Chapter 829: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 7)

"There were no signs of that foothold trap having been buried below the sand, it’s as if it existed "naturally" in this environment, not to mention that it didn’t trigger my danger instincts, as expected of the blue flaming board", said Aster.

With his dragon eyes lowered to a mortal version which means that Aster can’t see through things, it would still be a piece of cake to notice a trap set up by a person, because even if small, traces of the process for the trap to be installed will remain and Aster can pick up even the smallest details with a combination of his sight and instincts.

This was confirmed by Mina herself, she prepared her best efficient trap, meaning that she didn’t spend more than one hour to install it with the help of her selected assistants and Aster still found it in a couple of seconds.

Perhaps it would have taken him more if Mina was given more time, but she herself said that such a thing wasn’t realistic, traps like those are meant to take on large numbers of enemies, and so they have to be placed in batches, therefore taking too much time to install a single one is not realistic, she admitted to have already been grazing the concept of "cheating" because others were helping her install the trap.

Which normally would lead to traces of it to be even easier to notice, after all many hands from different people were involved, but Mina was really good at commanding them so that downside was basically eliminated, which again is not realistic.

That doesn’t mean Mina’s trap setting knowledge is bad or that they would only be effective on enemies that wouldn’t expect them like the bear and his animal army, they would still work on let alone cultivators from large forces that aren’t used to that kind of stuff, but even on people with wider life experience such as mercenaries for example.

You have to take into account that to really cause Aster’s eyes some trouble, a practically perfect visual camouflage like that of the little wyrm is needed and even then, Espi as of current can’t escape from Aster’s detection completely, unless she remains absolutely still or if she is midair.

So, you get the idea of how well hidden below the ground were the traps left by the blue flaming board, as for his danger instincts not warning him, that’s because the trap wasn’t designed to really cause harm, as a proof of it, the thing didn’t even break the shaft of Lina’s weapon.

"The teeth of the trap are designed to pierce shoes but they would barely sink into flesh, what’s more there is a coagulant medicine and an analgesic mixed with a numbing agent applied into them", said the expert in alchemy and the current main medic of the group, namely Mylene who had come to the front at Lina’s petition since she noticed a certain paste-like substance that was stuck to the wood staff where the teeth of the trap were before it was removed.

"So that’s why, they are not registered as "dangerous", even for mortal limited still terribly sharp instincts like yours or miss Mira’s ones, the trap might seem like it would hurt but its purpose is not to wound but to slow down the one that falls in it", said Valentina as she heard the pink-haired girl’s explanation.

"Still, traps that even those dangerous eyes of yours can’t detect, that’s troublesome", added the purple lightning princess to which Aster shook his index finger as he said.

"That’s not exactly true, I just said that it was as if they naturally existed in this area to begin with, so there are no installment traces at all, however it would be too much if they really were completely unavoidable unless one was testing every centimeter of the ground before advancing, so it’s not like they are impossible to detect but for further explanation let’s listen to our dear youngest scout", jokingly said Aster, referring to Nina, only Valentina could listen to him directly so he could be as playful as he wanted.

"Wait a moment sis, I think there was a black grain of sand on the area where you found that trap, just like here...", said the youngest of the three sisters as she used the butt of her spear to check that area of the ground which was a few meters ahead and to the left.

"Click!", as expected, a metallic sound followed by a trap being triggered and biting onto the shaft of Nina’s spear was the result.

"Oh, nice one Nina, look there is another one of those black sand grains over here", said Lina as she tested the discovery made by her little sister and effectively, another trap was activated.

After looking ahead and making a route map in their heads, both red-haired sisters reached the same conclusion.

"The traps are placed in a way that they would slow down groups larger than five walking side to side", said Nina to which Lina added.

"The good news is that we can know where they are buried thanks to those black grains of sand, the bad news is that triggering the traps makes some noise".

"So, it’s a two-option question, you either lose the battle formation advantage to advance faster, or trigger the traps on the way, it sounds too simple so there must be more to it", said Valentina to which Aster added.

"I think we should look at it from another perspective, besides traps, another factor to take into account are animals from this area, the option we chose must be related with the animal that would be interested in coming to "greet" us I think", said Aster which was communicated to the group by Valentina.

"Mmm, in that case, it would be better to trigger the traps, the larger animals and even those who hunt in groups prefer to single out their target, so a smaller group would be like inviting them to attack us, in comparison those that would be attracted by sound might not attack us seeing our large "pack" size", said Kana, this was knowledge she was taught by Guardian, that’s why the word "pack" instead of group was used, as the lynx obviously talked from an animal’s perspective.

Speaking of which it was amusing to see the lynx treating Kana like a little lynx which is why she taught her about hunting and stuff that older lynxes teach to their younglings, during the first day after their meeting, that evolved into just playing around with the little girl later, though Kana still often asked Guardian about her usual habits and things like that for fun, quite fitting of her profession.

"There you have it, let’s follow our expert naturalist’s advice and remain a single large group instead, squad captains, as well as rear guards be on the look just in case", said Aster after he was told what Kana said by Valentina who in turn communicated his decision to everyone else.

And so, with Lina and Nina leading the way as they triggered the traps so that the group could advance in a single large battle formation, they advanced a few hundreds of meters into the area which took them around fifteen minutes, do remember that fatigue here is multiplied by twenty, so for them it was as if they had been walking in a high heat and dry environment for three hundred minutes in other words five hours.

Throughout the previously mentioned walking time, Kana’s knowledge was proven right, since a couple of packs of wild dogs appeared in their way, but after observing that the size of the pack of unknown "creatures" was basically equal in size to theirs, they preferred to go their own way.

"Let’s take a moment here, have a sip of water, a bite of a ration and sit down for a minute", said Sarina as she looked into her compact backpack, which Kana did too.

The pair of roc mother and daughter, surprisingly took a simple choice for the role related items they brought, sheets, yeah, they brought white cloth sheets, because they could be used for multiple things, as Sarina using four spears as pillars to make a shade sail with hers while Kana placed her sheet on the ground so that they could seat, suggested.

"Ah, fresh water after walking under the sun tastes so good~", said a girl from the black sword faction under Blair’s command, the water bottles that they took were kept into the supply storage by Aster since morning, after being left outside during night, it was fresh but not cold and the backpacks had good insulation, so those cute girls were having a blast right now.

"Even the food tastes better while under a shade sail in this place, miss Sarina and little Kana are amazing", added Violet as she munched on a piece of dried boar meat.

Salty snacks like that are good to keep a nice electrolyte balance since salt and other minerals are lost when sweating due to high heat, of course it has to be paired with drinking water, on the other hand it’s not like the girls of the sect had really sweated much, the ones that came all have decent endurance so this much wasn’t enough to tire them, especially because they have done nothing but walk and were now taking a "twenty minute" rest under the shade artificially created by Sarina.

Even Valentina took the chance to stretch her legs a bit after being carried by Aster for what felt like an eternity both due to the fatigue multiplicator effect and due to the worry, that being discovered by others brought to her mind.

"I don’t see more black grains of sand besides the last batch ahead of us, so whatever was supposed to be attracted by the sound, will be coming at us once we trigger those last traps", said Aster as he ate the piece of dried fish that Kana fed him, to then drink from Sarina’s bottle of water.

With his dragon eyes, he looked at a few hundreds of meters around their current position in detail and realized that the trap area had ended, and while the animals that would have attacked them if they separated in smaller groups were already left behind, the other type should be waiting ahead of them.

The interesting part is that Aster couldn’t see them, sure there were a few large rocks here and there through which he couldn’t see, but it would be weird for the animals in question to be hiding behind of them.

’Either the sky or the ground and considering the environment I would say they will come from the ground’, thought Aster as he got up since it was time to continue their way.

"Let’s divide the group’s area in three, Aria will take frontal left, Mira will take frontal right and I will cover the back, also once you two remove the last traps, retreat into the battle formation", said Aster, the last part was directed at Lina and Nina who after being communicated his words by Valentina, nodded in response.

’He is really going to fight while carrying me on his back... well, it shouldn’t require much of an effort for someone that can easily swing a heavy hammer for a whole day next to a forge without even sweating, not that it makes it less embarrassing for me though’, thought the purple lightning princess.

She was right, this much heat was nothing for Aster, he might not be able to directly put his hand on burning hot flames like usual, but even as a mortal dragon descendant he has high resistance against both heat and cold.

"Everyone don’t lower your guard, you can do it now Lina, Nina", said Valentina giving the signal.

"Click!", the two red-haired sisters triggered the last remaining traps and Aster expected, there was an almost immediate reaction coming from the ground ahead of them.

"Shhhhh!", the sand which vibrated and was slightly pushed upwards, accompanied by a screeching-like sound, made it obvious that something was charging towards the group and in a relatively large number considering the different "paths" that were being created on the surface of the ground.

And that wasn’t the most surprising part, but the fact that those whose senses were the sharpest within the group, in other words, Mira and Aster, could feel... spirit energy coming from those newcomers, well, it felt like some kind of spirit energy but at the same time it was different, take into account that both Aster and Mira know how spirit and divine energy feel like and yet this didn’t feel exactly like either of them, in fact it had around 30% of similarity with each of those two.

Anyway, what could be confirmed is that those weren’t mortal animals, and this might make you think that Kana’s choice was not the right one, but that’s wrong, because the total number of enemies based on the traces being left on the ground which Aster could count, were at most a dozen.

On the other hand, they met more than five different packs of wild dogs each with members that went from thirty on the lowest to almost fifty for the largest and in this place, numerous enemies were far more dangerous than single stronger ones, due to the fatigue effect.

Especially, because those wild dogs weren’t simple minded, they presented the qualities of the mortal animals of the forest and were rather organized, if they had noticed that they were being overwhelmed they would have run and tried later, but those things below the sand were coming straight head on towards a group that far outnumbered them, so they were either too used to be the predator, were stupidly overconfident or a combination of both.

And they were also quite unlucky, why you ask, well, there was a certain ligress in the group who prefers cold and fresh areas, and so felt irritated by the high-heat environment and needed something to vent her frustration on, that’s why Aster chose her for the vanguard, so she would have a good excuse to fight and go wild a bit.

It wasn’t that she couldn’t endure the heat, she simply didn’t like high heat by instinct and because of the yang crystal prison in which she spent a lot of time not too long ago, so, this arrangement was prepared by Aster, for her sake.

"It’s really faint but those are not mortal animals", said Mira before she grabbed onto the weapon she chose to bring, which was a spear by the way, even at mortal level, Mira doesn’t really use weapons, since she has her claws, at most she would use reinforced gloves similar to Alice’s ones, but since fighting with her hands in a situation where they didn’t know what they might find was irresponsible, the ligress decided to use a spear.

"Booom!", Mira pounced frontwards, heavily landing spear first upon one of the two paths on the ground that were approaching the group.

"Shhhhh!", a pained screeching sound accompanied by green-bluish liquid staining the sand as a human thigh sized head of a centipede emerged from the ground trying to bite Mira’s leg, only to realize that it couldn’t reach her.

The ligress girl had pinned the centipede into the ground at the exact distance so that it would reveal its real appearance while being unable to reach her.

"Crack!", Mira applied force to the spear and ripped the body of the centipede separating it from the head, the body also emerged out of the ground and revolted a second or two before returning to calmness.

In total what lied for the girls of the sect to see was a brown centipede around two meters large with a body as thick as a human’s forearm and a large head.

"There was some resistance when I ripped this guy’s body in half, the spear did pierce through it with ease though, be careful Aria", said Mira as she swept her spear downwards and to the left dragging another centipede out of the ground to then stab its head piercing it from side to side, instantly killing it.

"No, warning for me, that’s cold", jokingly said Aster who remained at the back and used his weapon which of course was a sword, because he had to be ready to use absolute field if needed, though it was indeed larger and heavier than the single-handed ones he made for everyone else in mass.

Not because he couldn’t fight with one of those, he’s got two intents after all, one that overwhelms everything head on for which he uses the great swords from the dragon buster series and then there is the much more stealth oriented one, both aspects of his annihilation as well.

Mira couldn’t listen to Aster, but she easily recognized the teasing expression on Aster’s face and softly snorted.

"Humph!", two poor centipedes had their heads pierced by the ligress girl’s spear as a consequence of the previous.

Aria was also using spear, though she is a sword user, her swift piercing style felt much more comfortable when using a spear rather than a one-handed sword, she doesn’t really slash her rapier around after all, even her ice attacks focus on piercing or freezing rather than cutting, so while she waited for Aster to make her a proper rapier, she had higher attack power when using a spear, as the pair of centipedes whose heads were accurately and cleanly pierced by her, suggested.

"Well, despite both using spears which are not their weapon of preference, their styles are completely different, just like with her claws, Mira is ripping the centipedes apart while Aria is causing much less of a mess, how cute", said Aster, this reminded him of the different marks left behind by Guardian and Mira’s claws, despite her composed and aloof self, the ligress girl was innately quite fierce, which is why she needed to vent her wild instincts from time to time.

"I’m starting to understand why she always growls at you", mumbled Valentina low enough so that only Aster could hear her, or so she thought, but she forgot that Mira has an incredibly sharp hearing sense, on the other hand her secret was safe because as a fellow victim to the teasing of the black-haired dragon youth, she wouldn’t give her away as that would amuse Aster.

"Crack!", Aster slashed his sword beheading the last centipede which aimed to enter the battle formation and attack the "weaker" targets, in other words those that applied less pressure on the ground, which would have been either Kana or Dahlia who are the youngest members of the group, Lina was included too, because she has quite a light body by innate given that her focus is speed.

Amusingly enough, the youngest Nina is a bit heavier than her older sister, because she is a heavy sword user and thus despite her shorter stature and still slim body, has more muscle than Lina, so she wasn’t among the priority targets for the centipedes.

’Woah, his swordsmanship is amazing as always!’, thought Nina, since she wasn’t being targeted, she stayed close to Aster’s position to observe at how he dealt with the centipedes, she tried to make it pass as if she was there to offer assistance in case it was needed but the sparkles in her eyes gave her away easily.

"The centipedes should be way less in number than the wild dogs or the ecosystem would fall apart, so these twelve must have gathered from all over the place due to the sounds and vibrations caused by the traps being triggered continuously, they have spirit energy or something similar to it, as for their level, I would say it’s around the early or middle stage of the tempered body realm", said Aster as he tapped the tip of his sword against the shell of a centipede, which produced faint clinking sounds.

That was the first of the mortal realms which no one really pays attention to in the cultivation world, because they are easily surpassed, even the cultivators that live in border places at low ranked stellar systems are at the worst-case scenario at the peak of the mortal realms.

However, as the name implies, a tempered body cultivator or in this case animal, as Aster wasn’t sure these centipedes were spirit beasts, develops a body strong enough to contend against normal metal weapons.

’Our weapons are made of high-quality steel and none of the present lacks the physical strength to deal with them, but that was indeed quite the surprise from our ally’, thought Aster.

Even a mortal without zero knowledge about cultivation could kill a cultivator at the early part of the mortal realms with a weapon, under the correct circumstances of course, so these centipedes weren’t an insurmountable enemy, if one didn’t underestimate them and had decent equipment they weren’t hard to deal with.

"They are not even as strong as the young anaconda leader, I would say their battle prowess is around that of the poisonous toad", said Mylene as she put on a pair of disposable plastic gloves, she had many of those into the medical kit she packed as her assigned role item.

The pink-haired girl gathered the corpses of the centipedes and then asked Aster to cut them vertically from head to tail, on the area of their stomachs since that wasn’t covered by the shells, which Aster skillfully did with ease.

"They have spirit energy but don’t have beast cores...", mumbled Blair as Mylene used her hands to look into the area where a spirit beast should have their beast core the equivalent for a cultivator’s dantian.