Chapter 865: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 18)

"Mmm, perhaps I have been too "traumatized" by sis’s training, but wouldn’t it be better to let the already established belief grow to the point that green wind sister over there is affected by it, and take the chance to establish a completely different second belief, to diversify?", said the sister in the middle, obviously referring that due to Mina’s "whip of love", she who normally wouldn’t try to look too much into things given her upfront personality, was now offering quite the insight.

To which Aster shook his right index finger at her in response.

"That’s something that did cross my mind at the beginning, after all while a belief first needed a specific target to be implemented on, it’s normal for it to spread as the time passes, which means that indeed Esmeralda might be able to obtain a form to actively interact and participate with us, later just through the already implemented belief that nature spirits exist".

"That’s the unlimited "potential" for which I chose the first belief to be that one, since it has the possibility of giving existence to other spirits besides Nim, still I don’t think it will work as easily as that, beliefs usually take time to settle and more importantly, the blue flaming board was clear that asking for too much from a belief was basically the same as its implementation failing".

"But then, for spirits of nature to be our "friends", they have to exist, which means that the influence of the first belief will be increased by the second one, if things work the way I think they do, then, the most likely spirit to be born first would be from something that is of vital importance to the camp and which those girls interact a lot in a way they find the most fun or relaxing like they would with a friend, for example the lake where Mira and quite a few more swim for the sake of enjoyment on a daily basis", said Aster which made the ligress softly growl at him, as he added.

"However, the fact that other spirits would come to existence faster than they would normally, doesn’t mean they are exclusively "beneficial" to us, it might not even be caused by actual malice but just because of a difference in perspective, take Nim for example, she has spent time with us and while she clearly didn’t understand human perspective, she knew what we didn’t like and what she could or shouldn’t do".

"But that’s only because of the time she has spent with us, let’s say a nature spirit is born from a body of water, from its perspective enveloping living beings in it is "good" and letting them drink its water is also good, so it might try to cover everything with water, because that’s how it would perceive things, but we would be in trouble if that happened right, therefore it’s better to have something that would connect us at a much more personal level".

"The word "friends" will be influenced by the collective will of the camp, so at the very least those that weren’t already members of the group like Nim and Esmeralda, will instinctively know the basics of interaction, that also won’t put them in harm, because as "friends" they will have their own free will and will be able to judge whether we are worthy of being friends with, or not, but I’m not worried about that", concluded Aster to which Lina chuckled.

"I thought it was a case of reducing quantity to improve quality, but you instead went for both quantity and quality", she said to which Aster nodded.

"Well, I did say that we were going to be more "ambitious" with the second one, of course with the target of the belief being Esmeralda, she should instantly gain a form apt to participate like Nim did, because she is already our "friend" and the belief will establish her as a "spirit" of nature, in fact given that her existence is closer to that concept from the very beginning, I think we’ll get a slightly much more advanced result than with Nim", he said.

’Damn, on one hand it is kind of scary that he probably thinks things even more thoroughly than sis which is why she doesn’t worry when leaving us under his watch, on the other hand I like to see sis being taken by surprise by him from time to time for a change~’, thought the sister in the middle.

Even Mira couldn’t help but inwardly applaud the careful planning that Aster put when it came to things that could affect the members of the group, as a leader even that grumpy ligress had nothing to reproach him about, the same applied to the responsible purple lightning princess.

That said, they both noticed that incredibly short-lived but familiar teasing smile appearing on his face and couldn’t help but think.

’He is up to no good again!’, they shouted to their insides, unfortunately they had no idea what was in the mind of the black-haired dragon youth, because to get a glimpse of his hidden thoughts, they would need to work together with Mina, Angela and Mylene whose brains function at a different level than other girls of the camp.

"Okay, let’s start by having Esmeralda become an official member of the camp", said Aster as he wished so and a spot was given to the spirit wind girl, where did that came from you wonder, easy, the blue flaming board was probably satisfied with the end those pieces of trash from James’s former camp, met, at the hands of Alice and the others, because the fifteen of them were counted for the strong army privilege.

So, a new free slot and a "half" of one was in granted to Aster, and in case you think he should have left one unused from the official match, in case the previous didn’t happen as it was subject to whether the blue flaming board made the exception or not.

That wasn’t a "bet", he knew that the blue flaming board would have outright killed all of those guys including the ones that didn’t directly kill those girls but still laid their hands on them, if it could, so their "defeat" was a guaranteed extra slot in the bag from the very beginning, and though Aster didn’t know about the belief function until today, the idea of making Esmeralda an official member of the group was already in his mind since the trial road, things perfectly fell in place currently, that’s all.

With that out of the way, Aster then pointed his right hand at Esmeralda as he said.

"The second of our camp’s beliefs will be that "Nature spirits are our friends", as for the selected target, "Esmeralda" will be it.

With those words, those shiny particles that were mentioned when Nim gained her spirit form, and have been present in the atmosphere of the camp ever since, made another "big" appearance, however things were different this time.

"What are those?", said a girl from the black sword who was in the middle of helping wash the dishes since it was her turn to take on the mission regarding it for breakfast time today.

"Woah, they look so pretty~", said a girl from the green lotus as her attention was drawn towards the sky by the previous girl’s words.

"It’s true, they kind of look like spirit energy particles but looking at them makes you feel happy and relaxed, like when we have free time to chat and eat snacks with others~", exclaimed a bunch of girls in unison.

Which is normal, they were looking at the energy formed from their collective will related to "friends", in a sense this energy kind of resembled yin or yang energy given that they are the ones that usually get the most affected by emotions, the difference being that yin and yang energies are mostly restricted by gender besides especial cases, but this one wasn’t, the only restriction was that it could only be produced by "members" of the camp in question.

Also, as you have noticed, this time it wasn’t only a selected few the ones that could see that pretty light spectacle that filled the sky, all the members of the sect could and that is because the amount and the "power" they carried had drastically increased, because as Aster planned, the beliefs reinforced each other.

Speaking of which, all the girls of the sect in the vicinity saw a "pillar" of those shinny particles descend from the sky and be absorbed by a pretty hand sized green whirlwind floating close to Aster, and their eyes all focused on the leader’s table knowing that something interesting was happening again.

"Whistle!", first and formal, the previously small sized whirlwind grew... a lot, like no joke, from being human palm sized, it suddenly was so tall that the girls of the sect couldn’t see its upper part.

Aster could, and he chuckled to his insides at the ten-kilometer-tall column of green wind that just appeared, the term "whirlwind" is rather broad by the way, as it englobes any kind of spinning column of wind, tornadoes are the largest and most intense among whirlwinds, still a tornado in a mortal world wouldn’t reach even half of the size of the green wind whirlwind that appeared in the middle of the camp right now.

That was the origin of the whistling sound previously heard, however, despite the massive size of the green wind whirlwind, it wasn’t causing any ruckus, at most it created some currents of wind that whistled here and there, but that was at a high enough height that it didn’t affect the camp.

And that wasn’t all, even the ground where the "tail" of the whirlwind was positioned, no destruction was caused, in fact the ground below of it produced a clean bell-like chime sound as a layer of green jade started to cover a one-hundred-meter area, to then grow upwards, producing a perfectly smooth small green jade mountain with a set of stairs on it, which stood side to side with Nim’s tree, as the whirlwind dispersed.

"That’s quite an entrance if you ask me", jokingly said Aster as he looked at the top of the green jade mountain where visible soft green wind currents moved aside to reveal the sight of the spirit element girl which caused all the previous.

Esmeralda’s appearance didn’t change from what Aster remembers, she appeared to be in her mid-twenties and had pretty light green hair with some slightly different shades here and there decorated by green wing ornaments at the side of her head, her eyes were of a gem-like clean green tone which could rival that of Sarina’s ones, with smooth pale skin, tall and with an elegant figure that didn’t neglect charm and attraction either.

Unlike Nim who simply materialized shorts and a top without... anything below or on top of them, which earned her a scolding from the ligress girl when she tried to sit down with them to eat and well, her clothes slightly tightened in certain areas, for which she was now wearing a simple shirt and a skirt on top of her shorts and also had underwear properly in place, Esmeralda had quite the outfit.

A two-piece green and white dress, as well as light green jade armor on her chest and the sides of her skirt, besides that she also had white gloves with green jade protection and the same applied to her shoes, her style was somewhat similar to Tiana, with the difference that she looked much more feminine given the green jade accessories and slightly less obvious warrior-like fashion.

"I already lessened the effect of the initial transformation as much as I could, you know, even at mortal level my whirlwind would have been around twice the size it reached, the jade mountain would have also been three times taller than this, but that would be too eye-catching, and too tempting for a certain little girl to climb, so I decided to let my mountain accompany Nim’s tree instead", said Esmeralda as she jumped from the top of the jade mountain and elegantly descended slowly to the ground next to Aster and the others.

It’s worth mentioning that soft green currents remained at the top of the green jade mountain permanently, creating a pretty visual spectacle for the girls of the sect who had sparkles in their eyes as they saw Esmeralda.

’What a pretty and elegant sister!’, the exclaimed in their hearts, Nim was beautiful but her charm was not of the elegant type, she looked like a soft older sister though her personality was totally not like that, amusingly enough, Esmeralda who looked much "stricter" did have the proper personality of a big sister type, considering the precautions she took for her jade mountain.

She even built proper stairs so that those girls didn’t try to climb it and simply went up when they wanted, not to mention that the top of the mountain had some of the thickest and largest branches of Nim’s tree, at its ground level, adding "vegetation" to the scenery, it wasn’t just beautiful it was also for the sake of the girls that wanted to be at the top of Nim’s tree, they could simply walk their way to it now.

Speaking of beautiful things, Esmeralda’s aspect made some certain few girls suspicious of Aster again, until he directly said.

"You already had a human form, so it was better to use this belief instead of the other one, since "friends" come in all kinds of shapes, so you pretty much look the same as back then", to which Esmeralda nodded as she opened and closed her hand a couple of times.

"This is slightly different than my "spirit" form but it does come with some interesting effects", she said to which Aster added.

"Well, we can now make a small trip to the monolith, let’s have you initially evaluated before you select your manuals alongside Nim, otherwise those curious girls will fall behind their daily activities waiting to see what they want if we don’t hurry", he jokingly said.

The girls of the sect always paid attention to the evaluations of the new members and they were enthralled by Esmeralda’s appearance too, so they won’t leave until their curiosity is satisfied.

"Mm", with a small nod both Esmeralda and Nim accompanied Aster towards the monoliths, the spirit wind girl was the one to go first, she placed her hand on the monolith and was enveloped in a dim blue light for a moment before a message was produced for everyone to see.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and two hundred high grade merits]

[Especial elemental entity related manuals, items and missions have been added to the exchange and mission monoliths]

"She got the same result as sister Mira!", said the girls of the sect, which was surprising for them and even more for Aster and the other leaders.

Why you wonder, well, because the blue flaming board takes a lot of things into account for the grading, however, Esmeralda has not done anything since they entered the high-grade gate.

Therefore, that evaluation was solely based in her battle prowess as of current, don’t get it wrong, girls like Alice, Mira and the little wyrm would get a similar result just based in their fighting strength now, but they have been here for a week in which they adapted themselves to mortal level, Esmeralda apparently started at the same mastery as them, which is understandable, dragons and ice ligresses don’t exist in the mortal world, but whirlwinds and jade do, so in that sense her base is much more solid than that of Alice, Espi and Mira.

’Looks like we have another top combatant in the group, she is not "mortal" limited like participants and the same applies to Nim, because they have access to that energy, so I was wondering how would they fight, luckily it seems like I won’t have to wait for Nim to adjust herself to get an idea of it’, thought Aster.

"So, sister Esmeralda is considered a "especial elemental entity", then what is considered sister Nim now?", mumbled Kana which made the chatterbox runic oak feel interested se she also placed her hand against the monolith.

Nim was already evaluated initially before, but she had yet to be in contact with the monolith after attaining this form, and that’s why the following message didn’t appear until now.

[Especial botanical entity related manuals, items and missions have been added to the exchange and mission monoliths]

And that was the answer to Kana’s question, this did raise another doubt, but from Aster this time though.

’Races without physical bodies and elemental traits as well as half-vegetation life forms do exist in the cultivation world, I wonder if they are also considered "especial" or simply elemental and botanical’, thought Aster.

That rock gigas old man from the mission at Esmeralda’s realm was an example of the previous, while that human shaped tree-woman who tried to trick Aster into thinking she was Alice back at Sarina and Kana’s native planet, was an example of the second.

But they are normal races, maybe not found everywhere but they are living beings without any unique situation needed for their birth, Esmeralda however is a spirit element and even if with high power enough they can produce offspring as Mira’s existence proved, the spirit wind girl is a first generation, she was born from nature exclusively and what’s more, she altered her concept from wind to green, Esmeralda is unique due to that, at least Mira who has a spirit element parent, had never heard of something like being possible.

Going from let’s say being a spirit water with a sea concept to a spirit water with a rain concept is possible, in fact a spirit water may grow to have more than one form and integrate more than one, but that’s within the limitations of their original element, sea and rain are ultimately both water.

Esmeralda on the other hand, did something as outrageous as going from wind to earth elements, by relating with the "green" concept, she didn’t abide by the elemental restriction, so it’s possible that the "special" part here is because of that.

As for the chatterbox runic oak, she comes from a rarely found spirit tree race and her birth situation was also unique, because she descended from a member of said race but was born incomplete and then she was exposed to yang energy at galaxy levels, other members of her race can manipulate yang energy indeed but that’s because their runic related talent allow them to manipulate different kinds of energies, whether they have relation to them or not.

Nim on the other hand, has a yang type constitution while still maintaining the previously mentioned talent, long story short they are unique existences among their peers.

"Okay, for your manuals my recommendation is the same as with the others, don’t chose based in grading, name or even the preview content, do so by instinct, but first let me see what the profession options you get are what like", said Aster.

Which resulted in another "especial" situation, as in unlike others those two only had two options, a main combatant and a broader focused one but both were specifically tailored for them and even took into account their status as belief-holders.

For Esmeralda, she had "Sky and Earth Master" which sounds like the broad concept one, but nope, that was mainly focused in combat, but that’s not all, based on the preview of the content of the attack, movement and defense manuals that Esmeralda could see... they contained not only mortal methods knowledge but how to use that energy produced by the camp’s beliefs!

Which is exactly what basically all the participants would be dying to get their hands on, of course learning through observation is probably incredibly unlikely, though one is free to try.

As for Esmeralda’s other option which instantly caught her attention more than the previously mentioned one, it was called "Green Ruler".

"Well, looks like there is no suspense here, right?", jokingly said Aster to which Esmeralda feigned ignorance as she picked the latter option, then she was left in peace to surf through the profession manuals of her profession to make her decision on her own.

"These are my options alpha", said the chatterbox runic oak, she still called Aster as "alpha" from time to time, but that could be worked in during the incoming days.

Her two professions were "Heavenly Tree Spirit Master" and "Immortal Living Forest of Legends", the first one was the main combatant one and the second one was the broader covering profession one and here the decision wasn’t as "easy" to make as with Esmeralda, because both looked good for the chatterbox runic oak.

Seeing Nim who couldn’t make up her mind, Aster placed his hand on the top of her head to then say.

"I didn’t bring neither you nor Esmeralda along to make you "fight", choose the one you feel it would be better for you, if it’s a main combat profession then that’s fine but if it isn’t there is no problem with it either".

The chatterbox runic oak’s eyes hone for a second as she nodded.

"Mm, thanks for the advice alpha... Aster", she said, midway changing from calling him alpha to call Aster by his name, very much to the black haired dragon youth’s amusement.