Novel Full Chapter 343 Gotta Catch ’Em All? (1)
A month later…
True to his words, Ashton decided to speed through the trials. In a month, he completed five more trials. But in truth, the trials had nothing to do with difficulty since all of them were the lower six trials. On top of that, Otiga already helped him gather all the information he would have needed to clear the trials as efficiently as possible.
All of these five trials were much easier compared to the trials he had attempted before. For starters, none of them was combat oriented. As a result, Ashton did not gain any levels in the past month. The trials he had completed till now were to test their willpower. Which was done by toying with their senses.
Well, it wasn’t that they were deprived of their senses. But the planet messed them up pretty bad. At the completion of each trial, one of their senses was compromised. For example, after completing the trial of Cetus, instead of getting blind, the participants would lose the ability to sleep.
If they tried, they would get the most horrible nightmares someone could think about. Handling this wasn’t difficult for Ashton or for any of the girls as they had spent a month on the Progenitor’s spaceship trying to evade sleeping in zero gravity.
Ashton wasn’t sure what the twins did when they could not sleep, but he had a lot of fun with Anna. For once, they were glad they did not have to sleep. But the curse wasn’t permanent as it switched the moment another one of the lower six trials was cleared.
Following a similar pattern, the participants had their sense of touch compromised. Where whenever they would touch something, it would feel as if they were touching something unbearably hot and gooey. Ashton had no trouble with this either as he was literally immune to fire.
He had the most problem when his hearing was messed up. In his opinion, it was the cruellest mess up, the planet could have sprung on them. To hear the desperate cries for help, while being unable to do anything, for an entire week was torturous.
But according to Anna, the trial involving the sense of taste was the worst. This time whatever they ate or drank, would turn into disgusting things once inside their mouths. For Ashton, it was no biggie as zombies could eat literally anything and not worry about it at all.
Similarly, all of their five prominent senses were tested one after another. The experience wasn’t an easy one. As a result, out of the thousands of participants that had arrived to complete the trials, a little over two hundred participants were left. The rest of them quit the trials and left the planet long ago.
As for Ashton and co, throughout the weeks, they finally managed to conquer the lesser trials together. Only Ashton and Anna of the group were left on Euphoria while the twins headed back to their grandfather.
There was a rule on Euphoria to avoid overcrowding… at least it was supposed to do so. Once a participant had no more trials to complete, they had to leave the planet. Until and unless they were the guests of one of the monarchs. In which case the monarchs were responsible for their lodging etc.
“Maybe they should have taken up Lady Otiga on her offer. She wanted the twins to stay till you complete all of your trials.” Anna playfully nudged him while they were waiting in queue to be transported to the Pegasus trial zone, which happened to be Anna’s final trial.
“In my opinion, they made the right choice.” Ashton mumbled as he wrapped his hands around her, “Rather than staying here and wasting their time, it was better for them to head back and focus on their training instead.”
“Hm… I think I’ll take Lady Otiga’s offer to stay behind. After all, you will have to feed me regularly so…”
“Yeah. That’s definitely the only reason you would like to stay back.” Ashton laughed and so did Anna, “Let’s get this trial over with, then I can feed you loads upon loads.”
“Can’t wait.”
Ashton might have said he would complete the trial as soon as possible. But it wasn’t going to be so easy. After all, it was the final trial among the lower six trials, and arguably the worst one amongst them as well. 𝒃𝙚𝙤𝙫𝒆𝒍．𝙘𝒐𝙢
It was time to attempt the most time-consuming trial, which was the Pegasus’ trial. According to the information they got from Otiga, in this trial, the participant had to capture one of many flying horse-like creatures called Pegasus and tame it.
If Sven was there, Ashton would have tamed all of the pegasuses and the trial would have been a piece of cake, all thanks to his binding skill. Sadly, that wasn’t the case as Ashton had to do it all alone… technically, he wasn’t alone as Anna would help him and vice-versa.
Even though they had all the information they would need to catch a Pegasus, wasn’t going to be an easy job which he got to know as soon as he arrived in the trial zone.
Also, the hundreds of participants in the area did not help. Most of them were slackers. Ashton could just feel it and according to the reports that Otiga shared with them, most of the remaining participants were part of an extremist group.
None of them was going to put in the required hard work, and rather than capturing Pegasus on their own, they would simply steal them from the ones who do the work. This strategy was much easier and less draining.
But it was unlikely those fuckers would try to mess with him. After all, Ashton had become quite a famous personality on Euphoria. Not only was he stronger than all of them combined, but he had also gained a strong backer in Otiga, and no one wanted to mess with her.
Anna wanted to clear the trial, the legit way if it was possible. Since Ashton wanted to teach the extremists a lesson, she decided to tag along. Well, Ashton wasn’t some self-righteous prick. He had another reason for doing so, and that reason was Otiga’s request.
She was the one who wanted to teach the extremists a lesson. From what Ashton could gather, she had, had her fair share of troubles with them. Nothing big, but still annoying kind of problems. Therefore, she decided to mess with them, now that she had the chance.
“It’s gonna be a lot of fun.” Ashton smiled while cracking his knuckles.