Lana's red swimsuit was in imperial fashion, which was another word for prude. It hid everything from her lower neck to a little above her knees, and on the arms, it went to just below her elbows. The only place her "intimate" skin was exposed was on the tiny openings on the sides of the waist.

The piece also did an outstanding job of hiding her figure. Paddings here and there assured it wasn't too skin-tight. Moreover, in a pool — the empire had no access to the sea — women would use a short skirt and half-shirt on top of the swimsuit, even in the water.

Conversely, Lana was wearing only the swimsuit as she posed for Aaron. Her face was understandably flushed, as it had been from the moment she came out of the changing room to ask his opinion on it. She kept her arms awkwardly in front of herself, trying — and failing — not to be too obvious that she was hiding her special parts.

He was impressed with both her figure — it was still a swimsuit, despite everything — and her boldness. He didn't hide how he enjoyed the view either. He thought that would make her retreat, but it seemed to encourage her instead.

Suddenly, she took a deep breath, opened her arms a little, and turned around herself, slowly.

"Perfect," he said. "Absolutely perfect. Where did you learn to... choose a swimsuit like this?" His innuendo was obvious; he wanted to know where she had learned her moves. He doubted she had just had the idea of coming out in a swimsuit. The way she had turned around was also clearly premeditated.

She blushed even more and replied shyly, "I was deployed to a small village that had a thermal bath, once. The women there were experienced... in choosing swimsuits." She made a pause, then continued. "I never did this. It feels... weird. And right. And freeing, somehow. And... and hot. Just like they said it would."

He smiled, satisfied with her honesty. In fact, he was so satisfied with the entire episode that he decided she deserved a reward. Her actions were taking a lot out of her and ignoring it would be both impolite and damaging for her self-esteem and their relationship.

"Would you like to go out with me tomorrow night?" he asked. "Not as Patriarch and maid, but as a man and a woman?" The time for her to decide if she wanted to be courted or remain as his maid was almost upon them.

Her eyes widened before she smiled again in a way that made the stars seem dim. "Yes! Oh, goddess, yes!" she jumped on him, giving him a tight hug.

"You do realize I'm not asking you to marry me, right?" he said jokingly. "It's just a dinner."

"It doesn't matter," she said with her face hidden in his chest. "I... Patriarch, I..." she kept silent for a long time before speaking. "I'm just a One Star Qi Manipulator. You are... you. You have no idea what it means to me to just be desired by you, of all people. You're the only one who didn't discard me." Her voice was almost a whisper by then, and she was pressing her face hard on his chest to hide her blush. "I... I'm sorry for being so shameless. Please don't think less of me because of that. I just didn't know what to do to grab your attention. I could only use my... my... body." She whispered the last word so lowly even Aaron's enhanced hearing had trouble getting that.

He shook his head, put a finger under her chin, and gently made her look at him. "Lana, first of all, I already had my sights on you, and for more than your delightful figure. I repeat, you are attractive, but it was your bravery that compelled me into asking you out sooner than I had planned, not your beauty.

"Second, I'll say this as your Patriarch: you only need to feel shame with me if you disobey the clan rules. And I'll say this as a man: I appreciate when you're being this kind of shameless, as long as it's only with me. I'm an exclusivist." He hugged her slightly to show her he meant it, but then he carefully took her by the shoulders and separated herself from him. "But please, leave any further physical contact to after our dinner. I must clarify some things with you tomorrow before we can tread this path."

He was billions of years old; she was barely twenty. Some boundaries would need to be set, especially when it came to more intimate contact, else he would feel like some sort of predator. He was willing to wait millions or even hundreds of millions of years for her to be mature enough.

The question was, could Lana wait that long?

He didn't anticipate that talk.

She blushed yet again and nodded wordlessly. He smiled, patted her head, and said, "I'll be waiting outside."

The remaining of the shopping spree went by swiftly. After leaving the store, Lana finally realized what she had done and became very bashful. She still said she was eager for their dinner after they arrived at the tower though, right before she ran away to the second floor. Apparently, it was urgent that she played with Tatou right then.

It was impressive how she completely ignored the pikes at the tower's entrance. Humans were masters in the art of being self-absorbed.

"Patriarch," said Alys after Lana left, "I just finished with the first floor."

"Good. I wanted this floor done first to allow us to open shop. Now go to the uppermost floor and start going down from there. Actually, I must tell you how to add metal plating to the floor and ceiling there too in a way that won't damage the tower's structure. The top floor is supposed to become a kind of bunker. If the tower is ever attacked, it'll be the safest one, and the one you are supposed to flee to."

They went to the top floor, and he showed her how to cover the floor, ceiling, and supporting pillars in metal without endangering the tower's structure. She did a quick job of it. He then inscribed the Physical Horizon Formation all over the floor.

"Tomorrow afternoon," he said after he was done, "I'll ask around for a good mechanic or engineer to build us a strong trapdoor. Only then will I be comfortable with this place's safety." The formations were good, but the stairs opening was an obvious weakness.

Aaron was a master of all higher arts, and mechanical engineering was not one of them. He found great joy in learning how to manipulate energy and formations to change the world. Compared to that, putting some pieces together to achieve a goal felt lacking.

He had still learned enough of it that he could build the trapdoor himself with some effort. After all, he had been in this world only for about a week, yet mechanics would be useful already. During his long life, he had been in many situations where that was equally true and had forced himself to learn the basics.

Yet, he would rather not build it. A professional would do it better and faster, and he had more important things to do. Moreover, he would need someone else to maintain and build other things his clan would need, just as he was teaching Alys about formations so she could deal with that area for him. He couldn't do everything himself, and as mechanics wasn't enjoyable to him, he would rather find a specialist sooner than later.

After finishing with the top floor, he wrote his clan's rulebook. He had bought the blank sheets and ink while Lana was trying some clothes. He used Qi to make his hands faster and wrist more elastic and resistant, to write in record speed. When he was done, he didn't bind the pages into a proper book, but gave it to Alys instead, together with thousands of extra sheets.

"When the formations stop giving you insights into the Laws of Space, use your recovery time to consider how to copy the contents of the written pages into the blank ones. You can only use ink and Space Energy."

"Yes, Patriarch."

That would be nice training for her. Cultivators sometimes focused too much on complex tasks like bending time and space and forgot that the Laws of Space also touched on minor matters. When cultivators meditated on those small things, their foundations improved, and they might even get enlightened on something much more complex.

The rest of the day was spent reading what the king brought him. He was beginning to see a pattern that might point toward that world's players, but he was still halfway through when it became a new day.

It was finally time for him to cultivate again.

On the One Star level, the system said that a cultivator could destroy a wall with raw power, using no skills.

On the Two Star level, they could destroy a small room.

Three Star, a house of nine average-sized rooms.

And on Four Star, a mansion three floors high, each floor with twenty-seven large rooms.

Alys had showcased the power of a Four Star Shaper when she crushed the Temple of Darkness with ease. She had used a skill then, but it was mostly to prevent the destruction from affecting the surrounding area.

Aaron couldn't have easily destroyed it using only Qi though, and after seeing the description for a Five Star Cultivator, he was understanding why Qi Manipulators were seen as inferior.

[Attribute Increased]

Physical: 4 → 5

» Strength: 4 → 5 | Speed: 4 → 5 | Stamina: 4 → 5

[Attribute Increased]

Energy: 7

» Type: Qi | Quantity: 4 → 5 | Control: 10

[Level Up]

New level: 5 - Five Star

You're able to destroy nine large mansions, eighty-one rooms each, with raw power, using no skills.

A Qi Manipulator's power was limited to their body, and thus to the area their body could affect. He could destroy nine large mansions using no skill, but it would take time. Other Energy Specializations would have a much easier time.

That said, even that "easier time" was limited. The other specializations were also lacking. He could destroy the described area using only raw power if he were a Five Star Shaper, but it wouldn't be quick enough to deserve such a description.

He realized the descriptions were flawed, and the system was broken. Or rather, some part of the system was still attached to the cultivation of Spiritual Energy.

There were countless cultivation methods in his home universe, each one with its own methods of progression and ranks. However, enough of them were known that people had reached a consensus on some power thresholds. If he compared those thresholds to the system's description, the Five Star level would more or less be the same as the fifteenth threshold. And at the threshold, by using proper Spiritual Energy rather than the diluted energies of this would, he could cause the described destruction with relative ease.

He already knew that this world was unique. He had detected all four universal energies in this dimension before coming to it, while that world only had the nine diluted ones. Now, he wondered how it was done and how it was related to the system.

Did all worlds in this universe have the same nine energies as in this world, or could they create their own energies as long as they more or less followed the system's level scheme? Did the Cage rule over the entire dimension "in person", or did it give people only general guidelines to follow and let them do their thing? And, more importantly, if each world could do its own thing, who decided that?

Aaron reckoned he would learn it in time. For now, he had other things to think about.

This cultivation session had taken him a long time; the sun had already risen on the skies when he was done. Not that he could see it, as he was on the third floor of Alys Tower, the safest place in the city for him to cultivate.

He was now a Five Star Qi Manipulator, a Three Star Arcanist, and a Two Star Vitamancer. This time, he had absorbed Water-attuned Qi. It would help with his health and resilience, things he had found himself needing more and more.

With that power, he could kill any Champion — Entropomancers with some effort — would last for a couple of seconds against a Master if they underestimated him, and had a chance of running from a Master if he had enough of a lead.

His next cultivation session would be in six days. He had had found a slight issue in his path though.

When he had consumed the Divine Sprout and refined himself, he had broken through some limitations of the world's cultivation path. The result was that he could freely cultivate three energies to the max, with no limits. However, he was still threading a new, alternative path of cultivation, and he could only guess how it worked. It got worse because of the random way he had had to pour Divine Energy through his being. Surprises were bound to happen.

Now that he reached the Five Star level and was at the doors of the Champion level, he found them barred for him. He would need to level all three energies to the Five Star level before reaching the Champion level. He obviously couldn't have that, and luckily, he knew the perfect solution: more Divine Sprouts.

He reckoned he would need three of them to correct the imperfections in his cultivation path. He would deal with that after he dealt with the incoming attack. It had already been bold enough of him to cultivate right after the probe; he wouldn't test his luck again.

They weren't here yet though, and he had a lot of things to do.

Aaron spent his morning reading through the rest of the reports, had lunch with the women, then went looking for an engineer. He left Lana behind because he had some surprises to prepare for her.

He heard of a talented engineer and tracked his house down, but the butler said the man was in a nearby town delivering a commission and would only be back in the following day. Aaron asked the man to come to his tower as soon as she arrived.

Following that, he bought an expensive suit that reminded him of gala military uniforms from Earth, some cooking ingredients, and a beautiful white carriage with black details.

He didn't need horses or any animal of the kind; he could just use Arcane Energy to make the carriage move much smoother than any animal. He would still end up buying some eventually, he couldn't be always around to drive it, but he wanted today to be special for Lana. He took his carriage to the store where he had made the soul contracts and, once there, he did two things.

First, he used his Three Star Arcane Energy to set up some simple formations on the store, to improve the structure's resistance and prevent any sound from leaving it.

The last floor of Alys Tower was the best defensive position he had. The Physical Horizon Formations throughout it prevented people from using energy outside their bodies, which gave a Qi Manipulator like him an advantage. He would use it as a last resort, but he was still careful about getting too dependent on formations. So, he would fight in this store instead whenever he could.

Next, he took pans and ingredients from his ring and started cooking the dinner he would serve Lana that evening.

Eventually, it was time to leave. He stored the food in his rings to prevent them from cooling down, cleaned himself with Arcane Energy, and suited up. He also used Arcane Energy to create the illusion of two majestic white horses, with fake sound and all, and rode the carriage to the tower.

Aaron found Lana already waiting for him by the sidewalk.

Way behind her, by the tower entrance, there stood the king, likely there to deliver more reports. He looked inquisitively at Aaron, who shook his head slightly. The man was sensible enough to take the cue and disappear into the tower.

With that little annoyance taken care of, he focused fully on Lana.

She was breathtaking.

Her figure was hinted at by the tight-yet-not-overly-so long red dress. It also followed imperial fashion, starting a little below the neck. Red lipstick highlighted the fullness of her lips, and the eyeliner highlighted her green eyes. Make-up wise, that was all, and that was plenty already; her face was beautiful enough to not require anything else. She had added some waves to her long blonde hair though, which was kept behind her head, showing even more of her face. She wore white high heels, instruments of torture that seemed to have made their way to this universe too.

Such a mesmerizing woman stood shyly in front of impaled heads, in a sea of blood-stained floor tiles. It made for an exotic scene.

Aaron made a point to stop his carriage a dozen feet away and "freeze" as soon as he left it, to admire her speechlessly for a long time, letting her know how much he appreciated her and the effort she had put in. Many passersby seemed to agree with him, for many turned their heads or watched from a distance.

She saw Aaron after a moment and waved. When he didn't reply, properly lost in her beauty, she blushed and smiled, then approached.

"Patriarch?" she said when she was near.

"What?" he pretended to be having a hard time thinking. "Oh, yes. Lana. Lunch? I mean, dinner? Right?"

She chuckled. "Yes, dinner." She hesitantly made as if she would hold his arm but decided not to, likely remembering Aaron's last order. That won her more points with him than almost everything else she had done for him up to this point. Resisting one's own desires and submitting to orders instead was a significant proof of self-control and respect.

He did offer her his arm though. The physical contact he wanted to avoid was of the less innocent kind, not things like this.

"Shall we, then?" he asked.

Lana smiled, nodded, and took his arm. He held the door open for her with Arcane Energy and helped her into the carriage. She graciously thanked him and sat like a lady inside, with perfect posture, a polite smile, and shining eyes.

He could tell that they would have a wonderful dinner together.

But the moment he stepped in, he felt nine people entering his active perception range — which now reached almost two miles. They were all at the Five Star level except for one, a Champion Shaper.

Trouble had arrived.