After a week of assorted jobs and messing around with dragon materials, Aki was once again done with his quests, but unwilling to hand it up.

Instead of three rare grade artifacts, he had already produced ten epic grade ones, and yet he was not yet at his arbitrary goal of 27 (Working until he reached 3 elevated to the power of nine was just not worth it at the moment).

Attempts at obtaining good rewards aside, he could feel himself growing stronger. With the consolidation of so many aspects of his Path, it was simply not possible to measure his improvements on his talents or skills anymore. Although it was still small at this point, that was pretty much the whole point of it, slowly increasing his every action to the next level through interconnectivity and synergy that continuously cascaded into benefits he could use.

Like having these snippets of thought about being a better father figure despite being so 'young at heart'. Once again, the answer was the one any basic bitch would tell you.

Give her some responsibility she felt was important and be there for her when she fails while actually preparing for her success.

It wasn't that he didn't want to see things go well with the humans of the kingdom (which was apparently an empire as well, but he'd spent too long missremenbering that to change the way he referred to them) but neither he nor any of the royals could go to this town due to the great time commitment and the risk of being too juicy a target. Were it not for an adequate candidate presenting itself, they'd actually have no way of putting up all of that stuff to any effect.

Asa was pretty much unknown to everyone and held no particular position while still being a badass assassin with great training and an arsenal or items nearing the peak of offense and defense of the realm, her rich backer also making sure she had several redundant storage pouches, artifacts and supplies on all of them. Plus raw money to throw away or invest as she saw fit.

While his recent upgrades had allowed him to not need to dedicate too much time to learning the specific blueprint, he could still not make storage artifacts with time dilation or time freezing effects despite knowing the theory to a couple of ways of doing it though, so these supplies were mostly non-perishables and stocked from several cities through the empire.

Still, this did not mean that his emotionally stunted kid had developed realpolitik instincts during her tenure as a spy due to osmosis or some magic though, and things could go wrong in an infinitude of ways over this project as even with the best efforts of the two sides, there would still be far too long a history of animosity between humans and demon-kin, and tension would be high due to an infinitude of small problems even when using professionals capable of setting aside any small preconception they may have, something that was too fantastical for anyone to even consider as a real possibility.

He did, however, try to be supportive.

"And remember, worst comes to worst, I'll dust the mortals, curse the deities, set the planet core to explode and we leave for the stars in search of a better place." He said with a smile, very much so not happy with the chances he could provide her, but hoping that the chance to work and some space from his constant attention would do good for her psyche.

Perhaps she'd even ask for his help or opinion if he showed he was there for her when the problems started to mount up.

……………………

Asa could not, under any hypothetical circumstance, fail at her given task.

After half a month of ungodly training that left her always one step away from collapse, she had grown in prowess like she was a kid learning her first techniques again. In all of this time, she had slept twice only. Despite her mind always feeling refreshed after healing, it simply did not feel right to just keep going like this, but she did not dare raise trouble with her master's healing.

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He had, after all, managed to teach a talentless teen to use magic, showered her with personal attention and a never ending stream of resources.

Asa, despite the recent change in name and circumstances, was not used to being so useless. If she failed to repay such investment, she did not fear what punishment may come, but if she would be able to life with herself.

Nevermind the high chance that her master would indeed follow through with his ridiculously over the top threat of destroying the world, leaving her as the sole living responsible for the death of every single one of the countless people of… Oh, she was not ok with that notion.

‘That’s new, but i have no idea how that could be good.’ She thought, lengthening her hair and turning it into an even deeper shade of brown, her black eyes already exaggerated enough she felt confident she would not be underestimated or insulted for looking too simple.

Slowly flexing her clawed, gauntlet covered fingers as she took deep breaths, Asa forced her heart to slow and her breath to regularize. Soon, she'd leave to meet the people of the expedition, mainly it's leaders, and she needed to show composure and dominance, or this whole affair was doomed before it could go off.

Looking at the tall young woman with sharp features in the mirror, she could not help but once again question what the smooth carapace now coating her could possibly be made off or how it had possibly been crafted, the smooth, flexible and sturdy thing fitting to her body but comfortable like a new set of pajamas.

Despite his nonchalance at her presence during his use of rare and expensive resources being melded by fantastical techniques that boggled the mind, Aki had directly prohibited her from observing the procedure of creating her armaments and refused to stop midway like he had done several times before when she unknowingly checked in on him during his crafting. Something that happened an unfortunate lot since he always used the same room for everything and didn’t stick to any obvious schedule.

When he had soon after presented her with a skin tight set of what seemed to be chitin armor, which was somehow capable of turning seamless after being equipped, she soon found out, Asa had at first thought that she was being punished. Though the armor's weight would not actually slow her down too much, it did restrain her shapeshifting abilities almost completely.

Seemingly reading her mind, Aki had chuckled while explaining the 'thing's actual function.

And once again she questioned it's make, before shaking her head, increasing her height a few more centimeters and walking out of her room, putting her helmet on by simply putting it on her head and coursing some mana through the place of connection.

To all those not used to her generally grim figure, she might as well have been an invader in the royal palace, but with the insignia holding her provisory purple cape to her armor denoting her as a royal representative, which allowed her an easy if tense time getting to the front entrance, where a fortified black carriage awaited her, two war bicorns pulling the heavy thing.

Honestly, even for someone so used to playing different characters, it was hard to not be embarrassed and grimace at the whole 'Dark knight' narrative. Despite having her features besides her eyes completely covered however, she maintained a slack facial expression so as to not get into the habit of being so defenseless, something that had been rather hard to do as of late as her father had become quite the disruptive element in her life while in the castle.

Now, however, he had gone ahead to physically liberate the forested area they were going to cross and colonize. By himself.

Maybe she'd have doubted it possible or worried for his safety were this not already the second time he'd done such a thing, the dragon nest area she'd previously been stationed in a veritable desert with almost no life bigger than a rabbit remaining anywhere close to imperial settlements.

Despite her numerous prohibitions on what she could do to ensure the settlement and it's mission's prosperity, with a figure like that backing her, this was perhaps indeed not an impossible mission.

So it was riding on a surprisingly comfortable carriage, with resolution burning in her eyes, that she reached the colonist departure camp. Her weight combined with the armor was enough that the carriage lurched a bit when she stepped out, and the gazes of all those waiting for her turned to show fear even if only for a moment.

At first she was slightly disappointed at the ease of creating such an impact from her first impression, but was quick to throw such a notion away as every extra bit of control over these people would be useful in the long run. ‘If a ruler must choose, then they should always take fear over love, administering it brutally and quickly so it is remembered far and wide.’

“This will have to do.” Said a sultry voice from inside her helmet, which she could just barely recognize intellectually as her own. Other people seemed much more scared by it however.

Now she just had to do the same thing onto the human side of things and firm a mutual destruction pact with whatever representative came to be her counterpart.