Chapter 866: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 19)

’Mmm, even after being explained why Kana, I honestly didn’t understand why having one’s head petted seemed to be such a big thing before, but now I get it, there is this relaxing and comfortable sensation that makes me think that there is nothing to worry about coming from the place our bodies are in contact, I wouldn’t mind experiencing this on a daily basis...’, thought the chatterbox runic oak as she chose the profession "Immortal Living Forest of Legends", which to her "displease", put an end to her head pat.

On the other hand, now that she had manuals, Nim was reminded of something important, if she made a noticeable progress in them, then she could ask for a "reward" from the alpha, she has seen that happen quite a few times before.

And thus, the chatterbox runic oak was now experiencing feeling motivated from a human’s perspective too.

Speaking of which, Esmeralda might have been born a spirit element, but she pretty much has lived like a human for who knows how many years and so, it was way easier to notice her "motivation" when compared to Nim, as an energetic light shone in her pretty gem-like green eyes.

"You wanted to see how me and Nim would fight as compared to participants currently right?", said the spirit wind girl as she sharply gazed at Aster.

’She made it sound as if I’m the one suggesting it, but it’s clear that she is happy to freely move around in the outside, how cute’, thought Aster as he nodded.

"Yeah, if I’m not wrong, unlike Nim you can already make use of both your innate abilities and that energy to a certain extent, so let’s put on a little show so that those girls are entertained enough to return to their daily tasks", he jokingly said as he looked at the girls of the sect who brightly smiled in response.

"Nice, we get to see senior brother sparring with that pretty sister~", said a few girls from the sect to which Esmeralda nodded.

"It wouldn’t be funny if I just flew away or if you used that abnormal field technique of yours, so let’s limit the area to a five hundred meter large square and put a limit of six meters of height to be airborne, what do you say?", said the spirit wind girl which was accepted by Aster.

"Okay", and with Aster’s greenlight the first of Esmeralda’s abilities was demonstrated, with a snap of her fingers, a green jade platform the size the mentioned before appeared on the ground.

"Tap", Aster used his right foot to tap the platform a couple of times and couldn’t help but nod in an approval.

"As expected of your green jade, even at mortal level it’s quite something, I think it could stand up against the steel weapons crafted by us with ease, with some "especial" exceptions", he said.

Actually, some variations of jade can be tougher than steel, of course it also depends on what steel we are talking about, but jade is incredibly resistant to high impact, which is why Kana first learned how to use it to protect herself.

"I’ll take it as a compliment, though using it "separately" like this requires that energy", said Esmeralda as she jumped onto the stage.

She by innate could control her "body" which also didn’t have actual flesh and blood, like Nim’s, but with practice it wasn’t hard to imitate a real physical body, in fact, in a sense those two were in a better spot, because they could reinforce the energy which composed their bodies and thus attain a monstrous physical body that wouldn’t lose when compared to Mira or Alice.

Well, Esmeralda could already reach mid Alice physical strength as far as Aster noticed and that was without using any ability just through her "body".

"You already know about my jade, so let’s start with a good old classic", happily said the spirit wind girl as she extended her hands which then had a thin layer of green jade cover them.

"Mm?", the previous drew the interest of a certain gray-pink eyed girl, namely Alexandra.

"That looks a bit similar to your ability, isn’t it, Lexie?", said Mylene as she saw the clear interest in her friend’s eyes, speaking of which, Alexandra couldn’t get used to the nickname that the pink-haired girl had given her without her permission.

"I don’t mind if you call me that but only in private...", mumbled Alexandra with a bit of embarrassment on her pretty face, she couldn’t help but have her right hand clad in thin black metal plaques out of excitement.

"Clang!", back to Esmeralda, the spirit wind girl hit her fists which had those jade "gauntlets" covering them and produced a loud obviously solid sound due to the impact.

"Hey, isn’t that a bit too much for a friendly spar?", jokingly said Aster as he jumped onto the jade platform, to which Esmeralda smiled as she answered.

"What, you were the one who wanted me to come out and have fun", she said to then charge towards Aster and thrust her right first frontwards, which Aster met with a punch of his own.

"Thud!", now on the outside world, that would have pretty much resulted in a metal against metal colliding sound, given the toughness of Aster’s bare body as a cultivator, that being said he could still calmly clash with his bare skin against that jade reinforced hand which produced an impact at Alice mid-level strength level.

On the other hand, Esmeralda pretty much expected that to be the case, which is why instead of following with a second punch, her right foot was clad in green jade armor as she stomped it aiming to "crush" Aster’s foot.

"Crack!", Aster nimbly dodged to the side, which resulted in Esmeralda’s foot landing on the platform making a crack three meters large appear on its surface.

"Woah, I’m starting to think that you also need some human perspective lessons, that’s not an attack you’d see in a friendly spar", said Aster to which Esmeralda softly laughed in response.

"To be fair you can’t be put in the same category as humans, no, in fact despite the restrictions of this place you are not at "mortal" level even for you three’s "race" in specific", said the spirit wind girl, referring to Alice, the little wyrm and Espi, in other words, to dragons.

"Come on, I need at least this much to keep control over a whole bunch of fierce and talented girls, Aria can tie Alice down in a 1v1, but what if a fight broke out between Alice and Mira, without this much "endurance" I would not be able to step in without getting scratched here and there", jokingly said Aster putting emphasis in the word "endurance" instead of saying toughness, which made the ligress softly growl at him.

He was right though, without a body like he has, Aster would have been in trouble when dealing with all the pretty monsters that live in this camp.

"I guess that’s true, how about this then", said Esmeralda as her feet left the ground before her body was enveloped in a green wind breeze as she raised into the air, in fractions of a second, she was a hundred meters away from Aster while floating at five meters of height from the ground, to then point her right palm at Aster from above.

"Swooosh!", a strong wind current was shot from the spirit wind girl which unlike what one would expect, Aster didn’t dodge but instead he also extended his right arm frontwards to use his open palm, not to shoot something as well, given that well, he can’t control any element without breaking the restrictions, but to simply use his hand to block the wind current.

"Boom!", it was short-lived and not that loud, but the wind pressure hitting Aster’s palm still produced an explosive sound, that said, Aster didn’t even flinch as he stopped the wind current with his bare body.

"Woaah, senior brother is amazing as always~", said the girls of the sect in unison.

And in case you wonder why would they be surprised to see the previous, when Aster stopped a punch with power equal that the stomp that made the platform which can endure high impacts even better than steel, crack on the spot, that’s because as the next wind current which Aster this time did dodge, proved, Esmeralda’s wind currents packed quite the punch.

"Crack!", the second wind current shot by the spirit wind girl landed on the platform and blasted a one-meter sized part of it away, this was the advantage of being able to use energy of some kind, not only could she manifest her abilities at distance from her body like with her jade unlike what Alexandra could do with her black gold as a mortal.

But, her wind was also able to produce such results at long range with said energy’s support, when the sole other girl who could manifest and control an element had a much shorter range, namely Sarina.

The blond roc mother could not only imbue her electricity on her body and equipment but also concentrate it and "shoot" it at the enemy, that being said the previous was really inefficient, because unlike in the cultivation world where there is spirit energy of all elements floating in the atmosphere, in this place there isn’t any.

Therefore, air remains a poor electricity conductor and a good insulator instead just like in mortal planets, so you won’t see Sarina throwing lightnings at enemies further than five to ten meters, which again is nothing to look down upon, as that’s not something that your average lightning related lineage can accomplish in this place, in fact the vast majority would not even be able to produce electricity enough to tickle an enemy they are in direct contact with, so you get the comparison, Esmeralda launched an attack that powerful from ten times the distance Sarina could manage to, currently, that is the difference between having energy to support it or not.

"Mmm, as expected of a monster like you, just one of my elements at the time is not enough to do anything to you even if I’m using this energy to support it and it hits your body directly", said Esmeralda as she snapped her fingers, six green jade smooth spheres the size of a fist appeared and were then kept suspended into the air alongside Esmeralda by the green wind that was enveloping her.

’She really took to heart the "let’s put on a show" part huh, on the other hand it’s cute that she is having fun’, thought Aster as he tensed his legs just in time for Esmeralda to smile as she beckoned with her jade clad right hand, which made the six jade spheres floating around her to turn into green flashes that flew towards Aster like meteors descending from the sky.

"Booooom!", this time the explosion was quite loud and for a good reason, Aster had started to run in order to close off the distance between himself and Esmeralda while the spirit wind girl bombarded him with jade spheres that carried impact akin to cannon balls, each one landed on the platform and blasted an area of two meters with the landing spot as the center, this is because she was accelerating them with her wind.

Take in mind that this is still a friendly spar, after all they were spheres, at most if they actually hit Aster they might hurt, unlike jade spikes or arrows which Esmeralda could have created, that didn’t make them any less impressive for those girls that were watching the spar though.

"That pretty sister is also amazing, she does have access to energy but it’s not the spirit energy we are used to and yet she can produce such strong attacks right after getting the capacity to use it, no wonder her evaluation was as good as sister Mira’s~", said the girls of the sect.

Though they initially didn’t get the display of talent shown by Esmeralda when she was evaluated, they understood it a moment later after realizing that unlike Nim, they had never seen Esmeralda in her miniature whirlwind form participate before, so that evaluation was solely based in battle prowess alone.

"Also, sister Esmeralda’s Jade and her wind are as strong and pretty as ever!", excitedly added the little girl.

Aster could vouch for that, given that if it was someone weaker than the ones in the abnormally strong category of the camp, they would have been turned into a mess of broken bones and bloody flesh at the first round of that bombardment.

’In close combat she is behind Alice and Mira, but she can pull off such strong attacks at long range too, it’s like looking at an evolved version of Kana, which makes sense considering how compatible those two are’, jokingly thought Aster as he arrived at around twenty meters of distance from Esmeralda’s current position by dodging another round of jade bombardment to then apply strength on his legs.

"Crack", soft shattering sounds came from the platform below Aster as she propelled himself into the air with strength enough to cover the distance between himself and Esmeralda in a fraction of a second.

That being said, of course the spirit wind girl wasn’t just going to float there and let Aster approach her, especially because she could tell that his target was... her head, not as in he was aiming to cut off her heard, but as in his "naughty" dragon claws clearly wanted to pat her head, which would be a double defeat, both by letting the enemy reach her and having Aster successfully tease her and in front of a lot of girls that will for sure drown her with questions, giggles and gazes due to that.

"Humph!", the spirit wind girl proposed herself to fly away like before, but her senses suddenly warned her of trouble which was weird, Aster had promised to not use the absolute field and since Esmeralda wasn’t using a weapon, technically, since her jade equipment was made through her ability and the energy she could control, meaning that she had to pay a price to use it, then Aster didn’t bring a sword with him either.

"I think that "explosions" are a good to cheer up the public, but "magic tricks" are even better, for example this little something I have been working on at the same time as the advanced usage of absolute field during the past two days", said Aster with a smirk that the ligress girl and Valentina instantly recognized, it was the one that made them think that Aster was up to no good earlier.

Then under the sparkling eyes of the girls of the sect, Aster extended his right hand and wind which was stirred when he propelled himself into the air as well as some green jade fragments gathered in front of said hand to then make the vague shape of a sword.

"Hey, that’s cheating!", said Esmeralda as she saw her own wind and jade being used by Aster, to which Aster chuckled.

"Nope, it’s not my "field", this is just the advanced version of "absolute sword", which instead of just granting the capacity of a masterpiece of a sword to something, allows me to create said masterpiece of a sword though temporarily", said the black-haired dragon youth as he slashed the wind and jade sword at Esmeralda.

Aster had demonstrated his advanced mastery over the absolute field during the match, when he cut the enemy from the inside, achieving "mysterious" deaths and pain, with which he horrified the other party, of course for the girls of the sect who already knew about his technique, that was just Aster demonstrating why is he their admired senior brother.

But of course, Aster has always exceeded the expectations and this includes that of let alone someone as "paranoic" as Mina, but even those of Lilia and the sword empress that are observing everything from within the mind space as of current.

"Crack!", naturally Esmeralda was just joking, she knew Aster wouldn’t cheat so at the same time as she spoke, she created three fifteen-centimeter-thick green jade shields between herself and Aster but they were all cut in a single go as if they were made of butter instead the same jade that was dragged into Aster’s absolute sword.

’Of course, the exact same thing when in his hands as a sword becomes much more dangerous... that’s a bit unfair’, cutely thought Esmeralda as the green wind around her fiercely accelerated, allowing her to get away before she was "cut" by the sword Aster had created out of wind and green jade pieces.

"Rip", that said, the corner of Esmeralda’s sleeve was still cut by the sword, this is because the range of Aster’s absolute sword was actually larger than the actual size of the thing, in that aspect it kind of resembled the "ghost sword" level of sword intent.

Still, there was nothing but approval in Aster’s eyes as he landed on the ground to then gaze at Esmeralda, because he was aiming to cut the lower part of her blouse just enough to let her navel in plain view, but the spirit wind girl used a sharp wind current which enveloped her jade clad right hand to deviate the extended slashing range of the absolute sword.

Speaking of which, despite how "dangerous" the previous looked, Esmeralda’s life wasn’t threatened in the slightest, her clothes which were created with that energy returned to normal a second later, but while the same normally would apply to her body which is made of energy, if Aster’s absolute sword is in play that wouldn’t be the case.

You saw him cut down a supervisor after all and those guys use energy similar to that produced by the beliefs, but much more refined, a good comparison would be around the level of refinement that Aster and Aria can do for normal spirit energy when using Rigel’s flames with the spirit furnace technique when compared to normal spirit energy more or less.

And yet, Aster still cut the red cloud supervisor down like he was nothing, and that’s because the absolute field allows him to cut whatever he wants, the absolute sword didn’t use to have that property but now after training, it does.

So, Aster simply willed it and the sword he was using was now capable of cutting everything but "Esmeralda", which is why her clothes were cut, but she wasn’t in any danger, the sword would still hit her and cause her some pain due to the impact though but she wouldn’t be actually wounded by it, a similar consideration to what Esmeralda showed for Aster by making the jade projectiles smooth and round.

That being said the sword was still dodged by Esmeralda as if her life depended on it even if that wasn’t actually the case, because she knew he wanted to tease her.

’You are not the only one who can play dirty, humph!’, thought the spirit wind girl as she made the green currents of wind around her body further accelerate, and also had her left shoulder be clad in jade armor, to then flash towards Aster at her fastest "spar" level speed.

"Whistle!", that was enough to produce a high-pitched whistling sound as Esmeralda made her way towards Aster, she covered around two hundred meters in a second and basically "blinked" from her previous position to appear close to Aster.

Once again Aster slashed his sword at Esmeralda who made three jade shields appear in front of her, just for them to be split cleanly by the absolute sword, but then the impact that Aster expected to reach him as he used his forearm to block the tackle that the spirit wind girl was trying to use on him, didn’t happen.

"I’ve got you!", instead of that, with a clearly happy voice the spirit wind girl avoided the sword in Aster’s hand and reached him, but instead of tackling Aster, she... disappeared into his body.

’Now drop that "dangerous" sword and apologize for aiming at my clothes’, said Esmeralda in a voice that only Aster could hear.

As a result, Aster’s body was covered in green wind currents like Esmeralda was when she was fighting with him earlier, which drew the attention of the girls of the sect, at least until... nothing happened.

"Mmm, I expected you to have an ability akin to "possession", but what I didn’t think is that the one whose body you enter in, would gain access to your abilities, not that this is an actual downside since others wouldn’t be able to both resist your control and keep you "trapped" in them, like me", said Aster.

"...", after being silent for a couple of seconds, Esmeralda’s voice could be heard, this time by all the presents.

"Seriously, what the hell is your body made of", said the spirit wind girl as she confirmed what Aster had said, she couldn’t control him to do as she wanted, nor could she leave now that she was "possessing" him.