Chapter 41

Aurora called the man who had offered her a position in his movie shortly after learning of her pregnancy. Filming would supposedly begin next year, which was half a year from now. By then, she would be visibly pregnant, which might impede her role, so it was best to get that conversation out of the way as soon as possible.

Luckily, it turned out her character would get pregnant in the movie, so they would just film those parts first. They did have to make some changes in the schedule, though, as by January, Aurora would be around seven months pregnant and likely have a very big belly. Instead, they chose to film a few scenes with Aurora earlier.

In October, she would return home to her family for the rest of the year, so she would have to fly out once a month. That would allow them to film the progress of her pregnancy quite well.

Aurora was worried that the director would be annoyed by her troublesome pregnancy, but in the end, he was ecstatic by the news. It was once more a case of directors wanting as much realism as possible. If his actress was actually pregnant, he would gladly change things around so he could make the pregnancy fit into the character's arc.

On the other hand, if Aurora's character wasn't supposed to get pregnant in the movie, she might have lost the gig, so it was a lucky break.

With that done, Aurora had nothing left to do but train in peace. Even if she wanted to go on another mission, as many disciples did when the first one was finished so fast, she couldn't. It was again a matter of her pregnancy.

Getting forced into the breeding program really was a punishment, even if you didn't have to take care of your child. Being pregnant meant you were banned from not just the tournament but also going on missions, and sparring had to be done with care. If she miscarried after getting injured in a match, she'd probably end up in confinement again. At least since her pregnancy was due to the breeding program.

Aurora still kept up her sparring matches with Koren, but it wasn't quite as energetic as before. Being the child's father, Koren was also way more worried about Aurora's well-being. The only reason he agreed to still fight with her was because Aurora dangled sex over him. No sparring, no sex.

Still, he refused to hit her on her torso, only aiming for the limbs or face. Aurora didn't care in the slightest, though, taking full advantage of Koren's self-imposed handicap.

Aurora received a decently large portion of contribution points for completing the mission. Even though the mission had resulted in six deaths for an allied sect, Aurora and her friends got their rewards in full.

Aurora needed two things now. The first was a new ranged attack for her sword. She only practiced the Streamline Sword because it was cheap and she needed something of that sort, but couldn't afford anything better.

Now, however, she had the contribution points she'd got from her promotion and the mission, making her contribution wallet thicker than ever.

The second thing she needed was a movement technique. She hadn't thought she needed one before, as her Ten Limbed Warrior technique boosted her physical capabilities, allowing her to move faster than normal by explosively kicking at surfaces.

However, both elders Kiera and Han had urged her to get a good movement technique. Her fight with Laurey had also strengthened her resolve to finally learn one. The man had practiced a movement technique that had drawn out her battle with him.

Only the problem with movement techniques was that they were notoriously hard to learn and expensive if you wanted a good one. Aurora had some confidence, though, when it came to learning complex techniques. The Ten Limbed Warrior technique was the best hand-to-hand martial art that the Northpeak sect possessed. It was only available to inner disciples and better. Of course, the sect had better techniques for the sword, but only a few practiced hand-to-hand combat, so there were fewer techniques for it.

Aurora had gotten no small amount of praise for her mastery of the technique. Thanks to it, it was even believed that she would become a core disciple within a few years. Now that she was at the Blossoming Rose sect, she was unsure how long it would take to become a core disciple.

Here, being at the Condensing stage was almost a requirement to qualify as a core disciple, but Aurora had no confidence she could reach that stage within the next couple of years. She wasn't a super genius like Koren, who could manage it so easily.

Sure, she believed she could reach the tenth level within a year, but passing the final bridge to the Condensing stage was a much more difficult task. She had yet to even get the level of understanding to break through to the ninth level, much less the tenth.

Aurora entered the library and went right up to the second floor, where the techniques for inner disciples were located. This place housed techniques on the same level as her Ten Limbed Warrior technique, only there were a much higher number of them than at Northpeak.

Aurora spent a good while perusing the sword techniques before moving on to the movement techniques. In the end, she practically emptied her contribution account.

She chose a sword technique called the Star Slash technique. It was an energy technique like the Streamline Sword, just far more advanced and powerful. It was a challenging technique to learn, but Aurora would be much stronger if she could grasp it.

It created a white energy sword slash just like the Streamline sword, except it was much faster, and the attack was much bigger. The downside was the enormous energy cost. It was more on the line with an ultimate attack that she could only use a couple of times before being drained.

Much like the mysterious technique Koren used, just not nearly as powerful. And Koren was finished after using it only once.

The movement technique was fairly straightforward. It drastically increased her speed, allowing Aurora to close the distance to her enemies extremely fast, which was a good thing since she was a close-quarters fighter.

It was good because it gave her a continuous boost to her speed instead of just allowing Aurora to move insanely fast in very short bursts, like that one opponent in the tournament had done. Techniques like that were too predictable.

Instead, with a sustained technique, Aurora could still take advantage of her great agility and flexibility. The technique's name was Speed Infusion, simply enough.

With these two techniques added to her arsenal, Aurora's style would be to rapidly charge her opponents and battle them with her usual erratic style. Then, should she find an opening, she would blast them to oblivion with a Star Slash.

Star Slash's power was to the point where Aurora could probably level a small building with it, should she actually manage to learn it. It was one of those very powerful but extremely difficult-to-learn techniques, but Aurora was fully confident in herself.

As the days passed, Aurora trained almost every day with elders Kiera and Han, focusing on those two new techniques. Elder Han had learned the sword technique stupidly fast and even showed Aurora several methods to counter it. Grasping the sword technique was slow, but the movement technique progressed much quicker. After about one month, she had fully mastered the first level of the technique. Roughly a month and a half after that, Aurora just barely managed to reach the first level of the Star Slash technique.

The first time she used it, it filled her with such a sense of power that she felt invincible. But her mastery of the technique was so low that she could only use it twice. She wasn't left helpless or anything, but her energy reserves couldn't manage a third Star Slash. She could still fight with her other techniques, though.

Aurora felt confident enough now that she could defeat even a tenth-level Energy Storage combat specialist from a sect like the White Sword sect. It was all thanks to her ability to use sex for cultivation.

However, if it was a combat specialist at the tenth level in her own sect, she was much less confident. The disciples of the Blossoming Rose were all frighteningly talented, thanks to sexual cultivation.

The day she finally learned the Star Slash technique also coincidentally marked the three-month mark since she got pregnant. Or it did, if the second day in confinement was when she got impregnated, which was most likely, due to the fertility medicine she took. It worked very rapidly.

The pregnancy started to get to the point where it was noticeable. Aurora's belly was slightly bigger; if you knew she was pregnant, you'd probably notice it. Mostly because none of her clothes covered much of her belly.

The cheongsam had a sash under the navel, but above the belly button was open. Hence, her bigger belly was somewhat visible.

By this point, it was mid-September, leaving only two weeks until she would return home for the first time in close to a year. Those weeks passed by without much happening.

Aurora had managed to reach the very peak of the eighth level of Energy Storage, missing only an insight into her body before she could break through, but that insight was yet to come to her. She'd spent four months at the eighth level, which was quite long considering how fast she'd progressed since joining the Blossoming Rose sect. It was what made the final levels so troublesome.

A few days before October, Aurora was called in for an audition. It was just a formality and to ensure that Aurora wasn't a terrible actress. It went pretty swimmingly. She had to act out a small scene, and she did surprisingly well. After joining the Blossoming Rose sect and doing so much porn, Aurora had the confidence she needed to act in a way she might consider unnatural. After the scene was over, the job was formally hers.

Only one day remained before everyone would depart. Aurora had already begun packing her things, and so had the twins, but Koren and Rose seemed to be halting.

"Shouldn't you guys be getting ready? I, for one, can't wait to get home. I miss my parents so much. Or at least my mother. My relationship with my dad was never that good," Aurora said.

"I'm not going home. I can't be bothered to visit that place. Doubt anyone would be there anyway," Koren said.

"Yeah, I'm staying here too. I don't really have a family to visit," Rose said.

"What? Why not? Are they too far away?" Aurora asked, puzzled. The twins were also intrigued by this.

"No, I'm an orphan. My parents died before I can even remember. Grew up in an orphanage," Rose admitted.

"Wait, what? How have you never talked about this before?" Aurora asked.

"Yeah, seriously, that's one hell of a bombshell to drop after so long," Rila said.

"I don't know, it never came up, and I don't really talk about it," Rose shrugged.

"Well, I'm sad to hear that you have no family. You should come with me instead. Both of you. I'd love to have you. My parents should meet you," Aurora offered.

"I'd like that, but are you sure it's okay? We wouldn't be a bother?" Rose said.

"It'll be fine. We're not rich or anything. Kind of poor, actually, but the three of us should fit in my bed, even if it'll be a bit tight. It would help me, too, if I weren't alone when I tell them about the pregnancy, porn, and sex work stuff. And we'll have pretty big bellies when we return, so at least I won't be the only one."

"I'm all for it. Beats staying here on my own. As long as I get to fuck you," Koren said.

"In that case, I'm looking forward to meeting your family, Aurora. Hopefully, they'll be my family too, one of these days," Rose said.