The rise of the pervert primordial - Chapter 708 - 708: The other side of the gate (part 1)
‘Choices based on performance, that means they paid more attention to us than what I originally believed’, thought Aster, his reasoning was simple, the first option was one that would personally benefit him a lot.
And the performance that aligned with the previous, was the one he showed before entering the gate, where he hoarded the best distortion for himself, certainly he also gave the next better options to his group, though.
And that combined with how he prioritized the girls from the sect over his personal benefit, since he shared every discovery he made with them, as soon as it was possible before the rules changed so that the flaming board would share to everyone, was probably what gave birth to the second choice.
“It seems like I was judged to be rather selfish at the beginning of the trials”, jokingly said Aster as he made his decision.
[Group authority level up has been selected, proceeding]
Aster is not one to make decisions based on personal preferences, he always opts for what’s the best for the situation, this can be seen at how he manages the resources he has obtained as well as the treasury, he doesn’t outright give every high ranked and rare resource to Lilia and the others, even if they are his lovers and family.
Instead, the resources are distributed to the one who can make the most out of them, regardless of their relationship with Aster, and that’s something that those who aren’t in a romantic relationship with him, admire about Aster.
Of course that doesn’t mean he doesn’t show some favoritism here and there, Aster loves to spoil his girls after all, but he maintains a clear line between the matters of the heart and what’s the best for the group.
And in this case, he judged the group authority level up to have a bigger impact than a larger personal reward.
Speaking of the group, the moment Aster’s evaluation finished and he was given the choices for his reward, the restrictions on the girls from the sect, were lifted, the pressure stopped affecting both participants and non-participants, and of course the disciples and elders from the sect, hopped out from the stone plates, which were left on the ground the next second.
What followed was a wisp of dark blue flames lighting up on the chest of all the members of the side of the Myriad Occupation sect, including Cayden and the other guys from the Wanderer sect who were considered a part of their side.
“Wouldn’t it have been better to choose the double personal reward, we might be able to get a level up by ourselves?”, asked the motherly blond Sarina as she approached Aster, who shook his head in response.
“I think participants are not supposed to have more than level zero authority during the trials, so it is only given as a reward in really special situations, otherwise the message when my authority level was going to be upgraded, wouldn’t have been an “Error” but something along the lines of “Not Allowed”, well, even if I’m wrong, the higher authority level seems more useful than just more personal merits”, he said.
After all, he was able to bring more than twice the number of people than level zero authority participants, into the gate, of course Aster wasn’t looking down on the girls, but in any case, it would be better if his “gift” combined with their own efforts, resulted in them obtaining level two authority.
“Can you tell me the possible grades of evaluation now?”, asked Aster to the flaming board which changed its previous outright rejective answer of earlier.
[The ranking of the grades will be available for consultation once both sides have had people evaluated]
Seeing that, everyone was excited to learn what their score was like, and of course the first one to rush to have her score evaluated was… Alice.
“I’m next”, said the wild dragon princess, as she walked into the gray area, or at least that’s what she tried to do, before being stopped by Aster who dragged her away to the side as he said.
“We’ll start with the junior disciples and advance from that”.
“Come on, that’s clear favoritism!”, exclaimed the dragon princess, which made Aster sigh, he knew what that wild sister of his wanted, to be carried by him, so he did comply, however not the way Alice expected him, as in he threw Alice on his shoulder to carry her like a sack.
That being said, judging by Alice giggles, she was happy with this “rough” treatment anyway.
“Kana, you can go first”, said Aster, to which the little girl nodded, he chose Kana because the little girl is the perfect choice, even the junior disciples wouldn’t feel bad if they were outshined by Kana.
“Mm~”, the little girl happily throttled into the gray area, to then ask the flaming board to evaluate her, and after a second of being scanned by those dark blue flames, the result came out.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]
“Did I do good, big brother?”, cutely asked Kana, which earned her a few head pats from Aster.
“Of course, maybe the grade is not the same, but five hundred seems to be a “high” number of merits, and you got them just like me”, he said, which made the little girl brightly smile, she wasn’t really interested in the trial, for Kana the fun part was being in a mission with her big brother and all the sisters who kindly played with her whenever she wanted.
Leaving aside Kana who was all smiles, the girls from the sect started flowing into the gray area, and their evaluations were pretty much the same.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Outstanding”, which can be converted into five hundred low grade merits]
Normally the word “low” attached to their rewarded merits would have made them feel a bit down, but the fact that they also got five hundred of them, which seemed to be the highest number they could get, and more importantly it was the same number of merits that their admired senior brother Aster got, brightened their mood.
Also, the grade “Outstanding” being accompanied by low grade merits, made it obvious that obtaining them isn’t an easy feat to accomplish, so by all means those cute girls deserved to feel proud of their results.
The previous grade continued even when it was time for the senior disciples to be evaluated, at least until it was the turn for those that were obviously on notch up compared to their fellow disciples, the ones in the top ten.
Namely those girls that reached an initial level on par with Iris and Nerissa, previous to them meeting Aster, as well as that core disciple from the Purple Lotus, who was also the highest ranked from their faction that was left after the purge that had taken place.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Advanced”, which can be converted into three hundred middle grade merits]
“Woah, congratulations senior sisters~”, the two new “Iris and Nerissa”, as in they curiously were also from the Black and Red Sword factions, respectively, smiled at their juniors to then gaze at Aster, their eyes were full of spirit, thinking on whether they would be able to endure more movements against Aria and the others now.
As for the girl from the Purple Lotus, she was positively surprised to see not only the juniors, but also those two also congratulate her, and so a second top three aside Iris, Nerissa and Lieze, was in the process of being formed, but let’s leave that for later.
For now, all the disciples aside from those in Aster’s group, had finished their evaluation, besides those three, there were a couple of surprises among the seniors, another three got an “Advanced” grade, for a total of six, and they were among the girls that had earned a spot to sit on the stone tablet that Aster carried, in other words they managed to fulfill more than one of the objectives of the energy trial.
And then, it was the turn for the elders, the main difference between them and the disciples, is that there were only three who got an “Advanced” result, even if there were around ten that also achieved more than one objective in the energy trial, but for Aster it made sense.
After all, the trials had been proved to adapt their difficulty based on the cultivation realm of the participants on average, so it’s normal that it was harder for elders whose realms were higher than that of the disciples, to excel enough in the trials to get a “Perfect” grade score, besides those three, all the others received an “Outstanding”.
“Ugh, we couldn’t beat little Kana”, mumbled a girl from the Orange Lotus, to which the other junior disciples laughed, as they saw the little girl adopting a feigned proudful expression, with the objective of getting praised by Aster of course.
Speaking of getting praised by Aster, now it was the turn for his close group to be evaluated, but once again it wasn’t Alice the first one to be evaluated, but Dahlia.
And here it came the second surprise of the day after the little girl whose performance was judged to surpass even the top of the senior disciples so far.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]
The previous took let alone the other girls from the Green Lotus who were acquainted with Dahlia, but even Dahlia herself by surprise, her pretty green eyes were brimming with happiness as she received her result, which turned into a bright smile when she saw Aster nod at her in approval, which made a certain girl with red hair pout in secret.
Just like with the girls from the sect, the remaining were going to be evaluated from younger to older, so after Dahlia it was Nina’s turn, the youngest of the three red haired sisters, walked into the evaluation area and with a calm expression that didn’t match how much she was praying to her insides, to get a good score, accepted to be evaluated.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]
Nina actually forgot to keep outer appearances and jumped out of happiness for her achievement, to then blush when she saw Aster softly laugh at her cute reaction, before running away to hide behind her sisters.
Speaking of her sisters, it was Lina’s turn, technically Erick, Alice, Sophia, Tiana, and Vivian should go first, but since Alice was still being held down by Aster, they took it as Aster’s intention on letting others go first.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]
Now that the sister in the middle had taken her turn, Erick jumped right in, and now the others understood why Aster prevented Alice from getting evaluated earlier.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and ten high grade merits]
“Yo, I only got ten with a perfect score, as expected of brother Aster hahaha!”, as always Erick was rather easy going, he was happy with his performance.
“Wait, that means that there are differences even within the same grades”, mumbled the girls from the sect, Sophia followed right after Erick and her result was surprisingly better than his, since she got twenty high grade merits, probably because she took things seriously unlike her boyfriend.
And now it was finally time for Alice to be set free, Aster let go of her and the wild dragon princess, immediately asked the flaming board to evaluate her.
“Come on, hurry and tell me my score”, said Alice, the flaming board actually took a bit longer than usual, something that had only happened with Aster, still the result was still “Perfect”.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and one hundred high grade merits]
“Woah, that red eyed sister is as scary as always”, though with admiration, the junior disciples still had wariness in their voices when it came to Alice, because she plays some naughty tricks on those that challenge her to a spar, unlike Aria and the others.
Not like Alice really cared about her public image, so long as she is recognized as Aster’s lover of course, unfortunately for the dragon princess, before she could brag about her score, a new message appeared on the flaming board.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and one hundred high grade merits]
That was Aria’s result, which earned her a soft snort from Alice, and also the start of a trend, since Tiana, Vivian, Iris, Nerissa and Lieze got the same score.
“I guess I should spend more time with brother Aster, just look at sis’s score!”, jokingly said Erick, which made Tiana look daggers at him.
It was until the oldest of the three sisters had her turn that a different result was given.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and fifty high grade merits]
Mina’s result wasn’t higher than the previous ones, but she not only surpassed her sisters by quite a bit, but also even Erick and Sophia’s one, of course she isn’t in the same category, considering she is older than Iris and is also a peak star tribulation like her in her main path, but it was not bad at all.
Then the results got back to the one hundred high grade merit ones, for the girls at the Transcending realms, starting with Alexandra, but another anomaly appeared in the form of Camilla getting one hundred and twenty of them.
The treasure girl was immediately teased by Aster who patted her head, next Sarina was evaluated and her score turned out to be the same as Camila’s one, but since Sarina isn’t as shy as the treasure girl, her reward was a peck on her right cheek.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and hundred and ten high grade merits]
“What a shame, ten more and I would have gotten an extra reward~”, playfully said Felicia, which made Aster chuckle, he was at fault for not being able to hold back and flirt with Camila and Sarina, not like he could be blamed, those two were really fun to tease and there hasn’t been too much time since they became his lovers too.
‘Hissss!’, listening to the word “reward”, the little wyrm raised a complain, since now all the ones at the Mortal Transcending realm had been evaluated and she didn’t have her chance, she thought so because Mira was walking towards the gray area.
‘I didn’t forget about you, go and be evaluated with Mira’, said Aster to the little wyrm, whose eyes sparkled as she slid through Aster’s leg to then sink into the ground in order to cling onto the ligress girl’s ankle.
‘Hissss~’, she cutely rubbed her head against Mira’s skin as if to thank her for bringing her into the evaluation area, which made the ligress girl clear her throat.
“Ahem, we spirit beasts should help each other”, she mumbled, as the dark blue flames evaluated them at the same time, the reason as to why Aster had left the little wyrm until it was Myra’s turn is because, he judged they would obtain a similar score
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and two hundred high grade merits]
“Wow, that white haired sister got the best score so far, besides senior brother!”, exclaimed the girls from the sect, as expected many sparkling eyes locked onto the grumpy ligress girl who was troubled by all the attention she was getting.
“I expected it from sister Mira, but Espi also…”, mumbled Kana, she felt a bit jealous of the little wyrm’s outstanding score, which made Aster chuckle as he patted her head.
“Unlike us, spirit beasts have it harder to develop the traits us cultivators have, but they participated in the trials, so is only normal that they got extra points for it, also if I remember correctly, a certain little girl has only been seriously cultivating for months and still got a Perfect grade”, he said, making Kana giggle.
“Mm, I’ll train harder to not lose the next time~”, she mumbled, Espi is both Kana’s best friend and her rival, since they are around the same age, of course Espi is currently stronger than Kana, but that’s because the little wyrm has been training for way more time than Kana, and she had to survive in the wilderness, while Kana didn’t.
Not to mention that the other’s scores was evaluated with his as comparison, meaning that they would have probably been higher under normal circumstances.
And with that solved, it was the turn for the Genesis Manifestation realm girls, starting with Angela, whose mouth cutely widened in awe when she saw her result being Perfect what’s more, her high-grade merits went up to a total of one hundred and thirty, while being a single path cultivator.
“Congratulations”, said Aster to the hazel eyed girl, who quietly nodded while she accommodated her glazes, also the remaining Genesis Manifestation girls, namely Mylene, Eris, Agnes and Layla, also got a hundred and thirty high grade merits as a result.
As for the sole two originally Void Manipulation realm cultivators of the group, in other words Valentina and Mikaela.
[Calculation completed, the result is “Perfect”, which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and one hundred and fifty high grade merits]
They got the third highest result after Aster and Mira, which left them feeling a bit troubled, though they still managed to kept their faces as the ones in charge of the group of the sect, they were still only third in place, it was a new kind of situation for those genius princesses.
Cayden and the other fellows from the Wanderer sect, waited until everyone from the Myriad Occupation sect had taken their turn, their results were more or less along the lines of the previous, with Cayden and his girlfriend scoring at the same level as Mina being the most notorious ones.
Also, the people from Wade’s side were finally on sight by the time the guys from the Wanderer sect had finished evaluating their scores, and as one would expect, their expressions weren’t pretty to see.
“What’s up with the long faces, anyone would believe you just suffered a heavy loss or something like that”, casually said Aster, which made a few elders from the Ocean Aquamarine and Mountain Amber families, clench their fists, luckily Wade who had forcefully calmed himself down, stopped them from acting because if not they would have been punished by the flaming board.
Even if the restrictions would be lifted from them in a second, the no hostility rule remained, which was more beneficial for Wade’s side than for Aster’s, even if those elders would never admit it.
After all, the vast majority were in a really bad state as of current, especially because midway they had accelerated the pace in a try to catch up with Aster’s group, anyway thanks to that they didn’t even have the energy to argue with Aster.
“So, who is going to go first?”, asked an elder from the Redheart family, as proudful as they were, they knew that their performance on the trials was worse than that of the Myriad Occupation sect, and no one wanted to go through the shame of being the first one to be evaluated.
On the other hand, it’s not like they had a choice, now that they have stopped moving, they only had five minutes before their timers ran out, so a decision had to be made.
After a moment of contemplation, Wade looked at the group from third and fourth tier forces, combined with those remaining rogues to then say.
“If there are no volunteers, someone among you will go first”, and as incensed as the previous made those guys feel, practically everyone else in their side was also glaring at them, maybe they were safe now, but if they didn’t comply, later there will for sure be retribution, and in any case, they’ll have to be evaluated sooner or later anyway.
But just as they were about to play rock paper scissors to decide who will be first among themselves, as if an angel had descended from the sky, Fawn raised her hand to then say.
“If no one has a problem, my subordinates can go first”, listening to the words of the potential Fey princess, made not only those rogues, but even Wade happy.
“Sure, let those affiliated to our Fey family be the first to be evaluated”, he said, of course he meant it as in having Fawn’s subordinates take the bullet for them.
