New Gloves

It was a pair of blue and silver fingerless gloves. Despite not looking metallic, the gloves could reflect light off of their smooth surfaces. The moment the gloves were shown to her, Kate was enraptured by their appearances. She was never someone to admire or look at good crafts, but as a cultivator she had to be impressed. Especially when she sensed how energetic the surrounding nature energy got when it came out.

"You can make spirit-rank artifacts now?"

"That's right. This is one my latest works."

Kate didn't doubt that Shui could make an artifact like this, but she was still amazed since the pair of gloves was better than anything her father had ever made. Thinking back to her father, grief surfaced to her face but she quickly hid it before Shui noticed. However, for a different reason, she put on a difficult expression.

"What's wrong?" asked Shui.

"It's nothing but," Kate took out the Red Tiger Paws and Shui instantly understood what she wanted to say.

Shui didn't know how much Kate cared about the gloves, but since she managed to achieve resonant state with them, he knew that she would definitely be reluctant to part with them. And this was without him even considering the sentimental value the gloves had.

"It's fine, I thought this might happen so when I made these gloves I used cores from high beasts that share the same ancestor as the red tiger that I made those from. So it should be possible to fuse them."

"Re,really?"

"Mhmm."

When Shui nodded to her, Kate wasn't completely ready to go through with it. Looking at the gloves, she remembered when Shui gave them to her, back when she was with her family. Back when they were all together. Even if she couldn't use them anymore, she planned on always keeping them with her. But while looking at her gloves, she also noticed the blue-green bracelet on her wrist. This was the first gift Shui had given her, something that she still used despite it no longer having much of an effect.

'That's right. Even if my gloves change, I still have this.'

"...Fine. Do it."

Shui had no idea what kind of resolve Kate needed to agree, but he was also motivated when he saw her bracelet.

'She's still using it.'

It was something that was probably useless now, but the fact that she still used it also brought back memories.

'That's right. I'll definitely get my revenge.'

A sharp glint went past both of their eyes before Shui put the gloves he had on top of Kate's.

"Use your heart flame."

Without hesitating, Kate did what Shui told her to and summoned her bright yellow flame to surround the two pairs of gloves. Her flame couldn't mesmerise others like Shui's, but the natural laws that it was connected to was comparable to his due to Kate's Focused Heaven Physique.

"Make sure to steady your flame output."

"Got it."

Although this would be easier if he used his own spiritual flame, the chances of success were higher if he used Kate's since these gloves would become hers. As the gloves floated in an orb of yellow fire, Shui placed his hands a little further from Kate's hands and gently directed her flame. This would be impossible without Kate's consent but it was still impressive that he could make it follow his directions.

Under Shui's influence, the yellow flame wrapped around the gloves and began the fusing process. As the spiritual flame dug into the gloves, rather than melting, their images turned vague as if he was looking at them through distorted glass. When their images were so warped that he couldn't tell what their original forms were, Shui manipulated them with mental control to superimpose them.

In their current state the remnant souls left from the beast cores were more prominent so they started resisting each other. The red tiger was first to be suppressed while the other two felines continued battling. It was unknown who would win at this stage but Shui didn't intend for this battle to reach its conclusion.

'Memory' x5

With a quintuple layering of 'Memory', Shui dragged out the image of the ancestor that the three beasts shared. The divine beast, the white tiger ancestor, the pet of the God of Duality. Naturally this image quickly degraded to the form which the silver tiger great beast had, but it still released an aura that made Kate feel oppressed.

"Just a little more."

Shui knew that this pressure would be hard to endure so he tried to finish the fusion process as fast as possible. Luckily, all that was left was for him to compress the auras into a single pair of gloves. As the power of Shui's nebula three-star soul came down on the beast auras, the gloves slowly combined into a single pair.

"Whew~, it's done."

Once Shui confirmed that they were finished, Kate retracted her heart flame and breathed heavily but excitedly as she looked at the new pair of gloves in her hands with sweat running down her forehead. The bottom half of the gloves was bright silver but one had a blue top with red tiger spots, while the other had a red top with blue tiger spots.

"Do you like it?" Shui cautiously asked.

Especially since they worked so hard to finish it, he was worried that she would like this new pair. He could guarantee its power, but he knew that power wasn't the only thing she could be concerned with. Looking up from the gloves, she noticed Shui's nervous appearance and chuckled. Though she liked that he was able to grow stronger than her since the last time she saw him, she was also glad that he was the same as before.

"Yes," Kate nodded.

Shui breathed a sigh of relief before telling her to come up with a name for the gloves.

"Really?"

"Yeah, it's yours after all."

Shui smiled as he watched Kate be fascinated by his gift and looked outside.

"Hmm, it's later than I thought it would be. Guess I'll leave for today."

"Huh?"

Though her eyes were once stuck on the gloves, Kate was still shocked out of her preoccupation when she heard Shui say that he was leaving.

"Can't you stay?" she pleaded.

"What?"

Shui stared at her, wondering if she understood the implications of her words but when he was only faced by an innocent gaze of longing, he couldn't find it in himself to refuse.

"Uhh, sure, I guess."

"Yea! I'll go make dinner."

"No, allow me."

After receiving his gift, she was suddenly more similar to her younger, cheerier self. As if the gift had dragged out this childish part of her. Rather than romantic love, it was familial affection that filled Shui's heart as he saw the bright smile on her face.

'She's still the same. Good.'

Leaving Kate still in a hyper mood, Shui went to the kitchen and took out ingredients filled with nature energy. Normally he would have to make sure that the nature energy wasn't too concentrated, but he was sure that it would be fine with Kate due to her physique.