Chapter 68: A kind lie

"Why are you so skinny? Are you not getting enough food?"

"I heard from the empress that humans are blood-thirsty monsters!"

"Have no fear...your auntie will try to rescue you as soon as I can!"

Sophie's head spun as the strange alien kept checking her body for injuries and rapidly blurting out sentence after sentence.

She could not sense any aggression or hostility from this mysterious alien, but this was all too overwhelming.

"Who are you?" Sophie stepped back while trying to put some distance between them.

Rai'lle froze at the wary expression on her niece's face and then the realization that she might be scaring her younger relative caused her to whisper softly,

"My name is Princess Rai'lle and I am your mother's younger sister."

Sophie was shocked at the sudden revelation, but she still had a lot of suspicions about her new relative.

It would be foolish to just blindly trust someone that you just met.

"Is there any way that you can prove it?" Sophie skeptically asked.

Princess Rai'lle rattled off a string of childhood stories about Sophie's mother that she could recall,

How she used to play pranks on the emperor's other concubines.

Her favourite colour which was scarlet red.

Beating up the crown prince in a duel before declaring that she had no interest in ruling the tribe.

Each story was more fantastical than the ones that came before and Sophie listened carefully with a starry-eyed expression.

The only problem was....

....she had no way to verify any of these tales!

Rai'lle was not stupid and noticed the conflicted look on her niece's face so she decided to change tactics.

"What do you know about the qi cultivation method that you currently train in?" Rai'lle inquired.

"Not much.... I only know that it circulates automatically," Sophie replied in an embarrassed tone.

Truthfully, Sophie had not studied the words on the stone tablet in great detail as she spent most of her time in the space practising different cultivation techniques.

The Spider Whisper Art seemed to merely form extra qi strands in the dantian but there were no other special benefits when compared to more higher-grade manuals available.

"What! You've only been automatically circulating qi?!" Rai'lle exclaimed in shock.

"The whole point of this art is to combine it with one of three martial arts!"

Rai'lle, Thai'lle and Sophie were the only members of the Arachne royal family to practice this technique due to the stringent requirements and the lack of an immediate increase in strength.

The manual on its own was nothing more than a subpar qi gathering method with a small boost to speed.

But when combined with one of the three speed based martial arts of the Arachne race.... none could match up against practitioners at the higher cultivation levels.

It had completely slipped Rai'lle's mind that her dear niece would not have any knowledge of this.

Members of the royal family were given memory transfers at birth that implanted all the necessary information related to survival and common sense.

"Consider this a small gift to make up for all the past birthdays I missed," Rai'lle spoke lovingly before lightly tapping Sophie's forehead with her finger.

"Urghhh..." Sophie grunted with pain as waves of information entered her brain.

Different Arachne martial arts with stances, poses and moves flashed across her eyes.

Spell techniques, illusions and other mystic arts that dealt with mana were suddenly placed inside her head.

Culture of a foreign civilisation, rituals, etiquette, and the hierarchy of the insectoid empire were all included in the transfer.

It was a strange feeling because even though all the information was there, most of it was locked away behind a seal.

"Your brain will not be able to handle all that knowledge at once so I placed some seals to only show you what you can handle at your cultivation level," Rai'lle explained.

Sophie took a quick glance at the stone tablet out of the corner of her eye and found that she could now read the words more quickly than before.

"Thank you," Sophie gave a small bow to the alien.

No matter if the alien was her aunt or not, it was clear that this was a great gift.

She had no idea how precious this knowledge was, but it far exceeded anything that the Federation had on the Insectoid races.

The atmosphere became quite pleasant between the two and Sophie felt more and more comfortable in the presence of Rai'lle.

She was still a bit cautious, but a lot of the doubt had faded away already.

There was no need for such an apparently powerful person to bother with such petty schemes when they could just easily slap her to death.

Rai'lle was very curious about Sophie's life among the humans and asked plenty of questions which Sophie was happy to respond to.

Due to an unspoken agreement, Rai'lle did not ask about any information that would be considered sensitive.

Sophie also learnt a little bit about how well humanoid insectoids were treated in the empire as they were considered a high life form more akin to demigods.

All humanoid tribes could exert natural suppression over their lesser intelligent brethren and had the highest number of high-level cultivators.

The disadvantage was that unlike humans...these insectoid tribes with great potential were unable to rapidly reproduce.

This meant that in a war, it was unlikely for god stage cultivators to get involved as they could not easily be replaced.

Sophie enjoyed the easy flow of conversation but there was one burning question that was occupying her thoughts.

"Um...Princess Rai'lle," Sophie stammered.

"Call me aunt!" came the immediate reply.

"Auntie...do you have any news on how my mom is doing?" she looked at her aunt with a hopeful expression.

Princess Rai'lle kept seeing the image of her older sister in Sophie's gaze and could not help but shudder slightly while lying through her teeth,

"Princes Thai'lle...I mean your mother...she is currently in closed door cultivation while trying to break through to the Ascension stage."

"This process will probably take several years."

Sophie's face sunk at the news as it appeared that the reunion with her mother was doomed to be far off into the future.

It pained Rai'lle to keep the matter of Thai'lle's imprisonment a secret, but it would do her daughter no good to know the truth.

The nearest stargate at the location of the prison was heavily guarded by multiple god stage cultivators and one would have to be in the Ascension Stage in order to escape.

Princess Thai'lle was one of the most talented cultivators among the Arachne race so it was a great loss to their combat capabilities to see her locked away.

But...the risk of her joining the fight for succession had left some of the concubines with no choice but to whisper in the emperor's ear to delay her release.

Sophie was currently the only offspring of any of the royal princes and princesses, so she was far removed from any right to the throne.

Plus, there was an enormous issue of whether or not the emperor would order a kill on sight warrant if the court learnt of her existence.

Rai'lle saw that her hands and legs were now melting away into a shadowy form which indicated that the duration of her stay was nearly up.

"We don't have much time left in the space," Rai'lle spoke in a serious tone.

"Before I leave, there is one more thing that you should know...