CHAPTER 89: SETTLED

When the couple awoke the next morning, everything went against Night's expectations. Lili seemed to be excited about the evening she spent with the Keres. But, he couldn't fully understand why she was excited until she explained more about the Truth of Emotions.

Per Lili's explanation, the Truth of Emotion was an unique truth that included both elemental and soul components.....but leaned heavily toward the soul components but each emotion was coupled with some aspect of element. The six concepts of Emotion were Lust, Joy, Love, Fear, Hate, and Sadness. Although Succubi had a natural propensity to Lust, they weren't entirely focused on sex. In order to advance, they needed to focus on the other emotion concepts too. Succubi usually cultivated these emotions in an assortment of ways but heavily relied on their natural ability to enter the dreams of men. Since she had already broke through in the concepts of Lust and Joy, Lili would need to focus on some of the other emotions now. After hanging out all night with the Keres, she realized that training with Night's sisters could really help her cultivate in Fear.

After listening to Lili excitedly explain the situation, Night thought the new comradeship between the Keres and Lili was slightly unsettling. They even had wanted to set aside a day of the week aside to cultivate together. But at least they were striking fear into men instead of giving them wet dreams. Night could deal with the difference, but he had a little hesitation. How was she going to cultivate the Concept of Love using her usual method in the future?

With that concern tucked away in his head, Night probably wouldn't have been too happy if he hadn't discovered the other gift Nox had given him. His control over the soul mark wasn't the only modification that Nox had done. When the group of women had all started their cultivation in the men's dreams, Night could feel a steady stream of soul energy coming into his own soul from the Keres as usual. But now, he could also feel that small stream from Lili as well. The mate soul mark functioned exactly like the Keres links to Night's soul....but Lili was still a living demon and got her power from her own type of cultivation.....instead of tormenting souls and consuming blood.

Night would also see benefit to his own cultivation when Lili was taking soul energy.....just like with the Keres. It was another passive way for him to gain strength and Night was very happy of the outcome. The only issue was that the women have to work a little harder because he was always getting his share of the soul energy.

Regardless of Night's cut of the taken energy, the evening was a very beneficial for both Lili and the Keres. From the absorption of soul energy from the dozen Level 5 Demigods, the four women had all stepped forward a level in strength. Lili was now a Level 2 Demigod of Emotion with formation of the Lust and Joy concepts. This type of rapid progress was practically unheard of for a succubus. Also, the three Keres each increased their strength by a level, so Misery's strength was equal to a Level 3 Demigod, Grief strength grew to a Level 2 Demigod, and Distress was currently undergoing the breakthrough to a Level 1 Demigod.

There was a lot of good discussion that morning, but the couple was interrupted by a notice from guards that their time in the cultivation chamber was over. Apparently, Lili and the Keres had gotten an little overzealous the night before and caused "irreparable damage" to some of the men in the cultivation chamber.

Despite the lack of an official clan response, the whole affair had actually caused a commotion among the Limim Clan leaders behind the scenes. The Limim Clan leaders sobered to the fact that Night was at least an equal Mate with Lilith. Because of the cultivation chamber experience, the clan leaders also drew the conclusion the newest addition to the clan..... could draw power from tormenting people in their dreams.....and had several minions that helped to carry out the task.

The thought was startling for some of the clan leaders and they wanted to restrict Night's power in the clan with immediate sanctions immediately. However... regardless of the risk.....Countess Asta and Lili's father seemed to be quite happy about the strength of their daughter's Mate. Lili's father had almost hurt himself in laughter because the men used for the Countesses' cultivation were put in such horrible shape. The Countess wasn't that happy, but she did recognize that this relationship was good for her daughter.

So after some debate, the only action taken was to have the couple escorted from the premises under guard...until the clan leaders could further investigate Night and his strength.

So..... Night and Lili were promptly escorted from the Countess' cultivation chambers by a group of guards. Although the guards had informed them of the trouble that was caused, no one had really reprimanded them and the pair was sent on their way out of the Countess' palace.

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After leaving the palace, Night convinced Lili to run a few errands with him before going home. Since he didn't get to make his run for it the previous day. Night brought Lili with him to pickup his goods from the blacksmith.

Despite the gritty conditions of blacksmith workshop, Lili had agreed to go since she didn't want to leave Night's side. The pair stood out in the front of the storefront waiting for the items to be brought from the shop. Night could tell that the shop attendant was slightly nervous.

'Guess he didn't know that I was associated with the Limim Clan,' Night thought as he realized that it was Lili's appearance that had caused the reaction.

After a few minutes, the old man, Bal Sabnock, showed up holding a beautifully crafted pair of gauntlets. Night immediately picked up the pair when the blacksmith sat them down in front of him. He slipped them on without much trouble and the fit was wonderful. The blacksmith proceeded to tell him that these gauntlets were made from the extremely lightweight silver mithril and should allow for maximum protection while not reducing speed during fighting.

"What do you think?," Night asked Lili while punching around to get a feel for the armored gloves.

"I guess they are okay. What do you need gloves for?," Lili said seemingly uninterested.

"I fight mostly with knives. So I needed some hand protection. You don't want me to end up with more missing fingers do you?," Night asked jokingly.

"Of course not, I don't mind the scars but please try not to lose anymore pieces of yourself," Lili responded with a bit of a scold.

While the blacksmith watched, Night fiddled with the gauntlets a bit more. The gauntlet on his left hand actually looked whole despite his missing fingers. This feature had been one of Night's ideas in the design. He could use the two hollow fingers to hold Grief and Distress' blood stones against the exposed flesh of his fingertips. With a flex of his wrist, the two blood stones would fall out and allow the two women to join a battle.

Night was very pleased and thanked the blacksmith before leaving.

After they left the blacksmith shop, Night wasn't done with his errands. He still needed to pickup his special order item from the jeweler.

Night was really excited about this one so much so that Lili even noticed his excitement when riding in the carriage.

"What is it that we are picking up that has you so excited?," Lili asked.

"A new fake eye!," Night said, "I had a piece of darkness gem that they crafted into a fake eye for me, so now instead of having this useless rock in my face, I have something that can increase my battle strength by about 2 times when using darkness concepts. It also looks nicer too!"

Now, Lili even seemed to be excited about going to the jewelers and it wasn't long before they arrived.

Night and Lili quickly went inside to get his custom item and soon he had a jet black eye with a red pupil in place. It looked very intimidating...and very expensive....and Lili loved it.

As the couple were in the process of picking up the new eye, Night noticed a set of rings in the display case of the jeweler's shop.

"Sir, what are those two rings?," Night asked the jeweler.

"Oh....those are matching set of communication stone rings. Although there were only two in the set, they are extremely high quality," the jeweler said seemingly proud of his work.

"Neat.....how far can they communicate?," Night asked with some interest.

"About 50 miles for the regular user," the jeweler said, "but if the users have strong souls, then it may reach higher."

"Great. Do you accept trades?," Night said as he pulled his two remaining fist sized gold mithril ores out of his storage ring.

"Gold Mithril!," the jeweler said excitedly, "Yes, sir. We can work out a trade. Those rings are only two thirds the value of the ores, so pick something else from this case if you want."

After looking over the goods, Night grabbed another small storage stone ring and put it on his finger. He knew he couldn't have too much storage space.

After getting out of the store, Night and Lili decided to go back to Lili's house. As they were riding, Night pulled the pair of rings out of his pocket. He grabbed Lili's hand and slipped the smaller of the two on the ring finger of her left hand.

"What are you doing?," she asked Night.

"Well in my culture. The man and woman wear rings on their fingers like this," Night said while sliding the other ring on his finger to match her ring.

"It is a symbol that we are a mates," Night said, "....and also since they are strong communication stones.....it will give us a way to talk to each other when we are apart."

Although she didn't quite get Night's sentiment, Lili really liked the gesture of a gift.

Once the couple returned to the house, they went into seclusion together for some time.

Eventually, the couple's escapades were disturbed with a notice from the Countess. Since Lili had broken through to a Level 2 Demigod of Emotion and had selected a very strong mate. Her status had skyrocketed in the Limim Clan. Night was also given a high status in the Limim Clan due to his strength. The two were assigned a new home only one level lower than the high officials in the palace. Lili was very happy because her status increased in the clan.

A few weeks after moving homes, everything in Night's perspective took a shift and his life started to settle down. It wasn't long ago that he was a Foundation Stage slave with no real hope of surviving on this new planet. Now, he was a Level 6 Demigod that had a high position in the ruling clan of a capital city. How could he not have a shift in perspective? His quality of life was much better now. He had a sexy woman that was completely infatuated with him. He had a nice house in the city. He had resources to train himself. And he had access to knowledge that he didn't have before.

After considering his options, Night decided to say in the demon city for the foreseeable future. As a Level 6 Demigod, he could expect to live for thousands of years. He figured that he had a lot of time to accomplish his goals and didn't feel any particular rush to accomplish anything....despite his lingering desire to get revenge on the Diego Family.

Even though he was getting settled into a relaxed life, Night had made it his focus to keep increasing his own strength and knowledge. He had learned a lesson on being complacent and overconfident. Night began to regularly train his knife skills. He sent out the Keres to gather intelligence and to cultivate themselves. And taking a cue from the Succubi, Night started feasting on the fear and pain of people's dreams to grow his strength.....because even though he now had a peaceful way of life..... Night had a foreboding that this peace wouldn't last forever.