Chapter 992: Girl Time

’Speaking of possible emotional damage, what is it that you gave my girlfriend, fiancees and...whatever Rianna sees me as?’

=Possible stud for her future brood?=

’Sure...seriously though, Pathos what did you give them?’

<You’ll find out in time, milord. You’ll find out in time.>

’Ominous little-see, this is why I don’t default to your judgement when it comes to other people. You enigmatic clown!’

<Bleh!>

__Meanwhile, those aforementioned girls..._

In a private part of the Zhen Clan estate, which consisted of an outdoor garden/training area, the Seventh Lady of the Zhen Branch Clan, Daria Nerissa-Zhen, was examining several different accessories that varied in terms of decorations, but had similar enough designs to one another to suggest that they were part of a set.

The accessories in question all appeared similar to hairpins, but looked so different from each other that one would be hard pressed in assuming that they were such things.

Accompanying her at this time were also all of the women that were romantically involved with her son, Zhen Liu, in some capacity.

As to why they were there, it was because they were the source of these strange accessories. Well, four out of five were. Princess Jinju Ren didn’t have one of these accessories, because her innate dragon force was incompatible with the innate [Chaos] that were a major component of these accessories.

Needless to say, she was a little annoyed about that fact.

"No fair, I wanted a custom made [Chaos] accessory too," Jinju Ren grumbled with a pout on her face. A sharp contrast with her usually fierce look of beauty.

"You have a magical sword that can seal and channel the power of other dragons," Jin Fang pointed out, "I think you’re fine in terms of needing an external power boost."

"Not the point, you know what I mean. You never had those thoughts when you were younger of some prince charming showing up with a handmade gift?"

"Well..."

"So...you girls received these gifts from the Library’s curators themselves?," Daria interjected before the girls began to discuss over something banal. They weren’t here for romance talk, after all.

"Yes," Bellona answered for the group. "It was around the first or second time we went to the library. Pathos mentioned making us gifts and gave us those in these little lacquer boxes. The boxes were mundane though."

"I got mine at a different time," Rianna chimed in. "Like...I think it was my third or fourth time visiting overall?"

"Regardless, since we got them we figured out how they could help us cultivate [Chaos] like the kaijin, Xiao Liu and...you, apparently...and that we could use them to communicate with each other to an extent, but...," Alicia continued.

"Other than that, we’re stumped. We’d figured aside from Xiao Liu, and the curators, you could help us with this since...ya know... your history," Jin Fang added as a final detail.

"Fascinating...Unfortunately, I have no idea what these things are either," Daria stated as she placed the accessories back on a table they had all been sitting around. "Meteorhorn taught me a lot of things related to [Chaos] and kaijin, but this wasn’t one of them."

She had been taught things related to [Chaos] cultivation, a smattering of [Chaos] arts and how certain strange locations in the world may have been the direct result of the kaijin doing their thing, but anything regarding Kaijin Consorts and the like wasn’t shared with her.

Whether this was due to the [Star Caller] being single during her reign, or the fact that Meteorhorn realized such topics would be hair sensitive to Daria at the time was unknown, but it unfortunately led to this modern gap of knowledge.

Then again, it didn’t help that Logos was being a cagey little troublemaker about the meaning behind these accessories either.

"Figured," Alicia sighed as she retrieved the accessories for herself, Jin Fang, Bellona and Rianna. "Guess it’ll remain just a cultivation tool for the time being."

’Wait a minute...’

As the girls redistributed the [Chaos] accessories amongst themselves, Daria gaze wandered until stopping on Rianna’s inherited saber.

From what she could remember of the lessons that Meteorhorn taught her, was that anything that the Kaijin Lord created has a tendency to have a bit of life to them.

Whether that was a quirk of the formula or of [Chaos] was unknown, but the fact that accessories didn’t exhibit any obvious signs of being alive like Rianna’s sword got her thinking.

"Maybe it’s just a matter of input."

"Mistress?"

"Rianna."

"Y-yes?"

"Can you show me how you use your saber? The one that my son made you."

"Technically he just modified what my father-eh, you get the idea."

Standing up to her feet, Rianna proceeded to draw her saber and give it a few practice swings. Evidently, this what she thought Daria wanted to see.

It wasn’t.

"Impressive saber play, but I mean...can you show me how you channel your power through it?"

"Oh. Sure, but I need a practice."

Snap.

"Oh cool."

With a snap of her fingers, Daria Nerrisa-Zhen summoned a wooden training dummy so that Rianna could go full force. The thing was typically designed with Aether Masters to Grand Masters in mind, so it would’ve been unharmed against normal warriors.

Daria was anything but normal.

Against the wooden dummy, Rianna began channeling [Chaos] into her saber, causing it to glow with a bright red flame.

"Ha!"

Once the energy saturation of her blade reached a satisfactory level, Rianna lashed out with her blade and slashed the dummy into two burning pieces of wood. The attack was rather impressive, but the girls failed to see what the point of this act was.

Daria didn’t though.

"From the looks of it, you’re able to channel [Chaos] as easy as you channel aether."

"Yeah."

"Why is that?"

"Oh. Uh..."

Rianna had never really thought about how she was able to do what she does, because she usually ran on instinct when fighting and cultivating. But now that she was confronted with it...she still didn’t have an answer.

"I don’t know, I can just...sort of do it?"

"Lucky."

"Can you do what you do with your saber on the accessory that Pathos gave you? Call it a feeling."

"Uh...sure."

Other than that time in the [Monkey’s Ruins] that got interrupted, Rianna hadn’t really thought about channeling [Chaos] into the accessory that Pathos gifted her.

In her head, it was already something that she could circulate aether into to help her cultivate [Chaos], so it felt redundant to add [Chaos] into [Chaos].

Evidently, she should’ve done this a lot fucking sooner.

"So I just-"Sound of something finally activating after only the gods know how long -"Whoa!"

"That’s new."

"Damn that’s bright!"

The moment Rianna channeled [Chaos] into her accessory, the gem embedded inside of it began to glow with a bright, warm light.

In response to this sudden flash of light though, the others momentarily recoiled and did their best to shield their eyes with their hands until their vision adjusted to the new brightness.

As it glowed, the surrounding aether began to become significantly more wild, as [Chaos] began to build up and solidify.

The moment reminded the girls of the time they had seen Zhen Liu create the kaijin or the times he channeled their power.

However, the scale of which this was occurring felt a lot smaller.

"Should...should we be interrupting this or-’"

"I don’t know! It doesn’t feel malicious."

"Rianna! Are you okay?!"

"I think so," she replied while still channeling [Chaos], "it’s just...I’m staring to hear a voice develop on my head."

"Say what?!"

A couple seconds after making this ominous ass statement, they all started to hear a voice.

[Bzz...bzz...buzzy? Is it time for me to appear now?]

As soon as this voice was heard by all the girls, the [Chaos] and aether in the surrounding area began to take shape...

...

’Why do I have this sudden feeling of dread, anticipation and cringe?’

=Because you’ve been wondering in the back of your mind if introducing Cornelius to your time-slipped girlfriend is a good or bad idea. If it helps, this version of Cornelius technically has no relationship with the Storm Queen that isn’t just a vague memory.=

’Maybe...wait a minute, Pathos, why are you feeling as giddy as a schoolgirl? That’s normally a bad sign when it comes from you.’

<Don’t worry about it milord, focus on the fact that your newly adopted grandson, Hakon, just made contact with Zhen Feng and is about to challenge him to a eating contest.>

’I don’t think that’s necessarily a...wait a minute, Dafuq? Adopted grandson? Don’t you mean adoptive father.’

<No, because Hakon sees Frosttusk as a father figure, and since you’re Frottusk’s creator, that makes you the adoptive grandfather figure.>

’I...I don’t know if that’s how that works, and I don’t think that’s accurate either...’