The girls felt rather curious about the bird which Camila killed a moment ago, spirit beasts have their own way to cultivate, instead of a dantian they developed a beast core, which should be inside their bodies not incrusted in their chest like the black crystal, which after being purified by Aster turned into a yin accumulation crystal.
Originally, they thought it was something like the crystals which the lizard used to generate those flames, an evolution trait caused by the environment in which the spirit beast has lived, but the lizard did have a beast core, according to Felicia.
That bird on the other hand didn't, instead of that it was using an impure yin accumulation crystal as its core, which was weird.
"There was something wrong with that spirit beast, let's find a place to spend the night, we'll see what happens once the sun settles, there is no rush after all", based on the information he had, Aster took the decision to stop advancing and instead look for a place to be safe at night.
Though with the strength of his team, there shouldn't be any trouble to survive in the outer area of the forest, there shouldn't have been any spirit beasts appearing until the night fell, but that bird appeared and there were still a few hours for that.
So, there was something weird here, of course there was also a possibility of that bird just not following the normal pattern of other spirit beasts, or Aria's yin being too attractive for it, but on can never be too cautious.
"Mm", the girls agreed with him, and they set up a perimeter of one kilometer in which they started looking for a suitable place to spend the night.
They separated in pairs to explore the perimeter to look for a place, and also map the nearby area, in case they needed to fight or escape.
Aster paired Aria Camila, while Tiana and Felicia stayed together, as for himself, he explored alone, it was done so that there was someone in each pair that could see through the disguise of those strange spirit beasts, just in case.
Aster curiously looked at his surroundings, his body had a faint light blue glint around it, he discovered that by using Rigel flames, though his weren't yin oriented and instead focused on purifying, they still burned cold and cold is a property related to yin, in any case his yang was strong enough to make the trees hesitate to attack him, he was using Rigel's flames to see if he could lure out another spirit beast.
But to his surprise nothing happened, and he soon finished exploring his side, besides the crystal trees and a few rocks as well as other vegetation, he didn't find anything else, Aster took the opportunity to confirm that communication talismans didn't work here, the trees caused too much interference, luckily, he could talk with Aria through the mental connection, and so he heard Aria's mellow voice in his mind.
'Aster, we found a place, let's reunite at the gathering point', after hearing that, Aster returned to the place he and the girls decided to be their gathering point.
Apparently, Aria and Camila were the ones who discovered the possible camping site, so they led the way, a couple of minutes later they arrived at a natural stone formation, with a small gap as its entrance.
"What do you think, the entrance its barely big enough for a person to enter and Camila can seal it with some metal, we also inspected it with our spirit sense and it's quite spacious inside, moreover these stones should be fine even if a Genesis Manifestation attacks them, for quite some time", said Aria.
Aster personally inspected the cave hidden inside the stone formation and he nodded, it was clean and there were no signs of any spirit beast or person living there before, not to mention it was big enough for everyone to be comfortable.
"It's perfect if you have anything to do outside, do it, once we enter the cave we won't leave unless it's absolutely necessary".
The girls didn't seem to mind, and so they entered through the small gap in the wall of the stone formation, the inside of the cave was even better than what the girls expected, though at the beginning it was just a really narrow corridor, it widened a few meters ahead, resulting in a large open area, enough to fit around twenty people without any problem.
There was also a little surprise for them, incrusted in the walls there were small yellow crystals which outstood from the rest of the stone.
Aster's eyes glowed a bit and he was surprised to see the whole place had tons of mini crystals, these were different than the ones that formed the trunks of the trees, those were like the crystals on the body of the lizard, they only stored yang as long as the host was alive, if you killed the tree their crystals will become transparent and all the yang will be absorbed by another tree.
But these crystals in the cave were true resources, yang accumulation crystals, which were harder to find than their yin counterparts, not because they were of a higher rank, since that depended on the time the crystal has been forming, but because of the nature of yang.
A field can be artificially turned into a yin zone, the evil sects have lots of them, they just bring lots of people and kill them all, then the negative emotions combined with the bloodbath, result in a yin filled area, which they then use to cultivate, though impure some yin crystals end up being created that way.
But yang is different, one would believe that since yin flourishes thanks to death, then areas where there is life should produce yang crystals, but that's not the case, because yang crystals tend up to appear in disaster areas, such a volcans or scorching deserts, but that's not all, yang has the tendency of dispersing, since its purpose is to nurture life, then upon forming the crystals normally end up dissolving into the ground to produce a highly fertile soil for plants, that's why yang accumulation crystals can't be artificially produced at least not in the four Heavenly Quadrants.
"We are quite lucky, those crystals will hide our existence from the spirit beasts, though I don't know why the trees haven't absorbed these crystals, maybe the trees can't enter here", said Aster.
Since the crystals were working in their favor, Aster and the girls didn't remove them from the walls, and instead prepared the cave to spend the night in a comfortable way, Ci amila sealed the entrance with the exception of a few small apertures for the air to flow into the cave.
Aster told them to bring their beds in their rings, so each one installed their own bed, the temperature started to dramatically drop as the sunset approached, luckily the crystals kept the place at a comfortable temperature, not to cold nor too hot, so they didn't have to lit up a bonfire, as for the illumination, the crystals also provided them with a decent light source.
Camila who just finished her task, returned and was a bit surprised to see that the beds, a dining table and even a portable bathroom were already set
"I covered the entrance and made I look as if it was part of the stone formation, so others won't notice it… seriously if other cultivators saw all the stuff you bring to an exploration, they will curse you to death", she jokingly said to Aster.
The girls softly laughed, but Aster easily got back at them.
"I can retrieve the portable bathroom if you want to experience what other female cultivators have to go through", he playfully said.
The girls pouted, even cultivators still have body functions, they might have a better control of their bodies and less necessities than regular humans, but they were still humans at the end of the day, which girl will prefer the barbaric way of going to the bathroom on the wilderness, when there was a perfectly equipped bathroom at their disposal.
Having teased the girls successfully, Aster laughed and then he took out some of the dishes Sarina prepared for them, and placed them on the table.
"Come on don't look at me like that, I always want mi travel companions to be as comfortable as possible", he said as he patted his right leg, making Aria slightly blush, she got the message and floated towards Aster before she let her body fall in his embrace.
The girls saw Aria sitting on Aster's lap and they inwardly sighed, naturally Aster wasn't going to stop himself from flirting, even if they were present.
Still, they soon joined, after getting a whiff of the delicious smell of Sarina's cooking.
…
While Aster and the girls were enjoying a luxurious and peaceful moment, the other people in the forest weren't having such a great time.
"Shit what the hell was that, since when those beasts appear on the outskirts of the middle area, also why is it getting dark so soon!", a sole cultivator who was running as fast as his body allowed him to, shouted in a frustrated voice.
His body was full of wounds and his left arm was missing, not to mention he was alone because the rest of his group was wiped out, in just an instant, it's not that they were especially weak, but normally spirit beasts only appear after passing the outskirts of the forest.
That lizard which brought despair to the ones who woke it up, originally lived at that area, but now this guy's team met a spirit beast of the same rank at the outskirts of the forest and they got killed.
Similar scenes were repeating all over the forest, not only beasts that shouldn't be there appeared, but they started attacking before the sun had settled down even, taking the participants by surprise.
At another place in the forest, a large group of around forty people were digging on the ground, supervised by a smaller group of fully armored people.
"Hurry up you lowlifes, the ones who contribute less will be left outside of the refugee to become food for those crazy things!", shouted the red armored guy, called Patrick, in other words the leader of the team.
The ones who were excavating were successfully motivated to accelerate the pace, and the hole on the ground was expanded quickly, a girl who was also wearing armor approached Patrick with an amused expression.
"Senior brother, isn't it better if we have less people, that old man told us that if we followed our plan then the difficulty will rise, so won't these guys drag us down?".
Patrick wrapped his arm around the waist of the girl, as he looked at the people digging the hole with disdain.
"Don't worry little sister, I have the treasure handed by the elders, so those filthy beasts won't be able to harm us, besides isn't it funny, to see those bumpkins try to appeal to us, despite knowing they will be cannon fodder if we need to", said Patrick.
Back at his sect, he used to be just an inner disciple of the lot, but he was lucky enough to gain the favor of son of the patriarch, because it was his family the one that got wind of a certain treasure that was hidden in a special area within the domain of the Fritz.
After some politics and other measures, the existence of that treasure was proven to be true, and they even got an incomplete smaller version of it, which was offered to the son of the patriarch, in exchange his family got rewarded and has now become a direct subordinate of him.
Since then, he has gotten drunk in the feeling of bossing other people around, which is normal, when the tortured becomes the torturer, you can expect it to be crueler after all, and now while those peasants were working their asses off for some measle rewards, he was going to enjoy his night with some of the junior sisters he brought along.
"Renard, how far are we from our destination?", asked Patrick while he coped a feel of the skin of the girl which was uncovered by her armor.
Renard took out a map and after looking at his surroundings for a moment, he nodded as he reached a conclusion.
"Another day of travelling should be enough to reach our first destination, that being said I don't know if anything changed due to our actions", he said, being especially careful of saying "our" to include himself in the winner team.
Patrick chuckled as he jumped into the part of the refuge which was already finished, followed by the rest of his team, leaving the other people to continue working if they wanted to have a space in the refuge to spend the night.
"Hurry up you have around fifteen minutes to finish, if you don't want to attract those beast's attention, good night hahaha!".
The people who were left behind accelerated their pace as if their lives depended on it, which was indeed the case, they all belonged to teams who suffered heavy losses, some who were escorted by Sea of Knowledge experts from their sects and forces, were still safe and sound, but the elder themselves were full of wounds, since they fought with spirit beasts with a higher battle prowess compared to their realm.
Just as Patrick predicted about fifteen minutes after the armored team isolated themselves on their refuge, the atmosphere of the forest went through a huge change, first the few sunlight rays that were illuminating the forest completely disappeared, bringing darkness to the whole area.
At least for a moment, in which everyone felt their hearts about to explode out of their chests, the absolute darkness was oppressive, but they then let out a sigh of relief when the crystals of the trees started glowing just a bit, it was enough for them to regain some sight.
Unfortunately, their newly found calm didn't last long, as another source of light started to appear all over the area, there were countless of small blue lights that popped out of nowhere.
The groups which hadn't finished their refuge, got distracted by that and when they tried to continue, suddenly screams started to echo through the forest.
"Ahhh no, help!".
"Get away from me, don't come you monster!".
The blood curling screams sent chills through the spines of the ones who were yet to finish their refuge, they immediately turned around and started knocking on the walls of the refuges which were finished earlier to demand those inside to let them in, but were met with silent.
And then those blue lights that were ghastly floating all over the place, swarmed them, which further increased the number of screams that filled the forest right, when the screams in the area ended, there was no trace left of those who didn't enter a refuge in time.
But that was only the beginning, of an experience that those who came to the Silicon Forest will never forget, that is if they are lucky enough to still be breathing when things come to an end of course.
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