Research Breakthrough and a Letter.

= Master, we have a breakthrough in artificial ring creation. I believe we can attempt the creation of one now.

"I'm sorry, urgent matters." - Aiden suddenly went away to a secluded place he found for his meditations, making all, except Dai Mubai and the two troublemaking seniors Oscar and Ma Hongjun who just arrived and drooled at beauties, perplexed. No, there is one more who just smiled slightly.

While behind the Shrek academy, he sat cross-legged.

"So, what is this all about?"

= Master, do you remember we once talked about the creation of rings and the process got stuck at the point of receiving three fundamental powers? Back then after retrieving the crucible from the demon I already have a way to create a ring, but it required energy from another ring as a sacrifice so to some extent it was like exchanging life for life. With your thoughts of preserving spirit beasts using artificial rings, it makes little sense, so I continued research in a different direction.

= After scanning the evolution process of your Tree of Life and its fourth ability, I came to understand much about the life force and the evolution of martial spirits. And that made me think of one possibility. As you remember, the creation of a ring requires three energies. Spirit power that mainly defines the age of the ring, soul power that with high concentration can even create an intelligent ring and finally life power, that will make ring whole and alive, not some ghostly object you can't use. And the crucial problem came with a life force that is impossible to create artificially. It has as many varieties as there are unique kinds of creatures.

Aiden frowned a bit and his thought went astray, giving birth to some ideas.

"Wait, am right to say that problem of compatibility between a ring and martial spirit lay in a kind of life force both have? So essentially any ring can go with any spirit as long as a life force signature doesn't clash with the one spirit have? That is already a significant fact to know, Nexus. In that case, how do we do this?"

= Remember, I said I had a breakthrough while looking at your Tree of Life evolution? The point is, I found amazing property about the power your fourth ring has. It can produce life force from spirit power and even make it the one suitable for all! The thing is your Tree of Life is compatible with any spirit ring and every time we got the ring it changed life force signature of it to become the same as your own. Not only Horont and Krondan helped in absorption, but Tree of Life at adaptation, that is why you can use skills like they are your own instead of the ones coming from rings and that is also the reason your skills are so flexible to changes that your mind enforced on them.

"Am I right to think, that the cornerstone of the creation of artificial ring lays within Tree of Life."

= Correct. Its ability to create the origin of all life force is a crucial thing here. For that, I devised a simple sealing formation. You can try to pour your spirit power into Tree of Life, invoke the fourth ring and inject resulting life force into it. We can use it as a core to give birth to artificial rings, and we can even distribute them. Also, with so many scans I can now easily create any purple and bellow rings with skills to your liking, as for above... sorry, for that you need more scans. Well, what I'm saying here is that even if we can produce artificial spirit rings, you will benefit anyway, after all, we can age rings. Another exceptional thing is we can use artificial rings as fuel for aging process, however the output will be really inefficient. It is better to hunt demons.

"I understand. It is more than enough. From the very start, many of these research programs don't have current time use. I made them for the future generations. As for aging... I already went to the peak of my current capability to withstand spirit rings age. I'm nearing 40000 years for four rings and feel that with my current marks I can't go on. I will hardly even able to inject the yellow fifth ring, let alone the black one as it should be." - Aiden thought lightly of this. Actually, his current priority was to enhance the body realm. Albeit his breakthrough to 50 will elevate the problem, he can't be sure, otherwise, he will be forced to have a very normal if not degraded fifth ring. - "Oh, that is about normal rings, right? What about the ones with double colors like my platinum-purple ones?"

= The other color is actually a tinge of divinity within. Currently, I'm incapable to scan it.

"Divinity?" - Aiden was shaken for quite a while.

= Correct, if aged up to million years, these rings can create your own divinity in the system of this world. Well, not like you need it with proper immortal methods.

Aiden nodded.

At that moment, something unexpected happened. He has a visitor he didn't think will come.

It was a girl.

* * *

Ning Rong Rong was proud of being the number one genius of Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan. Her achievements for her age were very good, to say the least. However, when she came to Shrek she was utterly lost and completely defeated.

She thought everyone should protect her while she uses her spirit, but when they fought HIM they all were hopeless. And among all, he disregarded her thoroughly. He didn't care for her skills and simply overpowered all. No matter how arrogant she was, Ning Rong Rong wasn't stupid.

However, she still hated being ordered around and be like a doll for others to play with.

Gritting her pearl white teeth she made her way to his place but found only Oscar there, who was downcast finding she was looking for Aiden. Still, he escorted her to the back of the academy where Aiden usually trained. The duo arrived to see him sitting under the tree in thought.

"Hey, Aiden, I brought a visitor for you." - unlike Dai Mubai who had some reservations in front of Aiden, Oscar and Ma Hongjun were totally different. Let alone Oscar who after living in the same room for half a year grew very close to him. Even Ma Hongjun being saved from the evil fire felt close friendship.

Actually, it went both ways. Aiden felt very close ties with all three including Dai Mubai, who although have some misgivings at fighting Aiden in a spar because the latter never held back his punches with him, he still recognized Aiden as a brother.

"Oh, then come inside, let's have something to eat." - at that Oscar's eyes lit up. If he exalted Aiden in power and cultivation, what truly won him over was his godlike cooking skills.

"Hehe, bro, your cooking is amazing, I will be an idiot to turn it down!" - he said and walked over to the field of flowers and a pond.

"Am I welcomed?" - Ning Rong Rong stood at the place and looked around, finding it quite nice.

"Take a seat." - Aiden showed them direction with a hand. There, under the cover of tree corona, stood a table with several chairs.

"So, why do you want to see me?" - after some time they all sat together with dishes.

"I don't really want to see you." - the girl huffed with displeasing but still took out a letter.

Aiden received it while reading and was perplexed. Why now? It's being several years already since he gave them information and they took care of it only now?

"Let me tell you, I don't agree with this!" - Rong Rong complained aloud.

"Agree to what?" - Aiden nearly fainted from misunderstanding. He can't wrap around his mind what is going on inside her head.

"This... this..." - she suddenly went red and stood up. - "Just know one thing, I will never marry you!"

Oscar who developed a one-sided crush on her the moment he saw Rong Rong was immediately dejected. This letter from her clan seems to be about their engagement.

"Fine with me." - Aiden shrugged with no feelings at all. - "I'm not in the mood for jokes, so if that's it, you can leave."

"You!" - when was an heiress of Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan ever treated that way? Rong Rong stomped her foot in exasperation and went away.

"Oscar." - Aiden looked at his friend. - "It is a business letter, not some marriage proposal. This miss here has some misunderstanding. Help her out, please."

One should see his face light up like a Christmas tree.

'Well, go for it, buddy.'

Unbeknown to trio there was another visitor. A girl, standing at the far reaches of the valley with a hurt expression. She only heard Rong Rong scream, but nothing else. She sighed and was about to leave when Oscar passed her and stopped.

"Sister Bing'er, you better not go right now. Aiden really doesn't like it when someone disturbing him while he is playing the zither."

"Playing the zither? Why?" - Shui Bing'er was half perplexed, half expectant at the answer.

"Well..." - Oscar knew many things about Aiden, but not as much as the snow beauty in front of him. However, the latter knew only what Na'er saw, and not what happened to him throughout these years. - "Let's say he is not free if you know what I mean."

"Well, Rong Rong is his fiancée." - she said, but it meant to be a probe.

"No, no... it was a misunderstanding. She brought him a letter, but it was apparently a business one." - said Oscar all the happier to spread the news. - "You actually can listen, but don't disturb him. Dai Mubai once did and received one hell of a beating. Back then he wanted to ask Aiden for routing in Hundred Flowers House. He thought Aiden will like it as he never saw him with any girl, but made him completely enraged instead, hehe. It was a nice show to watch." - Oscar even posed showing some moves and flexing muscles.

Bing'er covered her lips with a palm to hide an amused smile.

"Oh." - Shui Bing'er thought about it and decided to go. She felt nothing about some random Dai Mubai going to the brothel but freed some time in her schedule to give him a beating after hearing that he actually wanted to push Aiden on corrupt ways.

Although Shui Bing'er was a graceful and mild person, she somehow developed a bit of wildness from Na'er memories when it comes to her one and only beloved man.

She looked at the distant figure of a young man and couldn't help herself.