Chapter 883: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 36)

"Crack!", past the third second that guy who was originally kneeling was smacked against the ground and a fraction of a second later his bones were loudly creaking, which made Aster raise an eyebrow behind his mask.

’Yup, there is something weird going on here, that guy is from a high-grade gate and he is strong indeed, without taking our group into account, he is within the top 20 among all the participants in this place, but that’s not enough for him to not be crushed at this point’, he thought.

"I concede!", at three seconds and a half, that guy finally accepted that he was not going to be able to let alone get back to his knees but remain conscious before the fourth second passed, so he surrendered and the duel was over.

Aster had been transported without Alice, and so, the moment the duel ended he turned around to leave, but that guy whose mask had a heavy axe design on it called out to him.

"Wait, please give me a moment of your time", he said, which made Aster wonder if he should actually listen to him.

After all, he could tell that the other party seemed to have noticed something, also for someone of the top table that guy had a decent attitude.

"One minute, if you occupy more than one minute, your life might be in danger", said Aster as he got off the platform, he decided to put his evaluation of that guy to test, those words sounded like a threat, but he was being honest, Aster could already see Alice losing it at the blue flaming board, currently.

Luckily the timer was stopped, until all the remaining duels ended, there would be exactly ten minutes left for the rewards to be distributed, so technically Alice wasn’t "losing" anything, but she was still angry at the fact that she was interrupted when she was enjoying getting spoiled.

"Right... let’s move far from the platforms", said that guy as he got up with a bit of effort and then walked a bit far from Aster until they were far from the platforms being occupied as of current.

"So, what does someone who is not a pretty sister, want to talk in private with me?", casually asked Aster to which that guy surprisingly still didn’t look or feel offended.

"I apologize in advance, but please answer truthfully, I swear on my Freed family’s name that I won’t speak of this conversation to anyone, nor use it to bring you harm... you have a dragon lineage, right?", asked that guy, which didn’t surprise Aster, he could tell that the guy with the axe mask seemed to have noticed something about him, it was probably a not accurate but still decent guess though.

Not to mention that he actually was telling the truth, this guy had no hostility or ill intent towards Aster, still when has Aster been the type to let others see through him easily.

"Huh, well that’s not exactly right, my maternal family’s ancestor did, but for me it turned into a constitution that increases yang and vitality, well, that’s a part of why I’m unbeatable among dual cultivators in my generation", said Aster with a "proud" voice, which made the axe mask guy be surprised for a second.

’It’s a mutation instead of a pure lineage and yet my innate ability reacted in such a strong way to it... he might descend from a true dragon!’, thought the axe mask guy to then be returned to the real world by Aster saying.

"Since I answered quite the personal question there, I’ll make one too, how did you know that?", this was the final test, if that guy lied, then his previous words were empty and he’ll be labeled an enemy on the spot.

"The Freed family is one of the ancient "dragon slayer" lineages, ah right, most people of other firmaments or mortal realms, wouldn’t be familiar with that term, since "dragons" known to them are a spirit beast race that can be either good or bad just like any other, rather than the evil monsters we have back at home, basically, we are a branch of the human race specialized in dealing with reptile related races".

"Abilities vary depending on the rank of one’s lineage, talent, training and the like, but those with a lineage purity at 90% or above from ancient families all have an innate ability called "Ancestor’s Blessing" with it we can detect dragons with lineages strong enough to use "polymorph" to infiltrate human planets and we also take reduced damage from them regardless of the conflict in which we might ourselves in, the stronger the lineage of the enemy, the larger the damage reduction gets, though usually it stops at thirty, against you it was of fifty which is insane".

’Well, that explains a lot’, thought Aster, that’s why that guy managed to remain kneeling past the three second mark, since in Aster’s eyes, his efforts shouldn’t be that higher when compared to that girl with the "d" letter mask, he got "tougher" since his opponent was Aster.

Aster also had to admit that he was surprised that this guy just spilled all that information, on the other hand it’s clear that he was confident in his background.

"I know I was the one who asked, but aren’t you speaking a bit too much?", asked Aster to which the axe mask guy shook his head.

"We from the Freed family descend from the first dragon slayer, the hero who freed humanity from the cruelty of those who oppressed, slaughtered and treated us like their playthings, and I can hold my head tall when I say that I have nothing to hide as I follow our family’s principles with pride", he said.

Rather than the "face" or "righteousness" concepts that Aster has seen from those of the cultivation world, this guy with the axe mask seemed to follow "chivalry", which as weird as it might be it’s not unthinkable, Aster who came from earth had noticed traces of many cultures in the cultivation world, well it was probably the other way around, as in cultivators might have influenced earth in the distant past at some point, but certainly this "honor" oriented mentality was not common.

"I see, for not being a pretty sister you are not boring, still only twenty seconds left", said Aster which returned that guy from his own little world.

"Ahem, sorry about that, you probably felt some "repulsion" towards me by instinct, but since you didn’t show hostility I couldn’t just leave you in the dark, unfortunately not all the ancient families are the same and our Freed family wasn’t the only one that had people come into this place, though I don’t know with which group they have integrated, if you meet people with grey-red hair or eyes with a dark green sclerae, don’t even try to communicate, preferably don’t engage with them, but if you must, then don’t hesitate and attack, for they will go for the kill whether there is any reason for conflict or not...", he said to which Aster casually said.

"Thanks for the advice, but I don’t believe this warning is just to uphold your moral code, so tell me the other reason as to why we are having this conversation or we are done here".

"Our Gallant divine empire doesn’t wish for any unnecessary fights against "people" regardless of race, we remained trapped for such a long time while fighting against those monsters and can finally interact with other people, just to draw hostility because some guys have forgotten why we obtained these powers", he said.

That was much more reasonable, basically he was trying to counter the hostility that his native place might draw because of some idiot’s actions by sowing good karma with those that they had no reason to be in conflict with, despite the strong influence of "honor" in his mindset, this axe mask guy was also realistic, which is why Aster decided to give him an advice of his own.

"I can tell that things are different in your firmament of origin, but this world is not as "kind" as to accept your word as a collateral, some people don’t need actual grudges to make a bloodbath or will simply fabricate them if needed, so if you don’t wish for your native place to be pillaged and burned to ashes, you have to either become the strongest in the universe or "remove" the cause of the problem", said Aster as he turned around to leave, not without adding.

"Still, I’m unrealistically popular with pretty sisters, so at least I’ll spread the rumor that those from the Freed family are not boring to hang out with", he said as he waved his hand.

’He really is like eldest brother Sieq, he might be frivolous or a bit too invested when it comes to women, but a decent person at heart which is what matters, I do wonder if he is as strong in battle as his personality makes me think he is, or perhaps it’s true that his "strength" lies in a different aspect’, he thought to then change back to his usual self and then leave the duel area.

Aster got back at his table, where he was met with a pouting wild dragon princess, Alice was stopped from rushing at Aster’s side by Mira and the others, so she was in a bad mood.

Luckily, Aster knew what she wanted so after placing his arms on her back and below her thighs, he lifted her up in a princess carry to then place her on his lap.

’Ah, back to where I belong~’, thought Alice as she nestled her head against Aster’s chest, while Mira and the others gazed at Aster, it was only a couple of minutes but they were all annoyed to no end by the wild dragon princess due to his absence.

Luckily Aster was saved by the blue flaming board making its announcement since the duels were finally over.

[The final ranking for the first session of the warrior’s hall has been decided, congratulations to those in the top ten, there will be a merit reward up to the top one thousand as well]

[Golden Sword

Main Wife

White Claws

Alchemist

Battlefield

...]

The blue flaming board displayed the top ten in the sky above the tables for everyone to see, and as you can expect, the reactions were quite varied, because Aster’s group occupied the positions from first to fifth, and yeah in case you haven’t realized it, Alice’s nickname while in this place was... main wife, the others are also self-explaining, white claws was Mira, alchemist was Mylene and battlefield was Cassandra.

"No fucking way, those dual cultivator guys actually got the top five positions!", exclaimed quite a few people with disbelief.

"Hey, I demand an explanation, I could still accept it if they were within the top one hundred since dual cultivators basically spend more time on their beds than anything, but there is no way their efforts surpassed mine, I want to have an actual battle!", said a woman from the top table, her mask had black and red lines forming an "X" on it and she was the sixth on the rank, meaning that she would have been the first had it not been by Aster and the girls, her nickname was "Excellence".

[This ranking was decided by compiling the results of all the duels and it is final, there will be new rankings displayed for other events later, the reward "Beacon" for the top ten will be distributed now]

Next, the blue flaming board explained what the reward for the top ten was about.

[Beacon is a privilege exclusive for the rewarding time at the warrior hall, it allows those that have been granted it to experience "closeness" with the energy of beliefs, how much one can gain from it depends on every participant but at least it will grant those exposed to it with initial awareness of the energy in question (it can be extended up to a single extra person by each participant, the reward time will start when everyone is ready or within the next ten minutes)]

It was basically "premium" training time, which would increase one’s progress when it came to feeling and getting closer with the energy of the beliefs, quite the reward for a side event like this one.

Those from the sixth to the tenth place, which all belonged to the top table immediately chose who to share their reward with, and then gazed in Aster’s direction, since he alone held half of the top ten spots, given that those beauties accompanying him, seemed to be at his beck and call.

"Now this is troublesome, I can’t have other men getting closer to my pretty sisters, and I’m sharing this reward with little sister five as an apology for the conflict with her brothers, so who should I share the remaining four spots with?", said Aster out loud on purpose, which made the feather mask woman curse to her insides.

’Damn bastard, he had to say that out loud, now I will have to offer something to get a spot!’, the idea was just to use some sweet words to trick Aster from a spot, she didn’t want to be "pushy" so she was only planning to get one, but it was better if it was free of course, but her plan was now in tatters.

"Brother golden sword, I want one of those spots, please have a look at this", said the girl from their table with the flame mask design.

[The special object "spiritual quartz (earth)" has been offered in exchange for a reward spot by the participant wild flame]

’A different element version of the crystals obtained by Lina and Nina, not bad’, thought Aster, that girl with the flame mask was quite decisive, it’s obvious that her group was made of fire attribute cultivators so she had no use for an earth related thing, even if it was an especial object obtained from the area where her match took place.

Or more accurately she judged this reward time to be more important than those crystals and she was right, after all now the biggest variable was the capacity to use energy and the belief holders.

People could trade directly in here by the way, some have done it already, even at Aster’s table, but he showed "indifference" to anything that wasn’t pretty girls, so no one has traded with him until now of course.

Dozens of offers appeared for Aster to see, but the vast majority were ignored, some greedy fools wanted to use normal things to get such a good reward, the feather mask woman gritted her teeth to her insides and after not seeing her initial offer being accepted, she also took out a special object, it was also a crystal but this one was of wind element, which was useless for her group, they were yin type cultivators after all, but still in her mind she could have gotten a free spot if Aster hadn’t spoken out loud.

"I thank all the junior and senior sisters for their attention, unfortunately I can only choose four among all of you, please don’t hold it against me", said Aster as he accepted four offers, two were from his table, one was from the top table and the last one was surprisingly from a low grade table.

Sharing the reward required a certain proximity, so while sword five was fine, the girls with the feather and flame mask got up and sat on the ground next to Cassandra and Mylene, the one from the top table, a girl with a crystal design mask, sat close to Mira and lastly the girl from the low grade table sat close to Aster, though she was sharing the reward of Alice, since the wild dragon princess was sitting on Aster’s lap, she had to be close to him too.

And with that the reward time started, a dim blue light bathed those from the top ten and the ones with whom they were sharing the "beacon" reward, basically everyone but Aster among them, closed their eyes, trying to meditate like they would to sense and gather spirit energy.

Aster didn’t do it, because he could see the really small particles of energy in the blue light that was enveloping them, with his eyes, so he didn’t need to "feel" them.

’So far I was only able to somewhat know if the blue flaming board was "present" in the messages it sent or if it was an automatic one, but couldn’t see what kind of elements were included in the blue flames’, thought Aster.

Of course, there were fire energy particles, but they weren’t the only ones, there was wind and lightning and even light, elements which can be tightly related to fire, and there were other elements that had nothing to do with it, like darkness, water or metal.

But what drew the most attention from Aster, were some light grey particles which didn’t seem to have any element in particular, and still they radiated a "familiar" sensation.

’Those ones feel like that friend from the trial road which gave me that palm sized drop of black blood during the soul trial’, thought Aster.

You remember those giant withered chained hands that came from the darkness surrounding the trial road, Aster made a "deal" with the owner of a pair of them asking to take an attack from the girls of the sect, or take one of his with annihilation in it, and as a result the girls got quite the good score and he was even given a drop of blood by the owner of that pair of hands, well, those grey energy particles felt like those giant withered hands.

That didn’t mean the blue flaming board was one of whatever creature was the owner of those hands, it was a much deeper connection, those hands basically used soul energy only, so the grey particles Aster was seeing in the blue flames that were used for their reward, were energy from beliefs related to the soul.

Also, these energy from the blue flaming board felt way stronger and much more refined than the ones of those hands, which made sense, the blue flaming board was the master of that trial road, so those hands should belong to creatures subordinated to it.

It’s worth mentioning that though the energy particles in the blue flames had elemental properties, the reward didn’t get them closer to those element’s energies in specific, but to the energy of beliefs in general only.

With the exception of a certain ligress, courtesy of her spirit element lineage, she was directly obtaining benefits for water and wind related energies, since combined they can become ice which wasn’t directly found in the blue flames.

’Mira can impart her insights regarding water and wind, Mylene will probably get closer to fire since she is an alchemist, while Cassandra will probably aim for metal, as for Alice... well she is not exactly a good teacher, in which case I’ll focus in the soul and light particles’, thought Aster.

His annihilation manifests itself as a ray of golden light, so while Aster’s attribute is not light, he should be able to get some nice insight from it, metal and fire could have been other options due to the paragon body and rigel’s flames, but for that same reason he should have no problem with energies related to those elements, as for lightning, he didn’t get it from Sarina, but Sarina and Valentina are monstrously talented at using it, so they had that area covered.

’A little "gift" for that energy constitution daughter and the sun diamond princess, I see, as expected of my darling, you are already planning your next step with those two~’, jokingly said Lilia from within the mind space.

Luckily this time Alice was too lost in her own world to notice her little interference, her tail was dragging metal and soul energy particles at it, while the rest of her body was mostly reacting to the fire and darkness ones.

The reward time flew and before anyone noticed, it was over, the blue flaming board didn’t directly kick them out though.

[The first session at the warrior’s hall has come to an end, to commemorate it, the "messaging" function will be added to the monoliths, be aware that for now you will only be able to send messages to those with whom you exchange contacts before leaving the warrior’s hall, also each message will cost merits in order to be delivered]

The blue flaming board clearly wanted to have the participants interact with each other, not only negatively, it could be seen in how the reward time could be shared and also due to this communication function that was enabled, the idea was most likely to reduce unnecessary deaths.

Whether it was because Blue Sky didn’t like the previous, or because the other supervisors wanted the participants to die for some currently unknown reason, it was a mystery though, but it worked for Aster, he directly received the contact of sword five and that axe mask guy, though they didn’t say anything about it in the open.

"Brother golden sword, let’s keep up with the exchange business, if you find something like those crystals but for fire element, contact me at any time", said the girl with the flame pattern mask.

"Don’t forget about us, let’s have a nice conversation later", added the girl with the feather mask trying to use her gentlest voice, though she was angry on the inside after having to use a special object which she was going to exchange for something with the brick wall masked guy.

Speaking of which, castle also sent Aster his contact, why, because he was fuming on the inside, that wind crystal he got was supposed to be a part of his payment for bringing "prey" to the table, sucker 1 and 2 also sent him their contacts.

’They couldn’t be more obvious... oh well, I’m not going to be the one dealing with them anyway’, thought Aster as he accepted all contacts and then disappeared alongside Alice and the others.