Asterios warned Miria to be extremely careful with anything she saw in this small, guarded, underground complex. They couldn’t be sure the gate was the only thing installed there to deter the intruders.

The excited panthergirl blushed a little and nodded timidly, promising to keep herself in check no matter what and to call everyone if she found something interesting or suspicious. She received a tame kiss from Asterios and hastily scurried away to explore the unknown.

While the two fox ladies moved around together somewhere on the opposite side, Asterios remained more or less in the middle of what looked like the main chamber, keeping an eye on his overenthusiastic mate.

He didn’t find much in that area. Most of the wardrobes, drawers, cupboards, and desks were filled with common necessities that usually filled such containers. One thing that caught his eye was the fact that only female clothing was present wherever he looked. Dresses similar to the one in the painting were plenty inside the furniture.

If the man was a Dragon with the ability to materialize his clothes through spiritual energy just as Asterios had learned to do not that long ago, it wouldn’t be that surprising. Asterios felt very comfortable in these mysterious clothes and could understand how Dragons could possibly not want to wear anything else.

He still used the two special bracers created by the duo of elves from Tyrienheim under his draconic apparel, shoving them into the spatial storage gifted to him by Welrond and Silvia whenever necessary. It would be a waste not to have them on and ready for action. With him being able to manipulate his spiritual clothing to a decent extent, there was no issue customizing it to hide the gauntlets perfectly without any inconvenience.

After roaming around the main chamber for around fifteen minutes and confirming that Miria had been properly holding herself back from grabbing or touching random things, he left the curious panthergirl alone and walked towards Lerisse and Selene.

He found the pair of vulpines in a small closet filled with shelves from top to bottom. They were examining plenty of books and manuals resting everywhere in that space, under a thick layer of dust.

“Found anything interesting?” Asterios asked, making sure they noticed him first not to spook them.

“A lot of things, my Lord,” Selene answered with a beautiful smile. “I’m afraid not much of it is related to you in any way, but…”

“Numerous incredibly useful records and manuals are stored here. Some of which have been considered stolen, or worse,” Lerisse continued after her. “It would be of unimaginable help to our tribe if these were reintroduced into our teachings. Smartly, of course. Not everything here should be easily accessible.”

“That’s great. I’m happy you were able to recover them,” Asterios replied, grabbing a notebook titled Eight Extreme Immortal Gates: The Pinnacle of Physical Strengthening.

“Well…” Lerisse scrunched her nose a little and he noticed that.

“Is there a problem?”

“Do you mind if we take them?”

Asterios frowned. “Why are you asking me? Weren’t these yours, to begin with?”

“Technically, yes, but if it was Kaguya who had moved them here, making that decision as a Matriarch, I figured I would at least ask. She must have locked these here for a reason. And you were the only one able to access this place so it does feel like you are the proper successor of the legacy stored behind the gate.”

“Me and Selene,” Asterios corrected her. “Anyway, I don’t think I would have much use for these manuals myself. It would be a waste to just keep them here. I would like to go through them just in case, but since it’s the legacy of Spiritual Foxes, I’d rather have Selene decide on what to do with all of this.”

Selene stepped closer to Asterios and hugged him from behind. “I think we can reintroduce some after checking all of the techniques out. I will discuss this with Lerisse later. First, you should make sure there isn’t anything you would like to keep strictly to yourself, my Lord.”

“You should do the same,” Lerisse interjected. “There’s surely a lot to gain for you from Kaguya’s private collection. No one is better suited to inherit her legacy than you. It’s just a pity you won’t become the next Matriarch…” She shook her head.

“I’ll still hang around whenever I can. I’m not planning on abandoning the tribe and you know it. It’s just that my priorities have been slightly altered.” Selene hugged Asterios a bit tighter.

Lerisse chuckled softly. “Oh, I am very aware of that. At least Ronye seems to have finally stepped on the right path, starting to mature a little.”

“That is true. She might actually have a chance to turn into a great Matriarch with my Lord’s help. He’s known to have a great effect on women, fufufu~”

“Hey.”

Asterios turned his face to the side straight into Selene’s loving kiss. She chuckled at him again and showed a mischievous smile. It was obvious she was intentionally teasing him from how her cloudy tail danced behind her back.

Then, they turned their attention to the manuals and began briefly flipping through them all to do an initial check on the contents. A few techniques felt just right for Selene to study more in-depth so Lerisse insisted on her taking them.

While they were going through the rest of the books, Selene had a great idea of how to show her gratitude for Lerisse’s goodwill and waited for Asterios to end up near her friend. At the right moment, she pushed herself into him from behind and grabbed Ast’s hands.

She quickly moved them to Lerisse’s tail and the current Matriarch jumped a little when Ast’s fingers dug into the fluffy, dark ginger cloud. Glancing back over her shoulder, she was met with a sly grin decorating Selene’s lips and a wry smile from Asterios.

Not wanting to give her junior the obvious satisfaction, Lerisse tried to act as it didn’t bother her in the slightest and continued to browse through the notebook in front of her. But, Selene asked Asterios mentally to play with her friend’s tail for a bit and he gave in after she begged him so sweetly.

He began combing through the incredible tail just like he had always done with Selene’s. Lerisse did her best to play it cool but they could see her whole body shiver whenever Asterios finished a long and delicate brush. She had soon to stop reading and support herself on the shelf for a bit due to the incredibly pleasant sensation forcefully relaxing all her muscles.

Selene thanked Asterios and stopped him before things went too far. She only wanted her friend to experience some affection for the first time in many long years, not to utterly embarrass her in front of a man. Although, doing it a little bit was a different thing.

Both of them turned around to seemingly focus on a different shelf to give the Matriarch some time to fully recollect herself from the blissful treatment. Lerisse cursed Selene in her mind, not wanting to admit that she really needed something like that. It’s been decades since the last time someone caressed her tail.

Miria soon joined them and reported her findings. She had asked Umbra to accompany her so that he could try to sense anything dangerous or special. Asterios praised her for that decision and rewarded Miria with some loving headpats.

Lerisse handed a few other manuals to the panthergirl, surprising her a lot. All of them regarded various types of Physical Strengthening and other techniques Miria used. They couldn’t help with her bloodline abilities but could still be an immense benefit otherwise.

She thanked the Matriarch properly and promised to return them after she mastered whatever she could. Being able to grow stronger and more useful to her master was an exciting prospect and she could barely wait to get started even though she didn’t like these kinds of books that much. Legends and myths were a different thing, though.

They left Miria in the main chamber to examine her gifts and paced around the underground complex as a trio once more. Finding only some books and manuals felt a bit too ordinary for such a heavily protected place, even if a few of them were of the highest grade.

There had to be something else here but even Ast’s draconic eyes couldn’t pick up on anything specific due to the overwhelming amount of mana flowing everywhere around the fancy apartment. It was just too much to untangle.

One thing constantly kept bothering him, though. The man’s painting. He had shared his thoughts on how it seemed to follow him with its gaze but no one else experienced anything similar, and neither had Selene when looking at the woman’s depiction.

“I have an idea but let’s gather around first in case it triggers anything,” Asterios finally said.

Miria soon joined them and they spread out a bit, getting ready to react to whatever could happen, everyone watching a different direction. Asterios drew on his scorching hot energy and exuded some of his aura, focusing it in his eyes while trying to imitate the pressure that someone exerted through his body when he had been controlled.

His eyes flashed ferociously and the girls could feel the atmosphere in the room shift into a much heavier one, without getting affected by it too much. A moment after Asterios started, the painting’s eyes lit up and glowed back at him.

He shuddered, sensing the familiar pressure from that day now applied onto himself. But, it quickly disappeared and everyone heard a metallic click. The wall behind the painting sprung forward a tiny bit, revealing cuts in the shape of a tall rectangle.

“Looks like there’s more to this place,” Asterios commented.

“A secret room!” Miria cheered excitedly after glancing at the cracks.

“Maybe it has more connection to the man than the rest of this hidden apartment,” Selene suggested.

“Only one way to know,” Lerisse added.

Carefully, without dropping their guards, they opened the heavy marble door and peeked inside. A bit less stylish and clearly more used office greeted them. Besides a massive mahogany desk in one corner, some cabinets with old records, scrolls, and books, and a weird contraption made of black metal, not much else could be seen from their angle.

Stepping inside, they noticed plenty of notes scattered around the floor and pinned to the walls with some magical magnets, a lot of them above the impressive desk. The uncovered parts of the walls, ceiling, and floor were damaged here and there by claws or something similar, and something strong enough to crack the durable and clearly reinforced marble. The marks intensified around the metallic structure.

While the girls seemed very interested in examining it, Asterios walked towards the desk after noticing some familiar sigils and runes in the notes hung and scattered around it. It was just impossible for him not to recognize something he had studied meticulously for years.

He arrived in front of the U-shaped desk and glanced around. Its front and side parts were equipped with plenty of drawers and little compartments, reaching above his waist, so he decided to sit down to get a better angle.

“It’s… all about Summoning Magic,” he whispered to himself while shuffling through various notes lying on the tabletop. “But… it’s also somehow different…”

A gasp he recognized as Miria’s broke him out of his thoughts and Asterios hastily jumped up, immediately turning around. He sighed in relief after seeing that nothing serious was happening and all the girls seemed fine, standing around the weird black structure.

He walked up to them and understood what it was after getting a better look at it. The black contraption seemed to be a complex device allowing someone to position the flat surface on its top at many angles.

A set of durable restraints decorated the person-sized table. It was similar to the ones they had found in the cult’s base but much more advanced and without giving off nefarious vibes even with its ominous color.

“Master, look.” Miria stepped closer to Asterios and handed him a few pieces of paper.

“This is about external spiritual circuits?” he said to himself.

Miria nodded cheerfully. “Yep!”

“The knowledge about them was non-existent in your realm, right?” He glanced at Selene and Lerisse.

“That’s right,” the Matriarch confirmed. “It was through you and Selene that I have learned about those.”

“And yet, this is clearly research on… how to acquire them,” he mused, stroking his chin.

Miria glanced at Selene and the fox lady quickly shook her head.

“I know what you are thinking but my parents and family, in general, have nothing to do with it. And I’m pretty sure my memories are intact as I remember everything very clearly, especially the bits regarding these circuits on my body. I think I can say with almost complete confidence that I was not a test subject or anything like that.”

“It should be impossible to transplant them just like the source so we can most likely cross that out,” Asterios commented.

“But, didn’t you create them back in that labyrinth, Master?” Miria asked.

“Those were just temporary enchantments serving a similar role to the real thing but can’t be considered it. This research had been clearly conducted way before Selene was born, most likely. And, considering the circumstances, I think it was that man who brought it up to, most likely again, Kaguya.”

Lerisse nodded. “It wouldn’t be surprising if the knowledge came from a Dragon. And Kaguya was known for her pursuit of strength so if those circuits would have a similar effect to what Selene is experiencing then I can very well see her trying to get a set of her own.”

“Also,” Selene interjected. “We have pretty much confirmed Kaguya’s involvement in this whole thing. The tomes and notes scattered around often mention her name. And, one more.”

“It’s Red, isn’t it?” Asterios asked.

She nodded. “The documents were created with two distinct handwriting styles and you can easily differentiate them. When it’s Kaguya’s, it often mentions Red. When it’s Red’s, it often mentions Kaguya.”

“How did you know, Master?” Miria glanced at him curiously.

“It wasn’t that hard to guess. Red-scaled Dragons, that woman’s mention of Black, then her calling the wisp of spiritual essence possessing me Re-something. We don’t know that much about how Dragon communities work, but I have a feeling these are the bigshot names.”

“So, your father was like the King of Red Dragons or something, Master?” Miria bounced in front of him, full of excitement.

Asterios shrugged with a smile. “Who knows. The person that woman recognized clearly had some strong influence amongst their kin.”

“Did you find anything at that desk?” Lerisse asked him.

“I’ve only managed to skim through a few pieces on the very surface but it’s clearly related to Summoning Magic.”

“Oh! That’s like super good, right, Master?” Miria jumped at him and hugged Asterios happily.

He embraced her back and fluffed her adorable ears a bit. “Certainly, hahaha. It looked somewhat different so I need to dive deep into it but I can’t deny that it’s making me really excited. I haven’t felt such a rush since my first day at the academy.”

Selene stepped closer and brought his free hand to her long ears too. “And it’s most likely coming straight from an ancient Dragon, fufufu~ This is bound to be groundbreaking.”

Lerisse chuckled to herself. “This place is truly a treasure trove of long-forgotten and unknown knowledge. We’ll have it stay as a secret only the Matriarchs know about for now. You guys should study whatever you can here. I’ll make an announcement that you three are doing some work in the temple’s catacombs so you can move freely without suspicion.”

“Thank you, Lerisse. We really appreciate it.” Selene left Ast’s caresses for a moment and hugged her best friend.

“Don’t mind it. You’ve always been like a daughter to me and this will surely be beneficial to our kin too after you master whatever techniques have been hidden here. I hope you will share some of your findings with Ronye.”

“I will do everything I can to support her growth and you know it well. Thank you again.”

After Selene freed her friend, Lerisse excused herself to collect the few manuals she wanted to bring back already and to check a few more first before heading up to the surface. They said their goodbyes for now and the trio remained in the hidden chamber to look through it for a bit longer.

Asterios focused on the desk while Miria and Selene looked through the material regarding the external spiritual circuits. It was very sophisticated and they couldn’t easily understand some parts, but they were sure their master could help them with it later. For now, they wanted to get a general idea of it and perhaps find some details about the two people behind it.

Before long, Asterios managed to realize that pretty much everything around him was in pure chaos. The creator or creators of these notes and documents for sure hadn’t cared about anyone else not having an immensely hard time following their research as various parts and pieces were scattered around and mixed.

He had to start organizing everything before diving into any of it or else he would need countless days to get something out without losing track of whatever he was trying to study. At one point, Miria joined him to help and they tackled the task together. Even something as simple as putting pieces of paper where Asterios told her to brought Miria lots of joy.

After it had gotten late, they decided to return to Ast’s realm and inform their friends about the new circumstances. Asterios wanted a few more days to focus on their findings and it was only proper to ask Silvia and Svertaniel about it.

Neither of the two had any issues with it and they chose to keep up their own activities in the meantime. Svertaniel was still collecting clues and rumors while Silvia practiced and studied the effects of her advancement. Both of them could use some more time for themselves.

So, delaying their next summoning until after Asterios went through at least most of the material present in the hidden office and laboratory, judging that the new knowledge could potentially affect his future attempts or explain things that had happened in the past, he jumped straight into deciphering the contents of all the notes and books.

He quickly learned that a lot of the research skipped the basic and intermediate stuff regarding principles of summoning, assuming that the reader was already familiarised with it, and jumped straight into the bond between the Summoner and the summon. It didn’t talk about summoning techniques or new ways to conduct it but regarded the special connection between those two.

It was especially fascinating since he could clearly spot a draconic influence in the writing. It wasn't about clean Summoning Magic, it was specifically prepared with a Dragon in mind, most likely the author, and how could that fact influence the magic, especially the connection and bond.

After reading more of the research, it became obvious that the girls’ quick growth was partially due to Ast’s quite powerful heritage and bloodline. He found traces of the theory about spiritual essence and energy conductors that the chased-out Summoner had worked on in these notes. And a Dragon’s bodily fluids were clearly much, much stronger than of some humanoid race.

Finally, one of the greatest mysteries that accompanied Asterios and his friends had been resolved. He immediately called Miria and Selene to his side when he stumbled on the mention of something called the Dragon’s Coupling Bond.

The notes, fortunately, explained a few things about it while talking about how it reacted to Summoning Magic. In short, Dragons could hold various rituals on different levels of familiarity with the target, like taking in a slave, a servant, an aide, or a mate. The stage depended a lot on the other person’s standing towards the caster and could be identified by a mark on their body that surfaced on their skin after the Bonding Ritual.

Asterios and the girls quickly realized it was about the tattoos Tina and Grea had received from him. The research spoke about how the draconic heritage overpowered Summoning Magic and thus prevented it from activating properly, turning it into a Bonding Ritual instead of the contracting one.

Due to her strong feelings and Asterios accepting her, Tina literally became his mate, the mate of a Dragon, with the proof right on her finger, in the form of that black band decorated with Ast’s Summoner’s Brand, which he learned was also something like his own draconic crest.

This also brought another detail into the picture. Grea had become his close aide, indicated by the mark on the top of her hand. And, for it to actually manifest, the target had to hold some close feelings to the caster, otherwise, they would have become a servant instead, or the normal contracting ritual would have followed properly.

Asterios decided to think about this knowledge a bit later, reprimanding the girls not to jump right into their teasing scheming. He truly respected Grea and knew she didn’t have it easy. If she truly felt something for him deep inside, he wanted to act on it slowly and carefully. The last thing he wanted was to hurt their current relationship, and his precious, fragile friend.

So, now aware of the Dragon’s Coupling Bond, the trio found out that there were ways to avoid or prevent it from interrupting the contracting ritual since that was a big part of the man’s research. Asterios carefully studied everything related to these phenomena to be as prepared for the future as possible.

And, fortunately, even if the contracting was interrupted, replaced by the Dragon’s Coupling Bond, it was still possible to gain the benefits of the contracting ritual from the Summoning Magic.

Yes, there was a way for both Tina and Grea to truly become Ast’s familiars. He was immensely happy to learn that he could possibly make one of Grea’s greatest dreams come true with just a bit of effort.

Although, the circumstances required for that made him smile wryly. It looked like Tina would get the chance first if he wasn’t mistaken about her upcoming wish from their bet.

But, parts of this whole research confirmed that he could, in fact, contract humanoid races. It wouldn’t be pure Summoning Magic since the draconic heritage played a big role in it, but it was still Summoning Magic in the end, an improved one.

It partially explained how he was able to make Miria and Selene into his summons. Neither of them held feelings for Asterios during the contracting ritual so the Dragon’s Coupling Bond hadn't activated and the Summoning Magic proceeded semi-properly.

He was so unlucky that the two other women he had tried contracting already had their hearts set, or partially set, on him before they started the ritual, which wasn’t that far off from the draconic one.

There was just so much they had learned from only one-third or less of the man’s work. And there was still the part talking about the external spiritual circuits which Selene and Miria had been focusing on in the meanwhile.

They would obviously get to the bottom of everything, bit by bit, and they could potentially already hold their next summoning ritual after learning what they had deciphered, but first, there was another issue to resolve, and the girls would not leave it for even a day later.

Miria and Selene had to become Asterios’ true mates. The mates of a Dragon.