After contacting her father and telling Aurora the coordinates to Porter city, Shirel voluntarily returned the mirror plate to Daimon and then was escorted back to her room by Horals.
"I'll go to the captain's cabin, little Jas why don't you help your aunt Bell and little Sarah settle down in the main residence in the meantime", said Aurora.
"Mm~", Jasmine smiled at her grandmother and then Aurora turned to see Bell.
"Use the mana on the main residence to recover in the meantime, it might not cure the curse but your powers should become more stable with it".
Bell nodded, one of the reasons as to why she had hold out so much even with the cure, is that she has been using her battle aura to suppress it, unfortunately when she fights the curse spread too, that's why has to destinate more and more of her power to keep the curse in check, resulting in her regressing from almost having reached the high stage of the Stellar rank, to the early stage.
That's right, just like her daughter, Bell is also a knight and a pretty strong one on top of that, according to Thea, she would have been on par with her, if she was in her prime, it made sense since in Purplecloud's family women used to be stronger than men, his wife endured consuming a magic herb to increase Purplehaze's talent after all.
Though in public that ended in Purplehaze's generation, it wasn't true, as Sarah was stronger than him.
At first Bell wanted to refuse since she knew there was a limit to how much mana the Elemental Conversion Array could produce before it stopped working, but Aurora scolded her like a mother who scolds her daughter over not wanting to eat her vegetables, and she ultimately had not choice but to oblige.
After Aurora left, Jasmine took them into the main residence since they were at its entrance earlier, Daimon and the others already knew where to stay so they went straight to the main room which was the only one that could accommodate them all.
Everyone had their own thing to do right now, most of them sat on their beds and started meditating to gather mana, the only exception being Thea, Marlene and Aisha.
Daimon could understand Thea and Aisha not trying to meditate, Thea was too strong and she didn't want to use the mana converted, it was better to leave it for Bell, Aisha just advanced a lot and she needed to get used to her new power, but Daimon didn't understand why Marlene didn't meditate, she was still stuck at the peak of the Lord rank after all.
That reminded him the way she looked at him before, because she had the same expression now, she clearly wanted to say something, but was hesitating to do so, so Daimon inwardly shrugged and then focused on his own thing.
He looked into the inventory where that purple flower was, naturally the poison couldn't leak out of the inventory, but at the same time he couldn't do anything but look at it, though as an Apex Predator there is nothing he can't devour, that only means he won't get any negative effect from them, for example he could drink poison to improve his own poison affinity.
But there is a limit to the rank of treasures he can consume, otherwise he would have just eaten a ton of Half Emperor materials, but even for him that would be too much a cheat, currently the Arch rank was his limit, more than that and his body will most likely not be able to hold out.
'There is still a way but a day is not enough, I guess I'll have to save it for later', thought Daimon, the other method was using his infinity eyes to try and see if he could trigger the creation of a new spatial skill, but that was going to be a headache, both literally and figuratively and he couldn't risk passing out for more than half a day, since the Elemental Sea was closer to the Bone Sea than to the Mermen Sea.
So, they should arrive at their destination by midday at most, of course it was thanks to Aurora not caring about the amount of mana crystals needed to operate the Flying Citadel at full speed, which made it move on par with a Maximum Stellar ranked who could use Space Shift.
Daimon came out of his daze when he saw the door of the room opening, he expected Jasmine to return, because he wanted to ask if she felt something different, the fact that the trust level reached 60%, affected the oath and the tittle he got from fulfilling his side.
But at the same time, it was related to the innate ability of Jasmine, which so far hadn't manifested, despite the fact that those white halos sometimes appeared on her pupils, similar to when he used the Ruler of the Sea.
Unfortunately for Daimon, Jasmine didn't appear alone, the pair of purple haired mother and daughter were with her and judging by the fact that Sarah was smiling from ear to ear, it was bad news for him.
"Aunt Bell and Sarah wanted to stay with us, I hope you don't mind", said Jasmine, most of the girls were okay with it, the Risha sisters and Cassy were the only ones that glared at Sarah, but Jasmine had prepared to convince them beforehand.
"Aunt promised to keep an eye on Sarah, so don't fight with her, okay?", Cassy sighed, it was hard for her to just accept the crazy girl so fast, but that was Jasmine's wish so she didn't say anything.
The Risha sisters looked unconvinced but seeing Aisha nod at them, they could only silently accept the crazy girl staying with them, as for Daimon he gave his mother an aggrieved gaze.
'You know that she isn't playing around right, if I didn't dodge, she would stick to me like caramel, I'm pretty sure she was going to jump into our bed earlier if not for Yvi and the others surveilling her', he said through the mental connection.
But Aisha simply giggled while she leisurely laid down on the bed before saying.
'It's so rare to see something you can't handle, so why not keep her around, besides though she might like if you attack her, I don't think the same applies to others, so if she tries to cross the line I can give her a nice beating, don't worry I'll protect your "innocence" darling~'.
Aisha's playful voice made Daimon's eyebrow twitch a couple of times, his mother was letting that crazy girl stay just to tease him.
'Ah, whatever, I need to see how her mana circuits and her physiology in general work under the curse if I want to cure her anyway', thought Daimon.
He then observed the pair of mother and daughter, there was a difference between when they left earlier to now, and that is the fact that they changed to much more comfortable clothes.
Bell usually wears light armor over a purple attire that doesn't limit her movement, maybe because she is a knight but she is rather tall being on par with Liz, just a dozen of centimeters shorter compared to Erin, she has long light purple hair which she combs in a single braid that reaches all the way down to her thighs, her eyes are of a similar bright purple color, besides that her most distinctive characteristic is that she has a mole below her right eye, as for her current clothes she is wearing a short black skirt and a black turtleneck long sleeved blouse, as well as black stockings, besides her hands and her head, everything else was practically covered.
Of course, Daimon knew why as he has seen how those purple marks cover her back and her sides.
In comparison Sarah is much more relaxed, despite the fact that she also has some purple marks on her back too, unlike her mother both her hair and eyes are of a darker tone of purple, she has straight waist-length hair with pretty bangs that almost cover her face if she moves too much as she doesn't tie it, as for her attire she was wearing a short single piece shoulder less white dress with a black belt and a black necklace.
The Risha siters gazed at her with slightly hostile gazes, Leslie especially, since Sarah's figure was… well-developed, which is normal as she is 24 years old being the older here among the girls from the young generation here.
'I have to hurry and give mom the furnace', thought the girl from the fire crane clan.
Sarah earlier noticed Daimon's gaze on her, and her eyes slightly glowed as she gazed back at him, if it wasn't for Jasmine she could have jumped onto Daimon on the spot.
…
The hours passed pretty fast, besides Daimon bringing Jasmine with him to see if they could find something new about the citadel, nothing else happened, besides Sara trying to sneak on them after she escaped from the main residence, just to be dragged back by her mother.
They soon passed the limit between the Elemental Sea and the Bone Sea, the reason as to why it was called Bone Sea, was because first of all, the water had dark blue color, which made a high contrast with the now dirty yellow-colored bones that raise from below of the surface.
As the name states, the Bone Sea was called like that because there were countless of bones from magic beast at its bottom layer, one would think that it would be detrimental for the environment, but surprisingly it isn't.
For some reason many magic beasts come to this sea when their lives are about to end, be it of age or because of a wound, they die in the waters of the Bone Sea and their bones add up to the many that lay below the surface, or if the beast was too large and that area was too shallow, then they can be seen like the ones Daimon and the girls could see right now.
As to the reason of why it isn't detrimental, is because there is a native species of fish that takes care of cleaning both the corpses and the water, keeping everything in perfect condition, the Skelefiends use the bones to make magic weapons and other equipment, like the ship of Horrorclaw which was created using the bones of strong magic beasts.
The number of bones also diminish because there are magic beasts that eat them too, it was rather interesting as if it was meant to be this way, like natural cemetery.
Besides that, the biggest change Daimon noticed between the atmosphere of the Elemental Sea and the Bone Sea, was that dark, poison and earth mana were more abundant while light, fire and lightning are less present here.
"Young master, I feel rather comfortable in this atmosphere, I think that if I can cultivate here for a couple of days along with the resources young master kindly granted me, it will be beneficial for me", respectfully said Horals who came out of a green flame portal.
"Beneficial, you mean you will enter the Half Emperor realm?", asked Daimon, it's not like he didn't want the Bone General to advance, but he would rather tell him to not become an incomplete knight, like most in Neptune, even Sarah who was a genius didn't have Will Manipulation, meaning she still lacked a bit compared to the knights back at the four galaxies.
It was a strange division which Daimon had yet to understand in what consisted, Purplehaze managed to obtain a Manifestation Phenomenon, but it was an inferior version obtained thanks to a treasure he absorbed, and since he had obtained, he will stay with that forever, essentially, he screwed himself over because he rushed things, probably because he wanted to defeat Adam to get Abaris to arrange him a marriage with Jasmine.
Surprisingly Horals shook his head in response.
"No, I feel I have still a large way to go before I can become a Half Emperor, but my instincts tell me, I will obtain something useful", honestly said Horals.
Daimon then nodded.
"Okay, if that's the case, I'll ask Shirel's father to arrange a place for you to train, that is, if he joins the alliance of course".
"Thanks to young master for his consideration", having said that Horals returned to guard the entrance to Shirel's room, he was tasked to watch over her, in case she tried to escape now that they were at the Bone Sea.
The Flying Citadel flew high into the sky past the clouds so it wasn't detected, since it didn't have concealing arrays and new arrays couldn't be engraved on it, the barrier had the capacity to reflect light, so it had camouflage, but it was just an optic illusion, similar to Aurora's spell, it only hid them from being seen, but their presence was still there and it could be detected.
That was the major flaw of the Flying Citadel, it couldn't be used for sneak attacks, but for upfront battles, that's why they asked Shirel's father to prepare a place for their arrival.
The girls came from the main residence and gathered near Daimon at the rooftop of the main residence, there was a large mass of land ahead of them, that was one of the border territories of the Skalia continent.
"We'll fly from here, are you sure you can keep the citadel in your spatial treasure?", asked Aurora who arrived next to Daimon and the others, with Shirel being restrained by a white sphere of mana.
Daimon nodded, which made Aurora's eyes glow, the citadel was massive, though there were specially made rings that would have enough space to contain it, the citadel couldn't be stored inside of them, the previous Matriarchs of the Light Palace tried it and the rings were destroyed on the spot.
After Aurora saw Daimon casually keeping the Purple Devilish Laurel which is also known to destroy storage rings, she asked if Daimon's treasure might be able to store the citadel and to her surprise, he said that there was no problem.
And now it was time for the truth, they gathered at one of the exterior areas of the citadel and after Aurora created a barrier around them with her mana, Daimon wished it and the huge citadel was absorbed into the inventory.
The inventory was fundamentally different to a storage ring, according to Narasha and Horals who were only sentient entities that could be enter in the inventory, each slot was like a separated world.
If that wasn't the case Daimon would have never kept Disaster in the inventory, because he wouldn't bear to put Narasha into a dark close space, she had space to move, in a sense each slot was like the space of a beast pouch, there was even a basic landscape according to them.
Daimon looked at his inventory and saw a miniature of the citadel in one of the previously free slots, before he nodded at Aurora to assure her everything was fine.
Needless to say, but Aurora was positively surprised, Daimon made up for one of the biggest flaws of the Flying Citadel, she looked at Jasmine who was also surprised and smiled at her, which made the light princess lower her gaze as if she was embarrassed to directly see her grandmother to the eyes.
'Sigh, that little girl is too shy, I should have a talk with her because… I don't think she should be so passive', thought Aurora as she looked at the numerous girls that were present right now, especially at Sarah whose intentions were clear for everyone.
