Chapter 789: The fifth day of the development trial (part 1)
Listening to the words of the lynx translated by Mira and seeing the complex light that shortly flashed through Guardian’s eyes, Aster directly concluded that while she might have a decent interaction with the group supervised by the stone tree, they surely didn’t have a good end.
’I could understand that Guardian hadn’t eaten cooked food before considering that she hadn’t changed to what she is as of current back then, but since she was surprised when Kana told her about the long lives that cultivators have, then it can only mean that those people she met before didn’t regard her as a companion’, thought Aster, but he kept quiet and continued to listen to the lynx’s story.
"I was naturally interested in humans since they were a new kind of "animal" I had never seen or heard about before, so while making sure to keep my distance I watched them for the next few moons", and here Valentina stopped the lynx to make a question.
"Wait a moment, if I remember correctly, passing on verbal knowledge from the older generation to the younger one is a thing among some of the races that live here, isn’t it?", asked the purple lightning princess.
As hard as it was to believe, these mortal animals had some behaviors that even surpassed the rationality that most spirit beasts would show prior to reaching the later stages of the Transcending realms.
It is one thing if some exceptions such as the little wyrm or Mira who have noble ascendence to develop and maintain wisdom even below the Transcending realms, but let alone mortal animals, the vast majority of spirit beasts act mostly based on their instincts until after the Genesis Manifestation realm, though there are indeed races that are neutral and even amiable towards human even without wisdom, it’s not due to their own attitude but an instinctive thing and in most cases it’s due to continuous generations of breeding under human supervision, which results in the previous and also a decline in the strength of the beast race in question.
Anyway, Valentina learned about the previous from Kana since the snakes that were now under the little wyrm’s banner, had some bits of knowledge passed down from their ancestors and they are a minor snake race, so the purple lightning princess thought that a major carnivore race such as the lynx one from which Guardian descends, would have at least some obscure rumors about humans passed down from previous generations.
"Grrrr", this was actually a point that Guardian wanted to mention, so with a soft growl she gazed at Valentina and her words were translated by the ligress girl.
"During my travels in the next three hundred years, I talked with elders of many different races that live within the range of the forest and I can confirm that before to that time, no humans had set foot at least in the forest and its vicinity, that includes, the forest which was divided into the rocky and zone and the plains, as well as the desert which existed back then, of course this might be due to the limitations of our races, since the traces of kings only go back to around three hundred years prior to my birth", said Guardian.
This place whatever it is, is massive, in three hundred years Guardian hadn’t mapped the whole forest, of course this is from the point of view of a mortal limited lynx, if she could fly or even use a movement technique then things would be different, but even then, there are both natural and artificial barriers separating different zones, so Guardian didn’t affirm that there haven’t been humans ever before, they just didn’t appear within her scope prior to that time three hundred years ago.
"Back to the story, after five moons of surveillance, I noticed that there was a turmoil on the human camp, they were attacked by a three meter tall deer alongside a group of around ten normal deer, which I hadn’t seen before, on today’s standards the deer king would have been an initial level king like the king of herbivores prior to his change, needless to say but the human side suffered a lot due to it, unlike you, they only had branches with pointy ends as weapons, so while they managed to take them down, half of the camp died in the process".
It was understandable, cultivators that had close to null if not null knowledge about mortal ranked hunting and without even proper weapons, could be overwhelmed by a small group of animals who by innate have larger and stronger bodies as well as behaviors that surpass the mortal limits.
"They were lucky that they were attacked on their camp, otherwise they would have been wiped out", casually said the wild dragon princess as she leaned her head against Aster’s chest, Alice was of course sitting on Aster’s lap, competing for attention with little Kana which left quite a few girls speechless at her shamelessness.
"I was going to leave after that, since wounded "animals" are the most aggressive, but then, I was spotted by the leader of that group, who thought I was there to hunt them now that they were basically defenseless", added the lynx, with more than half of the camp dead and the remaining people wounded, a predator like Guardian was a nightmare for the survivors.
"Unlike this group, their leader was a female human, she left a strong impression in my mind because she rushed my way and then ran in an opposite direction to where her group was, trying to divert my attention, only after realizing that I wasn’t interested in eating them did she stop and instead left the leg of the deer king at a distance from the camp, for me to eat".
’Well, wildcats were domesticated to produce the domestic cat races, in a similar way and the same applies to dogs, finding an unusually non aggressive wild animal is a blessing for humans’, jokingly thought Aster.
"Since the humans didn’t attack me and kept giving me the meat of the deer king, probably because they couldn’t eat it, I stayed behind but didn’t approach them, after two more moons of seeing them recover and repair their camp, the stone tree made its appearance again, leaving behind a stone pillar similar to the ones in the center of this camp", said Guardian referring to the monoliths.
It was already proven based on the information from James, that not all participants had access to convenient monoliths like Aster’s group, in James’s group case for example, only the leader could exchange merits for things and there was a daily limit of exchanges.
’Considering that so many of them died in the development week, they shouldn’t have come from a high-level gate, on the other hand there is people like those guys from the Marsh Domain or the Pleasure Palace on Wade’s side, who simply were in the right place at the right moment so they could take a "freeride", well had it not been for us, the high-level gate wouldn’t have opened anyway’, thought Aster.
The people from the Fey family and the Supreme Elemental sect might have been able to partially suppress the area of the space distortions at Genesis Manifestation level, but to completely control the areas designated for each realm like Aster did, it was impossible for let alone them, but probably any force within the four heavenly quadrants.
For a simple reason, no force or family on the first-tier list puts their focus in cultivators below the later stages of the Transcending realms, so while their cultivators on the Genesis Manifestation and above tend to be a notch or more stronger than those of middle grade Stellar Systems, the same doesn’t apply below that realm.
Unfortunately, during the fight for the dominion over the space distortions, Wade and the elder of the Supreme Elemental sect, had confirmed that as of current, at least within their sphere of influence, there was no one below the Transcending realms who could be a match for Aster and the same applied to many of the girls that surrounded him.
To try and achieve a total suppression like what Aster pulled, they would need assistance from all their allies and subordinates on middle grade Stelar Systems and that would mean compromises and promising rewards, it would be too much of a hassle as their focus was not on a middle-sized stage but at the high-grade Stellar Systems, it was a shame that the chance to open the high-grade gate was on the same middle grade Stellar System which they looked down upon.
Anyway, as you can see, getting access to a high-grade gate was anything but easy, so Aster judged the other party to have come either through a low or middle grade one, therefore it was understandable that they didn’t immediately obtained access to such commodities as the monoliths, though the one supervising them might also have an impact in that aspect.
"Grrr", the lynx continued with her story with a soft growl.
"After that, the human group was happy, during the next two days their camp expanded of course it was way lacking when compared to this camp, but the important part is that they who originally weren’t able to threaten my life, as a king candidate became strong enough to fight or even kill me back then".
Even at the same level not all kings are equally strong, as a king candidate apparently Guardian was strong enough to fight with a proper king, the humans after losing half of their force and being weakened to the extreme, were not a match for the lynx, but they not only recovered but grew strong enough to surpass the group strength with half of their members in just two days, obviously they prioritized access to manuals to achieve the previous.
"Still, they didn’t drive me away, since I wasn’t hostile towards them and with me blocking one of the directions surrounding their camp, they could focus on the other three instead, it was due to this that I learned the word meaning of the word "guardian" which I later took as the way to refer to myself", said the lynx, there was a tinge of happiness in her voice, which disappeared as she continued.
"This growing period didn’t last long, during the third day at noon the group disappeared for a couple of hours and when they were brought back by the stone tree, there were five humans missing, and another five were full of wounds that I could tell weren’t caused by animals".
"The slightly amiable interactions between them and myself also came to an end, though they didn’t attack me, they no longer gave me the meat of the king of deer and they also left people on the direction I used to guard for them with my presence".
"Two more days passed and during the sixth day I could see that there was anxiousness and fear in the human camp as noon approached, before they once again disappeared, returning later at night with... only eight humans remaining and their leader missing her left arm", mumbled the lynx, before a cold light flashed through her eyes.
"It was then when I witnessed the ugliness of humanity, the leader could still move and fight, but there was one human who had lost a leg and the other six humans stopped giving him food, with only a smaller portion that the leader took from her own share, after four days he died due to his wounds and the lack of nourishment".
"There I learned that humans are way more reluctant to eat their kin, at least the female human leader was because she burnt corpse of the dead human, after having a heated discussion with the other six humans", Guardian made a stop here to let Aster and the others digest her story and to prepare herself to speak of what came next.
It wasn’t hard to imagine though, if those guys were already considering cannibalism which for rational beings like humans, it’s one of the lowest bottom lines, then it was easy to know that the group was finished.
"The group was in no state to go out to hunt and at fifth day their food was completely used, I didn’t expect that they would actually try to hunt me though, they approached with the last remaining piece of meat of the deer king in order to ambush me, but they didn’t think that I had learned the word "Guardian", so when I heard that word mentioned many times with clear bad intentions, I was on guard so when they ambushed me I was prepared and killed three of the six that attacked me".
"The other three ran away and I only learned what happened to them until much later, but the female leader remained there, she saw that I had no interest in eating their dead former teammates so she burned their bodies, apologized for what happened and told me that not all humans are the same, then the seventh day of the second week since those humans appeared, arrived".
"My instincts told me to runaway as soon as the sun appeared, but I instead approached the female human leader and prompted her to follow me, unfortunately she shook her head and told me that since the first time they were taken away, the group was go out from a really small area surrounding their camp, not even half the distance needed to reach the border of the forest from this camp, and then... she asked me to kill her".
Guardian stopped there and looked at Kana, the other girls and lastly Aster, she expected to see some negative reaction, but was met with complete calmness, which only reinforced her decision of joining this group for the good.
"When I asked her why, she simply told me that she refused to let the "beings in the sky" have it their way and that she would rather die on her own terms, as my claws slashed her throat, for the first time in my life I felt regret over taking a life", said Guardian.
She wasn’t friends with the female human leader, but she respected her to the point that she tried to help her, after her former teammates tried to kill her for food, well to begin with, the lynx didn’t understand "friendship" prior to this experience.
"Imagine my surprise when, with a strange feeling in my heart, I reached the king level, without passing the trial, without the support of my race, unfortunately I who understood why she burned the bodies of her fellow race members couldn’t give her a proper burial, the ground cracked and her corpse fell into a seemingly bottomless pit".
"Then from afar, I could see the stone tree appear and giant flaming rocks descended from the sky coming from the volcanic area, so I ran with all my might, next as you can imagine, that part of the forest was destroyed by the falling flaming rocks and turned into the rocky zone of nowadays, as for the plains, the trees over there were burn but the damage wasn’t as big, so they recovered into a green zone later".
"I learned about the "invisible veils" thanks to that, because the hidden den where I took you earlier was as far as the flaming rocks could reach, when they reached that area, the flames instantly went out and the rocks fell to the ground, that’s why there are some traces of it, but there is no real damage there and why I took it as my home".
"That wasn’t my last time interacting with humans though it was the most important one as that’s how I became what I am right now, after a couple of months there were humans appearing but this time three different groups came to be at the same time, under the supervision of three different beings in the sky, the stone tree, the black mist eyes and a red cloud, they resided in the newly formed rocky zone, the plains and the desert respectively".
"I honestly didn’t want to involve myself with them after what happened with the previous group, but after the disaster which destroyed a large part of the forest, the other animals noticed the appearance of humans and after a few animals were hunted by the three groups, all races attacked the human camps".
"During the fight, some humans had tried to sneak behind the frontline to hunt the younglings of the different races, but I who wasn’t participating in the fight blocked and killed them all and that was the second time I heard the word "Guardian" but this time it was said with hatred, I finally took that as my name", said the lynx as she sighed to then add.
"As if blinded by hatred, both sides killed until basically all adult animals died but at the same time most humans died as well, only two humans remained and they were taken away by a pillar of light from the red cloud, that was the last time humans appeared until now".
"There were a few young adults among animals left, but they were in no position to rule, so I took over and ordered all human corpses to be thrown into the camp of the red cloud being which was burning, at the time I didn’t notice that a bear had drank the blood of a human and eaten his head, in revenge for the death of his parents".
"There was nothing noteworthy until a few years later when the bear race excavated the bodies of some humans, which belonged to the three that escaped that day, unfortunately by the time I arrived at the bear territory their acting king had eaten the corpses and slaughtered his whole race, we had a fight which ended in the bear going crazy and escaping, while I received my scar", she said to which Aster added.
"I don’t think you couldn’t have killed him later on, so what stopped you all these years?", he asked making Guardian nod in response.
"I had chased him many times during the next two hundred years, but every time he would return to the border of the rocky area and there is an invisible veil which prevents me from advancing there, with the pass of the years he became strong enough to properly fight me to a tie but also stopped coming to the forest, it was only around ten days ago that he became active again", answered the lynx.
"In other words that crazy bear is our last enemy for the development week", said Agnes, to which Aster nodded, the bear remained outside of the forest for almost a hundred years that’s why he became a rumor among the animal races, he only reappeared when Aster and the others entered the trial road, also this wasn’t arranged by the blue flaming board, because the one supervising this area before was the red cloud.
"Still, you said that there is an invisible veil around the area of your home, so just like you couldn’t cross over to kill him, he can’t cross that area to reach us, right?", asked Erick which made Tiana sigh at his bonehead of a brother.
"The veils are controlled by the supervisors, they can just eliminate them s they please", said the energy constitution daughter.
"Well, I don’t think it’s that easy, at least not with the blue flaming board watching over us, otherwise the bear would have already advanced to the inner area of the forest, but he stopped at the outer area on that side", added Aster.
The blue flaming board is a responsible and fair supervisor, and judging by how it casually destroyed the red cloud and took over this area, while also expelling the influence of the black shadow and the red silhouette earlier, it must be quite strong among the supervisors, so they shouldn’t be attacked by surprise out of nowhere, that being said things were going to get more dangerous from this point onwards.
’I’m not that worried about the second week, since Guardian said that the wounds on the humans from back then come from other animals, it was probably a situation in which we have to fight other groups, what worries me is the third week, was the volcanic eruption a punishment or do we have to fight against a natural disaster, that would be troublesome...’, thought Aster.
From the very beginning, he was prepared to fight against other groups, in fact he was planning to cross the rocky area with James as a guide to kill the guys from that camp, because he can’t have such trash living so close to his group, and then there are the orcrary who probably are settled past the desert, in other words he is not afraid of fighting other groups.
But fighting against a natural disaster while limited to the mortal rank, that’s a completely different story, what’s more he doesn’t know whether the eruption from back then is the actual trial of the third week or a punishment because those guys obviously lost in the trial of the second week.
’Oh well, I already learned my lesson, I’ll be ready and if they simply want to get rid of us, then I can simply kill our way out of this place’, thought Aster as a fierce golden light flashed through his eyes.
The red cloud from earlier was not driven away but was destroyed instead, which means that supervisors who come to this place can die, and if they want to cause a natural disaster they have to descend, if the trial of the third week is limited to test them then its fine, but if the supervisors want to directly get rid of them, then they’ll have to be ready to put their lives on the line.
Though their forms here might just be avatars, Aster felt the horror from the red cloud back then, so dying here must be an incredibly bad thing for their real selves.
