Just Aster finished speaking three wind slashes appeared out of nowhere, one carved a line in front of Aster while the other two went straight for Ley and Rox.
"What the hell is this!".
"Rox you fucker that's why I told you to wait!".
Ley rolled on the air becoming a lime-colored twister which deflected the wind slash, while Rox's body became a black cloud that dispersed when the wind slash touched it, just for him to return to his original form a few seconds later completely unscathed.
Or that's what they thought, before some strands of both Ley and Rox's hair de-attached from their heads, making them now look strange.
Kana softly laughed, while she looked at Aster before saying.
"How did you know that was going to happen big brother?", she asked with her big eyes sparkling of curiosity.
Aster poked her little nose as he answered.
"Now a magician never reveals his secrets, right?".
Kana pouted not getting the answer she wanted, but she still laughed at the new comical appearances of Ley whose left side of the head was shaved clean, and Rox whose right side of the head as well as his ponytail were cleanly shaved too, the precision was so, that if they were to stand in the right angle their hairs would perfectly complement each other.
Mylene, Yulia and Lizzette also looked at Aster not sure of how he knew this was going to happen, there are no formations on the mountain where they are standing and they didn't detect anyone near here.
Ixas on the other hand was beyond words right now.
'Just by seeing it once he learned how to detect the presence of nature, or maybe he had that capacity from the very beginning, but isn't he a dragonkin… what kind of monster are you Aster', he thought with a somewhat conflictive expression on his face.
Aster of course didn't just assume something was going to prevent Ley and Rox from attacking him, unlike what it looked like.
Previously when his eyes were wandering through the green castle floating in the sky, he noticed a certain gust of wind which seemed different to the others, the feeling it gave off was both like the clay humans created by Ixas and… Rigel's flames, but different at the same time.
'So, spirit winds do have a "soul", but it's incomplete unless they manifest their condensed forms', thought Aster, while he was thankful for having learned how to see the "souls" of unanimated objects from Ixas's clay humans.
Needless to say, but Ley and Rox were angry beyond words, they the respected young masters of their respective forces were humiliated in public.
Then as if to rub salt on their wounds, a small green whirlwind condensed in front of everyone, before a sleepy feminine voice came from it.
"Didn't your elders taught you not to disturb other people's sleep… whatever, welcome to the trial of my Emerald Heart mansion, in case the green whirlwind wasn't enough to present myself, I'm the Emerald Whirlwind you all came here for".
"You bitch why did you cut my hair!!!", Rox who was looking at his now bald left side of his head, immediately shouted with an angry voice, the ones who came with him actually had to hold hm so that he wouldn't attack the whirlwind.
…"I don't allow fights in my property, you should all be aware of that at this point", said the Emerald Whirlwind with a not too enthusiastic voice.
"Whatever, I see some new faces and races, so I guess I'll give you a little explanation of how things work here".
The green whirlwind then took the form of a number "1", before the voice continued speaking.
"Though there are three trials, you don't need to pass them all to be selected, at the same time, but not making any progress or whatsoever in the three means you fail".
"As long as you are in my presence no fights are allowed, or I'll kick you to the other side of the secret realm", said the Emerald Whirlwind as it took the shape of a number "2".
"And lastly, the trials are individual and no one can help others during the trials, if someone dies which hasn't happened so far, then what a shame".
"Those who wish to participate in the trials use these bridges to enter my Emerald Heart mansion, and I wish you all luck".
After saying that the whirlwind dispersed and the large tornados that were devastating the valley finally calmed down, before four bridges made out of wind condensed each at one of the four cardinal points, in other words in the direction of the four "groups" that were present right now.
Ley clearly didn't want to leave things like this, but since his sister screwed up his plan, which was acting all nice and gentle to trick Kana, there was no need for him to keep faking.
"I'm going to take that traitor's descendant no matter what, but don't worry I'll keep you alive so you can see how I achieve perfection thanks to her sacrifice". Said Ley as he returned with his group.
"Once this is over you are dead meat", Rox was more direct.
Unfortunately for them Aster totally ignored them, and while Kana seemed a bit apprehensive when she first saw Ley, Aster told her to not worry about it and she fully believed on her big brother.
That didn't mean Aster wasn't angry, he was furious, some random asshole had the gut to come and threat his family in front of him after all, but he also knew that those who talk too much are the firs to die, he'll make them pay with actions not words and the first part of his plan was already ongoing and working perfectly.
"Let's go", having said Aster stared walking above the wind bridge that was assigned to them, the first thing Aster noticed was that just as Ixas mentioned, the wind created by the Emerald Whirlwind had earth attribute too, the poison attribute wasn't present right now, though.
Once the four groups reached the large piece of land on which the green castle was built, the bridges became particles of wind and disappeared before the gates of the castle opened for them.
Before they entered Natasha called the others to tell them what was about to happen.
"Once we cross that door, we'll be separated from each other, and in case we fail we'll be returned to this exact place".
Everyone nodded and after wishing the others good luck, they entered through the gate.
The next thing Aster saw was total and complete darkness, but it only lasted a split of a second before his surroundings changed to an open space in what seemed to be entrance to a natural zone.
The difference was that here the road split into three paths, the one at the right was the entrance to a cave, the road in the middle led to a swamp and the road on the left ended in a mountain that raised all the way to the sky.
There was a sign at the side of the road with an explanation of the first trial.
[There are three paths ahead of you, each one with its respective characteristics, complete at least one of the three to advance to the second trial, (one day here is an hour in the secret realm), good luck]
After seeing the three paths for a couple of seconds Aster couldn't find anything off about any of them, so he just decided to go in order starting from the right, in other words the path that led to a cave.
Aster calmly walked towards the cave and once he reached the entrance, he more or less understood what was going to be the trial and he chuckled.
'What a shame I don't need a spirit wind, this trial is going to be pretty easy', he thought as he entered to the cave.
Right at the entrance he was forced to descend underground as there was no space in the upper side of the cave, so he simply followed the trail until he reached an open space.
Aster's eyes widened a bit for a moment as he saw the cave that surrounded him, right ahead of the open space in which he appeared there were pillar after pillar of green crystals, though Aster couldn't tell if all that were emeralds, at the very least that seemed to be the case.
Aster first tried to inspect his surroundings using his spirt sense, but he was in awe after realizing it was just bouncing between the crystals without being able to properly map the cave.
"So, no spirit sense allowed uh, then how about this", mumbled Aster he covered his hand with spirit energy and then tried to chop in half one of the many green crystal pillars ahead of him adding his sword intent into his hand too.
But then to his surprise the green crystal pillar actually absorbed his spirit energy and his intent too, then as if the thing was feeding on it, the pillar got wider blocking a bit more of the path head.
"Oh, so that's the goal of the trial, to reach the other side using as little spirit energy as possible", mumbled Aster.
A grin suddenly appeared in Aster's face, before he was enveloped in a dazzling golden light, that was reflected on all the crystals, which amplified the luminosity making Aster essentially become a sun in miniature.
…
In a completely different place, that actually looked like the interior of a castle, and more accurately at the sole room that existed on the second floor of the castle, there was a woman sitting on a two-chair table, alone.
Floating in front of the woman there were a lor of different projections each one showing what one of the participants was doing.
But then as the woman was thoroughly seeing what was happening in each of the projections, she had to close her eyes for a split of a second, because one of those projections was completely filled with golden light.
"What the hell is that, isn't that the projection of the kind that somehow managed to discover my stealth?", mumbled the woman.
But then the image revealed after the dazzling golden light disappeared made the woman nearly fall from her chair.
"What kind of attribute is that!", she exclaimed.
In the projection the woman could see Aster, simply walking straight to where the exit of the underground cave filled with crystal pillars was.
If you wonder, how was he bypassing all those growing crystals, the answer is pretty simply, he wasn't.
The woman rubbed her eyes just to make sure she wasn't sleeping or seeing things, she saw the black-haired youth simply walking through the pillars, wherever he was a few centimeters for a crystal pillar, the pillar cracked before it exploded into thin dust or it simply broke into little shards upon contact.
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