Chapter 831: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 9)

Despite how agitated Valentina was on the inside, she elegantly went down from Aster’s back to then say.

"Ahem, I could see nothing but Aster until a moment ago so I asked him to help me move while we crossed the area".

This explanation while still made a few girls giggle at her, like Kana for example, satisfied the curiosity of the disciples in their majority at least.

That being said, listening to the purple lightning princess’s heart which was beating way faster than normal out of embarrassment, made Mira softly snort at Aster, as he in the end successfully teased another girl.

"Humph!", seeing he ligress girl’s accusatory gaze, Aster chuckled as he said.

"Hey you can’t blame me this time, I didn’t say a thing".

"But you are loving every second of it, right?", added the ligress as she narrowed her eyes to which Aster immediately nodded.

"Of course, to be honest I thought we would have to wait until we returned for this little episode to come afloat, but it ended up happening way before that", jokingly said Aster which nearly made Valentina who was about to sit, trip on the spot.

’What does he mean with that, was there someone observing us the whole time, well, besides the blue flaming board?’, she wondered, the poor lightning princess wasn’t aware that Lilia was within the mind space watching the whole thing develop, in fact she has been making comments like "Since you already stole a princess from the Fey, what does a second one account for" and "Go for it darling" since before.

’Ughhh I want to disappear... wait a second, is this another thing that Agnes didn’t mention to me on purpose, that little girl is in for long "conversation" once I’m back!’, inwardly exclaimed Valentina as she sat down to munch on a piece of dried boar meat to drown her "sorrows".

Leaving Valentina aside, the youngest of the three sisters approached Aster, since she could now directly talk to him.

"Is it fine if I go and take a look at the hill over there?", asked Nina as she pointed at the part of the elevated area that alternatively connected with the platform.

"Mmm, those guys should still need some time before arriving, but...", Aster was about to say that it might be dangerous but the sister in the middle interrupted him.

"It’s fine, we might end up a bit more tired than the others, but we fighting wasn’t part of the plan to begin with right, don’t worry I’ll accompany Nina so that she doesn’t get into trouble", said Lina with that energetic voice of hers.

"Okay, but only five to ten minutes at most, and don’t climb higher than ten meters, I don’t want that scary older sister of yours scheming against me because her little sisters scraped their knees playing around", jokingly said Aster which made both Lina and Nina smile, for different reasons though, the youngest was happy to have gotten permission, because she needed it for her actual purpose which was... asking for a reward later, as for Lina she laughed at the way Aster interacted with Mina.

And with that, those two left the resting area while the others enjoyed some nice shadow, fresh water and food, around five minutes later, Aster could see some familiar people descending from an elevated road at the right.

The path to the platform area was divided into two, Aster’s group arrived from the left side, which consisted in the thorny bush area with the hill at its left, there was a tall rock formation which was basically impossible to climb at the right.

But that was the sight before reaching the platform area, once they reached it, from this angle, Aster could see what lied at the other said of that tall rock formation, which was a perfect copy of the path they took, but the elevated path was at the right side instead.

’As expected, they all made it here, though they do indeed don’t look as "clean" as before, it’s understandable considering they fought the wild dogs and climbed the hill’, thought Aster, with a quick gaze he was able to guess which options they chose, well, besides the obvious one which is the act that they climbed the hill.

The enemy group was complete and they were fine besides some scratches here and there, their clothes, arms and even some of their faces on the other hand were rather dusty and they of course didn’t go through the thorny bush path to preserve their weapons.

The spears of the brown-haired woman had some cracks on their shafts, which meant that they didn’t fall for the foothold traps and properly scouted the path ahead of them, however judging by the quality of the wood used for the staves of those spears, they didn’t trigger that many of them, otherwise they would have snapped.

Don’t forget that the staves for the spears of Aster’s group were made by the girls of the sect who used the highest quality wood available, with the quality seal of the chatterbox runic oak, that combined with the fact that the teeth of the foothold traps were low in terms of piercing power, resulted in only some scratches on Lina and Nina’s spears.

But the same wouldn’t apply to the enemies, if they had triggered as many traps as the red-haired sisters did, Aster had no doubt that they would have lost at least thirty centimeters of length from their spear’s staves and since that wasn’t the case, it also meant that they spread in smaller groups to advance and that led them to face the packs of wild dogs, which explained the scratches here and there.

Of course, you might think "And what if that brown-haired woman was simply given the weapons of others?", but that wouldn’t trick Aster, earlier he perfectly memorized to the smallest details of the weapons each enemy had, the group from the blond-haired guy was discarded from that possibility because the craftmanship of their weapons was different than the one from the group of the green haired female leader, to which the brown-haired woman belonged.

And while one of the two pairs of brothers that were teammates to said brown haired woman, did use spears, they were different, that woman was taller than them and so her spears had longer staves, which is probably why she was given the role to scout ahead of the group, as she had some length of he spears which she could spare.

"Huh, how did they arrive faster than us, damn it", said the tanned guy as he set a foot into the area around the platform, which returned Aster to the real world.

"Tsk, damn dual cultivator bastards, while we were suffering due to this heat, they were having a tea party or some nonsense like that", cursed the short bulky man with the hammer on his back.

The skinny man’s eyes directly showed killing intent, but seeing that no one from Aster’s side even bothered to raise their guards at their arrival, he clicked his tongue and stopped himself from charging like earlier, interestingly enough he had a "dagger" on him once again.

Well, it was actually the head of a spear which had its staff cut short enough to be used as an improvised dagger, considering how it was almost completely stained in blood, that skinny man must have been the one to kill most of the wild dogs, that was another detail that confirmed Aster’s supposition by the way, because the blood of the centipedes was green-bluish colored instead.

The green haired female leader who just set up a foot on the gray flat area instantly frowned but it was the orange haired one the one who spoke what was in her mind.

"Hey, the red-haired sisters are missing, is that how they arrived earlier... he used them as bait for those stupid dogs!", she exclaimed which made Aster raise an eyebrow.

"Even if that was the case, it wouldn’t be matter in which you have a say", casually said Aster which made that orange haired girl nearly charge at him, of course Aster was just getting some fun at her expense.

’Sometimes even I wonder if I do indeed look that much like a scum type dual cultivator’, he thought, not like he cared what the enemy thought, also that orange haired girl’s expression was worth being seen when Lina and Nina who were a bit dusty after climbing and descending the hill, returned to the group, because they looked as if they had been chased for a long time and Lina’s next words didn’t help at all either.

"Sorry, we got a bit lost, but it looks like we still made it in time", said the sister in the middle to which Aster nodded, not without noticing that their spears were quite messy as well, similar to Aria and Mira’s ones, they now had dents on their blades which was strange as they didn’t clear the path earlier, but now it wasn’t the time to talk about such things and more importantly, the youngest clearly wanted it to be a "surprise".

’She seriously thinks I couldn’t notice what she was doing up there, how cute’, amusedly thought Aster.

’Damn, obviously the sole guy is one of the leaders, I wanted to know who was the other one in charge over there’, in comparison the blond-haired leader was cursing to his insides.

Since they considered Aster’s group as one that came from a dual cultivator camp, and due to the obviously unbalanced ratio of male to female members present on Aster’s side, it wasn’t hard for them to guess that he was one of the two leaders, what was driving the blond guy crazy is that he couldn’t pinpoint who the other leader was, while the enemy’s side did know in their case.

As if it felt the animosity between both parties, or more accurately the animosity coming from the enemy’s group towards Aster’s one, since they didn’t show the slightest concern about them honestly, the blue flaming board made its appearance.

[Congratulation to both groups for reaching the platform without any members quitting the match, I will explain what the second part is about so we can start right away]

"Hey, they seem quite well rested since they used those two as decoys, wouldn’t it be fair if we have a few minutes to catch our breath?", said the short bulky man to which the blue flaming bord directly answered.

[Like I said before, the way you manage yourselves is up to you, no rules were broken on their side, this is the final warning, another instance of unbased accusation will be treated as a try to defame the opponent and will result in a punishment]

The short bulky man gritted his teeth, his stature being the second shortest of the group made it so the wild dogs aimed to single him out from his selected group of five, during the four rounds of attacks they faced, of course he was not an easy prey, but that didn’t stop the wild dogs from targeting him each time, so he was rather annoyed and the heat which felt even stronger after they had climbed the hill, didn’t help either.

Then he was met with the sight of the enemies having the leisure to sit under a shade sail while eating and drinking water that looked fresh unlike the one in his bottle, add to that the fact that the moment he finally thought he could sit down and take a breather, the blue flaming board appeared to directly start the second part of the match.

"That’s enough Richard, please continue with the explanation", said the blond-haired guy to the short bulky man, not wanting his teammate’s irritability to result in a penalty after he had avoided that by letting the green haired female leader win the argument earlier.

[The first part of the match was prepared to test many different aspects of the participants, but the second one is much simpler and closer to what you must have expected when brought here, it’s combat, however your groups won’t be the only ones participating in the fight, a third party will be included to test your group fighting capacities]

"Huh, come on it was already too much to deal a with a group under the watch of the supervisor in charge of the match and now there will be a second one", said another of the teammates from the blond-haired guy’s team, who outstood from the rest, besides the skinny man and the short bulky middle-aged guy, this one was tall, in fact he was the tallest of the whole group, even surpassing that tanned man, and amusingly enough his weapon was a great sword.

The fact that so much metal was used for his weapon might make others think that he is the leader or something like that, but that’s absolutely not the case, because that large sword was made by mixing all the leftovers of the metal used for the other weapons of his group, and it honestly didn’t have a sharp edge, in fact it wasn’t apt to have a sharp edge, because the metal was of low quality, it was basically a large metal block shaped as a sword.

Those two alongside the fat man with the club that had nails pointing out of it, as well as the woman with brown hair, were the equivalent of Amanda, Brenda, Violet and Blair, in other words they were the squad captains from the enemy’s side, the skinny man originally had that position but lost it as soon as the green-haired female leader agreed to join hands with them, because in her eyes he was not apt to lead others and she was right, even the skinny man himself was happy with the arrangement, as he preferred to fight than to lead anyway.

’Fools, even for ninety participants the platform is too large, not to mention that group fighting is easier to evaluate not against another group with "similar" strength, but a single stronger target, therefore the third party in this case... is not another group of participants’, thought Aster whose conclusion was confirmed by the blue flaming board the next second.

[The third party in question doesn’t belong to the participant category, but it will be easier for you to see it rather than explaining it]

And with those words, the ground below everyone’s feet trembled for a moment, before the grey flat area at the other side of the platform cracked forming an around ten-meter-wide hole out of which a dark brown centipede with a body two meters wide and legs that were twice as large.

"Clang!", what’s more, the claw-like structures under the centipede’s head also called forcipules which act as pincers were solid enough to produce metallic sounds and sparks when the centipede made them collide with each other.

"Shhhh!!!", by the time the centipede completely came out of the ground, it revealed a body almost twenty meter large as it screeched at both groups of participants, the sound was loud enough to produce some visible discomfort on a few participants, and there were others who felt offended by it, like the ligress girl who felt the urge to cut it into shreds with her claws, but remained aloof on the outside.

’Now, that is an enemy prepared to test group fighting skills’, thought Aster, leaving aside the large size of the centipede, the fact that it was radiating spirit energy on par with a cultivator at the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm, was enough to make it a formidable enemy that would require a group of mortals to face head on.

In terms of battle prowess that centipede didn’t reach Guardian’s level, the lynx was way smarter and had the capacity to use lineage pressure, however in terms of destructiveness that centipede surpassed not only the bear due to its size but even Guardian alongside her technique, it had spirit energy in its body after all.

That being said, Aster was one hundred percent sure that the lynx could defeat the centipede without suffering any severe wound, she is an agile high attack power type fighter so heavy destructive type ones are ineffective against her, as it was proved by the bear not being able to land a single attack on Guardian.

Needless to say, but while for the girls of the sect anomalies such as that centipede was nothing new, as they had seen the bear and were told about the black horse which took weird shapes during his fight with Kana and Ember, the members of the other group couldn’t help but look worried.

"What the hell is that, a spirit beast!", exclaimed one of the normal members of the blond-haired guy’s side.

"Is that blue flaming board crazy, it wants us to deal with a spirit beast and a group the same size as us at the same time, while being limited to be mortals?", mumbled another one.

[Similar to the first part of the match, how you decide to deal with the situation is up to both teams, you can fight between each other and the third party, or you can team up to deal with the third party first and then settle things up properly, this is your last chance to quit, but if more than five participants from a group quit, their team will be disqualified automatically, you have three minutes to make your preparations], added the blue flaming board.

Listening to the previous, both leaders from the enemy group felt a headache coming their way, the blond guy was worried that the ten group which wasn’t under him would just leave in which case all this would have been for nothing.

The green haired female leader on the other hand knew that after the skinny man tried to outright kill a member of the opposite side, chances that they would agree to cooperate with them were low at best.

"Hey, why don’t we deal with the centipede first and then...", and as the green haired female leader expected, the words of the middle-aged man from her team were interrupted by Aster who already knew they had guessed he was one of the two leaders.

"We refuse", he said.

"Look, if this is because what happened with Xander, we can have that blue flaming board act as a witness to a proper deal so that no one can attack the other until the centipede has been dealt with", said the green haired female leader to which Aster raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, I know that, I don’t care if that guy tries to stab us in the back, now that fighting is allowed, he will die the moment he tries, it’s just that my cute juniors want to fight that centipede without your interference", said Aster, which naturally caused a violent reaction from the enemy’s side.

"What did you say, you dual cultivator bastard!", that was the skinny man who was told he was going to die the moment he aimed to attack Kana again.

"I also don’t want to join hands with them, if they want to deal with the centipede that’s fine, we’ll just focus in attacking them instead", said the tanned tall guy to which Aster smirked.

"You’ll be better trying to fight with the centipede if you ask me, but sure do as you please", he said.

In case you wonder why Aster suddenly changed to a much more aggressive strategy, that’s because the centipede’s danger while indeed larger than that of the bear in a 1v1 situation, is not that far from it, so even if the girls of the sect killed it and this information made its way to the ears of the enemy supervisors, it wouldn’t matter.

They already know they are this strong in a group anyway, so there was no need to restrain those fierce girls who were clearly enthusiastic about fighting with the centipede to show off the results of their training in combat formations.

[I take it that there is no need to wait for the preparation time to be over]

"We are ready", said Aster, while the blond-haired leader turned to see the green haired female leader who couldn’t help but glare at the skinny man as in her mind the chance to have ended this match without spilling blood was lost because of him, which was not a lie, after all that guy was dead in Aster’s mind the moment, he tried to kill Kana.

"We also agree", said the green haired female leader as she grabbed her metal spiked whip.

[Good luck to all participants]

And with that, the blue flaming board transported not only both groups but also the centipede into the platform.