Chapter 791: The fifth day of the development trial (part 3)
Aster who was surrounded by soft beautiful bodies, suddenly opened his eyes upon listening to the previous message, luckily, they had gone to sleep rather early so everyone should be well-rested, even the girls on watch duty must have only changed turns not too long ago, because daily activities will have to start really early today.
Even the sleeping beauties who normally won’t open their eyes until getting their morning kisses, listening to the message and understanding the seriousness of the situation all opened their eyes as to not keep Aster on the bed for too long, since he had to meet up with the other leaders as soon as possible, well, all but Alice who shamelessly remained "asleep".
"Come on dragon princess, you already had enough fun yesterday so it’s time to work", said Aria as she leaned to kiss Aster to then try to drag Alice away, making the wild dragon princess curse.
"Ah, this damn place, I can’t even enjoy the "shaky leg" sensation I worked so hard to experience, there better be enough bastards to kill later", said Alice as she pressed her lips against Aster’s before she was dragged away by Aria who scolder her for being so shameless.
"Husband, I’ll go gather the others to hurry up and prepare breakfast", said Sarina with a soft smile as she pecked Aster.
"Big brother, I’ll go see sister Ember and the other horses, lucky you Espi you get to stay with big brother almost all the day", mumbled Kana as she got her forehead peck to then happily throttle away.
"I-I’ll go with the other instructors to prepare a quick review of spear... hyah!", Camila who was left basically alone with Aster because she reacted too slow as this was the first time, she had seen the others get out so fast, was suddenly dragged into Aster’s embrace.
"Wuuu~", this resulted in the treasure girl being kissed with more intensity than the others today.
"A little "reward" for making Kana company yesterday, don’t mention it to Alice though", jokingly said Aster as he saw Camila’s face which was red like an apple, the poor treasure girl hurriedly got up from the bed and ran away, making Aster chuckle.
He quite liked that every girl had found their role in the group, even Alice as much as she would prefer to stick to him like bubblegum if she could, actually somewhat had fun helping, well it also could be because that way she could tyrannically order Mule around and now there were a whole dozens of new victims for her to treat as slaves, but whatever so long as the wild dragon princess was happy, it was fine since the horsepower was beneficial for the camp anyway.
Feeling the little wyrm cutely licking his right cheek with her tongue, Aster turned to see Espi who was still half coiled around his body.
"You finally woke up you little sleepyhead", he said as he got up letting Espi momentarily lay on the bed, as he changed his clothes.
"Hissss~", the little wyrm happily hissed in response, she was supposed to wake up at midnight, but she actually slept until now, amusingly enough, obviously for yesterday night activities Aster had carefully placed Espi on the bed to not limit his "maneuverability" since he needed to tend to three girls at the same time at some point, so she was soundly sleeping at one side of the bed, but later into the night she unconsciously slid and coiled around Aster, so it looked as if she hadn’t separated from him at all.
"We’ll check out the compensation you got from the flaming board later, for now tell me about what happened with the anaconda", said Aster making the little wyrm nod as she jumped to then land her upper body on Aster’s shoulder.
It wasn’t a really long story so Espi had finished telling Aster by the time he had tied his shoes and left the room.
"I see, so the black shadow was doing some kind of secret thing in that cave and it just so happened that the anaconda stumbled upon that place, that explains why it didn’t interfere until you killed the anaconda, unlike the red silhouette which tried to save the black horse", concluded Aster.
"Hisss", the little wyrm nodded in response, she had the feeling that there was something wrong in the cave, but the impending sensation of danger only came when her fight with the anaconda became serious, that’s why she overexerted herself to kill the enemy in a single go to then leave as fast as she could, which ended up being the right play.
Once outside of his room, Aster was met with a few girls that were coming out of the log cabin at the left, namely Valentina, Mikaela, Agnes and Angela, the others hadn’t come out yet but they were ready considering that the door on that side was open, Aster could even see the lynx who actually slept on a bed and was stretching her body as she got up.
"I did believe that there was going to be some kind of change in the direction of the last test, but to think they would even announce it on the same day, that’s despicable", said Valentina as she greeted Aster.
"Humph, I bet it was those two sore lowers the ones that pushed this to happen, they feared that by the end of the week, the bear would be unable to cause us any trouble", added Agnes, she didn’t get to do her morning exercise routine and what’s more, today she was going to have a second sparring session with Aster, but now it was gone, with an incoming battle they might have a lot of things to do, but they still had to conserve their energy as much as it was possible for the incoming battle.
"Luckily, we put building the wall as a first priority, so even without the moat, we already have a first defensive line ready, but there is a need to make some adjustments...", mumbled Angela, as one would expect from the receptionist girl, her mind was already moving at full throttle, which made Aster softly laugh as he stopped her before she got lost in that state.
"Let’s keep our cool, I bet they wanted to push the last fight to happen during yesterday’s night, but ultimately had to conform with it being today, after confirming a few things, we’ll set up today’s schedule like normal, but for now gather the other and let’s have breakfast, everything comes after that", he said.
With a time limit and a siege coming their way, most people would try to do as much as possible in the given time, which is not a bad thing exactly, however this method is subjected to messing things up due to rushing up.
Aster instead decided to take things calmly, gather information and then set the plan for this day, of course this was a privilege that Aster’s group could enjoy because they already had a solid camp to rely on due to their efforts during the previous days, so, while they did have many things to do, there was no need to rush.
"Mm, okay", with a small nod Angela and the other temporarily left to go gather all the members of the group, Guardian on the other hand approached Aster while still looking a bit confused at the "voice" that she suddenly heard in her mind.
"Don’t worry, that’s actually rather common in our world", he said, referring to the sound transmission method that cultivators use to communicate between each other, which made the lynx’s eyes shine for a second, yesterday night she was told many interesting things about the world of cultivators by Kana and the others so her interest in it had grown a lot, this also made her happy because it meant that she was truly recognized as a member of the group.
"By the way, please tell that young eagle to go call his mother, we will need her help in a moment", said Aster to the lynx who nodded to then sprint away, Guardian could mostly understand human speech she couldn’t communicate easily but she understood to a high degree.
’And now, let’s see our rewards for yesterday’s efforts’, thought Aster a he walked towards the monoliths, the daily evaluation and the respective rewards obtained due to it, had to be reviewed by the designated leader after all.
With Espi silently resting her head on his shoulder, waiting until it was her time to show off, Aster placed his hand on the monolith and the information was displayed for him.
[The result of the fourth day’s evaluation is four stars Unique grade, a benefit, a privilege and a unique privilege will be granted upon confirmation by the representative of the group]
First thing first, Aster showed a trace of surprise because the had directly gone from a two-star unique grading to a four star one.
’Selene and the others joining as well as defeating the anaconda and the black horse make up for one star for sure, but the second star of improvement besides the waterwheel achievement the rest of it must all be... because of Guardian’, thought Aster, each star of grading is harder to accomplish than the previous one obviously.
Besides Guardian who got an evaluation on par with Espi and Mira, joining them, there is no other feat that could fill in the requirements for the second star of improvement they obtained, you can think of it like this, the lynx joining the group equaled killing two king level enemies who were related to external supervisors, four animals on similar potential level as Ember joining plus most of the improvement done in the camp, except the waterwheel and its application since Aster was sure that helped them step into the fourth star as its significance was quite big.
This also made Aster wonder, if there are other animals like the lynx at other zones, or if she is a one of a kind, they came through a high-grade gate from the eastern side with a serial number, which would make you believe she can’t be the only one, however it would make more sense if there were animals like the bear who is the ultimate test on zones linked to high grade gates instead, since he is 100% an enemy prepared to deal with the participants, so Guardian might not be the only one, but she has to be an extremely rare exception for sure.
There was also another thing that brought Aster quite a bit of surprise, a new kind of reward in the form of a "unique privilege", but let’s go in order.
[The fourth level of the benefit "One for all" has been successfully activated, from now and onwards, once per day before 10 pm, up to ten "reserves" can be chosen, except for the leader each reserve can recover the fatigue and minor wounds of a member of the group in specific at any given time with the approval of the leader or the designated authorities (once done, the reserve will sleep for the rest of the day without any other side effect, reserves can’t participate in any other activities after being selected, or they will lose the status of reserve)]
The previous might not sound as impressive as all the boosts that the third level of "One for all" granted to the group, but think about it for a second, there is no limit to the number of times a person can receive the help of a reserve, so, let’s say the enemy puts all its focus in engaging the one they deem the most dangerous, which for the crazed bear that will be Guardian and then she suddenly recovers to her prime, and then she does the same another nine times, wouldn’t that be enough to make the enemy cry.
What’s more, there are no real harmful side effects for reserves, sleeping to recover is not a problem, so it truly does incarnate the meaning of the term "One for all".
"Not bad, in fact this seems rather tailored for our current situation, so the blue flaming board probably helped a bit after not being able to completely block those two from interfering", mumbled Aster, he didn’t believe that there were such convenient coincidences.
[The privilege "Strong Army" level 4 has been activated, forty free slots for the group will be given to the representative (mission and exchange monoliths will be updated according to it and all benefits from the group that had accumulated up to the moment of their acceptance will be awarded after joining), the leader has successfully added members from more than three different races so the extra privilege "Diversity" will be granted]
Now they will have enough member slots for some of the adult cobras, adult anacondas and eagles to join, as for the effect of "Diversity".
[Human team members will take 10% less damage from non-human enemies, non-human team members will take 10% less damage from human enemies]
’For an extra privilege it’s quite decent’, thought Aster, to then move onto the last reward which was seemingly the most special according the explanation that came before it.
[Unique privileges are privileges that can only be possessed by one person at the time, once granted it won’t be possible for anyone else to obtain it unless the current owner of it dies or leaves]
[The privilege "Unique Leadership" has been activated, two times per day the leader can grant similar rewards to those of the unique missions he has completed (with a single usage limit each time), additionally the difficulty to trigger unique missions for all members of the group will be diminished by 20% and the difficulty to complete them will diminish by 10%]
"Worthy of a unique privilege, the requirements to trigger and completing unique missions are quite harsh, with time I’m sure those girls can do it, but this will speed things up", said Aster.
The bigger problem as of current wasn’t to complete the unique missions, it was to actually trigger them, so far only Aster, Espi, Sarina and Kana had triggered them and only Aster and Espi had completed them, what’s more besides Aster those three had only triggered a mission related to their profession manuals and only Aster has triggered and completed a mission for both his attack and profession manuals.
’Mmm, that means I can grant two initial technique attack type unique mission rewards and two initial professions type unique mission rewards’, he thought.
He only triggered and completed the unique mission for the initial technique of his "Absolute" and "Universal Forging", there were a total of five techniques in each manual, probably each corresponding to a star.
Don’t get it wrong the manuals contained vast theoretical and technical knowledge, the unique reward seems to be the crystallization of a portion of it or perhaps it’s the cultivator part of it which isn’t included in the manual and can only be granted by the blue flaming board, but that doesn’t mean just by obtaining it Aster was done with that part of the manual, with practice and study that slash will improve, he was sure of it.
Now the only question was, who should he grant the four chances to use the initial technique unique reward, the single usage limit is not a big flaw because in any case using those techniques put a lot of strain in the body, especially the one from the attack type manual.
Even Aster himself who is the incarnation of endurance and toughness, within the limit of his current mortal body can’t use "Slash" more than three times and only the first one can be executed in an all-out manner, the next ones would exhibit less power.
A girl from the sect accompanied by Guardian who had finished the little favor Aster had asked of her, approached him the next second.
"Senior brother, sister Mylene asked me to call you to her workshop", the girl from the green lotus faction, to which he nodded in response knowing the reason behind it, as he left alongside the lynx.
Once at the tent which functioned as Mylene’s workshop, Aster was welcomed with the sight of Angela, Valentina, Mylene and Kana who were standing in front of bandaged wolf who had woken up.
Contrary to what one would expect, the wolf remained calm despite being "surrounded" by strangers, it only reacted after seeing Guardian who was walking next to Aster as they entered the tent.
"Big brother, can we loosen the ropes, mister wolf is not bad?", said the little girl, they of course had restrained the wolf in part to prevent any trouble and in part so that he wouldn’t open his wounds while sleeping.
"Grrr", Aster gazed at Guardian who also nodded and softly growled in response, though she wasn’t personally acquainted with this wolf, now that he was awake, she recognized the other party, he was the younger brother of the eastern wolf race, you can’t blame her for not realizing it before, the wolf was full of wounds and all swollen yesterday.
Some races only have single groups living in the totality of the forest while others, had split in sides, for example the horses were a single group at least in the area of the forest which included the plains, wolves and lynxes on the other hand were divided in two, the eastern and western sides, there was no conflict between them because the forest is massive so each had their territory.
It’s worth mentioning that Guardian originally belonged to the eastern Lynx race’s group, the groups from the eastern side were rarely seen in the area that Aster had mapped, because their territories were quite far from here, so this only added more questions as to why this wolf was here.
The interesting part is that Aster had met this wolf not too long before meeting Guardian, but for some "mysterious" reason, the lynx didn’t get to meet him all this time, it’s obvious that someone had interfered.
"Untie him, and give him some fish", said Aster to Mylene, the pink haired girl untied him, but it was Kana the one who put a plate with a couple of fishes in front of the wolf, the little girl had already prepared for this beforehand.
"You can tell us why you are looking for me while you eat", said the lynx to the wolf, her words were translated by Kana for everyone’s convenience.
The wolf though still wounded, ate the fish quite savagely as if he hadn’t eaten in a few days while told his story.
"Great guardian of the forest, my elders told me that if a problem impossible to solve were to happen I should find you, my brother was... killed, and the whole pack was taken away by the western pack, I was out hunting and when I returned, I just saw the western wolves taking my pack members, I tried to fight them but was attacked by my own allies".
"Then I noticed horrified that they all had lethal wounds, their hearts were pierced or their necks had been cut, they shouldn’t have been able to let alone fight, but even move, which is I why I ultimately chose to escape".
"On my way here, is saw the same happening to the eastern lynx race, but they had no one escape to report the situation, both races were taken to the den of the devil from the rocky area", said the wolf as he finished the fish.
"Tsk, so the supervisors gave the crazed bear an army of wolves and lynxes", said Valentina to which Aster shook his head.
"I doubt they’ll be so generous, knowing our numbers they can’t be the only animals that were drafted to attack us and considering the wolves attacked their own pack member, they shouldn’t be in a normal state of mind either", he said.
Such a big operation was executed without anyone noticing, so this had to be a supervisor’s doing, perhaps this was the battle that the black horse saw in his dream where he died.
"Please guardian of the forest, help me grant my pack members an honorable warrior’s end!", exclaimed the wolf as he bowed his head.
Guardian looked at Aster, clearly consulting him on what to do regarding this situation, she couldn’t kill more than two hundred lynxes and wolves by herself after all.
"Tell him we accept", said Aster to the lynx, in any case they will have to fight the army of the crazed bear and the bandaged wolf had brought important information, they now knew that he was controlling dead animals.
’Those guys really hate us, no matter this is probably the last time they can interfere’, he thought.
