"Where are you taking me, Mom?" Sam asked, his curiosity piqued after a long Sunday morning.
Helena smiled at her son and revealed her plan, "We're not going anywhere. We're going inside this."
Sam examined the object she handed him, a large snail shell that looked more like a crescent-shaped treasure. It was too big to fit in his hand comfortably.
"It's called the Moonlit Nautilus Crest," Helena explained. "It's a Mystical-Grade Treasure. It allows the user to enter a separate space stored within the Crest. What's even more intriguing is that we can cultivate once we're inside this treasure, and it completely conceals our aura. No one outside the shell will be able to sense us, not even someone with high cultivation."
Sam chuckled at his own joke, thinking, 'Not even my little brother in my pants would fit inside this thing.'
Helena's eyes narrowed at her son. "You just thought something rude, didn't you?"
Sam was taken aback. How did she know? He quickly composed himself and replied, "It's nothing. I was just wondering how we'll go inside this treasure."
"It will activate once I infuse it with my spiritual energy," Helena explained.
Just then, Sam's aunt arrived and stood so close to him, holding his hands near something soft, which earned her an annoyed glare from her older sister. However, Helena chose not to say anything about it.
"Sam, take your aunt's hand," she instructed. Sam obediently held his aunt's hand while his mom held the other.
"Mom, I thought you sealed your cultivation. How do you have the energy to activate it?" Sam asked, curious about the sudden resurgence of her power.
"We are dragons, son, and not just any dragons, but of a noble rank. We naturally have a little amount of spiritual energy in our bodies once we awaken our bloodlines," Helena explained with pride in her heritage.
Helena channeled a portion of her lingering spiritual energy into the crest. The crest, sensitive to the spiritual energy, quivered in her hands and suddenly whisked them away at lightning speed, so fast that Sam couldn't even blink.
Inside, Sam found himself in a vast white expanse, within which there stood an unexpected house. To his surprise, the house had all the necessities, including a bathroom and a toilet.
Helena and Aunt Lor guided Sam to the rear of the house.
"Lor, before we proceed with Sam's Awakening, we should unseal our cultivation," Helena suggested.
Lorraine nodded in agreement.
It was essential to unseal their cultivation, for even though this hidden place concealed their actions, there was still a risk of their clans discovering them once Sam became a novice cultivator.
Thus, they needed their cultivation to protect Sam as he embarked on this new path.
Sam patiently sat cross-legged, awaiting his mother and Aunt Lor to complete the unsealing of their cultivation.
Helena carefully etched a design onto the ground, resembling a magical circle akin to those Sam had seen in movies. Upon finishing the circle, she continued to draw a peculiar symbol at its center, using her own blood.
Aunt Lor followed suit, drawing another distinctive symbol using her own blood.
The magic circle soon began to emit a brilliant blue glow, temporarily blinding Sam with its intensity. After the radiant light dissipated, two white-colored crystals appeared in the place where the magic circle had been.
"Ha... it's finished," Helena said, wiping the sweat from her forehead. It may not have seemed like much, but unsealing their cultivation had drained a significant amount of energy from her.
With her cultivation sealed, she had relied solely on the residual spiritual energy within her bones, muscles, and bloodline to complete the process.
Both of them held one crystal each and hurled them forcefully to the ground.
As the crystals shattered, an immense surge of spiritual energy rushed towards them at an alarming rate.
Even Sam, who couldn't sense spiritual energy, could feel the palpable changes in the air around him.
The ripples caused by the rush of spiritual energy nearly made him faint on the spot. Eventually, the white space returned to normal, and both his mother and aunt had successfully unsealed their cultivation.
Coughing violently, Sam spat out a mouthful of blood.
The overwhelming reactions triggered by their unsealed cultivation had taken their toll on him.
He was injured, not fatally, but enough to send him tumbling to the ground.
However, instead of hitting a solid surface, Sam found himself descending onto something incredibly soft.
Just as he was about to make contact with the ground, a figure flashed before him at lightning speed, dispersing the smoke generated by their cultivation unlocking, and caught him before he could hit the ground.
"I've got you!" Aunt Lor embraced Sam, and he nestled his face into her loving out-of-the-world bosom.
Sam, seizing the moment, pretended not to be feeling well and remained in his aunt's comforting embrace.
He was evidently savoring the moment, to say the least.
Aunt Lor was well aware of what Sam was up to, but would she deny him?
Of course not. This was indeed a significant opportunity for her to grow closer to her nephew, after all.
She had always harbored feelings for him, but she had restrained herself, knowing that Sam was neither a cultivator nor aware of the otherworldly customs.
On Earth, a romantic relationship between her and Sam would be considered taboo, but in the cultivation world, such norms didn't apply.
Sam remained bound by Earth's societal norms, but once he ventured into the cultivation world, he would soon shed these earthly constraints.
At that point, she was confident he would accept her. Until then, she wouldn't hold back; in fact, she would become bolder and more daring in her pursuit of him.
"Don't give me that look, sis," Aunt Lor sensed a piercing glare behind her and found her older sister staring at her with an expressionless face.
"Didn't you already tell me you were okay with our relationship? Don't tell me you're going back on your word," Aunt Lor frowned.
"You know very well our father and mother won't approve of this relationship," her sister replied bluntly.
"You think I'm afraid of them? Or are you afraid they might harm him?"
Her sister remained silent for a moment, but suddenly Aunt Lor felt a chilling, intense presence enveloping the space around them. "He's still my son, Lor, and I won't let anyone harm him, even if that person is his father or our parents. He belongs to me and me alone."
Aunt Lor narrowed her eyes at her older sister's reaction. "I didn't expect her to be so attached to Sam... Could she also have feelings for him like I do?"
She wasn't entirely sure.
Fortunately for them, Sam had lost consciousness long before due to blood loss, so he remained unaware of the intense exchange that had taken place between his mother and Aunt Lor.