A few seconds later, the scenery changed from seeing those large natural crystal formations from afar, to be in front of some of them.
Now that Aster was closer to them, he noticed the temperature went up once again quite a lot, in fact Aster's eyes glowed, he could see waves of yellow spirit energy being radiated by the crystals.
It was similar to the effect Vivian could cause when she used a yang type poison, but weaker as it wasn't directly oriented to cause harm, it's just that these crystals had yang energy stored inside them and were constantly releasing it, in the form of waves.
That didn't mean it wasn't affecting its surroundings, the sand near the crystals was letting out steam, and the sand that was in direct contact had already crystalized due to the heat.
Aster saw the nearby yang suddenly being stirred up, as if it was stimulated by something and then he saw those waves of yellow energy coming towards his group, more specifically towards the girls.
'Humph, the only yang that can touch my girls is mine', thought Aster.
Naturally ying and yang attracted each other, but in this case, it wasn't a good thing, since the yang here was wild being attacked by it, would fry one alive, in the notebook that Aster got from Valentina, it said that women had to be extra careful not to approach the crystal formations in the forest and he had the bad luck to appear next to one.
The girls saw Aster let out a small amount of golden spirit energy, unlike his normal this one was brighter since it had his yang imbued into it, he basically turned into a miniature sun.
Ying and yang were the representation of positive and negative, and just like one of the basics of science back at earth, what happens when two similar poles encounter, they repel each other.
So, Aster's yang drove away the yang coming from the crystal, they were in the outer area of the forest, so though these crystals were huge, the quality of the yang stored inside them was nothing for Aster.
Tiana was in awe at the sight of the yang coming from a natural resource being scared away by Aster's.
"What kind of monster is he", she mumbled.
Felicia giggled, truth to be told they were all bathed in Aster's yang, even if they weren't his lovers, girls who spent time near Aster and those who have bathed or drank his blood, had traces of his yang in them, some in a bigger amount that others.
That's why they didn't feel uncomfortable despite the natural scorching sensation that just being in the Silicon Forest should bring those whose bodies were ying oriented, in other words every woman, besides the rare bunch who had a yang type constitution, they were being protected by Aster's yang.
"Let's take some distance from these crystal formations, I think fifty meters should be enough for you to be ignored by them", said Aster.
The girls nodded and they took some distance from the crystal formations, and just as Aster stated, the crystals now ignored them, since they were being covered by Aster's yang already, the yin radiated from their bodies was concealed.
"You sure com in handy in a lot of situations, right", jokingly said Eris, making the other girls laugh, while Aria tightened her hug on Aster's arm.
Now that they discovered and dealt with what should be the biggest threat on the outer area of the forest, they just had to find their way to the middle area.
Aster raised his head and saw three suns in the sky, wherever this place was, wasn't the Iron Sand planet, it wasn't a secret realm though, but probably a place which was only accessible through the portal that the gatekeeper elder guarded, similar to the galaxy in which Sarina and Kana lived.
'They'll attract attention if they fly, but I should be fine', thought Aster before saying.
"Give me a second ladies, I have to do some air recognition".
Aria unwillingly let go of Aster, who then soared into the sky, he still hasn't gotten the ability of flying through the energy path, well he could do it since he is now a Stellar Constellation realm cultivator, but that would only work in low ranked Stellar Systems, since their gravity was lower, for one to fly in middle ranked systems, one must be at least at the Stellar Axys realm and that is for starters.
In the top three middle ranked Stellar Systems and similar, you needed to be a star tribulation or the equivalent of that, to soar in the sky with a decent speed, that's why certain missions required at least a core disciple who could fly, since that was their way to escape if things went south.
But Aster didn't need to worry about that, his soul energy was strong enough to make himself levitate at a fast speed and it was silent and more fluid than when he used Lightning Trail.
A few seconds later Aster reached a decent height, and just as he expected the atmosphere at a higher altitude was also affected by the yang radiated by the three suns, for him it didn't do anything, but the girls would need to circulate their spirit energies to block it, well all of them besides Aria, who was full to the brim with Aster's yang as of current.
Aster looked at the horizon, besides desert and those crystal formations that raised from the ground, there was basically nothing else, but he could vaguely feel the direction in which the yang seemed to be stronger, which should lead to the middle area of the forest.
After getting an idea of where to go, Aster descended and then turned to see Camila.
"What does our lucky charm say, do you feel something?", he asked.
Camila closed her eyes and then focused in feeling her surroundings, her hair glowed in a dim copperish light for a couple of seconds before she opened her eyes again.
"There is too much interference due to the yang energy floating all over the place, but I could feel a stronger attraction in that direction", said Camila as she pointed at the same area which Aster noticed as well.
The principle behind their supposition was different, Aster saw the yang getting stronger in that direction, while Camila felt the aura of the natural treasures that were more abundant in the middle area of the forest, since the outer area has been long swept through many times.
Sure, they might be some that pop out here and there after a year of waiting, but they would be low grade things most of the time, not to mention a bloody battle will begin between those who had no chance of surviving in the middle area, regarding them.
"Be prepared, most of the teams will be going to the limit between the outer and middle areas, since there is a higher chance for resources to appear there, let's see what the situation is like first, and then we'll go to the middle area", said Aster.
"Mm", the girls nodded, Aster isn't a muscle head, his job as the leader is to ensure the safety of the group, if he could use the enemies to test the waters of the middle area, and get rid of them at the same time, then it was two birds one stone.
After saying that, the group started advancing through the dunes while avoiding the crystal formations, thanks to Aster's lead, the heat increased as they approached their destination, but they were still being protected by Aster's yang so they didn't even sweat let alone feel uncomfortable in any way yet.
…
Just as Aster predicted, the vast majority of participants went straight to the limit between the outer and middle areas, that didn't mean everyone made it there though, some were unlucky and met a crystal formation that had a strong yang stored, and were attacked by it.
Not only women were attacked, of the crystal detected a weaker yang source, it will naturally try to destroy it and absorb it to grow, that's why these crystals had a certain distance between each other, once they met only one would come out as the winner and assimilate the loser for further development, the heavens were fair after all, so everything animated or not had the chance to cultivate, since even rocks had "souls", or at least some of the layers of a soul.
"Heh, good luck smiles the brave, come with me… ahhh!", a guy who was trying to get a spirit herb called Fiery Sunflower, which bloomed over a small rock hill, was suddenly shred to pieces by a pair of pincers that came from below, the corpse sank into the sand and crunching sounds could be heard coming from there.
The other people who witnessed such a bloody scene paled, if they were the ones who jumped in after seeing the Fiery Sunflower, they would have ended up turning into the food of whatever was hiding below the rock hill.
"H-Hey, how about we team up to attack that thing, we can split the resource based on the contribution, what do you say?", asked the leader of a team of three.
"That sounds like a good idea, we just need to bait out that thing out and then bombard it with everything we got", the leader of another team agreed, and others also joined the operation.
Naturally they were all thinking on a way to snatch the treasure, while using the others as meat shields.
The guy who proposed an alliance took out a spear from his spatial ring and after covering it with fire spirit energy, he threw it at the area in front of the rock hill.
"Scree!", the ground trembled and then cracked as a ten-meter brown colored scorpion with yellow crystals incrusted in its carapace.
"Attack it!", the who baited the scorpion out using his fire spirit energy imbued with yang, shouted as he saw the scorpion coming at him.
Just to be met with cold ridiculing glares, the other teams instead avoided the scorpion and aimed at stealing the Fiery Sunflower.
"What an idiot becoming the bait himself, in your next life wait a few more years before going out of your rural town fool", and similar mocking comments were aimed at the guy who was now fighting the scorpion head on with the help of his team.
But then the rock hill shook and what was supposed to be an unanimated piece of land, turned out to be yet another spirit beast, this time it was a huge lizard of around fifty meters of size, the rocks that formed the hill were actually crystals that were attached to its body.
"Shaaaa!", the lizard produced a strange sound and then the crystals in its body lit up in yellow flames, that flooded the nearby area.
"It's a mortal transcending beast, run away!", the nearest people paled as soon as the lizard appeared, they did have mortal transcending people among them, the problem is that the spirit beasts in this place were always stronger than their realms.
In comparison even the Sea of Knowledge cultivators which where the strongest cultivators allowed to enter, had their realms suppressed to the Mortal Transcending realm, so even if they fought the beast, unless their battle prowess far exceeded their realm, they'll have a hard time killing it, the result would probably be driving away the lizard but receiving wounds, which would just end in them being robbed by the others, it was a dog-eat-dog kind of situation.
While some of the people who were too close to the lizard turned into ashes, others tried to use some treasures to escape, but were horrified at the discovery that they didn't activate, apparently the yang energy was messing with the runes in their talismans.
"Aghhh no!", many people were consumed by the flames of the lizard, including the scorpion which was fried to a crisp and then devoured by the lizard, apparently the lizard took a nap for quite some time and the Fiery Sunflower bloomed thanks to the crystals on its body gathering yang for a whole year, the scorpion found the place and used it to ambush its prey, but it didn't take into account the fact that the lizard would wake up so soon, thus it ended up being eaten.
The lizard had a faint glint of ridicule in its eyes, though it hasn't unlocked wisdom and the capacity to speak or take human form, as it is only a Mortal Transcended beast, it seems to have liven for quite some time, at least enough to know what it was doing.
'Shit, I purposely attracted the smaller thing to make those idiots scout for me, but who would have thought the bad feeling I had belonged to a peak Mortal Transcending beast, what the hell this doing here instead of the middle area!', swore in his heart the guy who earlier baited the scorpion.
He saw the lizard's eyes glaring at him and felt a shiver running down his spine, out of his three team mates, two were killed by the flames of the lizard and the only one left was a girl.
"Y-Young master, what are we going to do, the lizard is coming our way and the elder separated from us to lure away that strange thing below the ground earlier", said the girl with a panicked voice.
The guy sweetly smiled to help the girl calm down.
"Don't worry, everything will be fine… you'll go to a place where pain doesn't exist", he said, then before the girl could react, he grabbed the girl by her neck and threw her at the lizard to make time for him to escape.
The lizard roared and then charged towards them, since they were the last nutrition source left in the area, the reason as to why it was hunting in the outer area of the forest was to recover from a wound it suffered against another spirit beast.
The guy saw the girl being engulfed by the flames, which didn't stop the lizard and he cursed.
"Fuck, that didn't work I need more shields", then just as if the heavens were sending him a life-saving grace, a group of five arrived at the area, one guy and four girls to be more accurate.
The guy rushed towards the newcomers, with the idea of using them to entertain the lizard to escape, but when he was around one hundred meters away from them, his body stopped in cold and then was brought to the ground with blood coming out of his mouth, eyes, nose and ears.
The lizard in comparison, felt the gaze of the one leading the group and his pupils contracted like needles, the thing was now experiencing a long-forgotten sensation… the fear to death, that it used to feel every time when it was a newborn.
The lizard also stopped in cold, to the guy who was now vomiting blood on the ground, surprise, the lizard adopted a submissive posture by lowering itself down at two hundred meters from the group of five.
"Oh, so my eyes can do this, I guess it makes sense since Espi was so enthusiastic to follow me, and this guy isn't even a dragon subspecies", the voice of the sole man in the group could be heard, saying some things that the scheming guy couldn't understand.
Aster who arrived in time to witness, what happened here earlier but just stepped in until now, approached the lizard who was respectfully laying down on the ground, and he grabbed the Fiery Sunflower that was blooming on top of one of the many crystals on the head of the lizard.
"Mm, I bet that little girl will be happy to get such a pretty looking flower for her garden", mumbled Aster.
The spirit herb was only a middle Stellar grade treasure right now, but it certainly had a unique look, it was sunflower whose petals seemed to be made out of fire, Aster was sure that Kana was going to love it.
Under the terrified eyes of the scheming guy, the black-haired youth simply took the Fiery Sunflower and kept it in his spatial ring, before he turned around, in all this time the lizard didn't dare to let alone show any hostility, it didn't even move at all.
'What the hell is going on!', he shouted in his heart, he came out of his daze when he saw a pair of foot that were now in front of his face.
Aster grabbed the half-dead guy, which he spared before for a reason and then casually tossed him towards the north, where the landscape underwent a drastic change, unlike the outer area which was a desert with crystal formations all over the place, the middle area was what gave this place the denotation of "forest" instead of desert.
There, the participants could find a zone with shadow for the first time since they entered, the problem is that nothing can be as good as it looks in the wild, and so Aster needed a guinea pig, and this guy who tried to use his team as bait to escape was perfect for the task.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺