Chapter 848: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 1)

"Speaking of that, tell me about your interactions with that crystal bush", said Aster after mocking said supervisor in his mind, the blue flaming board is a good ally, but it keeps quite too many things a secret for Aster’s liking.

There is probably a good reason for that, most likely is not that the blue flaming board doesn’t want to give information but that it can’t as it respects the rules of this place, chances are that the participants are meant to learn more at a late stage of the events prepared for them.

So, it’s not like Aster resents Blue Sky for it, it’s just that as the one responsible for the lives of all those cute girls, he can’t allow himself to be maintained in the dark, so any intel regarding supervisors which can help him fill in for the missing parts of the bigger picture is welcomed.

"Mmm, the crystal bush didn’t really interact with us much at first, when we appeared he simply told us to look into our surroundings and complete daily tasks, which would make it look as if it lacked interest in us but... that’s what led us to explode the jungle which could have ended in a tragedy, so I would say that bastard only feigned disinterest but wanted us to die from the very beginning", said the green haired mercenary girl.

Which made sense for Aster, if the crystal bush was a target for the blue flaming board, then, it couldn’t have been a let alone good but even a relatively decent supervisor.

’I don’t think the crystal bush was a particularly notorious piece of trash, but he definitely wasn’t on the disinterested category either, the blue flaming board must have chosen from the relatively "easy" targets first, to test how things went when the participants were involved’, thought Aster.

The blue flaming board wouldn’t put them at risk on purpose, so Aster already expected the first match to be more of a trial for the actual fights that will come later, which is why he also used the centipede as an excuse to involve himself more with the blue flaming board.

As to why there weren’t participants from the other supervisors that Aster deduced were dragged into the fight, that was probably because all of the ones under the other supervisor’s watch, were most likely dead.

Like Aster previously stated, those supervisors didn’t fall in the "disinterested" category, but wanted their participants to die, the crystal bush failed to achieve it because Cassandra was a really good leader, as for Ryan’s side, they were higher in number and weren’t either particularly weak, they just weren’t particularly outstanding nor did they come all from the same relative place like Cassandra’s side, so their cooperation was not that good either, they couldn’t really trust the other even for basic things like sharing their discoveries which reduced their battle prowess as a group quite a bit.

Because in case you have forgotten, Mylene recognized the lineage from that tall guy, but she hadn’t heard of the divine firmaments from which Cassandra’s group or Ryan came from.

On the other hand, while Cassandra’s group was indeed on a different level when compared to Ryan’s one, or Vera’s faction, they only numbered five, following that logic, the supervisor who was in charge of them couldn’t be particularly outstanding.

It perfectly goes along with the fact that Blue Sky involved the giant centipede, since the blue flaming board knew that Aster’s group was able to absolutely destroy the selected opponent with ease, so the centipede which originally was meant to turn into materials was a "compensation" for the trouble, as one would expect from the blue flaming board and its unwavering integrity.

"Now that I know that they can die and that this group’s supervisor is the one who took over and seems to at the very least want to keep a decent bottom line for us participants, I think the crystal bush did things in an indirect way out of fear", added Cassandra with a knowing gaze, to which Aster chuckled to his insides.

’She is quite smart isn’t she, not that it poses a problem since I’m not trying to take advantage of her group’, thought Aster to then say.

"Well, not all the supervisors should be pieces of trash, but there must be quite a few who caused deaths by not doing their assigned tasks, so that crystal bush probably wanted to pass as one of those and see if he could trick the blue flaming board into punishing but not killing him", to which Cassandra nodded as she put the pieces of the puzzle together on her own.

"And that’s why he threatened us to go past the jungle or win the match, looks like the benefits of our death didn’t matter as much to him as his life, what a fool if he wasn’t ready to risk his life, he should have played it safe instead, I bet a lot of other supervisors reached a deal with the participants under their watch since the situation changed", said the green haired mercenary girl.

Just like Aster thought, Cassandra was really smart, she reached a similar conclusion as his, quite fast after lacking basically most of the context until not too long ago.

"Leaving that aside, did you perhaps hear the crystal bush mention in which "zone" was your group located?", asked Aster to which Cassandra shook her head in response.

"Right, that blue flaming board mentioned something about being the ruler of the "eastern zone", but sorry, I don’t remember him ever mentioning anything about a zone, when I asked where were we, he simply said that it was a sandy beach area under his jurisdiction, the same applied to Ryan, we had a conversation about this subject when we were given time to reach a deal to work together without the intervention of the crystal bush, so their side pretty much knows the same about the crystal bush as mine", said Cassandra which was a bit disappointing to hear.

Aster still didn’t give up though.

"Then what about the gate from which you entered, did it have a direction on it?", he asked, though the blue flaming board directly confirmed this to be the eastern zone in a conversation with Aster when they were talking about the rules of the match not long before it started.

There was a hint about the eastern zone, which Aster obtained way long before all of this happened, namely the code assigned to the high-grade gate from which they entered.

Given that the scale of this place where the gates brought them into, must he huge, covering mortal realms, single divine firmaments and even divine empires composed of multiple firmaments, Aster had guessed that the "eastern" part on the code of the gate they used to come, wasn’t referring to it being positioned in the east of the heavenly quadrant where they were, which was indeed were it appeared though.

But that the four heavenly quadrants and whichever other mortal realms and divine firmaments that might be "floating" around them, were within the jurisdiction of the blue flaming board’s participant selection zone, therefore the eastern part of it.

The problem is that according to the intel that Lilia "kindly" shared with Aster from the outside world, in exchange for some cuddles when he started visiting the mind space again, which the dragon mother obtained from the informants sent by Aster’s Fey godmother, no one else had the word "eastern" appear in the name of their gates, there was simply an alphanumeric code that started with "AZ" similar to the gate from which Aster’s group entered.

Aster theorized that such was probably because the intel they had managed to get was related to low grade gates though, while theirs was a high-grade one, this was supported by the fact that the gate from which James’s group entered which was a low grade one also didn’t have a direction added to its name, but Cassandra was confirmed to have come through a middle grade gate, so perhaps her case was different.

"The gate from which we entered was the "BX000017", there was no direction added to it, but we have a "living compass" on our group, Lauren, can you tell in which direction our previous camp was located?", said Cassandra to the orange haired girl who was in the middle of munching a large piece of boar meat.

"Mmm, that way", said Lauren as she pointed at her right.

"If this is the eastern zone, that means we were in the southern zone before", concluded Cassandra, she was right if you are looking at east, south will be at your right, to which the ligress girl added.

"You can trust her in this, this little one’s race has an exceptional spatial memory capacity which can cover whole divine firmaments of distance, their navigation is also top notch", said Mira as she placed another bowl of soup in front of Lauren which made the orange haired girl smile as she started "attacking" it right away.

Normal mortal honey badgers manage homes that can span up to five hundred square kilometers, also unlike most animals they don’t usually chose the same spot to rest but change it daily therefore they are used to navigate new terrains without getting lost.

This is also one of the reasons as to why Mira felt even more protective towards Lauren, because if she couldn’t return to her home, it was because she either didn’t have one, or the distance was large enough to surpass one of the most notorious traits of her race, which made her interest in knowing about her circumstances grow more, on the other hand she didn’t want to bring the subject right away, as it could be a sensitive topic for the orange haired girl.

Aster didn’t know what Lauren’s race was unlike Mira, but he trusted the ligress girl and since she was vouching for it, then the information should be right.

’So, the eastern zone has green areas as its main terrain, while the southern zone has sandy areas as its main instead, well, the "world map" is a bit more complete than before’, thought Aster.

Fawn had written everything about the nearby areas which were within the range of sight of the giant eagle when she travelled towards the other two camps in the relative vicinity.

And while there were areas with completely different environments such as volcanic, rocky wastelands, wetlands and the like, they all had one thing in common, green areas could be found relatively close to them and knowing the blue flaming board that must have been a setting done on purpose, probably to ensure the minimal well-being of the participants, since green areas often mean an abundance of edible plants, fruits and animals whose flesh is safe for consumption.

Also, while there were arid areas in the eastern zone, there was no trace of a body of saltwater anywhere, so sandy beaches and everything that comes with them, might be exclusive of the southern zone.

"That’s enough for now, our "regent" Angela will hand you a list of subjects about intel we specifically are interested into, if you have questions you can come to me or go to her too", said Aster as he introduced a certain, glasses wearing girl who nearly choked with a piece of strawberry after being suddenly brought into the conversation by Aster.

"Ah right, I don’t want a certain someone to keep growling at me, so once we finish dinner, I’ll officially make you members of our group, that way you’ll receive all the benefits you missed by not being with us from the very beginning, plus other things depending on your initial evaluation, not to mention that you’ll have access to the missions, manuals and stuff from the monolith", said Aster, which took Cassandra by surprise a bit.

’I honestly expected them to only do so a few days later, after all the conditions of the oath witnessed by that blue flaming board were already quite favorable for us, I guess miss Mira was right... at least for allies he just looks like a bad guy’, half-jokingly thought the green haired mercenary girl.

Any good leader knows how to use the "stick and the carrot" method, which means balancing duties and rewards properly, they were new to the group and as former enemies, they were already given good enough treatment, so Cassandra didn’t plan on asking for them to join the group "officially" though she already guessed it was possible and would benefit Lauren and the others immensely.

After all, given the small size of her group and the fact that they limited themselves to their initial appearing spot and the jungle, not to mention that they gave up in camp building subjects, to focus in weapon making and gathering only, means that they didn’t amass that many merits, which translates in them having only one manual each, two at most, similar to Wade group’s case.

Well, it was not for the same reason though, Wade’s side genuinely wasted the advantage that they had unknowingly obtained thanks to Aster bringing them into this place, the missions, rewards and prices stablished by the blue flaming board were fair and they received many initial benefits which they didn’t properly take advantage of.

Cassandra’s group on the other hand was fighting an uphill battle, where their supervisor even blocked them from making progress in their manuals during the second week of development since they refused to move past the jungle area.

"We only have three new spots though, so two among you will have to wait for the next match, you are free to make the arrangements about who will go first, yourselves", added Aster.

The last level of the strong army privilege granted Aster with a spot for the group per every ten "defeated" enemies, they didn’t have to kill but to defeat them luckily, and they defeated an enemy group with a total of 30 members, well, there was the centipede, the wild dog packs and those other centipedes with spirit energy in their bodies, but the blue flaming board of course liked Aster to really earn his rewards so they weren’t counted for that, only "participants" were counted as enemies by default, though other inclusions might be made at Blue Sky’s discretion later on.

"Our manuals progress faster than others when we take missions together, so we’ll catch up fast leader, have Lauren and mister Andre go first", said the older brother Trey to which the younger brother nodded in agreeance.

"Okay, then Lauren, Andre and myself will go first", said Cassandra to which Aster nodded, this was the last "serious" matter that needed to be dealt with today, so once they finished dinner, he accompanied those three to the monolith.

"I’ll go first", said Cassandra, as a responsible leader she of course wouldn’t ask her teammates to do something she wouldn’t take the initiative to do, with a nod, the green haired mercenary girl was covered in a dim blue light for a moment which then turned into a message visible for all the present people, that included leading figures of the group like Angela, Valentina, Mira and Agnes, as well as those who were simply curious like Kana and the girls of the sect.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and two hundred high grade merits]

"Woah!", exclaimed a few girls of the sect in response, Cassandra’s evaluation was on par with the ligress girl’s one, of course that didn’t mean she was as strong in battle as Mira, remember that the blue flaming board evaluates more than that, the green haired mercenary girl was a competent leader and her decision-making had ensured the safety of her group, so she earned a lot of points due to that rather than her fighting skills, not to mention that Cassandra isn’t weak either, she should be around Mikaela’s strength level when going all out, which places her on the higher end of the camp’s fighters.

Probably because as a mercenary she is used to manual labor rather than just relying in spirit energy, not to mention that she is a secondary body path cultivator, so even as a mortal she was quite physically strong, also while she wasn’t a lineage owner, Aster suspected that her unusually sharp danger detection senses, originated in a constitution of sorts.

The girls on Aster’s side weren’t the only surprised ones though, Lauren was also taken aback.

"So many merits, it’s my turn now!", she exclaimed to which Aster chuckled as he nodded, assigning her one of the free spots to her, thus officially turning that orange haired girl in a member of the group, which made her be bathed in a dim blue light for a moment.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]

"That orange haired sister got the same score as me~", happily said Kana who was standing close to the ligress girl who in turn smiled at Kana as she said.

"That’s right, though she might be a bit older, lineage-wise she is at the same stage as you and Espi, so be sure to get along with her, okay?", said the ligress as she petted the little girl.

"Mm~", Kana happily nodded in response, the more sisters the merrier it was for her after all, not to mention that she found Lauren quite funny.

"Hissss~", the little wyrm was also in for the fun, so she continuously nodded in agreeance.

"I’ll go now", said the middle-aged man Andre, he was bathed by a dim blue light for a moment and then his result came out as well, now, the girls of the sect were surprised to see Cassandra getting a result equally high as Mira’s one, but Aster and the other leading figures pretty much expected that to be the case, however, when it came to Andre, both the girls of the sect and Aster and the others were slightly surprised.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and fifty high grade merits]

It was especially the case for the sister in the middle, Lina, she was the one who faced Andre and didn’t feel as if he had shown strength according to that evaluation, so she couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow as she thought to herself.

’That old man got a similar evaluation to sis’, which again doesn’t mean Andre was as strong as Mina, but his achievements up to the day were enough for an initial evaluation on par with hers, of course Andre is also older but still don’t forget that he was supposedly classified as a normal mercenary, not an elite like Cassandra, so something didn’t match here.

’Well, he seemed to act as a second in command when Cassandra couldn’t see, so that mister must have a few cards up his sleeve’, ultimately thought Aster.

And with Andre’s evaluation being a bit of a surprise, the official matters of the day ended and everyone was free to use the remaining hours until sleeping time as they wished.

"Tomorrow there won’t be a match, but that doesn’t mean it will be a free day, so don’t go to sleep too late", said Aster to those girls who were gathering to gossip about today’s matters, especially about the poor purple lightning princess’s embarrassing moments.

"Yes, goodnight senior brother~", exclaimed the girls of the sect in unison, Aster nodded and also bid farewell to the others, there won’t be night activities today, because of two reasons, first and formal, he had used absolute field and a nice night of rest would come in handy and second, because Alice wasn’t present and who knows what kind of tantrum would the dragon princess throw if she was left out of the fun.

Aster could already picture that wild dragon sister of his sticking like bubblegum to him for the next days, saying that she has to catch up for the time she missed with her beloved brother, after all.

"Let’s go to bed early today, we’ll have a lot of things to deal with tomorrow", said Aster to Sarina, Aria, Kana and the little wyrm, as he thought.

’The rewards should be completely different in nature this time and there is also Nim’s prediction, luckily the evaluation is done during sleeping hours and there is no match tomorrow’.

"Mm~", those four all happily nodded in response, going to bed early also meant that they could cuddle and chat with Aster for a longer time before going to sleep, so they were all happy.

...

While the hours happily and swiftly passed at the camp, west from it, in an around fifty member sized "caravan", there was a tall girl with red eyes and honey brown hair for whom every second felt like an eternity.

’Aghh, I want to cuddle with Aster, I bet that lewd ice princess must be seducing him in my absence!’, inwardly screamed Alice, for a second there she radiated a strong violent aura which made Mule who was pulling on the simple "carriage" where the ones leading the group were travelling, nearly miss his step and trip.

"It’s only been a few hours and you almost made that black horse trip six times already, control yourself", said Tiana, to which Alice softly snorted in response.

"Humph, I’ll remember this "bravado" of yours for when you have already jumped into Aster’s arms, let’s see you acting this tough then", said the wild dragon princess, which made a vein nearly pop on Tiana’s forehead.

"Ah, forget it, Camila you are also that guy’s lover, you deal with this crazy dragon princess", said the energy constitution daughter as she looked away, there was a slight reddish tone on her face which wasn’t visible due to the low illumination inside the carriage.

"Ahem, we’ll arrive at the enemy’s camp in a couple of hours, then we’ll go to sleep and attack early in the morning, so we should be back to the camp by evening, that being the case wouldn’t we be able to ask for a "reward" from Aster before tomorrow ends", said Camilla.

She was given a few tips on how to deal with Alice by Aster himself, and as expected they worked like a charm, because as of current the only thing in Alice’s mind was the word "reward".

The fight hasn’t even started and a few among the group were already feeling bad for the enemies, whose lives were "achievements" to be exchanged for rewards in Alice’s eyes now.

On the other hand, this allowed others like Tiana for example to finally have some peace of mind, because like Aster said, Alice is quite handful to deal with.

’Well, she it’s better for her to be a calamity upon enemies than being a headache for us, also, rewards huh...’, thought the energy constitution daughter, all of which was observed by a certain red-haired girl who has been having a blast since earlier.

’As I thought, it’s hard to get bored around him~’, thought Mina as she giggled to herself.