Chapter 878: The second day of the evaluation trial (part 31)

Due to the previous, what welcomed Valentina as she came to Aster’s private smithy for the second time today, around an hour after Alice had arrived because she didn’t want to interrupt whatever might have been going on in between those two, was the strange sight of Aster efficiently working on many anvils like usual but... with a certain wild dragon princess clinging to him using her tail as support, while she rubbed her face against Aster’s shoulder and gently bit on it from time to time too, clearly she was loving every second of being stuck to him.

’It’s been more than an hour, I can’t believe I actually thought he was being a bit too "self-centered" when he said that no one besides himself could handle that girl...’, thought the purple lightning princess, she had miscalculated how intense was Alice when it came to Aster

"And here I was wondering why that girl who came to tell me to come here, seemed a bit in shock rather being smiling from ear to ear after being given a task by her admired "senior brother", but now I get why, you two are definitely not like those guys but your lineages are for sure that of dragons", she said to which Aster chuckled.

Alice on the other hand was reminded of the fact that Aster was talking about Valentina earlier and now he was laughing at her words, during the time when all of his attention should be focused only on her, which would have made the wild dragon princess glare at Valentina with those beautiful red eyes of hers, if Aster didn’t use his free hand to caress that pretty black scaled tail of on the spot.

"Mm~", which made Alice’s body "melt" on top of Aster as she proceeded to gently munch on his shoulder, with the wild dragon princess "tamed", Aster placed his hammer on the anvil to then jokingly say.

"Now, miss visitor, please don’t "startle" the dragon, it’s bad not only for her health but also for that of mostly every other person in the camp", to which Valentina had nothing to say against.

Because she saw the incredibly annoyed state in which Tiana who had to deal with an Alice whose desires were out of the charts, was.

"Ahem, my bad, so what did you call me for?", asked the purple lightning princess, making Aster point at a large backpack which was placed on the ground.

"At this point everyone in the camp must have seen those three’s works, right, well, I made plaques with the opposite effect, instead of empowering the capacity of the steel to react to energy, they repel and dispel energy", he said, which resulted in Valentina’s eyes glowing for a second.

"The brigandines were already amazing, but with that, those little girls will be able to protect themselves even if the supervisors try something funny without any of us present on the spot", she said

Valentina might find Aster’s playfulness a bit of a headache, but she has absolute respect and trust in him as a leader, because she has seen how seriously he takes the safety of the girls, that’s her opinion about Aster for her responsible older sister self, which was then voiced with a simple word the next second.

"Thanks, we’ll have at least two battle unit’s worth of brigandines ready by tomorrow’s lunch time", said the purple lightning princess as she grabbed the backpack to then calmly leave.

Or well that would have been the case if she hadn’t heard Aster’s teasing voice.

"Such "dedication" towards those cute juniors of mine deserves a reward, so do look up to tomorrow’s lunch time", he said which made Valentina’s eyes sparkle for a second.

’Those three’s works were amazing, even if not continuously they would allow mortals to fight at cultivator level without even having the ability to use energy, nor using techniques or having any especial innate abilities or traits, which is already more than enough to be a monstrous advantage over others, but knowing this tease loving guy, he must have something even greater in mind to show off tomorrow, something like my sword!’, excitedly thought the purple lightning princess to then slightly shake her head.

’Calm down Valentina, this is just the effect of cousin’s elixir, it’s not the first time you have fell for her "pranks"...’, she thought to then softly nod as she continued on her way out of Aster’s smithy.

"Okay", she limited to say, which made Aster chuckle.

’A rebellious responsible older sister, how cute’, he thought, to which Lilia giggled from the mind space.

’You still haven’t met that sister of mine and she already gave you a nice little welcoming "gift" in advance, right darling~’, said the charming dragon mother which made Aster bitterly smile to his insides, that Fey godmother of his surely has given him a few surprises so far, like the stuff from the auctions at the treasure planet.

Aster returned to the real world as he felt Alice’s bite on his shoulder going from gently playful, to attention demanding, meaning that she increased the strength applied to her terribly sharp by the way, fangs, this was obviously caused because both he paid attention to Valentina and somehow Alice could tell that Lilia also butted in her rewarding time, long story short the wild dragon princess was jealous.

You have seen Aster block Esmeralda’s wind blasts and even the green jade attacks, head on with his bare body, without his skin even reddening a bit due to impact, and yet those cute fangs of Alice did pierce his skin a little, not enough for him to bleed but enough for Aster to feel it.

And there is a reason for that, it’s not because Alice is "stronger" than Esmeralda or Mira, in terms of battle prowess, but her physical strength and every offense-related aspect of hers is apparently growing further as we speak, as to why, that’s because... she took a step ahead in the development and integration of the paragon body.

’Aria wanted to brag about her progress regarding her body constitution, not to mention that she made a contract with Mira, but before they met, Alice made an equally good amount of progress, these two surely can’t stand being left behind by the other’, amusingly thought Aster.

Alice’s paragon body is different than his, not only in their focus but also in the way they develop, she is not quite there yet, but the wild dragon princess is about to reach the equal of the ten daily seconds of invincibility that Aster has, given that her focus is attack power, then she’ll probably be able to deal massive damage to an enemy regardless of the difference in realms instead though.

But as of current, the effect of her development is that she became stronger as a whole and especially her claws, teeth and tail, which also explains how during the training she cracked Espi’s scales which had shock nullifying steel into them, which led to her creating "non-killing" mode for her tail, which is relative because while her scales indeed stop being sharp and become lighter, they grow tougher so it’s more like going from shredding people to pieces to shatter them to pieces, which indeed requires more strength to be achieved though.

"Take it easy sis, here, let’s go "show off" our closeness to others", said Aster as he caressed Alice’s face which made the wild dragon princess’s eyes glow in a pretty red light, as she softened her bite and then cutely rubbed her face against Aster’s hand.

’What a needy dragon princess’, jokingly thought Aster as he removed the connection that made the waterwheel which powered the bellows that fanned the fire of the forge, letting the water on the manmade route that passed through his smithy flow without any obstruction, during the past hour and a half he didn’t work in more steel plaques, but in the two special works he had mentioned and completed their initial form, right now they were undergoing heat treatment, he had also reached 30% progress in his galaxy forging.

But today he only activated one, as expected there was a low limit for the second activation currently, he could only do so once per day without putting any strain on himself, two times was the limit unless he wanted to stay in bed for at least half a day, it demanded quite the large initial price, but the effect was equally rewarding, you’ll see it tomorrow.

For now, Aster came out from the smithy, and was faced with quite the pretty orangish sky given that the sun had started to dim, and while certainly lots of gazes were attracted his way, given that well, he had Alice stuck to him, letting the wild dragon princess "show off" wasn’t the only reason as to why he didn’t stay in the smithy longer.

But because he just saw a new message sent by the blue flaming board to him as the highest ranked representative of the camp, which required him to go to the monolith.

Feeling the curious, interested and even some jealous gazes from others that she was receiving, the wild dragon princess smiled as she purposedly tightened her hug on Aster, as if saying "Look, you can’t do this but I can~’.

"That shameless dragon princess, I swear I’m going to freeze her one of these days", mumbled Aria who felt the urge to "cool down" Alice with a nice ice-cold bath, that being said she didn’t interfere with Alice’s reward, because she also had hers earlier.

"That’s not fair, right Espi...", mumbled Kana to which the little wyrm nodded in response.

"Hisss...", those two usually jump at Aster and hang from his neck and shoulder respectively, but they don’t cling to him as long as Alice does.

While Alice was proudly bragging about her closeness to Aster, the latter while sighing to his insides, placed his hand on the monolith to see what notice was the blue flaming board talking about.

[The "Trade Market" function has been added to the monoliths, from now and onwards, participants will be allowed to put objects to sell or trade for other items with participants of other zones (all participants can access this function, depending on the quantity of the items traded a respective number of merits will be needed, the representative from a camp that has won a match, gets an up to ten-kilogram trade or buy chance free of charge every day)]

[The "Warrior Hall" function has been added to the monoliths, every resting day, the last half an hour before the sun sets, for camps that have won a match, up to five people will be able to enter the special area "warrior hall" and enjoy special benefits, those that hadn’t won a match will only be able to bring two members of their respective camps (to ensure fairness, the identity of everyone in the glory hall’s facilities will be hidden and direct conflict is strictly forbidden, time in the warrior hall flows at half speed that of the outside world, assistance is mandatory)]

"Looks like our ally has not worked any less than us today, not only a completely situation changing thing such as "energy" was implemented, but also a direct way to interact with other camps, not only from the close areas and zone but also from distant areas and other zones, and while it’s a benefit, it must fulfill another function since it’s mandatory", said Aster as he read the two different messages out loud, which resulted in their content being passed down to everyone in the camp.

There was no need to hide it from others here, everyone was a part of the camp in a way, even those that were captured and would be worked to the bone in order to earn a chance to get a proper standing, like Mule for example.

"Five people... that blue flaming board is back to being a nuisance", mumbled Alice as she poked Aster’s right cheek with the tip of her tail, speaking of which, bringing back the monolith from those guys did trigger an extra reward, bringing it back to the camp counted as "defeating" the same amount of members from the respective enemy camp, again, in other words, instead of fifteen, it was as if Mina and the other girls had defeated thirty people and with that, Aster gained a total of two extra slots for official members of the camp.

But before we get to that, Aster patted Alice’s head as he said.

"You say that, but in exchange for sharing some of your time with other three girls, you’ll get to "show off" to basically everyone in this place", which made Alice’s eyes sparkle, Aster of course knew how to tame that wild dragon sister of his.

"Mm~", and with that the dragon princess was successfully bribed, so she continued to have her fun while Aster selected those that he was going to bring into the warrior’s hall which was opening in two minutes.

As a result, one girl with pink hair, one with white silver hair and one with green hair, were all summoned to the vicinity of the monolith, in other words, Aster called for Mylene, Mira and Cassandra.

The reason behind of the previous was simple, they all knew about divine firmaments and other mortal realms outside of the four heavenly quadrants, Felicia was another good option but she is still stabilizing herself, so she’ll be in the next batch, besides everyone’s identity was going to be hidden and since it’s the first time the participants will gather in the warrior hall, one can’t expect to be that much open communication.

But Mylene and Cassandra can use their cunningness and up to date intel, respectively, to find some things regardless of the previous, as or Mira, the ligress is probably the one who has the widest knowledge about divine firmaments among all the girls.

"Are you really going in there with her stuck to you like that?", said the ligress as she saw Alice clinging to Aster, to which he shrugged.

"You can know a lot about someone just based on their reactions to "eye catching" situations, besides since I’m surrounded by beauties, I will be almost automatically classified as a silk pants from a dual cultivation sect, someone that can be easily approached and used by those who are "smart", right?", said Aster as he smirked.

"Yeah, this way we’ll get nice intel unlike most other people, besides, those that are actually smart will either not sent their actual leader or they will try to make them go unnoticed", said Mylene.

"Mm, the method is a bit strange indeed but... the idea is solid", added Cassandra, to which the ligress added.

"That sounds well thought and all, but with that dangerous mind of his, there is no way he couldn’t have come up with a different way to achieve the same", said Mira to which Aster nodded.

"Well, if I’m going to make myself pass as a fool, I might as well have fun while doing so", he jokingly said.

"Grrr", which earned him a soft growl from the ligress, unfortunately, preparation time was over so Mira stopped arguing.

"Wait for after we return with a better understanding of the bigger picture before putting anything up to sale on our end, but if you see others putting any decent stuff for sale and the price is merits only, buy it", said Aster to Valentina and Angela, who had come rushing first than everyone else, earlier.

"Mm", with those two nodding in understanding, after Aster placed his hand on the monolith, and under the interested gazes of a lot of members of the camp who were returning from their daily tasks, Aster and those four were covered in a dim blue light before they disappeared.

...

The transportation process was similar to that of the match, everything dyed of a sky-blue color for a second before things returned to normal, what welcomed Aster and the girls was a huge "meeting room" with countless large tables that could accommodate up to fifty people each, at its center.

There were also giant gates with a familiar-looking design, at the sides of the meeting room, they resembled the gate through which Aster entered the trial road, in other words either those gates were based on the high-grade gate, or the other way around.

Mylene who was the "wit" of the group that came this time, immediately put hands to work, Aster’s group was actually the first one to appear, a little "benefit" granted to them by the blue flaming board which recognized them as allies on equal standing, it was just a couple of seconds of difference but that was more than enough for the pink haired girl.

Because she saw the first reactions of the others that started to appear in the seemingly endless meeting room.

’The vast majority didn’t have any reaction to the gate’s appearances, the number of people that entered through high grade gates is incredibly small, also the tone of the blue light was deeper for some than to others, that must be a little hint to show who comes from a camp that won a match and who didn’t’, thought Mylene, as if Aster could read her mind, he whispered to her.

"Five thousand people had deeper blue lights, while two thousand had lighter toned blue lights, out of all of them only fifty showed a reaction to the gates", said Aster, his monstrously large range of sight was perfect to make the count for the things that Mylene had noticed.

’So, a thousand camps from the winner side and a thousand camps from the losing side are left, indeed the number of participants is large and this is after a lot have died before the blue flaming board returned’, thought Aster.

Let’s say the thousand camps from the winner side had fifty people in a conservative estimation, that’s fifty thousand people, from gates that at most allow a hundred to enter, means around five hundred gates, out of which only a few of the countless that appeared in different mortal realms and divine firmaments led to this place, since others were just normal spatial distortions though some interesting things came out of them, so let’s say ten gates per location, you have people from at least fifty different either divine firmaments or mortal realms and that’s just taking into account the ones from the winner side camps.

Not to mention that there must have been countless deaths in the past months prior to the return of the blue flaming board, which Aster guessed had reduced the number of participants in half by this point.

So, as you can see, the scale of this place’s events was massive, as Cassandra was about to confirm.

"Not even the highest ranked empires cover the average territory of more than five firmaments directly... whoever is behind of this, can affect dozens of times that, it’s crazy", mumbled the mercenary leader.

She can be considered someone with vast living experience as she has been to more than four different divine firmaments, crossing even to another empire, but the scale which she was facing now was insane.

"What do you say, Mira?", asked Aster to which the ligress shook her head in response.

"Even on my end, it triples my maximum scope at least, I don’t think we are dealing with something a divine firmament, empire or not, can handle, at least not for the current ones, in ancient times... maybe", concluded the ligress.

Which also concluded the initial intel gathering, because most people had finally come to their senses after the initial shock, so of course it was time for "conflict", not everyone came here willingly.

After all, the message of the blue flaming board made it clear that regardless of area, zone or supervisor, all camps had to sent from two to five members to the warrior hall.

And while those that remained not directly involved with a supervisor, saw this as interesting, those that did one way or another, were of course not happy since they were dragged here by a different supervisor from the one they had dealt with so far, one they hadn’t even seen or heard about until the matches started too.

"We were dragged here, so now what?", said someone from a camp on the losing side, ah right, like the blue flaming board said, everyone’s identities were hidden in this place, for starters their whole bodies were covered in blue light, also notorious traits were "eliminated", for example Alice’s tail was missing in this place, well, it was there but no one could see, or feel it, except those from her group, which is how she was still holding onto Aster.

People’s gender was noticeable though and their voices also remained the same, they were also given humanoid shape whether they had it or not, because Aster couldn’t outright see those orcrary nor the guys with hyena heads mentioned by Cassandra, besides that, faces were covered by white masks, each of which was different for every participant.

As for the design, it was up to everyone to decide it, the option was given while they were being transported here, it was akin to choosing a nickname before entering an anonymous chat room, for example the one who just talked had a swordfish shaped mask covering his face.