That erases any remaining jealousy and lets everyone enjoy a peaceful dinner. After dinner, I let Asuna take the now sleeping Kirito into her room with her. That way, I don’t have to worry about him waking up while Brightfire and I are having our fun.

  Considering how long it has been since we have seen each other, I expect the fun to last a while. Of course, that is fine by me and there is no way I am going to disappoint Brightfire. As soon as dinner is over, I pick her up and carry her into the bedroom to get things started.

  As expected, we go for multiple rounds until Brightfire is exhausted and falls asleep. I open the soulscape a little late, but Lin was probably expecting that and told the others. No one says anything about the soulscape being late, although Brightfire does get teased a little.

  Lin fills me in on how things are going on the peninsula and how everyone is doing. Victoria didn’t cause any problems, but the kids are a little put off by how serious she is. I am sure that they will get used to her, but I am glad she didn’t cause problems.

  The kids are playing while I talk to my wives, but after a while I call them back for some practice. I have been slacking a little lately and it is past time that I get back to training everyone. I quickly realize that they have all been training on their own when I see the improvements they have made.

  It seems that the desire to explore the hallway has kept them all working hard. Rather than practicing the basics, I end up teaching some more advanced attacks and defenses. Honestly, they are already better prepared to explore the hallway than I was.

  Mulan especially, she is almost as good as I am, but she has her knowledge from her past lives. When the practice is over, I reluctantly give Mulan permission to take the others into the hallway. However, I make them all promise not to try exploring alone, only in groups.

  In order to facilitate that, I tell everyone that from now on I will only open soulscapes every other day. The day between is to be used for them to start exploring the hallway. To start it off, they will go exploring tomorrow night as one big group, but Lin won’t be joining them.

  She informs me that the plan is to do the summoning first thing tomorrow and then she will enter the trial. With that being the case, I make sure everyone understands that Mulan will be in charge. Even my wives will have to listen to her when exploring the hallway, which they agree to.

  By now, everyone has seen how much further ahead Mulan is, so her being in charge makes sense. I want them to explore together the first few times, after that they can break into smaller groups. That is the safest way I can think of to do this, but it won’t stop me from worrying about all of them.

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  For now, I tell them about the white and black doors, but they are not allowed to enter them. After they have explored for a while, I will teach them the rules of soul city and let them enter. Right now, I don’t think I am going to let them enter the battlefield at all, but that might change.

  I will need to explore it and learn more about it before I will consider letting them enter it. Even then, I will probably only let them enter it with me so that I can keep them safe. That is assuming that I can get strong enough to protect them, which is doubtful.

  Once that is agreed to, I let the kids go back to playing and let them wear themselves out. After they leave, I spend longer than usual being affectionate with my wives. After all, with Lin going into the trials it will be a while before we can all be together again.

  Because of that, we spend quite a bit more time in the soulscape than we normally do. As soon as we are done and my wives have left, I end the soulscape and then make a new one. I invite Seronia and Krenocia and spend the first while updating them on what’s going on.

  After we have discussed everything, we have some fun for a while and then end the soulscape. Normally tonight would be the night I explore the hallway, but I decide not to. Instead, I take out all of the essences I have collected and resume studying them.

  Each essence is a swirling ball of multiple colors and the colors are different based on the beast. Less complex beasts like the giant have less colors in the ball, whereas things like the scorpcroc have more. I think that the colors represent the different components that make up the beast.

  At least that is what I am hoping it means because then it might be possible to separate them. That is going to be a required technique for me to be able to make a fake essence for myself. Of course, that is only one of several things that I am going to have to figure out.

  Even if I can make a fake essence for myself, I need to figure out how to implant it. So far, that seems to mean I am going to have to crack open my own core and place it inside. I am pretty sure that I can heal my own core after I crack it, but that isn’t guaranteed.

  Thinking about that, it has been a long time since I have paid any attention to my core. I remember that I stopped working on it to prevent getting more evolution points. At the time I wanted to be sure that I only got more points from something with the dragon subtype.

  I eventually managed to do that, but I never went back to working on my core. To be honest, I just forgot about it like I have done with so many other things and only now remembered. That is just one more thing that I need to find time to do, but it will make me stronger.

  Besides, now that I have remembered, my curiosity about what will happen when I hit rank twenty is back. Also, with the amount of evolution points that I need now I can use every point I can get. Now that I have thought of it, I can’t stop, so I put the essences away and meditate.

  I vaguely remember that I was using a combination of techniques to work on my core, but I don’t remember which ones. I decide to keep it simple and just use a single technique for now, I will see how it goes. I use the first technique that I can remember and just throw all of my mana at it.

  Of course, the amount of mana I have available now is much greater than it used to be. I manage to work on my core throughout the rest of the night without running out of mana. It is a far cry from when I used to run out of mana after only working on my core for a few minutes.

  Core Upgrade Progress: 21%