Chapter 830: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 8)

Why is the previous weird you wonder, well, spirit beasts and cultivators might both use spirit energy but they are not the same, among the numerous differences there is one that has always caused conflict between human cultivators and spirit beasts that had gained human form and become cultivators as well.

That is the fact that unlike humans who have to form their dantian an then go through the awakening ceremony, spirit beasts have beast cores which they use as their dantian by innate in their bodies since birth.

This led to spirit beast cultivators to affirm that they are superior to human cultivators, since they are born apt to take in and accumulate spirit energy, however human cultivators in return affirm that they are superior because they don’t need to wait until the later stages of the Transcending realms to develop the abilities of a cultivator such as spirit sense or spirit pressure nor are they unable to use spirit treasures regardless of their realm, though of course with lower realms there are restrictions in which level of treasure one can use, but the option is always there.

So, as you can see the opinions were divided, but things leaned towards the human cultivators being right, because even if they indeed have a period in which they are unsuitable to properly cultivate, the awakening ceremony can solve that in a single day.

In case you don’t remember, the baptism of the awakening ceremony can make the child in question jump all mortal realms depending on many aspects, Alice for example reached the peak of the mortal realms upon having her ceremony.

That’s one of the reasons as to why mortal realms are not really considered at all, even the ones on the lowest ranked places often skip one or two of them just by going through the awakening ceremony.

"Wait a second, they don’t have beast cores but have spirit energy into their bodies, doesn’t that make them like...", Dahlia’s words were interrupted by the expert in spirit beasts of the group, in other words Mira.

"Like human cultivators before the awakening ceremony, spirit beasts that follow the same path as humans from the very beginning, I had never heard of such a thing", said the ligress girl as she frowned.

’I always thought that the mortal realms were much more important than what everyone considered them to, once you reach the peak of them, the "paths" separate, but before that, realms actually affect more than one path at the time, what’s more, aspects of the three paths are reinforced through the mortal realms for all cultivators’, thought Aster.

While the majority of the mortal realms work on the body and energy aspects of a cultivator, the spirit sea and nascent soul realms instead reinforce soul and energy aspects, and yet no one pays attention to this, because upon reaching the peak of the mortal realms they are separated properly into paths and then you have to cultivate your secondary path from the very beginning, so the mortal realms are just taken as a gift from the heavens and that had caught Aster’s curiosity back then.

Unfortunately, there was no information regarding such an overlooked subject anywhere, even Lilia said so, well, Rya might have knowledge about it, but Aster honestly didn’t put a lot of thought into it and he had not questioned the sword empress about it.

And now the subject was brought back into Aster’s scope in quite an interesting manner.

"Let’s take some flesh from them, perhaps it will be helpful for Guardian and the others, we have the time as there shouldn’t be much animals ahead of us, so feel free to take the blood and the poison sacs of the centipedes while Sarina harvests meat and the shells", said Aster to Sarina and Mylene, with the help of Valentina of course.

"I’ll help sister Mylene with the blood and poison sacs", said Dahlia to which Kana added.

"I’ll help mom to butcher some parts of the centipedes~".

While those four processed the materials they needed from the centipedes, Mira who seemed especially interested in whatever was happening with those centipedes, approached Aster, the ligress girl of course knew that Valentina was with him, so she directly said in a low voice.

"It had already crossed my mind before, given how strange those supposedly mortal animals were, as well as those manuals and other things, I originally believed this place was tied to a really high ranked divine firmament or something along the lines of it, but this place... might surpass the level of a Divine Firmament", she mumbled.

The difference in level between one divine firmament and another one can be abysmal, without exaggerating, Mira has knowledge about divine firmaments that make others look like planets inhabited by mortals without any cultivation, she in fact comes from one that is way higher ranked when compared to that of the luan princesses or Eris and Mylene’s one.

As a proof of the previous, it was a union of many divine firmaments the one that captured her, though the one behind the whole thing was the Yin Azure Palace sect from the Frozen Cloud divine firmament, they only dared to do so because they are a part of a union of many divine firmaments.

That being said, as far as Mira knows even in such places, concepts like mortal animals not being as wise as the native animals of this place, and spirit beasts who have spirit energy into their bodies having a beast core by innate, remained the same which wasn’t the case here, there were other strange things like the clearly immortal grade herbs which lacked all the effects that should be helpful for cultivators they found before for example.

Not to mention that Mira has never been in a place with such lax restrictions from the heavenly law as well, it is basically non-existent or more accurately, the supervisors seem to fulfill that function instead because they can act as witnesses to soul oaths and well, the ones who actually seem to care like the blue flaming board do punish pieces of trash as James’s former teammates for their actions, both of which are things the heavenly law would normally take care of, not as it should by the way, which is amusingly the same here given that other supervisors don’t give a damn about participants or directly want to get rid of them.

Though she also agrees that they are lacking in comparison with the reach that the heavenly law has, Mira can also tell that something happened in this place and it’s not operating as it should, considering that the supervisors are in conflict.

"But then, wouldn’t it be weird that spirit energy doesn’t seem to exist here, why would a place that is higher ranked than a divine firmament bother, with such a thing, what’s more, while the energy of those centipedes felt different, I wouldn’t say it was "stronger" than normal spirit energy, right?", said Valentina.

"Mmm, to be fair divine energy is also not "stronger" than spirit energy perse, I wouldn’t even call it an "evolution" of spirit energy to a superior version of it, from what I have observed divine energy is only more explosive in nature than spirit energy, so it certainly produces more power when used, but spirit energy is much more stable and if it reaches a certain level of purity then it can rival divine energy in terms of raw power as well", said Aster.

This is something he learned after using the spirit furnace made with rigel’s flames to extra purify spirit energy for Eris, Mylene and Mira herself, by absorbing that especially prepared spirit energy, the backslash due to the lack of divine energy that should have run rampant in their bodies, was completely stopped.

After that, they only needed to slowly get their bodies used to operate with spirit energy and adequate their manuals and techniques for that as well, those three have confirmed that not only they wouldn’t lose against their younger selves in the realms at which they are currently even without the mix of divine and spirit energies which they used to cultivate until they could replace all the spirit energy for divine energy, but they might even be able to surpass their previous selves.

"The spirit energy the centipedes had was weird, it felt a third part similar to divine energy, another third part similar to spirit energy and then there was a third part which was strange but was still similar to the previous, I do wonder if that’s what allowed the centipedes to be like human cultivators from the very beginning",

"Unfortunately, the amount of it inside the bodies of the centipedes was too low, most of it disappeared when they died and only traces seem to remain in their bodies", he said to then add.

"As for the background of the supervisors and this place where we are, the higher ranked the place they come from, the better for us, that means the rewards we can obtain will be amazing".

This strange spirit energy alongside the "king" factor, were something that Aster wished to understand and be able to bring back with him, as it could be helpful not only for the little wyrm but also for basically anyone with a spirit beast lineage.

"We just came to know properly about divine firmaments and now this, I have had my fair share of strange findings and enigmatic encounters through the years in secret realms and the like, but just a couple of months with you in the sect and this happens", said Valentina as she sighed to which Aster shrugged.

"Well, you certainly won’t get bored with me around", he said.

"For good or for the worse, humph", added the ligress girl, having shared her mind with Aster and Valentina she returned to Aria’s side, the four who were processing the centipedes finished their task, and now it was time to continue their way towards the platform.

’Now that I remember, Nim said that what she had been waiting for will happen today, does it have something to do with that weird spirit energy?’, wondered Aster.

He couldn’t think of a way for a mortal level tree to be able to actively participate in the trials of this place, but now there were those centipedes which had spirit energy but weren’t spirit beasts considering that they lacked beast cores, which put them at mortal level.

Don’t get it wrong, there were mortal level beings who did things that were on cultivator level, for example the little wyrm with her perfect camouflage and over the top stats despite her small size, Alice... being Alice, Aria’s recovery capacities, Kana who was able to understand animals, Sarina with her wings and electricity, not to mention Vivian and Aster.

However, while being quite bit of a stretch in some cases, they were still explainable to a certain extent, even among mortals there are some who are liked by animals more than others, it’s just not as noticeable as with Kana, normal people can grow resistant to certain poisonous and venomous things by administrating controlled dosages of it over a period of time, it’s dangerous but possible and Vivian’s ability can be an exaggerated version of that basically.

Heck, even Sarina being able to fly with her wings and being able to generate electricity is also explainable, a woman shorter than two meters tall is not close to the largest ever mortal being after all.

In other words, the term "mortal limits" can be much wider than one would expect, but how would you explain a talking and walking tree, that’s completely out of the possibilities of what can be considered mortal level, it would be within the realm of "spiritual".

For Aster who came from a planet where there wasn’t any spirit energy, but stuff like myths and legends did exist, he would attribute most folklore related stories to spirit energy, since they would become quite possible if it was involved into it, even a simple inanimate stick or a stone could gain consciousness with the influence of spirit energy after all.

"Time for a one-minute break, everyone", said Sarina which returned Aster to the real world, they had crossed three quarters of the area just now after walking for thirty minutes in a single go, apparently the twelve centipedes used to be spread in two quarters of it but they all gathered to "greet" them at the middle part of this arid area.

As to why there was no break until now when they took one, fifteen minutes into the travel earlier, that’s because they had stopped while those four were processing the centipedes, so no one felt the need to rest.

In fact, that remained true even as of current, but Sarina called them to take a moment, not only because it was her role to "take care" of the group’s wellbeing, but also because there was a new obstacle ahead at what would make the last quarter of the area they had to cover, namely a "sea" of thorny dried bushes that extended from side to side of the road, with the exception of a path to the left which was much more elevated and crossed a rock hill with a much more complicated terrain in general.

"Crack", Lina who broke a piece of a thorny bush with her spear carefully brought it towards Aster and Valentina to then say.

"Correct me if I’m wrong, but this thing has spirit energy in it, right?", said the sister in the middle as she looked at the thorny stick which she was holding onto.

"Yeah, it’s like those centipedes, but instead of an animal, it’s a plant with power on par with the early to middle stages of the tempered body realm", said Aster to which Mylene added.

"At least they are not toxic, so one would only need to be careful of the thorns, they look like they would rip through normal clothes with ease, not like that would be a problem for us who are wearing brigandines", said the pink-haired girl, the steel plaques inside would for sure stop the thorns from reaching them, though the outer leather jacket would end up a mess.

"So, this time we have to decide whether to cross through a literal thorny path or climb that hill and take a long turn to reach the platform", said Valentina.

"In a rough calculation, climbing and following the path at the left will take us twice the time that it would take us to cross through the thorny bush area", added the youngest of the three sisters Nina.

This was a trick question, because you would be inclined to believe that having to break through the thorny bush area will take much more effort than just climbing and walking through an elevated area, but that’s absolutely not the case.

Not only an elevated area represents the huge danger of slipping and falling more than a dozen of meters, a height that can be fatal for a mortal, but it also will be much hotter up there, not to mention that the required time to reach the platform will double.

On the other hand, the thorny bush area which now seems like the obvious choice, is also not that simple, you quite literally can’t advance without breaking the branches of the bushes and for that you need to use something.

There are rocks here and there, but those bushes are on par with tempered body cultivators so, it would be like trying to use an average stone to break though thin, strong as metal branches in abundance.

The centipedes could still be killed without weapons without suffering a loss if one was smart enough, but here there was no such an option, this last part of the travel basically made you test the quality of your weapons or take a risky and longer path to the platform.

What’s more, this was three quarters of an hour into the match in the best case scenario, after having to deal with traps and either large packs of wild dogs or centipedes with spirit energy into their bodies, it was a test specifically made to pressure the minds of the participants.

Or that would be the case for the normal participants, but Aster and the girls while still annoyed by the high heat and stuff, treated this like a walk in the park, they had fresh water, artificial shade and even food at their disposition.

If anything, Dahlia and Kana were a bit downcast because they hadn’t found anything they could bring back, until now since those thorny bushes were not normal plants.

"Can we cross through the thorny bushes, big brother?", asked the little girl to Aster who nodded in response.

"Sure, steel processed by me won’t break so easily, you and Dahlia can collect a few of those branches, just choose the ones you like the most", he said as he unsheathed his sword, followed by Aria and the ligress girl holding onto their spears.

"Crack!", those three each opened a path large enough for ten people to cross side to side, for the total of thirty members of the group it was enough to perfectly cross, even with the processed materials of the centipedes.

Along the way not only did Dahlia and Kana stopped from time to time to take very "select" branches of the bushes, but they also each had a surprisingly pleasant finding which they immediately kept into their compact backpacks after exchanging gazes and knowingly smiling at the other, this without noticing that a certain red-haired girl who was walking ahead of them right behind the trio that was clearing the path had seemingly kneeled to "tie" her shoelaces earlier and picked something from the ground as well.

It took Aster, Aria and Mira exactly fifteen minutes to make a path through the sea of thorny bushes, so, when the blue flaming board said that the travel would take an hour the earliest, it wasn’t a joke.

"How are things on your end, Aria?", asked Aster as he looked at his sword which was perfectly fine, it was an especially reinforced one that had to endure the usage of Absolute Field after all.

"There is a small dent in my spear’s blade but over all it is fine for a fight", said Aria.

"Same here", added the ligress girl with a much more relaxed voice than earlier, she had ripped apart a bunch of centipedes and also cut a lot of thorny bushes, so her annoyance due to the high heat environment has been properly vented at this point.

"Looks like our opponents will take a moment to catch up with us, Lina, Nina check if there are no traps or anything to see if we can rest around the platform", said Aster.

The sand and rocky ground ended a couple of meters ahead of the last batch of thorny bushes, then there was a twenty-meter area of perfectly flat grey ground and after that a huge platform that covered around the same area as the camp of the myriad occupation sect, appeared.

"Mm, it’s fine, the environment becomes as it was where we were before the match started", said the sister in the middle as she walked into the grey flat area, and with the green light everyone came out of the thorny bush area.

"Woah, the fatigue effect ends as soon as you step into this grey flat ground~", said a girl from the red sword, she was about to just sit there when the blond motherly roc girl stopped her from doing so.

"Wait a moment, I’ll prepare the area so we can properly rest", said Sarina as she called for Kana.

"Phew, I want some water... what’s wrong?", asked Aster who was the last one to enter the area around the platform, he failed to realize that now he couldn’t listen to anything because the girls had suddenly gone silent, not because of the restriction like before.

As to why that happened, it’s simple, they could see Valentina being carried on Aster’s back, the poor purple lightning princess was suddenly returned her capacity to see and be seen, and what welcomed her were a bunch of curious, amused and even jealous pairs of eyes.

Apparently, the leaders were also free from the restrictions of the match while in this grey flat area, something that the blue flaming board didn’t mention, probably because it was only temporary before the second part of the match started.

’Ahhhhh!’, that resulted in Valentina screaming to her insides, she had managed to save her dignity during a "twenty hour" race, only to trip at the finish line.