The rise of the pervert primordial - Chapter 707 - 707: Into the gate (part 13)

While everyone was looking at the seemingly endless gate that covered every direction far into the distance, Aster’s attention was drawn towards a much smaller and harder to notice object, a layer of small gray stones that covered the road which was adjacent to the giant gate.

From this distance it was really hard to notice the previous, since one would normally believe it was just the shade projected by the gate thanks to the lanterns that illuminated the vicinity, in fact Aster only noticed thanks to his dragon eyes, which didn’t require him to use any kind of energy to give him enhanced vision, which is good as the resting period hadn’t started yet, based on the fact that the timers were still ongoing.

And it was further delayed because Aster had apparently made a discovery, judging by the fact that the flaming board lit up in those blue flames once again to form a new announcement.

[The double resting time period is optional, participants are allowed to leave after the first half part has passed, so long as not everyone choses to rest, but the time limit to be static will be cut in half for those that chose to do so]

Naturally such a message caused waves within both Aster and Wade’s sides, because the previous sounded like a loss in both sides, one didn’t get to enjoy the twenty-minute resting time, and also instead of five, they will be limited to only take a small break of two and a half minute if something happened along the way, not to mention that the pressure was supposed to increase for this last part of the road.

However, it’s also true that since the difficulty was increasing, there must be a proper reason for such an option to appear, perhaps the possibility of a reward or something along the lines of it.

“What do we do, should we skip on the second half of the resting period?”, asked a mercenary on Wade’s side, to which a male elder from the Redheart snorted in response.

“Yeah right, and what will you do once we collapse midway, didn’t you hear that the pressure will increase, we are going to need the extra rest to make it to the end of the road”.

“Why don’t we make a small “scouting team” those that are in the best condition, can take off early, it might be beneficial for the whole group”, added an elder from the Bayer family, their group was relatively in good conditions, so this could be an opportunity for them to finally earn some benefits from this road that has been torturing them since earlier.

But then, the flaming board dropped a bucket of cold water on his dreams and hopes.

[Be aware that as soon as a single member starts advancing, the timers of the people on their side will start running again]

And that was the last nail on the coffin, which made Wade announce his decision.

“We’ll make use of the double resting period, prepare for the last part of the road to the best of your capacities, anyone that tries to move will be dealt with by everyone else”, he said, while inwardly cursing.

‘Damn it, even if I wanted to, none of those bastards would be willing to not rest, even if I hire them’, he thought, of course no one among the ones that were in a decent state was willing to take the bet and see if they’ll be fine after not resting this last time to then enter an area with increased pressure.

And as angered as Wade felt because he knew that the side from the Myriad Occupation sect, will probably leave early, meaning they’ll have a ten-minute advantage over them, he couldn’t do anything about it.

As expected, no one objected to Wade’s decision, since the ones that managed the healing session, needed the double rest to recover, unlike the opposite side.

Speaking of that, Aster was being assaulted by hundreds of expecting pairs of eyes, since a moment ago.

Why you ask, well, because as things turned out, it was the right call for him to recover at the tenth resting point, he now only needed one last session to finish the treatment on his side and since a single session was nothing for Aster, they could leave as soon as it ended, it took nine of them to tire Aster after all, so he didn’t need to rest after it.

“Well, I do admit that you all did the right thing this time… however even if cute, conceited little girls should be “punished”, so do look up for it, sooner or later”, jokingly said Aster as he chuckled at those girls who were waiting to be praised.

They got what they wanted, but it came with a price, as they were reminded of that sea of vitality which tickled them earlier.

“Not that you can call that a “punishment” exactly”, mumbled Aria, to which the wild dragon princess added.

“Humph, yeah just look at those flushed faces”, said Alice as she pointed at the girls from the sect, the vast majority looked away with shy expressions on their pretty faces.

But there were a few that were pretty much expecting to bask in that sea of comforting yellow light, namely the very few among the veteran disciples that have managed to endure a few more exchanges with Aria and the others

Anyway, while the girls from the sect had a “bitter” victory, the resting period finally started and the timers stopped.

Aster nodded at the flaming board and the treatment started since no one objected to his decision, Aster simply closed his eyes and waited for the process to end, a few minutes later, the girls who still had a lingering paining sensation, felt as if a weight had been lifted from their shoulders, they were completely healed now.

“Thanks, senior brother~”, they of course didn’t forget to thank Aster while happily smiling at him, even the elders gratefully bowed their heads at him, to which Aster nodded back at them before saying.

“Get ready, we are leaving right away”, that was the signal for the flaming board, which in response started the timers on the people from the Myriad Occupation sect, who agreed to leave after the first half of the resting period.

The main pillars took their respective spots and the others helped stabilize the stone tablets, as for those that were helping just one person move, they were ready since earlier, and so the group from the Myriad Occupation sect set off towards the distance.

“Tsk, look at those guys not having any trouble even after the pressure increased”, cursed a male elder from the Pleasure Palace as he saw the group from the Myriad Occupation sect gain distance from them.

The previous happened, because while ignoring Wade’s side, Aster took the vanguard with the stone plate that carried Aria and the others, as well as Valentina and those lucky girls that got a spot on it as a reward, since he wanted to make a quick calculation.

‘Mmm, the pressure did indeed increase but it’s manageable, we just need to diminish the time of exposure to the increased pressure and we’ll more or less have the same result as before, the shorter time limit on the timers is annoying but those girls aren’t weak enough to have real troubles due to it’, he concluded to then say.

“We’ll speed up a bit, I’ll set up the new pace, so just keep yourselves within the same distance of me as before and everything will be fine”.

After walking for a minute under the new pressure, Aster calculated that contrary to what one would believe, moving faster in this last part of the road was better than going slow at the long run, of course that is if the participants could reach a certain speed and maintain it during the whole journey.

The idea is to shorten the amount of time they have to move while carrying the stone plates and helping the non-participants, under this stronger pressure, so that they will be in as much of a good state as possible when they arrive at their destination.

Everyone nodded and adjusted their pace to match Aster’s, the group from the Myriad occupation sect, slowly but surely advanced through the road, and so twenty minutes passed, before Aster suddenly stopped, making the others do the same.

“Is there a problem senior brother?”, asked one of the veteran disciples from the Black Sword faction, to which Aster placed the stone plate on the ground to then stretch his body, as he said.

“Well, you fierce girls might be able to continue without resting, but I sure need a little break here and there”, Aster’s words made a few elders giggle, while the junior disciples blushed on the spot.

How could they not know that Aster was taking the blame for them who were starting to get tired, normally they would have walked for around thirty minutes before starting to show signs of tiredness, but the faster pace and the increased pressure did take a toll on them.

After the initial blush, the younger girls had a slight downcast gaze in their eyes, because they thought that they were slowing down the advance of the group, at least until Aster chuckled to then say.

“I have decided that your punishment will be training for awareness of your surroundings, because if you little girls had paid enough attention, you would have the words “praise me” written all over those pretty faces of yours, after all, the distance we have walked during the past twenty minutes, is almost what we travelled in forty minutes before”.

For a moment, the junior disciples were in awe, before their faces were painted of a cute reddish tone as they realized such an obvious thing, imagine their expressions when they saw the elders and even the senior disciples giggle at them.

‘Ughhh were we the only ones that forgot to properly calculate the distance’, thought the junior disciples, who right now wished to dig a hole to hide.

As much as Aster wanted to tease them a bit more, every second of rest counted, so he didn’t distract them anymore and instead urged them to take a moment to breath and stabilize themselves.

Sure, they couldn’t circulate spirit energy to recover, but just by not moving and not helping the non-participants move, the pressure on them diminished enough for it to be considered resting.

The difference being that they only had two minutes and a half to do so, before they had to be on the move again.

Luckily those cute girls, got over their embarrassment pretty fast, when they were reminded that Aster seemed satisfied with their performance, and so after a little break the group continued advancing, it’s worth mentioning that by the time they started moving again, it was time for Wade’s side to leave the resting point since a bit more than twenty minutes have passed.

And as one would expect, their journey wasn’t remotely as smooth as the one on the side of the Myriad Occupation sect, to begin with, all those that needed treatment but couldn’t get it, made it harder for the ones helping them move to advance.

Because even if the non-participants couldn’t move by themselves in average, even those that didn’t have any special aspect related to the body path, could share a bit of the load on their fellow disciples who were participants, after all, a bad way to carry things would make one more tired.

But then, there were non-participants of this trial whose limbs were paralyzed and in pain, so even if they would have wanted to help, they couldn’t, and to be honest at this point they wouldn’t even if they could.

Since their own teammates actually demanded to be paid to help them get to the end of the road, as you can imagine there were a lot of falling outs among the different groups and families on Wade’s side.

Now add to that the fact that Wade, felt that it was a mistake to let Aster’s group put too much distance between them.

“Don’t slack you all, we need to catch up with those bastards from the Myriad Occupation sect, so advance as fast as you can without affecting yourself too much, the ones that arrive the fastest will be rewarded by my Ocean Aquamarine family!”, he said.

Wade decided to use the method of the stick and the carrot, and it worked, the ones in the best condition, who happened to be helping those that received treatment, immediately passed the others and joined the group from the big three, the previous included Fawn and her subordinates by the way.

“Shouldn’t that bearded guy hurry to catch up with the Lord of the Twin Sword Valley, he is originally a Gate Transcending realm, so even if he is carrying Fawn, he should be able to close the distance, he might even arrive at the end of the road faster than them, if he really tries”, said an elder from the Ocean Aquamarine family, to which Otto casually retorted.

“I was hired to guard the young miss, anything else is a secondary, so I’m not going to tire myself out for some petty pride, of course if you the “big three” make a vow stating that you’ll prioritize my employer’s safety over yours, then I wouldn’t mind lending a hand”.

And just with that, any sarcastic comments and suggestions for Otto to rush to the end of the road one way or another, died down, after all, none of those guys had any intention of risking their lives for Fawn, at least not with the heavens as witnesses.

“Enough, senior Otto is also human, so he will of course tire himself, it’s better to be safe than sorry, let the Lord of the Twin Sword Valley brag as much as he wants, he is basically clearing the way for us”, said Wade with confidence, though he was cursing Otto on the inside.

‘Damn pig bastard, you think you are something just because you are a Gate Transcending realm cultivator, there ones who guard my gate are on the same realm as you!’, he thought while keeping a “sympathetic” expression as he nodded at Fawn.

The light brown haired potential Fey princess, nodded back, but she couldn’t help but feel a bit strange when she saw Wade’s smile, something that didn’t use to happen until not too long ago, that being said, she still thanked Wade, before closing her eyes to meditate while Otto carried the stone plate on which she was sitting.

…

Back at the side of the Myriad Occupation sect, Aster and the others had moved fast enough to not even be within the field of view of those on Wade’s side, naturally that was because they had almost twenty minutes of advantage over them.

And thanks to Aster accelerating the pace, that was distance equal to the one they travelled in twice that time under normal circumstances, and everything paid off now that they could see the end of the road a few hundreds of meters away from them.

“Mmm?”, now that they were at a much closer point from the endless gate, both elders and disciples could see that grayish area which was different than the rest of the road, with their bare eyes.

“I couldn’t see it from afar, but look at the ground adjacent to the gate, it’s of a different color”, said a girl from the Green Lotus, to which another girl from the Black Sword added.

“Even the material seems different than the soil out of which the road is made, that looks more like gray sand”.

She was right, there were countless small grains of sand piled in front of the gate, however it’s obvious that it wasn’t regular sand, after all, there is wind in the road and yet not even a single grain of that gray sand was dragged away by it, also there was a clear delimitation between that gray sand area and the regular ground of the road, it was a perfectly symmetrical semi-circular line that separated both parts.

“I really don’t think that’s a welcome mat”, casually said Alice who was travelling the closest to Aster, as in she had ditched the stone plate she was helping to carry, since she had been the main pillar during this whole last part of the road, in exchange for being free to do as she pleased once their goal was within sight.

“Guess we’ll find out in a moment”, said Aster, the timers were still above their heads, so they probably needed to step into the gray area for them to be recognized as participants that had reached the end of the road.

Speaking of which, normally a debate should have started to decide who will be the one to take the first step into the gray area, considering they didn’t know if it was dangerous or not, but Aster outright skipped that part, as soon as they were within meters of the change in the color of the ground, he beckoned at a few girls, namely Mylene, Felicia, Alexandra, as well as Alice.

“Take care of my stone plate, I’ll go check things out at the gray area”, he said as he passed the stone plate to those four, they were all main pillars so carrying a whole stone plate just the four of them wasn’t a problem, that being said they all didn’t seem exactly fine with Aster being the one to test the waters.

“I won’t concede in this, besides you know how strong my defense is”, said Aster, to reassure those four, he wasn’t being reckless, a single step into the gray area could be taken back within the five seconds of daily invincibility, granted by the paragon body, so in case it was a trap of some sort, he would still be fine, even without relying in spirit energy, but the same couldn’t be said of the others, so he was the perfect man for the job.

And so, with his back facing the girls, Aster walked into the gray area with a calm but watchful expression, which turned out to not be needed since once he stepped in, the flaming board appeared to convey a new message.

[Congratulations for being the first participant to reach the end of the “Road of Trials” in all the AZ areas of the Eastern Gate, your score can now be calculated to then be converted into merits, once a participant is evaluated, the timers on his whole side will be automatically stopped, be aware that the first result will be used to measure all the other participants, do you wish to proceed?]

“Oh?”, Aster raised his right eyebrow with interest, apparently this was the benefit that could be obtained by rushing through the last part of the road, it was not a reward perse, but depending on how you used it, it could be a really good thing.

For example, if the one that got his score evaluated first was a low accomplishing participant, that would set up a low bar for all the other participants, so the vast majority would get a better result, which would probably result in more merits.

“Can you tell me what are the possible resulting grades?”, said Aster, answering a question with another one, to which the board directly said.

[No further information will be provided for the time being]

In other words, he couldn’t ask about anything related to the merits and grades, luckily Aster wasn’t one to be blinded by pretty outer appearances, so he almost immediately dropped any intention of using the trick previously mentioned.

‘There is no way the guys behind those annoying trials would leave an easy way out for free, there must be a catch here, but in any case, even if my score turns out to be unusually high, those girls did a good job so they won’t end up with empty hands… probably’, he thought, to then return to the real world due to an angered voice coming from afar.

“Lord of the Twin Sword Valley, don’t you dare!!!”, that was Wade who saw the announcement made by the flaming board, and screamed as high as his lungs allowed him to, that being said, his group which had been split as some had accelerated the pace after seeing the announcement, was still too far from Aster and the others.

Not far enough for Wade to not see Aster smirk at him, as he said.

“Proceed”, and with that single word, the flaming board shone in a dark blue light, which covered Aster from head to toe for a couple of seconds, before a new message was triggered.

[Calculation completed, the result is “Unique”, which can be converted into five hundred high grade merits as well as a promotion to the next authority level]

‘There is the catch, there are damn levels for the merits too, not like it has been explained what is the conversion ratio, or what can it be done with them, but I’m sure getting more of the low-grade ones won’t be pay off as much as getting few of the high-grade ones.

Aster didn’t know if his score was particularly high or not, five hundred merits didn’t sound as much after all, but the promotion to the next level of authority sounded like a good thing, however things didn’t quite go as planned.

[Error, the participant already holds the highest level of authority allowed as of current, two choices will be given based on the performance of the participant so far, double the total amount of personal merits, or group authority level up]

Aster frowned, apparently, he made quite the initial impression, since it was his performance at the distortion area what granted him the level three authority he held as of current, but again, he literally suppressed the whole battlefield, hoarding the best distortions for his family and the girls from the sect, so it was understandable.