Chapter 836: The first day of the evaluation trial (part 14)

"Mm?", Mylene who was lost in her thoughts returned to the real world as she felt a soft tug on her right sleeve.

"Are you okay sister Mylene?", the pink-haired girl was met with Kana’s pretty blue eyes which had a tinge of worry in them.

It might have been Aster the one who taught Kana to loot defeated enemies, however Mylene was the one who showed her how to look for traps and other tricks that enemies might have left behind in their possessions, of course that’s because Aster and Sarina handed her that task, since those two got along pretty well.

So, Kana found weird that Mylene simply stood there next to the now dead enemy without doing or saying anything, not to mention that the little girl could tell that there was something in Mylene’s mind.

Now, don’t get it wrong, the pink-haired girl didn’t look worried in Kana’s eyes, she has come to terms with her own situation with a little push from Aster after all, but unlike the usual, Mylene was showing concern regarding something instead of keeping a poker face while making her plans for the future.

’Sigh, how pathetic of me, regardless of the situation, a big sister should always look calm and reliable for her little sisters, so what if the Karel family lackey’s come, I might have lacked resources and influence but a princess like myself, who survived to the schemes of all the other heirs and even elders, was defeated by Aster and the others, so there is no reason to be afraid’, thought Mylene as she softly smiled at Kana.

"I’m fine, but my hands feel a bit sore, won’t you help me retrieve the valuables this guy might have on him?", said Mylene as she patted Kana’s head.

"Mm~", the little girl happily nodded and then started sorting out the tall guy’s objects, Kana already knew it since she had taken Xander’s things after killing him, but these guys didn’t bring much to the match, they had their weapons, some bad quality pieces of dried fish, "medicines" of sorts and that was it.

’They lacked a real alchemist who could work with mortal ingredients, but still had some knowledge or perhaps obtained it from a manual about herbs’, thought Mylene as she saw Kana using her hand which was protected with gloves to take out the "pills" from the tall guy’s pockets.

Unlike Mylene who did use refinement processes such as drying, boiling, distillation and the like to combine herbs and other ingredients in order to make complex medicines, those guys on the other hand literally just compressed or crushed the herbs they learned about to use them as they are.

"For how "fierce" they act, they surely seem afraid of pain, how lame, right little Kana?", said Mylene as she saw the small container with an herbal paste made of the plant called "beach morning glory" which was effective for muscular pain that the tall guy had in his pocket.

"Mm, big brother is right, relying in numbing effects instead of training one’s mind is a bad idea", mumbled Kana.

Having recovered that guy’s stuff, those two returned to Aster’s side.

"Look big brother, I got a new ingredient for sister Mylene, though it was ruined by that guy", happily said Kana as she showed the herbal paste, made from a plant that couldn’t be found near the camp, not like it was needed, since they had far better and much cleaner analgesics already, but how could Aster resist the "praise me" gaze in the little girl’s eyes.

"Oh, sounds like you can now ask a certain someone to make candy making a priority as a reward", jokingly said Aster which made Mylene pout to her insides, she had to deal with a pair of sweet loving little girls coming to her workshop with puppy eyes, due to Aster not too long ago, luckily, she had a secret stash of candies for emergency situations, and he was now rubbing salt on the wound.

Seeing Mylene whose expression was that of a bullied girl, Aster chuckled as he extended his free hand to place it on her head to then stroke that silky pink hair of hers, resulting in that pink-haired girl’s eyes widening a bit due to surprise, but she didn’t shy away from it, especially because she liked Aster’s next words.

"Or perhaps, Espi and myself could tag along and we could turn it into a candy making alchemy "lesson" just the four of us, what do you say?", said Aster, he couldn’t leave the little wyrm out of the fun, especially because as his "companion" Espi should be able to assist in actual alchemy despite it not being her main focus, just like Aster does.

After exchanging gazes for a second, those two smiled.

"Yes~", happily exclaimed both Kana and Mylene basically at the same time, as they enjoyed their respective head pats.

’How cute’, thought Aster, and speaking of head pats, that amusingly leads us to the next fight, or more accurately "fights", starred by a pair of young girls, one with red hair and one with soft brown hair, namely the youngest of the three sisters Nina and Dahlia.

’Kana already finished her fight, amazing!’, thought Dahlia as she dodged a spear’s thrust with her nimble footwork to then take a small leap backwards just in time to avoid being tackled by an enemy using a shield, to then take out her weapon which was half kept into her backpack, because unlike others she had the "privilege" of having received her preferred weapon from Aster himself.

"Clang!", a weapon that took the enemy leading the "team" attacking Dahlia, by surprise, he was the younger of one of the two pairs of brothers from the green haired female leader’s team, unlike the ones fighting alongside the tanned guy who used spears, the other pair of brothers both used swords.

’She stopped my attack too easily’, thought the enemy, now, he wasn’t surprised because Dahlia blocked his sword with a hammer, he was surprised because Dahlia was able to keep tabs on him while dealing with enemies using large weapons which were supposed to draw her attention, so that he could use his swift sword style to get rid of the enemy in a single go.

"A hammer?", the other two guys which belonged to the blond guy’s team instead, were more surprised by Dahlia’s weapon, which was a middle-sized hammer, indeed larger than a normal hammer used as a tool but obviously not even close to be big enough to be considered a Warhammer, essentially it looked like an enlarged normal hammer with a large handle and that was it.

The reason as to why Dahlia was an exception that was given her preferred weapon, it’s because just like in Alice’s case, that gardening and adventure loving girl, needed specific equipment to progress in one of her manuals.

That being said, unlike what she had shown during her fight back when the "ownership" of the space distortions was in dispute, she asked Aster for a hammer in the middle of the ones she normally uses, because in case you have forgotten, Dahlia is a rare dual wielder who seriously developed in that way from the very beginning, as her intent which could be applied to both her Warhammer and her normal sized hammer, demonstrated back then.

It’s not that rare to see cultivators using two weapons from the late part of the Transcending realms and above, since not all cultivators are easily able to enter the heavenly realms, so they start looking for other ways to become stronger while they look for an opportunity to break through.

However, those that from the very beginning go for dual wielding and develop intent to be applied that way as well, are indeed rare, since doing so requires effort that could be designated for realm progressing instead, so it’s considered inefficient and a bad habit, unless one is a monstrous genius like in Aster’s case.

Dahlia is talented, quite talented in fact, but she is classified by others in the "bad habit" category instead, because of the previously mentioned reason combined with the fact that she is a single path cultivator currently, people think that she used the time and effort she should have put into developing a secondary path, into her dual hammer wielding instead.

What they don’t know is that very much like Kana, Dahlia wasn’t really interested in cultivation, she was rather easygoing and preferred to do gardening with her aunt at the sect, but then one day she got interested in gathering and adventuring outside the sect and for that she needed a high realm in a single path and proof that she could protect herself, and so she advanced her energy path cultivation to fit the requirement, learned strong techniques to protect herself and progressed in her hammer intent, all in the matter of a year and something.

Just like Aster has stated before, Dahlia’s comprehension capacities are insanely high, she can produce much better results in shorter periods of time when it comes to anything comprehension related, which unfortunately doesn’t include energy path cultivation and that’s why she was looked down upon by others, her realm is not that high after all, on the other hand she can use complex and strong techniques to make up for it, not to mention that the soul path which Dahlia decided will be her secondary one, the day she met Aster when she and the girls of the green lotus faction were saved by him and the others, is related to comprehension capacities.

"Don’t underestimate her because she looks young and uses a weird weapon Blake, look at what happened to that crazy bastard of Xander", said the older brother of the pair of siblings, he also used a sword and was the one leading a "team", in his case to deal with the youngest of the three sisters, Nina.

"Clack!", speaking of Nina, she used the staff of her "worn out" spear to deviate an incoming large wood club and then slightly leaned to her right in order to dodge an axe with a head made out of stone, not all the people from the blond guy’s team had steel or steel reinforced weapons, since like Aster guessed the distribution of resources on their group wasn’t exactly even and their blacksmith had no experience dealing with mortal materials.

"Clang!", lastly, Nina who had "avoided" a strong direct confrontation, used the blade of her spear to block the sword of the older brother from the pair of siblings, which was also rather swift but not especially light as one would believe.

’I haven’t even received one head pat yet and she already finished her fight, that’s not fair...’, thought the youngest of the three sisters, Nina couldn’t be blamed, Kana finished her fight way too fast, mostly because Xander’s group was too confident on their abilities and directly charged at the little girl without a second thought from the very beginning, so it was a direct clash kind of fight without much moving around or skirmishing like it would normally be.

Of course, after seeing Xander die at Kana’s hands and further confirming that the enemies were stronger than what they looked, courtesy of Mylene destroying the tall guy who was also one of the stronger people on their side, the remaining enemies were much more careful instead, if they felt danger they coordinated to dodge and retreat, which will result in longer fights of course.

"Mm?", speaking of which, the older brother, also known as Brett, suddenly felt danger as he was glared at by Nina, whose grip on her spear tightened as she applied more strength to then smack away the enemy’s sword.

"Clang!", a loud metallic sound as well as sparks were produced but the enemy had no time to think on that, Brett directly jumped backwards, barely managing to avoid the spear which was being swept at him.

"Swoosh!", Nina moved the spear with enough strength to produce a loud whistling sound accompanied by a small gust of wind that forced Brett to cover his eyes because it nearly reached him despite his quick reaction.

’Damn bad luck, she is also physically outstanding despite her seemingly young appearance, that dual cultivator bastard really has quite an evil mind, if I hadn’t seen that blond girl killing Xander, I might have gotten beheaded by that spear a second ago’, thought Brett.

He is right, in terms of physical strength, despite being the youngest, Nina is actually the number one among the three sisters, of course that doesn’t mean she is the strongest, as that designation belongs to the one who needs it the most in order to protect her little sisters, in other words Mina.

But, it’s certainly understandable for Brett to have committed the mistake of choosing to go after Nina instead of Lina who looks taller and "stronger" physically than her younger sister, those three are not to be judged based on appearance, something that was naturally arranged by that "wicked" older sister of theirs to give them advantage over enemies.

"Brother, are you alright?", asked Blake who had retreated after having his sword blocked by Dahlia’s hammer, and made his group reunite with the one of his brother, like previously stated they weren’t underestimating the girls anymore, and larger numbers equaled to safety in their minds, so it was natural for the sibling pair to join hands alongside their teammates, like currently as they were standing next to each other for a total of six.

’If it was going to be a "2v2" kind of fight, I would have preferred to be paired with sis at least...’, thought Nina as she saw Dahlia wave her hand and approach her.

Due to their circumstances, Nina and Lina didn’t socialize much during their younger years, don’t get it wrong, Lina is perfectly fine because of her rather easygoing and extroverted personality, she can click easily with basically anyone, Mina is mature and though playful she is calm and composed so she can adapt to the situation easily as well, but Nina has it a bit rough when it comes to interacting with others besides her sisters, Iris and Layla, with them she is actually quite bubbly and outgoing as those times when she complained about Mina and Lina teasing her in front of Aster, suggested.

Outside of that, she recently started feeling comfortable around Aster only, and it was further easy for her to do so, since all of her close circle is the same, Lina and Iris are quite friendly with Aster in their own way of course, Layla is also thankful given the medicine he provided for her little sisters and even the wary and almost paranoic Mina has given the greenlight to befriend and hang around him and his group, and also likes to joke around with him.

It’s just that Nina is the type to focus in a single goal and then advance from that point, and currently she was trying to get closer to Aster, so she hadn’t interacted much with the others, not even with Kana.

What’s more, she actually felt rather competitive towards the little girl for some reason, but here a good opportunity for her had presented itself as if it was "fate", or more accurately as if a certain wicked older sister had arranged for it to happen.

The easiest way to break the ice with those that are not good with social stuff is finding things in common and amusingly enough, while cultivators who go with dual wielding from the very beginning are quite rare and then among them, those that use "uneven" dual wielding are even rarer, in this small group of ten "authorities" there are two of them, Aster aside of course.

"You are miss Mina’s youngest sister right, I hadn’t met anyone who used uneven dual wielding as me, before getting to know Aster and you", said Dahlia as she stopped next to Nina.

Yup, while their weapons are different, both Dahlia and Nina use uneven dual wielding, one with a Warhammer and a normal sized one, and the other uses heavy swords namely a gladius and a short-sword/dagger, both not usually seen combinations too.

What’s more they are quite close in age being only some months apart from the other, and Dahlia is quite a sensible girl as well, she was strong enough to fight her way back when the girls of the green lotus were captured, so she could have escaped, but if she had done so, the situation would have changed from dealing with a kidnapping to demand a ransom, to chase after the ones who killed disciples of the sect, since those guys would have absolutely done that instead, if one escaped and notified the sect before they made their "preparations", so she instead chose to be captured alongside the others and you know how the rest of the story went.

So, Dahlia knew how to approach and make it easy for Nina to open up with her.

"Mm, I saw you using two hammers back then... your physical enhancing technique was amazing too, despite not being a body cultivator you could wield that Warhammer easily", said the youngest of the three sisters, which earned her a smile from Dahlia.

Unfortunately, their nice friendly time was interrupted by the enemies, as the older brother Brett answered his younger brother’s question.

"Yeah, I’m fine, that red-haired one is also the type to be physically stronger than what she looks like, but she has been avoiding strong direct clashes, probably because her weapon is damaged, also I can tell she is not a spear user but for some reason is using one, so we’ll focus on that for her, what did you discover on your end?", he said.

"The brown-haired one is more balanced I would say, her strength didn’t feel outstanding, but her technique and senses are quite something, also she uses a weird hammer in the middle of a normal one and a Warhammer as her weapon", said the younger brother Blake.

Their plan from the very beginning was to gather intel on those two while leading their respective small teams, to then reunite and then aim for the kill by working together.

Unfortunately for those two, they weren’t the only ones whose teamwork was arranged, what’s more, Nina and Dahlia meeting like this was prepared by an actual "mastermind" and the plan was supported by a certain dragon youth as well, so their teamwork wasn’t the only one that will go rather smoothly here.

"I have sharp danger detection senses due to my missions outside of the sect, if you don’t mind then I can be our eyes and ears, I can’t use my enhancement technique in this place, so you can be the arms and legs, let’s take them down as fast as possible so that we won’t lose to Kana, what do you say?", said Dahlia, she isn’t really competitive but enjoys these types of games with the little girl.

"I’m in!", directly answered Nina who was now acting energetic and confident, like she is when hanging around with her sisters, the "let’s not lose to Kana" part did the trick for her.

’How cute, with this I won’t be schemed against by that wicked older sister of hers, in revenge for not helping, and more importantly that little one looks rather happy’, thought Aster who was watching the whole thing unfold from the distance, it’s worth mentioning that Kana instead of feeling targeted was more than happy to have a new sister to play with, so it was a win for everyone, well, not everyone since the enemies were about to suffer due to a newly born tag team.

"Charge!", the older brother Brett gave the order and the group of six rushed towards those two, spreading just before they were about to reach them in order to not give away their entry point too early.

"Up and to your left, middle to your right", limited to say Dahlia as she dodged a club and a stone axe by jumping to her right, to then use her hammer to block a spear’s thrust.

"Clang!", that was both the sound of Dahlia’s hammer clashing with the enemy’s spear, but more importantly it was the sound of Nina using her spear to smack away the sword of the younger brother which was aiming at her left shoulder, so that his slash would get in the way of the one of the older brother who was aiming at Nina’s side, essentially rendering both of their attacks useless.

’No way!’, inwardly exclaimed the pair of brothers, naturally they weren’t going to follow up a plan they spoke about out loud, so, while the whole targeting Nina’s spear indeed was their aim, that was only if their usual combo to deal with physically strong people, which was reducing upper body mobility and leaving a weakening wound, didn’t work.

Then you might wonder why were they surprised if they had a plan in case their combo didn’t work, well, that’s because the whole idea of attacking from both sides was to make it awkward for Nina to dodge unless she retreated backwards, where the shield wielding guy from earlier was going to get in her way, creating an opportunity for them to attack, but Nina instead used one of their attacks to block the other and now that shield guy who was just arriving at his designated position, was alone and has been thrown out of his game.

"Crack!", and that was the sound of a spear breaking its way through a shield.