Chapter 850: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 3)

That being said, the purple lightning princess who was now looking up to the new sword she’ll be getting, softened a bit, not towards Aster since he clearly didn’t "repent" for teasing her, given that he was still doing it, but towards Agnes.

"Since he shared the blame with you, we’ll leave it at that for today, you can continue with your morning routine", said Valentina as she entered her room in a hurry.

"Thanks for the help I was starting to feel cramped over having to sit in this position for half an hour, it’s also good to see sister Valentina relaxing a bit as well", said Agnes as she smiled to then hold onto Aster’s hand as he had offered it to help the sportsy sun diamond princess get up.

"No problem, besides I think she is going to come out in a moment, so accompany us to the monolith for now", said Aster to which Agnes nodded.

And so, Aster, the sportsy sun diamond princess and the miniature runic oak arrived at the monolith where Aster placed his hand to see the rewards from yesterday’s match.

[The evaluation trial week events have officially started and thus the nature of the rewards will be updated too, from now and onwards no new benefits or privileges will be awarded to the participants, the existing ones however will now be allowed to be upgraded using merits at the end of the evaluation week]

As Aster expected, the rewards changed in comparison with the ones attainable from the development trial, it had to be like that because the benefits and privileges had quite the strong effects and while his group toppled any limitations and got some insanely good rewards due to it, any relatively decent group could get useful benefits and privileges.

And that was of course made on purpose, since the first week was used to let the participants settle and grow up strong enough to continue participating in the incoming events, or at least that’s how things were supposed to go and had returned to be like now that the blue flaming board was in the picture.

That doesn’t mean the rewards of the evaluation week will suck in comparison though, they are just of a different nature as the next message from the blue flaming board suggested.

[Now that active competition between camps is encouraged, winners of official encounters will obtain exclusive rewards while other functions will be open for both winning groups and losing ones in order to maintain balance, the first official match’s reward is the "Camp Belief" function]

[Winner groups will be allowed to have a "belief" established by the camp’s leader, be aware that its success, strength and effect on the selected target will depend on the attitude and reception given by other camp members, as well as the compatibility of the target and the belief itself (both living and inanimate objects are allowed to be selected, once the target has been selected it can’t be changed and if the belief fails to be implemented, the chance won’t be refunded)]

[As a camp who won the first official encounter, the camp belief function, its related missions and items have been added to the monolith (rewards from official fights are doubled due to the unique mission "Two fronts"), two belief implementing chances are left (must be used before today ends)]

"This is it, my instincts tell me that this is what I have been waiting for!", said the chatterbox runic oak while Aster was momentarily lost in his thoughts.

’A "belief", that would have been quite a hard to work with reward if I was someone whose way of thinking was solely forged by the point of view of the cultivation world’, thought Aster.

You see, when one lives in a world where people live for hundreds of thousands of years and most of the time die due to conflict rather than reaching the end of their lifespan, not to mention that all kinds of spirit beast races thrive and many other similarly fantastical stuff are common, you wouldn’t try to look for more than what meets the eye in a regular basis.

Back at earth, media was saturated with all kinds of things that didn’t exist in the mortal world and others that people might not be able to outright deny existed, but also couldn’t definitely prove they did and that’s what gave shape to things like "beliefs".

Perhaps in the most modern mega cities and places like that, where civilization was pretty much a cold asphalt jungle where people lived for working instead of working for living, such things became less and less common.

But in places like towns, villages or much more traditional cities, you could find a plethora of different beliefs, both with good purposes and trashy ones, like those that exploited them to take money out of old or naïve people, but let’s not get too deep into that.

The point is that what made the things from beliefs a common sight in the cultivation world, which is also why beliefs such as "superior" beings and fantasy concepts like living forever and the like, is also what made beliefs uncommon in the cultivation world, it all originated from the existence of spirit energy, which could give use of reason to "animals", or make even objects like weapons give birth to a living being.

It also caught Aster’s interest, that this "function" and well, a lot of the aspects of the things in this place, were more rooted in the "mortal" world rather than the cultivation one, though as things advanced it shaped more into things of the cultivation world indeed.

Of course it’s not exactly the mortal world from which Aster came in specific, but probably the mortal world from the cultivation world, or perhaps a combination of both since spirit energy perse doesn’t exist in this place, but there are a lot of things that surpass the limits of the modern mortal earth from which Aster came, like the techniques, as well as Guardian and other animals who despite not being spirit beasts, develop wisdom, not to mention materials with effects that couldn’t be possible in a normal mortal place as well.

There is also the fact that the first time "spirit energy" appeared in a living being of this place, it was within the scope of mortal realms that are basically ignored in both heavenly quadrants and divine firmaments.

’I already had my suspicions since using techniques does still require us to pay a "price" of sorts, it’s just a much abstract kind of "energy" the one used for it when compared to spirit or divine energy which can be seen, felt and manipulated in the open by practically everyone’, thought Aster.

While some techniques basically put a strain in their user bodies, others did so in their minds or even much stranger things, like in Aria’s case, where her "attractiveness" is reduced as a price for her recovery before a certain point which she had never reached by the way, when the price would change to require strain her body like it is for most people.

"That centipede which was equal to a peak foundation establishment cultivator, had this strange spirit energy which felt like a mix of spirit and divine energies as well as another kind of "energy" which was impossible to classify, perhaps that one originated from this function we were just allowed to use", concluded Aster to which Agnes nodded.

"According to what Mylene and Mira told us about yesterday’s match at our usual night meeting in our room, they also didn’t recognize that unknown part of the power that circulated through the centipede’s body, so while it is unknown whether we are dealing with higher ranked stuff than what could be found in a divine firmament, or just things from a different nature, like those orcrary guys, it’s clear that the effects produced by it will be new for both us and them", said the sportsy sun diamond princess.

The orcrary did use spirit energy, they were all main body cultivators too, but the effects caused by their attacks were "harder" to deal with than other enemies Aster and the others had met before and after the mission at Esmeralda’s realm.

The reason being that the normal medicines and methods used to deal with energy wounds, that they knew about are of course designed to work in the way spirit energy is used by cultivators, but the orcrary used the same spirit energy in a different way, and that’s also why now that there was a chance unlike back then when the priority was to deal with Ley and the Tempest family pieces of trash, capturing and interrogating one of those orcrary guys was in the list.

You might then wonder how did Aster easily get rid of the trouble for Nina and the answer is simple, he used an overwhelmingly strong "medicine" for it, if you think of Nina’s wound as a scrapped knee, that soft nature pill Aster refined from the core of the magma golem, was like a month in a high-class hospital with all the available cares, no matter how bad a scrapped knee could be, it would of course be completely healed by that.

Of course, such a thing can be considered a "waste" or "inefficient" since a dedicated method wouldn’t require so much to cure a wound of that level, but in Aster’s case, he didn’t care because it didn’t cause him any trouble to do so and at the same time, all the excess of healing properties turned into nourishment for the youngest of the three sisters, so it wasn’t for nothing.

Anyway, back to the subject in hand, Aster thought for a moment to then gaze at Nim as he said.

"I probably have it easier to try and use this reward properly when compared to others, but it is still much more of a gamble than a certain thing, are you sure this is what you want?", asked Aster.

The chatterbox runic oak said that this is what it has been waiting for, which means that Nim wants to be the selected target on which a "belief" would be implemented, since it’s a reward then it probably can cause some amazing effects so normally the leader of the camp would be more focused in that.

But Aster is different, he is more wary of the effects that it would produce and since the target in this case is Nim, who is one of his teammates, he of course didn’t want this to bring harm to the chatterbox runic oak.

"Mm, my instincts are telling me that this is beneficial for me, also in the worst-case scenario this is just a secondary body, if it results in a negative way, it can be discarded right away", answered Nim as it "nodded" without hesitation.

"Okay, give me a second to think how to "phrase" the belief that would better suit you given our current situation", said Aster.

As always, the blue flaming board liked to make people think, or well, it tested them to see if they did use their brains, because this wasn’t a "blank check" to suddenly obtain overwhelming power.

Though some fools will likely fall for the previous and end up wasting this precious reward, not taking into account that the base selected target matters a lot, don’t forget that in this place most things are limited to mortal levels, and even when one surpasses it through techniques or with the help of innate talents, lineages or constitutions, like it is Aster, Alice Vivian and other monstrous cases, they still are unable to access spirit energy.

Well, Aster could have easily broken the rules if he used annihilation to go against the suppression of this place, which makes you wonder why didn’t he do so, after all wouldn’t the effect of a "belief" being implemented on the him who can use spirit energy, result in something incredible, the answer is simple, the blue flaming board.

The idea of doing so didn’t cross Aster’s mind out of consideration towards their ally, but because of the stand that said ally has proven to maintain since their first interaction, Blue Sky treated participants fairly and while it supported competition between them, which might result in wounds and death depending on the circumstances, the blue flaming board used all its might to make sure that decency was an iron set thing in the events of this place.

You can translate that as in Blue Sky caring about the well-being of the participants, so there must be a proper reason to not involve anything with spirit energy currently, alongside this reward.

’I guess this is why we couldn’t take back the centipede with us "right now" and also why the reward has to be used before the day ends, in the incoming events more stuff that surpasses the mortal limits will most likely pop up, which means that the danger and rewards will continuously "level up" as we advance’, thought Aster.

"If we go with some stupidly high ranked thing like a certain someone who claimed to be the "cosmos tree", the belief will absolutely fail regardless of the selected target and how it is received by the others, so let’s not aim for instant overwhelming power like fools, but go with an unlimited potential to grow kind of thing instead", said Aster to then add.

"The first of our camp’s beliefs will be that "Nature spirits exist", as for the selected target, "Nim" will be it", with those words, the monolith shone in a dim blue light which then enveloped the chatterbox runic oak that floated away to then land on the ground close to the monoliths.

"Is everything okay?", asked Aster as he saw that Nim stopped floating to which the runic oak answered.

"Yes, I’m just going to stop being in miniature mode, so I selected a good place to expand to mortal size", that meant that Nim won’t be able to move as it has been doing anymore by the way.

Then out of "nowhere" a giant oak which towered above 180 meters tall, appeared at the center of the camp, which of course immediately drew the attention of the girls who were starting to come out of their rooms to start their daily tasks while waiting for breakfast.

"Woaaah, what a huge tree!", exclaimed a few girls in unison.

"Mmm, doesn’t it look familiar, you know like that miniature tree which came out of little Kana’s pocket to help us select the highest quality wood?", added a girl from the green lotus faction to which another one from the orange lotus nodded in response.

"Now that you mention it, it’s true... I just hope its already limitless questioning doesn’t grow alongside its size", she said, which made other girls softly laugh, as you can see, despite being unable to participate in a lot of things, Nim gained the friendship of the girls of the sect, though its barrages of questions indeed annoyed some of them, the most notorious one being of course the ligrees girl who had just come out of her room, accompanied by Guardian and Valentina who heard the girls of the sect suddenly exclaiming and talking more than usual, so they came out early to see what was going on.

It’s worth mentioning that Nim didn’t cause a ruckus when it grew up, despite its roots sinking into the ground and expanding to support that huge size, which by the way surpassed the mortal biological limit which Aster knew about.

Since, it is theorized that no tree from earth could grow past around 130 meters, for gravity and nutrient distribution reasons, but here we have Nim whose height was a third larger than that, even at mortal level, which makes sense, as it isn’t just any mortal oak, Nim is a runic oak an incredibly rare and one of the most sought-after races among trees that could be found in divine firmaments.

Well, it is the "child" of the one that was used by those guys who tried to control Mira as a node of their formation, which died during the war, Nim was born from that and that’s why it hated the people from that firmament and used to have a certain negative predisposition towards Mira, which was mutual since from Nim’s point of view, its ancestor was used because of Mira, and from Mira’s point of view, the runic oak contributed to keep her trapped.

But ultimately, they both realized that their circumstances were cause by an enemy they had in common, and with Aster mediating as well, their "enmity" was reduced to just not really clicking with the other, well, it was mainly the ligress girl who couldn’t stand the many questions regarding when she was going to become one of the alpha’s "mates" what angered her, but that didn’t mean they hated each other or anything like that.

"That’s the dumb tree right, what’s going on?", asked Mira, she might not directly say it nor demonstrate it but of course she was worried about Nim.

"Yes, I just used one of the two chances for the reward of yesterday’s match on Nim, but it had to return to its mortal size before the process started, apparently", answered Aster to which Mira and the others nodded while they looked at the description of the reward by placing their hands on the monolith.

"A "belief" huh, that’s quite the vague reward", said the purple lightning princess effectively confirming what Aster stated before, from a cultivator’s point of view, such a reward will be quite hard to use.

Of course, this wasn’t exclusively prepared to benefit Aster, the blue flaming board is willingly fair with the participants that aren’t pieces of trash and is forced to remain relatively fair with those that are, unfortunately, but Blue Sky can still make it so that those that don’t deserve it are mostly culled out of the picture.

How so you ask, by presenting this "tests" that hide within the rewards, just like how those that drown in the overwhelming power when compared to mortal limited participants, of the techniques will likely self-destroy themselves by the price that they have to pay in exchange for using the techniques.

In this case, the test was that in order for the "belief" to be of use, one has to be either smart or at least have a broad mind, because consideration for the selected target was also needed and last but not least, the context of the group mattered a lot as well.

A belief can indeed be forced upon others after all, but that requires time and it is not that easy to get one over the blue flaming board, which is why there was a limitation of a day.

So, from whichever point you saw it since the belief’s success was linked to many aspects, while it might not be absolutely impossible for idiots to get lucky and succeed in implementing them, their result won’t be anywhere near as good as that of those who properly thought and used the reward as it was intended to.

Speaking of which, now it was the time to see how did Aster do when faced with the usual test coming from the blue flaming board as the girls of the sect gathered around the monolith area, which now had a huge tree as well.

"The shadow projected by the top will turn the central area of the camp in a much more comfortable and fresher spot", said a girl from the red sword faction.

"Mm, we’ll enjoy our meals even more now~", added another girl from the green lotus faction, the kitchen and dinner areas were close to the monoliths, because a part of the daily routine which the girls of the sect enjoyed a lot was sitting all together to eat their meals.

"Also, it’s way taller than the trees of the forest so we can use it as a "watch tower" and see far into the distance", said another girl from the black sword faction.

"Miss Regina and the other flying members of the group can rest in its branches without having to worry about the sun during day", said the brown-haired potential princess who had the giant eagle standing on her shoulder, nod in response.

"Woah, this is Nim right, the breeze at the top must be really good, right Espi~", happily said Kana who was arriving alongside Sarina, Aria and Espi.

"Hisss~", that was the little wyrm nodding as she said something along the lines of "It looks fun to climb!", which by the way reminded Aster to establish the rule of only doing so under strict supervision of a certain blond roc mother and Regina who could fly and were strong enough to carry others just in case, speaking of that Sarina who was planning to do flying training also added.

"It will come in handy for my training as well".

As you can see the acceptance of the giant runic oak rocketed through the sky just like its abnormally high height, and it was then that a second sudden change, as surprising if not even more, than that of this giant tree appearing out of nowhere, took place.

"Mm?", they were too small to be noticed by almost everyone, but Aster, the ligress and Angela who all suddenly looked upwards, not at the tree but at their surroundings could notice that there where small bright particles that weren’t there before, had started to shine before they were absorbed by the giant tree, which noticeably caused a change in it, there was this "hazy" glow to Nim which would make mortals think in a fantasy tale upon seeing it, though for the girls of the sect they only thought it was pretty.

"I see, so this is why I instinctively waited until now", a both familiar and unfamiliar voice reached Aster and the others ears, it was unfamiliar for those that hadn’t known the chatterbox runic oak for a long time, but familiar for those that did, and it came from the giant tree in front of them.

On the other hand, it was also unfamiliar for Aster and the others, because that wasn’t the monotonous and genderless voice of the runic oak.

"No way!", exclaimed the ligress as she saw a tall figure emerge from the tree’s trunk, it was a beautiful young woman around her middle twenties, she was wearing brown shorts and a green top that barely covered a bit above her navel, her hair was brown at the top of her head, then turned to a deep but lively green tone that faded at its tips, besides that, her eyes were of a bright yellow color, all the previous pretty much resulted in a fantasy-like appearance, but that’s not what was in everyone’s minds right now, especially for a certain ligress who was reminded of all the embarrassing questions she was made by the chatterbox runic oak from which that woman had "emerged".

’That dumb tree was a girl?’, she shouted to her insides.