. "I will be going, Flora. Today, I'll probably be able to break through into the second realm."
Flora bowed graciously, her leafy hair flowing smoothly. "Good luck, Young Miss. We'll be cheering for your success."
The dragoness chuckled. "Thank you, Flora. Goodbye."
"Have a nice afternoon, Young Miss."
Yasenia quickly moved through the large estate and arrived at her cultivation cave. It had plenty of remodeling done to it because of her beast form's growth in size. It became large enough to fit her dragon form. While flying freely was not really possible, it was large enough for her to practice everything she should be able to practice.
Once inside, Yasenia gathered energy, and her body increased in size. A few moments later, Yasenia became a mountain-sized dragon. The figure of the empyrean dragon, which appeared like a patch of the night sky that had taken a dragon form, looked imposing and transcendental.
The enormous dragon looked around and muttered. "Well, it is big enough indeed. The energy quality is also good enough. I should be able to break through with all my paths in a few days' time."
Yasenia tapped the floor with her claw tip and summoned a few pills and beast cores. "Peak-level beast cores are very limited… Thankfully, Distancia's ocean is enormous, and there are quite a few Peak-level beasts in the true depths. The maids managed to go and hunt around 70 Level 10 Legendary Beasts."
Cecile, Kali, Ebirah, and Sierra received 10 of them each. They were told to use them whenever they were going to break through. Meanwhile, Yasenia received the remaining 30. Her Beast Core was many times more energy-hungry compared to theirs, so she needed much more raw energy to have the same effects.
In truth, Ebirah and Sierra didn't really need an entire peak-level core for their early Legendary Beast Realm levels. Still, it would be beneficial for them to have excess raw energy so they received the same as Kali and Cecile when the cores were shared.
If other beast groups knew what Yasenia's group was doing, they would probably faint at the extravagant behavior. For most pure beast clans, each of their peak-level cores was treated like precious materials, and they were all divided into dozens to hundreds of shards to benefit as many beasts as possible.
Still, Yasenia threw three of them into her mouth without much care, together with two pills. These two pills helped her absorb energy quicker for a few hours while also smoothing out the conversion of energy toward the Epoch Core.
With everything prepared, Yasenia was set up for an easy breakthrough.
Of course, easy was relative.
Remember that for the spiritual path, the dragoness needed to compress energy from a faint gas all the way to a solid.
The change was significant from the first to the second level of the Dantian Spiritualization Realm, but not incredibly so. The faint gas flowing around her star-system-like Dantian was pressured by the dragon's aura and will, becoming tighter and more material.
From gas that could barely be seen to a faint but visible fog. Not having any barriers, Yasenia smoothly reached the second level in all her paths. The body path naturally remained in the low-level Epoch Core, but it was more robust and more refined than ever.
Once she finished, a message reached her: "Young Miss, Madam Evelyn will give birth in three days."
The dragoness opened her eyes and answered. "I'm done. I'll be there."