The rise of the pervert primordial - Chapter 753 - 753: The third day of the development trial (part 6)

Seeing those cute girls giggle at her, Agnes couldn’t help but pout to her insides as she mumbled.

“Hey, that was on purpose”, to which Aster softly laughed as he casually said.

“Of course, it was”, the sportsy sun diamond princess slightly sighed to her insides, her reputation as a supervisor was at stake here, on the other hand this also fired her up in advance.

‘I’ll get him at least once before the swordsmanship training!’, thought Agnes, unaware of how cute she looked with that determined expression while her forehead had a red paint mark.

Her motivation didn’t lack a solid foundation, because the next weapon in which they’ll be training is the most similar to the sword among the three, though with differences in reach and purpose, the dagger.

Leaving her motivation aside, the sportsy sun diamond princess returned to the real world after realizing that she hadn’t let go of Aster’s wrist, thanks to some whispers she heard coming from the public.

“Senior brother grabbed sister Agnes’s wrist to prevent her from falling, but why did sister Agnes secure her hand around senior brother’s wrist?”, asked a girl from the Green Lotus.

“Mmm, maybe she did it unconsciously, senior brother played a joke on her again after all”, answered a girl from the Yellow Anvil, only then did Agnes look at her own hand which indeed was tightly holding onto Aster’s wrist.

‘Huh, when did I…’, it took Agnes a whole moment to react, her face slightly reddened but ultimately she “calmly” let go of Aster’s wrist and basically decided to forget that such a thing happened.

It would have been fine, had she not looked all stiff as she turned around to return to her initial position, she looked quite funny moving in such a robot-like manner while feigning complete ignorance of the previous.

Still, the sharp glare she gave to Aster was as if she warning him to absolutely not say anything about it, it would have been more convincing if she didn’t have that red paint mark on her forehead though.

“Ahem, let’s continue with the previous dynamic, can anyone tell me how do you see the situation would have unfolded if elder Agnes had a dagger besides either a shield or the spear?”, said Aster while she subtly touched his own forehead, hinting at the sportsy sun diamond princess to clean the red painting mark.

Which Agnes did in a hurry the next second, trying to make it look as natural as possible, luckily for her, those cute girls were now lost in thought trying to imagine the possible scenarios Aster asked them to think about, so her funny reaction went unnoticed this time.

Which earned Aster a thankful smile from the sportsy sun diamond princess, it was as if she had forgotten who put her in that situation to begin with, a bit of Aster’s smooth technique of knowing when to stop the teasing and also how to content the target.

Of course, while the target remained unaware of the previous, third parties were able to see through the whole thing, the vast majority of girls that had spent some time with Aster were used to it, but there were a few who couldn’t help but look at the others to then ask.

“Is this a normal occurrence?”, the one who voiced the question in the minds of the newest additions to the group, namely Valentina, Mikaela, Layla and Lieze, was of course Lieze.

The one to answer her surprisingly was the ligress girl, though.

“Humph, more than what it should”, said Mira while she softly growled, being reminded that she was submitted to a similar treatment more times than what she would like to admit.

Leaving those five aside, not without softly laughing at their reaction, Aster directed his attention to the girls from the sect who had reached an answer to his request.

“I think that after stopping moving around the enemy since he put the shield on his back, if sister Agnes had a dagger hidden, she could have charged with the spear head on, and when her thrust was blocked, she could have stabbed the enemy’s wrist with the dagger”, said a young girl from the Purple Lotus.

If this was a different sect, not necessarily a bad one but based on the collective stand of the righteous path, such a method would have earned a scornful gaze from those that walked in the sword path, like the majority of girls from the Black Sword faction for example.

However, those cute girls weren’t so narrowminded to begin with, and with Aster further supporting the fact that thinking about “fairness” in a real fight is absolutely dumb, let alone disdain, that girl was met with nods of approval, which encouraged her to add.

“Even if the attack was shallow, damaging the wrist would diminish the enemy’s capacity to use one of his hands and if it was me, I… would coat it in poison, so that could potentially mean the end of the fight”.

As one would expect from someone that entered a faction that specializes in working with poison and other harmful things of similar nature, even a young girl immediately thought about coating her weapon with it, the important part is that she took the initiative to mention it out loud, when no one had done it yet.

In other words, she took the risk of being looked down upon if others didn’t approve of her thinking and that was something worth of praise for Aster, so under the cute jealous gazes of basically all junior disciples, and the interest of the vast majority of the other people present, Aster walked towards that girl and patted her head as a reward.

“Dagger and poison, a really good combination, not to mention that targeting an important area like the wrist is quite a good way to use the single time that the dagger could be used as a surprise attack, not bad”, he said.

“Mm~”, being completely honest, at first that young girl from the Purple Lotus felt a bit overwhelmed when she saw Aster walking towards her, Aster’s reputation within the Purple Lotus, was that of a crazy bloodthirsty psychopath.

Not without a good reason of course, though it was swept under the rug, since no one pursued the matter, it did cross quite a few people minds that he was the one that killed the unofficial holy son from the Purple Lotus, during that mission with Iris.

Of course, that girl who later joined the guy supported by the Stall family, tried to demand for an investigation, but the Supreme Elder from the Stall told her to not speak of the subject, the reason was simple, Iris told the old enforcer from the Punishment Hall about how that fool betrayed them to ally with the Orcrary in order to save his ass.

And the crime to betray the sect during a mission was punishable with something worse than death, his cultivation would have been crippled and he would have then been imprisoned for the rest of his life to “contribute” to the sect in other ways.

Of course, a proper trial under the strict of an absolutely trustworthy authority, like the old Law Enforcement elder, was needed for the previous, but in the process a thorough investigation will take place and the Supreme Elder and some others among the ones that were chased away by Aster, had many things they wished to remain unknown, so any idea of officially retaliating for that guy’s death was instantly dropped.

Anyway, the point is that the junior disciple from the Purple Lotus who had only heard about Aster through rumors until not too long ago, since she was stationed in one of the outposts of the sect, in a mission accompanying Violet, only recently she got to witness Aster actions in person not too long ago, so she was not one of his admirers, until now.

‘I thought it was good enough that we weren’t being ostracized by the others, but it seems like we’ll be able to live a happy life in the sect’, thought Violet, she honestly knew that Aster wasn’t a bad person, at least he didn’t hold grudges against those unrelated just because they had something in common with his enemies, like affiliation for example.

And as obvious as that sounds, in the cultivation world… it’s not something you’ll get to see on a normal basis, in fact Violet already took a risk when she stayed in the sect alongside the other remaining disciples, after the vast majority left after being called back by their respective forces and families of origin.

But let’s leave that aside for now, after giving that girl such an “enviable” reward, Aster returned to his previous position, to then say.

“The reason I gave such a “high” evaluation to Amy’s scenario is because, there is only one chance to completely take the enemy by surprise with a hidden dagger and she decided to use it not to land a finishing blow which is one of the two situations in which I will teach you two use it, but to incapacitate the enemy, under the pretense that her dagger was coated with poison of course”.

“Once poisoned, the enemy would get distracted while trying to take an antidote which might or might not work, creating panic and disturbing his decision-making skills, which essentially lowers the difficulty of the fight quite a bit, or you could even subdue it with the premise of administrating the antidote, which is a victory while completely avoiding a fight, one of my preferred outcomes”, he concluded, making that girl from the Purple Lotus slightly blush, Aster knew her name and she doesn’t remember ever telling it to him.

Of course, Aster was strict when it came to accepting surrenders, scum will die regardless of the previous, while those like James for example whose faults weren’t worthy of death, could redeem themselves with hard work, all this under the pretense that Aster judged them to not be a threat to the group of course, otherwise… well, he would take the necessary actions, no amount of “morals” was enough to pay for the lives of his allies and close ones, after all.

Anyway, the important part is that the vast majority of enemies would choose submit over death, and that will for sure lower the risks those cute girls will have to take when facing enemies, at least during the time it takes them grow used to fight at mortal level, which is the important point here.

“Luckily for us, we have our reliable Mylene to make some really hard to cleanse, paralyzing poisons, with the assistance of Vivian and other talented alchemists, so you can count with your daggers being coated in a “funny” surprise for the enemy”, added Aster, throwing the pink haired girl under the bus.

‘Ughh, this “young master” friend of mine is going to work me to the bone’, jokingly thought Mylene referring to Aster as both how she originally was supposed to, and how she does as of current, when she saw all the sparkly gazes from the disciples fall on her.

Vivian who was met with the same treatment, on the other hand, smiled and greeted everyone, as always, that girl who is the incarnation of the white color quite liked new funny experiences, given how much she missed when growing up due to her previous situation and there is a lot of that when one hangs around with Aster.

With such encouragement from their admired senior brother, this time the fastest one to raise her hand was someone from the Orange Lotus faction.

“I thought about the final clash in the shield vs shield spar, instead of actually kicking the enemy, sister Agnes could have changed midway to use the impulse in order to stab the enemy’s solar plexus, since the shield should would be positioned to the side to block the kick”, that was a surprisingly fierce conclusion for a girl from a faction focused in antidote making and healing by the way, but well, knowing how to heal people, also involves having quite a bit of knowledge about anatomy which means, knowing about vulnerable areas to attack.

Unfortunately, while Aster nodded in approval that girl didn’t get a reward, not because her answer was wrong, Aster found her attack harder to land even if it was a surprise one, for the simple reason that the frontal body is what the average enemy would reinforce and lookout for, the most.

“The feint, combined with a smooth transition from a kick to a stab is a good decision, even if it failed the danger would force the enemy to put distance so, as a finishing attack is not a reckless move, however an important area like the solar plexus, will be covered in armor for sure”, of course that made the girl in question to look downcast knowing that there was no head pat for her.

“That being said, the tip of the dagger might still go through because that’s what it’s designed for, so don’t feel bad Jenn, I will only change the last part of your scenario to aim to a much more vulnerable and yet overlooked area in mortal level combat, the armpit”, said Aster as he raised his arm and pointed at his own armpit.

“The armpit is in fact one of the key areas you might use to kill the enemy even if it’s wearing armor, cultivators won’t realize it, but they’ll leave it vulnerable because you can’t use rigid armor like the one the majority will use here, to protect it as it would get in the way, and there are too many fatal things in such an overlooked place”.

“The least bad scenario is damaging a cluster of major nerves which would paralyze the arm and that’s without taking the poison into account, you can sever an artery, reach the lung or even puncture the heart directly”, he said which made a whole bunch of those cute girls look at their own armpits, while taking a breath of cold air, quite the amusing reaction, it’s also worth mentioning that the girl who spoke about the imaginary scenario ended up happy since her admired senior brother knew her name, though she wanted that head pat.

“Of course, you won’t be so unprotected, but this is one of the areas you’ll learn to guard while moving during this week, and it’s also why I’m teaching you to not make wide moves in close combat, except with the spear where the distance is easier to control”, added Aster putting an end to the imaginary situation dynamic before continuing with the explanation regarding the dagger.

“The most important aspects for dagger wielding are gripping technique and opportunity usage, while there are many gripping techniques and even more variations of them, we’ll stick to the simple forward hammer grip and the icepick grip for now”, said Aster as he grabbed the training wood dagger from the ground.

“For the forward hammer grip, you’ll hold the handle of the dagger as if you are holding a hammer, wrapping your fingers around it while using the thumb to secure them, this will allow you to land powerful strikes while also helping you to not let go of the dagger midway”.

“Then we have the icepick grip, in which the point faces downwards, you’ll use four fingers to hold onto the handle while your thumb can cap the butt of the handle for extra power”.

“And here I want to point something really important, which is opportunity usage, you’ll only resort to use the dagger in two cases, if there is either no other option or if there is a chance to end the fight early either by incapacitation in a similar way to the situation described by Amy, or by a finishing move like the one I modified for Jenn”.

“The only exception to that, is what should be an extremely rare occasion, in which you have lost or discarded your other equipment, so you have to use the dagger to block an attack, in which case it doesn’t matter if you reveal the existence of the dagger”, said Aster.

Since he was teaching them to focus in a defensive stance, a situation in which the girls lose all three, the shield, spear and sword with which they’ll be equipped, should not occur, so the dagger should be considered a last resort kind of thing for them, and to further reinforce that thought, Aster directly added.

“It’s absolutely forbidden to use the dagger as a main weapon, even if you are a dagger or short sword user as a cultivator, because such a close quarter combat is dangerous at mortal level, even for seasoned fighters, realistically a dagger should be accompanied by the surprise element”, Aster specifically gazed at one of the few girls whom he has seen using a dagger, namely the youngest of the three sisters, Nina.

Sure, Nina’s main weapon is a gladius, but she complements it with a dagger/short sword, there are a few more of girls who use short enough swords to make do with daggers in the sect, but probably Nina is the only one that actually has trained with a dagger in specific.

Aster knows it because he has seen her fight before, and he has trained with basically all sword type weapons of different sizes, weights and functions, to develop his swordsmanship, which in retrospective is in part what helped him to put a step into the third level of intent, at such a young age.

That being said, such a situation is not realistic, not only because the comprehension needed for such a thing is monstrously high, but because the time, dedication and disposition needed, are on the same level.

Just to put an example, besides those specialized in assassination which isn’t a subject widely spread in righteous faction sects, the vast majority of manuals would rather go for the short sword instead of dagger wielding, Aster didn’t find a single cultivation manual specialized in dagger wielding back when he lived at the Azure Sky planet, even Lilia didn’t have one in her ring, it’s not “extremely rare” but it’s just overlooked by those that aren’t raised to become assassins for the most part.

Luckily, the mortal level technique books contained a vast variety of dagger wielding information, which is what Aster used before using the connections he made later on to ask for manuals for cultivators in that subject.

Naturally, getting an advice especially “tailored” for her, made the youngest of the three sisters happily smile to her insides, but on the outside, she limited to enthusiastically nod in response.

“Given the nature of the situation in which you’ll be using the dagger, your movements have to be instinctive and seamless, so I won’t speak about how to use it, you’ll see it and learn how to do it by yourselves the way you are the most comfortable with”.

With that Aster concluded the explanation, the dagger was quite the special case among the weapons he was teaching those girls how to use, and such was going to be the case for the spar while using them as well.

“Since the spar is meant to expose ways to use the dagger, we’ll extend the needed points to claim the win to ten, regardless of where they land, even if they are considered fatal, the spar will continue, in exchange only the dagger landing will count as a point”, said Aster which made a sharp light flash through Agnes’s eyes.

“Mm, I like that!”, said the sportsy sun diamond princess as she got up and grabbed her training dagger, to then apply the blue coloring powder to her dagger, while Aster did the same with the red one.

The previous meant, that grappling, punches, kicks and the like can be used but they won’t count for the victory and that increased Agnes’s chances to score some points against Aster.

Of course, this wasn’t Aster giving her an advantage, it was for the sake of the demonstration and in any case, the last thing Aster would do is underestimating the sportsy sun diamond princess, who despite being a sword obsessed girl, improved her spear wielding after using one for the second time, with a few minutes of difference in between.