Chapter 862: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 15)

Despite the rather rough awakening experience Tiana just had which despite being just the initial way in which her lineage manifested its existence, and knowing that there is no way her mother isn’t at a much more advanced state than her, Tiana’s worries were "annihilated" as soon as they appeared in her mind.

’Mom can trick Erick and even me, but there is no way she would escape that guy’s perverted eyes, so, if she was in a bad state, I would bet my spear that he must have discovered and done something about it at this point’, thought the energy constitution daughter to then realize something, she immediately had calmed down when Aster’s image appeared in her mind.

’Ughh, don’t fall for his tricks Tiana, so what if he is strong and trustable and hands... ah, damn it, this is happening because of my lineage awakening, yeah, that’s all, I’ll talk with mom about this once we return to the camp’.

"Mmm, sister Tiana, shouldn’t we knock him out, he is making too much noise?", asked a girl from the sect who had the seen the energy constitution daughter suddenly get lost in her thoughts, while she was still using her innate ability on the enemy that had just been forced out of the green area by the king cobras.

"R-Right!", exclaimed Tiana as she was returned to the real world to then press her spear in a rush against the body of the enemy.

"Crack!", just like with the other guy, a shattering sound came from his teammate’s body as his genesis core inside his dantian cracked.

"Aghhhhh...", as a result the enemy screamed for a moment as his eyes rolled backwards, that being said, Tiana was a bit distracted so she used too much strength when using her ability, so it wasn’t only bloody foam what was forced out of that guy, he also bled from his nose and his eyes, which made a couple of girls from the sect gaze at Tiana, thinking that there must be a good reason for the "older sister" who led them so skillfully, to do so.

"Ahem, he was stronger than the other guy so I used a bit too much strength, give him a few drops of a healing elixir just to be sure", said the energy constitution daughter as she tried to cover up her screw up.

"Mm", the girls of the sect who had sparkles in their eyes as they were amazed by her newly acquired ability, did as she said, while Tiana herself felt a bit embarrassed of the previous.

’Well, it’s not exactly a lie, he indeed had stronger spirit energy, so I should have needed less strength to achieve this even if I didn’t get distracted...’, thought Tiana as she got on Selene’s back.

The genesis core remains as the central spirit energy processing center and the manifestable trait of an energy path cultivator, from the genesis manifestation realm and until the latter crosses to the heavenly realms, and these mercenaries were Void Manipulation and Law Integration cultivators in the outside world, respectively, so it is true that one was stronger than the other.

"Apply he immobilizing poison to him and then tie him up, so transport them to where miss Mina is, we finished quite fast, so if we return now, you four can brag about it to the girls on Iris’s side as you wanted", said Tiana.

"Yes~", happily said the girls of the sect as they did as they were told and soon the five girl and five horse team, plus two captives advanced through the distance towards the previously discussed reuniting point.

As you can see, unlike Iris who pretty much didn’t know how deal with other people until recently, Tiana was different, she perfectly knew what to "reward" those girls with and used it to take their attention away from the little slip she had earlier.

And that is because Tiana wasn’t as serious and responsible as she is by innate, unlike Iris who was straightforward and pretty much calm ever since she had use of reason, the energy constitution daughter became like that because Erick was always causing trouble due to the muscles he had for a brain.

Speaking of which, Tiana who could already listen to Erick making some unrestrained comments about her current status, directly thought.

’I should beat him in advance when I’m back to the camp’.

And now we can return to the present right after Vivian had finished her fight and those girls from the sect had taken away the enemy leader, the white-haired girl stayed behind a couple of minutes to fix the resting place of those girls a bit and then also moved towards the reuniting point previously discussed by everyone.

It didn’t take Vivian even a minute to catch up with the girls of the sect whom by the way were riding black horses, because she was still being boosted by the toxins she took from the poison made by the enemy camp.

Which also makes you wonder how much was she boosted by such a "low" level thing, and the answer is four times, well, originally it would have been only three times, all that poison was barely enough for her to multiply her stats by three originally, but after training during those free days they had at the camp, Vivian had a much more efficient control of her "heavenly benevolence" technique.

Things still don’t add up if you think about it carefully though, given that she was quite faster than the enemy leader who moved at 60 kilometers per hour, after using his innate ability.

And Vivian who is not outstanding in physical strength shouldn’t have a base speed higher than that of the enemy leader which was of 20 kilometers per hour, and that’s not wrong, until a couple of days ago.

Originally Vivian’s base speed was around 12 to 15 kilometers per hour, because while she looked fragile, she is still quite a strong-willed girl, not to mention that ever since not having to worry about losing her mobility and sight, that energetic white-haired girl has been moving around without stopping and trying new things, among which some physical basic training, not to get stronger but just for the fun of experiencing new things, was.

So, she still surpassed the base speed of an average mortal by almost 50%, and then after training during the past week and consolidating her efforts in her two free days, she reached twice the base speed of a mortal, in other words... Vivian at base was as fast as the enemy leader, so 20 multiplied by 4, results in 80, Vivian at a four times boost could move at 80 kilometers per hour.

Still, she really showed the results of her training, because the idea was to only use the poison found at the enemy camp, and with that she couldn’t have overwhelmed the enemy leader like she did, if she hadn’t put the effort she did in improving, she needed less toxins for her heavenly benevolence and her base stats have improved too, what’s more with the increased efficiency and stronger base she had now, Vivian felt like she could endure past her previous limit of a maximum of eight time boosting herself, only one more time, but that was still nothing to look down on.

After all, with an eight-time boost, she reached the base stats of Alice, so the white-haired girl was deepening into "monster" territory now, well, in physical aspects, because her toxic related abilities already granted that tittle before.

And she wasn’t the only one, Nerissa was in the middle of growing stronger and the same applied to Iris, while Tiana was an "early bird" and awakened before it was expected, probably because the energy constitution daughter has had a few tempering sessions using Aster’s blood as the main reagent, alongside Felicia.

There was also Camila who had achieved an important goal with a bit of Aster’s "help", not in a direct way, but because she had grown closer to him as his lover and that affected her lineage positively.

"Woah, sister Vivian can run as fast as the horses!", exclaimed a girl from the sect to which Vivian smiled as she said. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ

"Let’s see who arrives first", to then put some serious strength on her legs, as you see the white-haired girl was having a blast as always.

"That’s not fair I’m carrying "dead weight" here!", exclaimed the other girl since she was transporting the enemy leader whose eyes, mouth and ears were covered but he was conscious so imagine the fear he felt when things started to get rough for him as that girl did her best to catch up with Vivian and her friend who were competing to see who arrived first.

It didn’t take long for the three of them to arrive at their destination, which if the enemy leader could see would curse out loud, since it was the cave that he planned to use as a temporary den, yep, it was to where those three guys captured by Iris were originally going, the den at west.

Vivian was welcomed with the sight of Alice lazing around on top of a blanket on the ground, as she bit on an apple while Tiana was glaring at her, clearly, they had bickered like usual, because Camila had a slightly bitter smile on her pretty face as she mediated for them.

"Oh, welcome Vivi, come sit with your sister Alice, I’m getting tired of discussing with a certain someone who is boring and annoyingly serious~", said the wild dragon princess which made a vein nearly pop on Tiana’s forehead.

"Boring huh, fine, I wanted to try the mortal version of my "dragon slaying" spearmanship, also don’t listen to her lies Vivian, those are not things friends would normally do", said the energy constitution daughter, which made Alice chuckle, she ultimately achieved her goal, which was to mess with Tiana enough to break her serious front.

"Ahem, both of you calm down a bit, you are being a bad influence for little Vivian, Sandra can you call your fiancée to comes and take this guy to where miss Mina is, please?", said Camilla as she gazed at Sandra who nodded in response.

"Mmm, where are sister Nerissa and sister Iris?", asked Vivian to which Tiana sighed in response.

"Those two immediately unsheathed their swords when they saw the other and are testing their progress out there, the girls of the sect are watching them spar while eating snacks too", said the energy constitution daughter.

"Well, they are not as boring as you at least, it’s a shame that I have dealt with enough people that are not Aster for a day, so I’m not planning on doing anything until I’m in his arms~", said the wild dragon princess, which nearly made Tiana point her spear at her.

Luckily, the saber young master, in other words Cayden, came out from a corridor that led to the deepest part of the cave, accompanied by Sandra to then say.

"You arrived just in time with their leader, I was starting to get worried that those guys would have to go through a second round of "interrogation" from miss Mina... because they would most likely not survive that", said the saber young master as he grabbed the leader by his collar to then leave the common area of the cave.

Leaving a slightly weird silence behind which was broken by Alice casually adding.

"Well, that sounded fun, but that wicked red haired "leader" didn’t let me help with the process", she said with a complaining voice.

"Because it was an interrogation not a straight execution, we had to use a lot of healing elixir to get those guys you brought to a state in which they could talk, the third in command didn’t stop screaming since the moment we woke him up, because whatever the hell you did to him", said Tiana to which Alice shrugged as she changed her position to leisurely use her tail as a pillow.

"I just "intimidated" him a bit, he was supposed to be the third in command, it’s not my fault that his mind was so fragile that he would nearly lose it just because I played with him a bit".

...

While the scene at the common area of the cave was rather cheerful and relaxed, the atmosphere was tense enough to be cut with a knife as Cayden deepened into the cave while bringing the enemy leader to where Mina was.

That being said and thinking on how much the girls of the sect hated James’s former group, you would imagine a torture chamber with all kinds of horrible tools and lots of blood on the ground to wait ahead of Cayden.

But that’s not what welcomed him, but the sight of the oldest of the three sisters casually sitting on a chair while playing around with a large but thin metal case, asides from that, there were only a few bottles with different substances inside, some tissues which had a couple of drops of blood, a pair of gloves and a candle burning while releasing a certain scent.

And of course, a bunch of enemies who were what looked the strangest in the room, why, because they were hanging laterally from the air by ropes that were tied around their bodies to evenly distribute their weight so that they wouldn’t accidentally break anything.

Yeah, it sounds weird considering that they deserved to be put through the most horrible tortures for what they did, and Cayden thought that Mina was "too green", in this matter when he first entered this room.

As the name implies, unlike most other high ranked forces, those from the Wanderer sect are allowed to go out and explore the world, so Cayden thought he had seen enough of information extracting methods to be a decent judge regarding them.

But he was just reminded that there is always something new to learn, because of the process which you are about to see firsthand with the help of the enemy leader assisting Mina.

"Miss Vivian brought this guy, he is conscious and half-immobilized too, where do I put him?", asked Cayden to which Mina pointed at an "especially" reserved area, where the second and third in command as well as the treasurer were hanging from the ceiling by ropes, facing upwards.

"Over there, please", casually said the oldest of the three sisters as she got up from her chair, after a couple of minutes Cayden finished tying up the enemy leader and when he let go of him, he felt that "shiver" coming from the enemy which was the first new thing Cayden learned.

You see, in a situation where you can not move courtesy of the half-immobilizing poison, nor hear or see because of the cloth covering your eyes and ears, nor smell anything but the scent released by that candle mentioned earlier, the only thing that separates you from total "silence" is touch.

So, what would happen when the hands that were in contact with the enemy’s body leave and now the enemy is left not touching the ground but floating without knowing what lies up or below them, panic is the right answer, and that’s the origin of said "shiver" which Cayden had never felt coming the body of an enemy before.

At least not from someone who has not even tasted any pain yet, because this is already torture, it’s just not directed to the body, but to the mind, next we have a bit of both.

"Mmm, this one is the leader so he must be "tough", let’s go with a good old classic for starters", said Mina as she put on the pair of gloves because hygiene goes first, she wouldn’t want to touch those guys directly after they were mopped the floor with by the fierce girls that were sent to fetch them.

Mina opened that large but thin metal case to reveal a set of thin and long silvery needles, chose one in specific and then approached the enemy, it’s worth mentioning that the distance at which they were suspended from the ground wasn’t random, but was perfectly calculated so that both their frontal and back sides were easily reachable.

’Her breathing and steps are so stealthy that I wouldn’t doubt it if they said she was from an assassin sect...’, thought Cayden who was observing from the side, Mina had the presence diminishing elixir made with the powder of the little wyrm’s scales on her, but that only camouflaged her presence, noise and other things would be perfectly noticed by others like usual.

But Mina made no noise when she walked and even her breathing was basically silent and this is a cave where noise would be amplified, speaking of which, the entrance to this part was blocked by a piece of wood covered in blankets to prevent noise from escaping.

"Mm...mmmpghhh!", the leader who felt a hard to notice pinching coming from his leg area flinched for a moment because he didn’t notice the presence of anyone approaching him, still he regained calmness when he felt no pain... for a fraction of a second, because then, his eyes which were covered by cloth fully opened as an intense pain assaulted him.

It was to the point that he managed to force a slightly loud voice while half-immobilized by the poison from earlier, what happened is that Mina’s needle had touched his sciatic nerve by being inserted in the back of his knee where said nerve is the closest to the surface in the body, and where it is the least protected too.

"Mmmpphhg", the enemy leader continued to "scream" in a muffled voice for almost thirty seconds, and here is where the fact that he was floating also played an important role, because he couldn’t feel the safety of having a solid ground to support him.

Well, it’s not like he could have squirmed willingly even if he wanted to, because he was immobilized, but his body did tremble from time to time because his nerve was being played with, it was an involuntary response.

"Huff...", one could hear a relieved panting sound coming from the enemy leader when Mina retrieved her needle, to which the oldest of the three sisters shook her head as she said.

"Bad move, if you relax so fast, the next one is going to hurt more", the enemy leader couldn’t hear her, nor feel her proximity, but he did feel when a thin and sharp object was inserted into his wrist.

"Mmmppgh", the pain hadn’t started yet, but the enemy seemed to be wanting to say something which is why he "raised" his voice, unfortunately, when it came to Mina the question wasn’t "if" he was going to talk, but "when" he was going to talk, and the answer was... when she felt like letting him do so.

"Mmmmbgggbh!", now the needle messed with another peripheral nerve, this time it was the median nerve which is closer to the surface of the body in the wrist area, and the result was as good as the previous one, the enemy’s arm trembled against his will, while he "screamed" for the next thirty seconds.

"Haa...haaa", only then did Mina retrieve the needle and then beckoned at Cayden who approached the enemy leader "stealthily", of course the saber young master was not good at this kind of thing unlike Mina, but luckily the mind of the other party being a mess as of current lowered the requirements so he only needed to not stomp his feet and it would be fine.

"One ear and his mouth, then the usual", said Mina to which Cayden nodded as he uncovered the right ear of the enemy leader and his mouth.

"Why, you fucking haven’t asked anything", said the leader as soon as his mouth was uncovered, to which Cayden casually answered.

"You wouldn’t trust the words of an enemy with their limbs intact, right?", said the saber young master, which made the enemy leader inwardly curse.

’This fucking bastard!’, causing pain to the enemy before even asking had a purpose, well, that was also Mina making sure she did her best for the sake of those poor girls, but aside from that, it was to both provoke the enemy so that they won’t break too soon and to stablish a fake image on the enemy’s mind, by having them relate that level of pain with Cayden’s voice.

Said image being "The one torturing me is a man not one of those women, it hurts like hell but I can endure it and I still have a chance to get out of this alive", and it worked to a creepily high level, as Cayden once again saw it with his own eyes.

"What do you want to know, I have no reason to refuse to answer, you serve a girl of divine royalty right, the faster you get your answers the more merit you’ll receive from their family".

’Heh, this one is actually smart and also decently tough, unlike that evil cultivator whose voice was trembling when he tried to talk his way out of this’, amusingly thought Mina.

The trick here is the words "their family", you see, as such as a "heavenly" being as a crown princess divine royalty as the enemy leader had confused Vivian to be, said privileged status at the end of the day originated from the force that supposedly was behind of her.