Alice's current mood was convoluted. Yesterday, when she saw her mother fawn on Lucas, she felt jealous, frustrated and angry. She wanted to cling to Lucas, but their mother being weak took priority and was piggybacked by him. But her brother was charmed by her usual calm mother's mischievous actions.
She wanted to snatch him away from her mother's wiles and smother him with her love to make him forget his transgressions with their mother. But she didn't have the courage to confess their romantic endeavours to their mother. The only thing she could do was to ignore her brother for his 'crime'.
But seeing him look dejected after being ignored by her reduced most of her grievances. And subsequently, she gave a thought about the relationships between her family members.
Since his birth, their mother had been very attached to him, and so was Lucas to her. And she, the older sibling, had lost her exclusive love from her mother. But even when he was small, Lucas had always considered the feelings of every member of the family and always tried to include her when he was being pampered by their mother.
But it was to be seen that he was more attached to their mother than Alice. But all changed when they spent their time together outside the home for many months. In all these months, the relationship of theirs gradually metamorphosed. So, Alice understood that it was not that their mother stole away Lucas's attention from her but the other way around. And now everything was back to how it used to be, except that Alice and Lucas were in a romantic relationship.
With all the complicated emotions dancing in her head, she was confused about what to do next. She only knew that she could not continue to curb her feelings any longer and thus resolved to spill out the beans to her mother.
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Along with the maids who were, as usual, like phantoms, following us in the shadow, my sister, mother and I reached the peak once again. This time, it was my turn to form my Nucleus.
With my mother taking a seat behind me and injecting her internal stellar energy, I channelled all of the energy inside me to my mind space. My senses were gradually enhanced. Even with my eyes closed, I could 'visualise' my surroundings. I could selectively focus on a particular thing and remove everything else from my 'visuals'.
I selectively focused on stellar energy, and everything around me vanished except for the presence of stellar energy. I could 'see' two containers of stellar energy near me that could regulate the movement of the energy throughout their bodies. They were no one other than my mother and sister.
I followed the source of stellar energy coming from above and entered the space outside the planet. I continued to follow the energy until I started feeling little oppressive auras forcing me back. I looked in that direction and found many constellations bejewelling the dark cosmos.
These constellations were simpler, with a few stars forming their structure. I looked at them and found many interesting constellations. Some were in the shape of a leaf, some in the form of a cloud, and another one in the form of a palm of a hand.
I didn't stop there, and following the spellbinding voice of my mother, I continued to soar higher. I passed through many layers and saw many constellations. The higher the layers I traversed, the fewer constellations were present, and the more complicated they were. The auras of the higher-layered constellation were mighty, and it took me quite some effort to reach the 9th layer.
I found the many constellations with numerous mutated attributes that I could not even understand. I also found the constellation Alice linked with, 'Lotus of Purple Flame'. It was even more beautiful than Alice's description and drawing. Till now, I didn't feel any resonance with any of the constellations, even with the ones in the 9th layer.
I reached the barrier leading to the 10th layer. I could feel from the concentration of stellar energy coagulated on the other side of the barrier to be not even in league with the combined energy below the 10th layer.
I was sure if I broke into the 10th layer, I could, at a bare minimum, get a few seconds before my senses got overloaded and my body turned into a vegetable. And in that time, I had to form a link with the constellation. It was a risky gamble, but I was determined to take it.
All the energy present in my body, including from my own reserves and the ones injected by my mother, was sucked by my mental space. My senses were enhanced to their limits and were teetering at the edge of getting overloaded.
I passed through the threshold and entered the 10th layer of the starry heavens. The moment I entered the first constellation I found was of a hammer striking an anvil. The constellation was simple, but there were thousands of stars that created the simple constellation. And the most striking property was that, unlike the previous constellations, this one changed its form and showed the whole process of the hammer hitting the anvil.
I didn't have much time to look for any other constellation and thus tried to form a link with the constellation of 'Hammer and Anvil'.
The continuous release of the oppressive aura from the constellation tried to push me away. Even though I felt the aura strip away my consciousness, I continued to release my stellar energy and tried to connect with the constellation.
I continued to connect with the constellation for a couple of minutes. My consciousness was nearly stripped away. But that time, the lady luck was on my side. And moments before I became a vegetable, I formed the link at last.
With the new link between me and the constellation, I understood the fundamental attribute of the constellation. It was increasing strength through tempering. The more times the blade is hammered when placed on the anvil, the sturdier it becomes. I had thought that the constellation in the 10th layer would have many intricate attributes, but the reality was not as such.
I slowly absorbed the energy from the constellation and tried to form the nucleus. After a few minutes, I had filled my dantian to its brim with the stellar energy from my constellation swirling around. I focused the energy at a point, and then…
*boom*
After a heavy explosion in my dantian, I found a red star shining brightly inside it. I had finally broken into the Star Formation Realm. I was happy at my success but not excited. I had just grazed my lips with death's due to stubbornness. It would do no good if I couldn't keep myself alive just because I wasted my life after taking a huge risk.
(I should have retracted my senses and tried again at a later date. With that, the risk would have been minimised.)
While having such thoughts, I slowly opened up my eyes only to find the panic-stricken faces of my mother and Alice in front of me.
Seeing me open my eyes, mother exhaled a deep sigh in relief. Then her countenance distorted into a frown, and she started to complain.
"Why did you try doing such a dangerous thing?! Do you have to be so reckle---"
But before she could continue, Alice swooped onto me and hugged me fiercely. She buried herself into me and started crying her eyes out. With the tears streaking down her face, she wailed within her whimpers.
"You dummy! You big dummy… What would I do if something happened to you? You should not do something this scary again."
Feeling her anxieties and worries, I put my arms around her and stroked her back to soothe her. She eventually stopped crying and looked up at my face. I looked down at her puffy eyes, which still had traces of tears.
My eyes then looked at my body and found it drenched with blood. There were many wounds on my body which were gradually closing on their own. And at my ground, there was a lot of blood and torn flesh piled up near my legs. I finally understood the physical harm I suffered while overstraining my senses and the reason for the worried looks on my mother and sister. I caressed her hair and continued to console Alice.
"Forgive me this time. How would I dare make my lovely sister cry again? If I did---"
Alice didn't let me speak anymore as she started kissing me passionately. She started using her tongue from the get-go. I was struck dumb at first, but I later reciprocated the kiss. We kissed for a few moments before getting interrupted by some coughs from our side.
It was only then we realised that our mother was watching our display of affection from the very beginning.