Chapter 833: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 11)

The skinny man was right, it’s not that Kana was unable to develop killing intent, not anymore at least, courtesy of Aster’s lessons, the reason as to why Xander didn’t feel any from her, which originally mislead him to believe that her close combat skills were mere child’s play, is that in Kana’s mind he wasn’t considered a threat.

In a sense, Xander couldn’t be blamed, one wouldn’t normally expect such a skilled archer as Kana to be able to fight with such fierceness at short range, not to mention that, well, she is rather young and doesn’t look physically strong either, but that’s the result Aster wanted to achieve with her, a cutie who doesn’t look menacing at all, but would make the enemies cry after committing the mistake of underestimating her.

"Humph, what a poor excuse of an ambush", said the little girl as she slightly bent her body downwards while also leaning to the left.

With a "swoosh" the punch and the kick aiming at Kana’s upper back and right side completely failed their target.

’Does she have eyes on her damn back or what the hell!’, inwardly exclaimed the short bulky man who was only a dozen or so of centimeters taller than Kana, which is why he was the one who punched at the little girl’s upper back.

Kana does indeed have good sight, those pretty eyes of hers have more uses than just giving Aster puppy eyes when she wants him to agree to a request of hers, though that’s her preferred way to use them, but in this case what she used were her ears instead.

Don’t forget that Kana has a literal incarnation of wind living inside of her dantian, she has learned from Esmeralda to identify different kinds of sounds produced by different kinds of winds, like the sound of air being pushed by a human moving at high speed.

’Idiots, Kana can listen to the softest breathing sounds produced by a living being as small as a human’s hand twenty meters away from her, though her eyes are not as good mine, she doesn’t have a "blind spot" when her ears are added to the mix’, thought Aster.

Kana is like a sponge when it comes to learning about others, she learned from the "control area" that Aster uses as a cultivator with the help of his dragon eyes, spirit sense and soul energy, which is what he uses to keep tabs on everything in a battlefield.

Of course, the little girl can’t replicate Aster’s methods, but she can achieve something similar with the help of her own good eyes, sharp ears and Esmeralda’s training.

It was easier to simply rush head on at Kana than trying to ambush her, which is exactly what Alice did during the previous two days of training.

"Thud!", speaking of which, a loud solid sound was produced as Kana turned around to then use her elbow to land a hit on the guy who tried to kick her right side a moment ago.

"Cough!", one could see the shadow of Alice behind that attack which the little girl skillfully aimed at the lower rib area of that guy, forcing the air out of him, that’s called a diaphragmatic spasm and by doing as previously said and also preventing you from inhaling for a few seconds, causes a momentary sense of panic, long story short is a perfect way to create an opening for an actual attack with the aim to knock out your opponent, especially against those that are not experienced in close combat, as Kana slightly raising her leg as if to kick that guy, suggested.

"You little... agh!", of course the previous applies to a 1v1 situation, and Kana here is dealing with both the short bulky man currently as well, which is why she expected him to interfere in order to prevent her from taking out that other guy, so that "kick" she seemed to be about to throw, turned into an stomp, that’s right, Kana simply baited the short bulky man into believing she was aiming for his companion with a kick which she transformed into a stomp that landed on the right foot of the short bulky man.

"Crack!", that was the sound of a metal reinforced shoe landing on a normal shoe and though failing to break the enemy’s bones because the bulky man had shorter toes than expected, still causing some awful pain by cracking his nails, which made him lose balance and fall on his ass.

"Clang", Kana who formed a fist with which she was about to punch the short bulky man on the face after he had committed the "grave sin" of loosing his footing in the middle of a fight, instead moved to the side as she opened her hand and used the palm area of her glove to redirect the fist of the skinny man who at some point had put on a pair of gloves with small sharp metal spikes on the knuckle area, to then charge at Kana while she was clashing with the other two.

The metallic sound was produced because her gloves were reinforced for defense with thin plaques of shock absorbing steel so that she wouldn’t hurt her hand even if she used her full grip strength to draw on the string of her bow.

"You useless fools, you couldn’t even act as a proper distraction!", exclaimed Xander as he slashed his free hand at Kana’s face, turns out that the left hand’s glove didn’t have the spikes on the knuckle area but instead had metal "claws" on its fingertips.

In response, Kana didn’t dodge, instead she actually stepped ahead and using her smaller body as an advantage, invaded the close space of the enemy to then throw a punch at Xander’s neck.

’What!’, the skinny man’s eyes contracted like needles as he realized that Kana wasn’t stopping, if things seemingly continued as they were, then he might be able to scratch the little girl’s face, however a punch with the impact he had experienced before, concentrated on a delicate area like the neck... might break it, in other words chances were that he would die due to that little fist.

’I can’t detect any signs of she chickening out, is she actually like us... no, she must have something in mind to get to me before I reach her’, thought the skinny man, the unknown is often the most terrifying, you would expect an assassin to go for the kill even at the cost of suffering a wound, however would you expect the same from a little girl that obviously has zero assassination skills or mindset, hell no, in fact you would be inclined to believe that she has something else in mind.

And it was that doubt which Kana was weaponizing here.

"Damn it!", Xander cursed as he changed from slashing at Kana’s face to move his arm downwards, smacking away the little girl’s fist while he took a step backwards, that being said, his gloves weren’t reinforced for defense so that left his left hand numb.

And that was what the little girl wanted; she knew that the enemy wouldn’t believe she was willing to exchange a wound for a kill, because that is actually true, her admired big brother said that their priority should always be their safety, so of course she wouldn’t so something like that, there are exceptions of course, like how Espi had to break the rule to instantly kill the anaconda at the cost of damaging her scales.

But there is no need for something like that here, Kana did have something else in mind, she was going to change the trajectory of her fist to the side, in order to impact the enemy’s bicep to temporarily immobilize that arm thus also interfering with his attack, it was either that or forcing the skinny man to retreat which is what ended up happening.

"Xander why the hell are you retreating", said the short bulky man also known as Richard, had gotten up and got away from Kana’s vicinity to reunite with Xander, but on the heat of the moment, he forgot about something important, his companion which was barely recovering from the elbow strike of earlier.

"Gah!", naturally that guy also tried to get away in order to join with those other two, but Kana did a low kick which made him trip and fall face first to the ground.

"Crack!", what followed was for sure a bone cracking sound as Kana heavily stepped on the back of that guy’s foot.

"Aghhhh!", the enemy was lying face down on the ground and so the front of his foot and his toes were against the ground while his heel was facing up, the heel bone is one of the stronger bones in the body, it’s not impossible to break at all, but why would Kana tire herself to cause a "high-energy injury", when she could simply crush that guy’s toes using the flat ground and her weight.

"Ugh, that looks painful, I wonder where did she learn to fight like that though", said Valentina as she glared at Aster who bitterly smiled in response.

He didn’t teach her that, the little girl learned from the "paralyzing" techniques of Alice’s profession type manual.

"It’s fine, you can leave him to me", said Aster to Kana who was about to break that guy’s neck with her foot.

"Mm, thanks big brother~", cutely said the little girl as she kicked that guy on his side, sending him rolling until he stopped in front of Aster to then freeze on the spot, at this distance he didn’t need to use absolute field, if that guy did as much as thinking on returning to the fight, his head would roll before he could even try to get up.

’I don’t know if I should feel happy that she has learned to defend herself or sad that she has integrated a lot of Alice’s habits into her fighting style’, thought the blond roc mother as she dodged a shield bash from the tanned tall guy.

"Hey Xander, would you care to explain why when she aimed at your neck earlier, her form resembled that of the black dagger sect?", said the short bulky man whose eyes were slightly bloodshot after seeing that other guy having his toes broken to then be casually kicked aside by Kana.

"Nonsense, she is not a fellow disciple from my sect, she doesn’t have the killing intent we use, she is simply abnormal, a brat who can cause such wounds and then smile like that, is just disgustin...", the skinny man’s words stuck in his mouth as he was gazed at by Aster.

"I would say that the pieces of trash that are trying to kill a harmless girl are the disgusting ones, if you ask me", he casually said as he touched the back of the neck of that guy who was suffering due to his broken toes, with his sword.

"I-I surrend...", before he could finish his sentence, Aster’s sword had sunk into his neck, killing him on the spot, and before you ask "why did Aster ask Kana to hand him over if he was going to kill him anyway?", it wasn’t to prevent the little girl from killing, certainly Kana has a good heart and she prefers peace over conflict, if she could she would love to spend her time playing with Aster and her sisters instead of fighting, however she has also dealt with enemies at this point, so she wouldn’t shy away from ending the life of someone that clearly wishes her harm.

So no, the reason as to why Aster killed that guy was because of a small tube which rolled out of his pocket now that he was dead, a tube with a milky-white substance inside of it, which Aster recognized on the spot.

’Would you look at that, this guy actually found a manchineel tree and harvested its sap to use it as a weapon, that gives me a decent idea of the area where his camp is located’, thought Aster.

The manchineel tree in question is one of the most dangerous mortal trees that there are, it was especially mentioned by Vivian to Aster who communicated its appearance to the girls of the sect, because its fruit looks like an apple, but its extremely poisonous, but that’s not the worse part of it, its sap causes chemical burns and blistering upon contact, luckily there was none in the forest as far as Aster and Guardian knew.

Probably the blue flaming board wouldn’t leave such an easy to weaponize plant around, the thing didn’t even need any processing.

"Looks like I got a nice gift for my medic", said Aster as he slightly shook that tube while letting everyone see it.

With this he confirmed something by observing at the "Someone kill that annoying bastard" reactions on the faces of the that guy’s teammates, they thought he was flirting with someone from his side, Mylene to be more accurate, instead of looking angered or panicked, which means that... only that guy had this on him.

’I see, he kept it a secret, that’s what happens when you don’t trust your group, they missed on such a good weapon’, thought Aster, the sap of the tree can cause pain and burns but it won’t kill, so the blue flaming board wouldn’t restrict them from bringing it into the match.

If that guy had mentioned his finding to everyone, then the blond guy’s subordinates would have been at least annoying for the girls to deal with, but that wasn’t the case, they wouldn’t have been in severe danger since the sap needs contact with the skin and the girls are wearing large clothes and brigandines precisely to prevent situations like these from happening, but they would have needed to put more thought into dealing with them indeed.

"Evil dual cultivator bastard, thinking on women after killing someone...", said the tanned man as he used the shield mounted on his arm to block the incoming slash of a sword.

"Clang!", the slash was swift but the impact was quite strong, resulting in sparks and a loud metal clashing sound as the sword landed on the metal layer of the tanned man’s shield.

"Says the one that only didn’t team up with an actual scum evil cultivator to kill a young girl because there are too many people watching", that was naturally Sarina speaking, she was already pissed off about these guys targeting her daughter and then the tanned man also hypocritically insulted Aster.

"What did you...khhh!", the tanned man wanted to retort, but he was forced to swallow his words and focus on solidifying his stance and applying more strength to his arm because the sword that was still leaning against his shield suddenly seemed to increase its weight.

That was of course not the case, it’s just that Sarina was applying more strength onto her sword, fun fact, the tanned man is the second tallest among the enemy group only surpassed by that guy with the great sword, however Sarina is a couple of centimeters taller than him.

Now add to that the fact that the blond roc motherly girl hates hypocrites and hates even more those that try to harm her beloved daughter, and you get a Sarina who is looking down on the tanned man both literally and figuratively.

’I’m a main body path cultivator, while she is clearly a main energy one, why is she so damn strong!’, inwardly cursed the tanned man.

Though he was generalizing a bit too much, since he guessed that Sarina wasn’t a main body path cultivator just based on her "soft" looking figure which opposes the athletic aspect of those that train their bodies, that guy was right, Sarina isn’t let alone a main body path cultivator, but hasn’t even properly entered the body path as his secondary one, however that’s in cultivator terms which are rendered null in this place.

After Aster had learned that integrating aspects of the three paths was a god way to increase one’s battle prowess, all the girls of the family followed his instructions and trained their bases in the paths that they weren’t focusing at the time, like Aria for example, but among them, Sarina is an especial case, she needed a bit of extra care in terms of physical rehabilitation after being confined to a bed for quite a few years, so she exercised the way mortal do to fully recover after drinking Aster’s blood.

It was that, coupled with the fact that her power as a star maiden ended up taking the form of a soul constitution, what ultimately made her decide to take the body path as her secondary one.

And while her roc lineage is not physical strength focused but energy focuses instead, she is still a princess with the purest inheritance of the warrior branch, so, to put it in simple terms, in this place Sarina’s physical strength is only second to monsters like Alice, Aster or Mira, though she is a bit behind of Mylene and Felicia who are extremely talented in the body path and have trained on it before.

"You two what the hell are you waiting for!", the tanned man who felt his feet sliding backwards a bit as he lost in the strength competition, ultimately called for the two brothers that had tagged with him, to join in the fight.

"Now that’s more like it, double-faced "righteous" trash at its finest", said Sarina as she retrieved her sword.

"S-Shut up, the only trash here is you, that girl who was smiling so carefreely after breaking the bones of someone else, is your daughter, right?", said the tanned man to which the blond motherly roc girl coldly snorted.

"Humph, she broke the bones of an "enemy" not of "someone else", not to mention that it was your side the one who attacked first, the most amusing part of this whole thing is that, besides irredeemable trash like that dagger guy, if you hadn’t shown any hostility, we wouldn’t have cared about you guys at all", and with those words, Sarina and her more than 1.8 meters of height charged at the enemies.

Speaking of the little girl who was cheerful after breaking an enemy’s bones, back at Kana’s fight, though the skinny man firmly declared that Kana wasn’t a fellow member from the black dagger sect, even he had some doubts about it.

’On the other hand, it is true that what she did somewhat resembled the base form of my sect’s technique but there was something different, it felt modified like... what I changed after reading those mortal manuals!!!’, Xander’s eyes contracted like needles as he finally realized what had happened.

"She is imitating me, that little bitch is messing with us by imitating my technique", said the skinny man to the short bulky one while gritting his teeth, to which a mocking voice reached their ears the next second.

"If your version is the inferior one, then, wouldn’t the imitation, be you?", jokingly said Aster, Xander committed another grave mistake besides underestimating Kana, he allowed the little girl to see the peak performance of his fighting style but was unable to kill her on the spot.

Kana is a genius when it comes to learn and is capable of integrating aspects of other people’s fighting styles into hers, what’s more she does it in a way that there won’t be conflict between each other, perhaps that’s also an expression of her innate ability to harmonize with everything that exists.

So, the little girl has already cracked down Xander’s fighting style and she took what she wanted from it and integrated it into hers, just after being targeted by him once.

"You are boring, it took me two days to be able to "learn" something from sister Alice, but only a few seconds for the two of you, I can’t even properly show my improvement to big brother with you as opponents", casually said Kana.

It wasn’t an insult; she was being completely honest here and that way it burnt those two even more than if it had been an actual insult.

"Oh really... let’s see how you "learn" after turning into a mess of broken flesh", said the skinny man as he reached for his pocket to then take out a yellow pill with a black spot and red small vein-like patterns on it, to then toss it into his mouth.

’This crazy bastard!’, the short bulky man immediately got away from Xander as he saw him eat that pill.