The rise of the pervert primordial

However, the mystery of why the Heavenly Law was weaker, but the spirit energy wasn’t close to be as good enough to pass as let alone divine energy of even mortal grade, like the one that used to exist in Esmeralda’s realm, but even as good as the one that existed in the Twin Sword Valley, could be left for later.

After a quick head count, Valentina and Aster confirmed that all the girls from the sect had successfully crossed through the portal, just in time for Wade’s side to arrive as well, they appeared a dozen of meters away from the group of the Myriad Occupation sect.

“So, we where we sent into a secret realm at the end of the day”, said an elder from the Redheart family, to which an elder from the Ocean Aquamarine snorted in response.

“Nonsense, the major distortions that we were aware of, were inspected by Soul Kings of many affiliations including the ones from the Fey family, and more accurately esteemed ones from our Cascade family branch and all reached the consensus that the distortions didn’t lead to a secret realm”, he said.

“Well, it’s not like the Ocean Aquamarine family is unable to commit mistakes”, retorted the elder from the Redheart, which made the other elder glare at him, luckily for Wade who was getting a headache over the members of his group quarreling at the slightest opportunity, there was something that drew everyone’s attention.

“No way, over there, isn’t that Golden Jade Ginseng!”, exclaimed a male elder from the Pleasure Palace, which made the male representative glare at him, however he couldn’t find it in him to scold the elder, because that is an… Immortal grade spirit herb.

And not a one you get to see every day, it’s a rare soft natured yang attributed natural treasure, in other words, it’s a spirit herb that would greatly boost yang energy and can be consumed as it is, without the need of any processing, of course if refined by a skilled alchemist, the resulting pills or elixirs could surpass the effect of just the herb.

But treasures of soft nature have an important advantage over the ones that have to be processed, a cultivator doesn’t develop a resistance to them, so they are way more valuable than those that need to be processed.

“Look, there is Moonlight Peony near that tree too!”, added a female elder from the Pleasure Palace, that is a yin soft nature type spirit herb, and that wasn’t all, other people from Wade’s side listed a few more rare Immortal grade spirit herbs which could be seen in the nearby areas.

You might wonder, how come those guys who aren’t the elite of their sects nor they come from upper ranked first tier forces know about those Immortal grade spirit herbs, when normally the ones that would normally recognize them would be the people from the Fey family or the Supreme Elemental sect.

And the answer is actually quite simple, before parting the respective leaders of the lower ranked forces, gave a brief explanation of the treasures the members of their forces should be on the look for, for example members of dual cultivation sects were given information regarding yang or yin related natural treasures, for a sect that focused in blacksmith their information was related to rare minerals and other ores and so on.

It’s worth mentioning that said information naturally came from the backers that said lower ranked forces, had in high grade Stellar Systems and it wasn’t for free most of the time, anyway the point is that the eyes of quite a lot of people were filled with greed over the sight of such rare things, this is what they came into the gate for, to find opportunities that normally would be reserved for people of way higher statuses than them after all.

That being said, and while the girls of the Myriad Occupation sect, especially the ones from the Green, Orange and Purple Lotus were also interested in said treasures, even the openly greedy guys from Wade’s side didn’t rush to pounce on said treasures, while that would have normally been the case.

They have suffered way too many losses at Aster’s hands recently, and since he didn’t seem in any rush to go and investigate, they forced their greed down until someone took the first step.

“Color me surprised, and here I thought you guys would have been drooling after noticing those spirit herbs, guess I’ll take them all if you aren’t interested, then”, jokingly said Aster, which earned him a killing glare from a lot of people on Wade’s side.

“Humph, don’t listen to his provocations, a greedy bastard like him would have already done so if there wasn’t any problem with it”, said Wade, which prevented the few people that were about to throw any caution out of the window to rush over and hoard those herps, to stop in their tracks.

Aster limited to shrug, while it took those guys their all to not be guided by greed for a change, he inspected the reactions on the girls on his side, especially the junior disciples, and while there was indeed interest, it was more of a sane curiosity and desire than blinding greed, which earned them a nod of approval from Aster.

Of course he had noticed those herbs, in fact he was probably the first one to do so, because even without using any kind of energy, his dragon eyes give him an especially large range of sight.

And while he wasn’t able to scan those herbs with his senses due to the restrictions, he still noticed some slight physical differences between the illustrations of said herbs he has seen before, and these specimens they were seeing.

On the other hand, the actual reason as to why he didn’t move from where they appeared and transmitted that idea to the girls from the sect through Valentina, is because the flaming board’s last message specifically stated that they will be receiving “new instructions” at the other side of the gate.

So, acting without knowing the rules would probably result in being punished, those guys on Wade’s side didn’t think of it, but since Aster and the girls from the Myriad Occupation sect didn’t act, they also didn’t dare to take the risk.

“Wow, not even one got zapped, looks like this batch of newcomers is quite a wary one”, a voice coming from afar, made all the presents look in a specific direction, where a cloud was descending from the sky.

“How boring, and here I thought we would finally get to see something fun in this place, I guess that Trial Road was connected to a low ranked place filled with a bunch of scaredy cats”, added a second voice coming from the same cloud, which soon arrived near both groups, to then open up, revealing a pair of guys that were sitting on it.

The newcomers were average looking men that seemed to be in their twenties, it wouldn’t be a lie to say that they were the type one wouldn’t pay a second gaze if you crossed paths with them, also their cultivation bases were only at the peak of the Earthly realms.

Which made Wade and the other elders on his side, inwardly grit their teeth, they were called “scaredy cats” by a pair of mere Star Tribulation realm bastards, of course they were angry, however since they were radiating spirit energy into that cloud, that meant they weren’t being restrained, so they were probably the ones supposed to welcome them at the other side of the gate.

“Wait a second, now that I look at it, aren’t there more than there should be?”, said the first of those two, he had light brown hair and dark brown eyes and was wearing blue clothes with light metal armor and a sword on his back.

“Yeah, not to mention that most of them are girls, perhaps the rules on the Trial Road this time were quite lax, whatever, you all have ten minutes to take what you want from the nearby area”, said the second guy as he narrowed his eyes, he had blond hair and brown eyes, as for his clothes it was also a blue set, but he didn’t wear any armor and his weapon was a spear.

“Can we take whatever we want, without any restrictions?”, asked an elder from the Bayer family, he heard the sword wielding guy saying that they weren’t “zapped”, which made him wary, because he a lightning attributed cultivator couldn’t feel any signs of it, of course without his spirit sense it was more of a hunch than actual detection, but still.

Those two guys seemed annoyed to be here for a second, but then after exchanging gazes, the brown-haired one smiled to then say.

“What do you think?”, to which the blond one gazed at both groups as he added.

“Let’s see, how about forty percent of what you collect, if you give us that, we’ll give you a few usable hints, nothing that breaks the rules of course, ah right, you have one minute left before the timer starts, so hurry up and decide, since there is a proper process to follow”.

Aster remained unfazed by the previous, because he wasn’t going to give those guys anything, compared to the flaming board, it’s obvious that they were nothing special, also if they wanted those herbs, it meant that they were useful for them despite having been in this place longer than them, but they weren’t allowed to take them, so this was probably a perk exclusive for newcomers.

Wade on the other hand, was seriously considering accepting the deal, sure the price was nearly half of what they managed to obtain, but in the long run it might be the key to stabilize the situation on his side, and to gain some advantage over the Myriad Occupation sect.

“What do you say?”, he asked to the representatives of the other forces that he needed to side with him, in order to take the decision for the whole group, which were basically the Redheart and Bayer families, because with them he would have more than half the votes.

“I’m in”, said the Bayer family’s representative.

“Me too”, added the Redheart representative, and with that the fate of the others from the group was sealed, but for a change they agreed with Wade’s guidance, except for Fawn who felt a familiarly displeasing sensation when she looked at those two guys, unfortunately even if she and her subordinates voted against it, with the Redheart and Bayer families on his side, Wade still would have more than half of the votes.

So instead of speaking against it, she remained silent and simply told her subordinates to not go too far from her.

Seeing that only the smaller group accepted, those two naturally weren’t happy, but they had only a little amount of time left, so they jumped off that cloud and approached Wade, and after a ritual of some sort which included shaking hands, they sent spirit transmissions to only the guys on Wade’s side, to then return to sit on that cloud which floated a couple of dozens of meters above the ground.

Which made Aster smirk to his insides, if he wanted to, he could have used his soul enhanced spirit sense alongside his dragon eyes, to spy on those two’s conversation, since they are mere Star Tribulation cultivators, of course that would mean he will be breaking the rules, so he refrained from doing so.

And so, the minute those two guys spoke about, came to an end and a familiar object made its way back to the present’s eyes, as in the timer that they saw in the road, appeared above their heads once again.

But there was no message from the flaming board this time, once the timer started advancing, both groups started moving as well, the no aggression rule still remained and the land was vast, so Wade took his group to the right while Aster and the girls from the sect went to the left, not planning to interfere with the other.

That being said, some guys from Wade’s side gave some disdaining gazes to Aster and the girls from the sect, before paying no mind to them.

“Idiots”, naturally the wild dragon princess wasn’t one to hold back, her sharp tongue nearly made quite a few to turn around, but under Wade’s glare they simply kept advancing in their own directions.

‘I told them not to even look at those bastards, damn it’, cursed Wade before he focused on the task at hand, which was to collect as many herbs and other resources as he could, they had to do it with their own hands and without the help of any spirit energy, so it wasn’t as easy nor fast at it would usually be.

…

Leaving aside Wade’s side, Aster looked at the girls from the sect to then say.

“Go look for the rarest and most useful resources, but don’t take them until I say so”, since his group was more than twice larger than Wade’s one, they could collect resources faster than them, also they had girls who were experienced on it, mainly the girls and elders from the Green Lotus, whose missions were often related to obtaining herbs and other natural treasures from outside of the sect.

So, they were going to have it easier, when it came to pluck herbs without damaging them, without the help of any spirit energy, giving Aster the window of time he needed to make sure of a couple of things.

“Mm!”, with enthusiasm shinning in their eyes, the disciples and elders spread all over the area as they located the best resources, that being said, not all left, Alice and the others as well as Valentina stayed near Aster.

“What’s the problem?”, asked the purple lightning princess to Aster who had crouched in front of a Moonlight Peony, in order to observe it at a closer distance.

“Not really a problem, but there is something I don’t understand, I might have not seen too many Immortal grade spirit herbs before, but even if our senses are restrained, I think it’s weird that we can’t feel any strong aura coming from a field which is filled to the brim with a bunch of them”, answered Aster, to then gaze in the direction of a certain pink haired girl as he added.

“What do you say, are they the real deal?”, he asked to Mylene who nodded in response.

“Yes, there are some strange variations in their aspect, but even without inspecting them with spirit sense, I can tell their medicinal properties are what their records described, though for further details I would need to work with one”, she said.

Let’s not forget that Mylene and Eris have been immersing themselves in the alchemy and rune mastering of the four Heavenly Quadrants, ever since they joined Aster, in terms of knowledge they might not be equal to the experts from the upper first tier forces and families.

But they were way above what middle grade Stellar Systems like Galatia could offer, and those that surpassed them didn’t or more accurately couldn’t join the expeditions to the distortions, since they would have been all at the Heavenly realms.

Aster who was about to give the green light to the girls from the sect, had his attention drawn to Wade’s side, where there was some ruckus ongoing.

What had happened is that some spirit beasts appeared on their side, they seemed to be guarding the herbs, but were surprisingly only in the Earthly realms, and unlike the two guys that welcomed them, they didn’t seem to be able to use spirit energy.

So of course, after failing to scare them away, Wade and the others simply killed them in order to take the resources they were guarding, even if they couldn’t use spirit energy, most of the people on Wade’s side were at the Transcending realm after all, a punch could kill some random boars, deer and other herbivores that guarded the herbs, that seemed to be what they ate.

‘There weren’t any beasts nearby until a moment ago, perhaps taking too many of them, makes them appear’, wondered Aster to then say.

“You can start collecting what you found, just be alert to stop when I say so”, he said in a voice that all the girls from the sect could hear.

Those energetic girls nodded in response to then start plucking, digging, and other methods to collect the herbs and other resources that they found, there were actual ores that protruded from the ground, that could be taken without any mining tools.

And just like Aster thought, after the girls had collected a certain number of resources, spirit beasts started appearing in the vicinity, they didn’t attack the girls from the sect, but firmly got in the way when they tried to take more of the resources.

In the best-case scenario, if two people worked together to distract the spirit beast in question and harvest the resource, there would still be some damage done to it in the process.

“Big brother”, the little girl who had been going around helping her older sisters from the sect, pluck the herbs without bruising them so that they wouldn’t lose a part of their effectivity, suddenly pulled at Aster’s right sleeve a couple of times.

“Mm?”, Aster turned to see the little girl, who seemed to doubt for a second before mumbling.

“Can we… not take any more resources”, she said in a low voice.

“Is it because we would have to kill those spirit beasts in order to do so?”, said Aster in response, the little girl has a good heart, though she has learned the lesson after dealing with that lizard back then.

And of course, it’s not like she didn’t know where did the food she liked so much came from, the little girl had no problem with killing to eat, but she didn’t want to hurt spirit beasts that clearly didn’t have any enmity towards them, at least not for the sake of material things.

The little girl cutely shook her head in response.

“No, certainly I don’t think that killing them is necessary, but I don’t want us to take more, because I feel like I would be “sad” if we continued harvesting… like it feels over there”, she said as she pointed at the area where Wade’s group was ransacking everything in sight.

The timer had little time left, so at this point those guys had thrown carefulness out of the window and were prioritizing quantity over quality, bruising, damaging and cracking many herbs and ores that they were harvesting.

Aster softly laughed to then pat Kana’s head a couple of times, resources are good but material things are nothing in front of his family’s happiness, also, Kana has a knack for these kinds of things, the little girl found a newly birth Law Line in the forest of his valley, so she deserved this much trust from him regarding nature related matters.

Of course, his personal beliefs were one thing, but as a leader he also had to weight out the opinion of the group, luckily, the girls of the sect, both elders and disciples weren’t greedy, and they had also grown fond of Kana, whom they treated as a little sister

“We have obtained more than enough ores on our side”, said an elder from the Yellow Anvil”.

“Same for spirit herbs and other plants”, added an elder from the Green Lotus.

The previous might not seem to be much, but in the cultivation world where close relatives kill each other for a random resource when in the wilderness, it’s an incredibly thing to see real no resentment, when material loss was involved.

“We are done, let’s move over there, elders, please help them order and classify what they managed to harvest”, he said.

The elders and disciples nodded and started moving right away, getting far from the spirit beasts that even until now didn’t move an inch from their current spots, a sight that brought a smile to Valentina’s pretty face.

‘I really can’t wait to show this to cousin…’, she thought, to then join the other elders to help the disciples separate, order and classify the resources they obtained.

All this under the eyes of those two guys who were sitting on that cloud, with confused expressions.

“What the hell are they doing, even those guys with noble airs over there didn’t hesitate to get rid of the spirit beasts”, said the brown-haired guy whose name is James.

“Humph, there are a bunch of young girls in that group, so perhaps their leader is “shielding” them from reality to give face to their families, oh well, it’s better if more are eliminated, we will have less damn work to do then”, added the blond guy whose name is Maurice.

“Yeah, I’m dying to get back, the captain really didn’t show any mercy this time”, said James, which made Maurice’s expression to sour.

“Ah, I get angry just by thinking about it, let’s get the “payment” so we can return early”.

“Time is up, get back to where you appeared earlier!”, said the brown-haired guy, to which both groups returned from their respective areas.

Like previously discussed, Wade and the other representatives handed a part of their gains with those two, despite they clearly being resilient to have worked for the sake of benefiting someone else, Wade and the other representatives, looked at Aster and Valentina with clear contempt.

At least until what they expected to happen, which was being evaluated right away, so that they could proceed to the next stage, didn’t happen.

“Hey, what’s going on, didn’t you say that we would get an immediate pass if we obtained around twice the resources they got?”, asked Wade to Maurice.

Unfortunately for Wade, the blond guy was also at a loss.