With Nerissa leading the way, Aster and the girls advanced through the forest, the fact that they couldn't fly due to the dome-like treetops and had to move through the ground, made Aster take the decision of putting some focus in Espi's development when he returns.
Because it would be way easier to travel by riding on top of a spirit beast than moving by oneself, at least in long distances and situations, where moving through space or flying isn't possible.
"Damn if I knew it was going to be like this, I would have beaten that lizard to submission even if it was just for a disposable mount", said Aster, making the girls laugh.
It was rare for him to suffer a lose of any kind, so they found the situation quite refreshing since he is always teasing them.
Even Aria who was holding hands with Aster while they ran through the forest, covered her mouth and giggled, so far, this little adventure with Aster has been what she expected, so she was all smiles.
"Oh, do even my Aria is becoming rebellious, perhaps I should increase the harshness of your training, so that when we come out you will have some nice muscles?", playfully said Aster.
Aria pouted, she couldn't bring to imagine herself looking like a bodybuilder or something like that, in fact if any dual cultivator or yin cultivator were to hear Aster, telling a girl with a yin constitution to do harsh physical training, he'll be cursed to death by them.
Naturally Aster was just joking, his method of training which was taught to him by Lilia, was created to not increase the quantity of muscle mass, but the quality of it, in other words the changes won't show externally past a certain extent.
That being said, those with body constitutions or lineages oriented to body cultivation have it easier, since their bodies will have less flaws than others, they won't develop heavy muscles that will just get in their way, though it also depends on the kind of constitution we are talking about, Eric is an example of that.
But Lilia came up with this method of training which works regardless of having a lineage or not, back then when she believed Aster was at disadvantage for having lost his Drage lineage.
She used pressure to help Aster get this balanced type of muscles, it was a type of training that also wouldn't hinder his growth, since he started training at a really young age, and she made him train like crazy, after all even if he lost his lineage, he was still his beloved son and so she was going to make sure, he was the strongest one way or another.
Though it wasn't needed at all, since he had the paragon body thanks to Alice meeting the preliminary conditions of Pollux anyway, but the mix of the paragon body and that training had a really good result which is the perfectly toned body of Aster which made the girls drool every time they saw him.
Leaving that little episode aside, they soon deepened into the forest, the trees started to become less and less and large open areas started to appear, that was actually a bad omen for anyone who wandered through the Silicon Forest, because it meant that larger spirit beasts will appear.
The outskirts were safer in part because there were more trees, the spirit beasts wouldn't touch the trees, in fact no one was allowed to touch the trees, or the crystals will release yang energy to fry them to death, and for that reason only the smaller spirit beasts roamed in those areas.
But now with bigger spaces, bigger beasts could freely move, but not right now since it is still day, as the three suns in the sky suggest, still that didn't mean that there were no dangers lurking in the shadows.
Aster who was running in front of the girls waved his hand and a large golden sword appeared in his hand, now that he has set foot in the third level of sword intent, his training swords can no longer endure being used by him, so he can only use the Dragon Buster series, which are all grand swords.
Not that it makes any difference for him, since he is physically strong enough to easily swing those heavy swords as if they are light swords.
Nerissa saw Aster shoving his sword at his left without moving, then the ground a few meters around them trembled and blood seeped out of a crack that formed due to Aster's sword stabbing the floor.
"Not all the spirit beasts are yin type, there are others like that lizard, don't let your guard down ladies", said Aster as he pointed his hand at the ground using his soul energy to retrieve the best core of the spirit beast he just killed, a snake which was moving through the ground to ambush them, it was just a Mortal Transcending beast, but its core had yang properties like those crystals that the lizard grew in its body.
"So, the beasts that can move during day are yang oriented?", asked Tiana as she curiously looked at the beast core Aster had in his hands, unlike a normal beast core, which would only attract "pure" spirit energy, this one was attracting yang energy from the atmosphere.
"This place is like a paradise for dual cultivators, yin and yang materials are more expensive than regular ones", added Eris, she has been working on the store the past months while Mylene was venturing with Aster, and she had to learn a bit about the current market, before she decided which pills and elixirs she'll offer to the public.
Aster kept the core in his ring and then they continued advancing though the forest, on the way they met other spirit beasts which weren't infected by yin, and the girls easily dealt with them, their hides and other parts were too low ranked to enter the eyes of the girls, but their cores will fetch a good price for their properties, and so the poor beasts became a source of amusement for the girls, they made it a competence to see who could gather more of them till the end of the mission, the winner will get a reward, which was postponed for later discussion.
Needless to say, but Nerissa was surprised to see how they literally massacred everything in their path, with such ease.
'The younger ones aren't that far from me in terms of battle prowess as for the Mortal Transcending one… I can't seem to pinpoint where their limit is, but I don't think they'll lose against any Genesis Manifestation cultivator'.
'Since when it's so easy to meet people who can cross realms to fight… what's more, this little brother of ours, is as strong as me!', she thought.
People who can cross realms to fight, get harder and harder to see the more one climbs up the ladder, at the Transcending realms those who can jump one major realm are already considered outstanding, and Nerissa was now seeing two women who can jump two major realms, which meant they weren't any worse than her master, of course she was surprised.
Aria and Tiana are also outstanding, if they were in her age and realm, they would be stronger than her, she didn't have any doubts about it.
Not to mention Aster, even in the highest realm of the two paths in which he practiced, he is one whole realm below her, as he is a Star Axys in the soul path, and his battle prowess doesn't lose to hers, it's outrageous.
'Where in the world did big sis Agnes found these monsters', she thought as he sighed, her determination to become stronger lightened up in her eyes, according to her master she can still improve without the need to breakthrough, that's in part why she took this mission.
Aster's eyes glowed, they finally reached the vicinity of the area mentioned by Nerissa, as the thin mist that lied ahead of them suggested.
He noticed that the temperature suddenly dropped a lot and they haven't even entered the mist yet, Aster softly snorted and his body shone in a warm yellow light, it wasn't the dreading golden tone of annihilation, but a lively yellow which represented his abundant yang.
Nerissa raised an eyebrow, that yang radiance is something normally only talented dual cultivators or those who purely cultivate yang can use.
'He is surrounded by women so he can't be possibly be cultivating yang, but he also doesn't have that disgusting sensation most dual cultivators give off… maybe it's a body constitution?', wondered Nerissa.
Just like there are women who remain pure and cultivate ying, which requires them to never be with a man in their lives, there are men who do the same, pure yin and yang type cultivators are among the strongest but it requires them to do that "sacrifice".
The others who can amass such an amazing amount of yang like the one Nerissa saw Aster radiating are dual cultivators, but hat "disgusting" sensation she mentions is caused due to their yang being filled with impurities, as they use the yin of women to increase their yang, irresponsibly just for the sake of debauchery, the result is that dual cultivators are known for having high realms, but poor battle prowess, in other words they are disregarded as paper tigers, with empty high realms.
But she who was fought against the dual cultivators of the Pleasure Palace, can easily tell that Aster's yang is different, she doesn't feel uncomfortable around it, and in fact it gives off a warm easing sensation.
As soon as the mist entered in contact with that yellow radiance it was immediately eliminated, which allowed Aster and the girls to easily advance, the mist thickened the more they deepened though, but that's not what was getting Aster's attention right now.
But the fact that the trees weren't even reacting, this amount of yang might look like much, but he is just him stimulating his blood a little bit, nothing serious, still it should be tempting enough for the trees to take the risk and try to attack him to assimilate him and grow stronger.
'This mist looks like a natural phenomenon but if that was the case, then there shouldn't be faint traces of soul energy spread here and there', thought Aster.
If it was before maybe he wouldn't have noticed, but his current eyes were way sharper than the previous ones, even if he didn't change his pupils to those of a dragon to see the flaws of things, he could easily see soul energy clear as day.
Aster looked backwards and saw Felicia nodding at him, as he expected she could also tell there was something wrong with this mist.
And that wasn't all, to make the place more ominous, besides the low visibility that the thick yin mist caused, Aster whose eyes could ignore it, saw there were corpses laying down here and there in the mist.
Not only they were quite fresh as the small ponds of blood below them suggested, but they had clean weapon wounds in their vitals, in other words they were killed by other participants, instead of spirit beasts, probably to rob them or something along the lines.
Aster casually stabbed with his sword above, and then when he retried there was newly created corpse, whose head was pierced by Aster's sword.
"It seems we are one step late, and something has already started at the place you mentioned", said Aster to Nerissa as he tossed the corpse aside as if it was trash.
It didn't escape his new eyes that though it wasn't drained by the trees, the corpse shrank a few centimeters making the skin stuck to the bones, as if it was in an advanced state of decomposition, which shouldn't be the case as he literally killed that idiot a few seconds ago.
Aster and the girls kept advancing and soon they could hear the sounds of people shouting and metal colliding ahead of them, once they passed a few more trees the voiced became clearer.
"Hahaha, go die and become a treasure for me!".
"Ahhh, my Xu Lake sect won't let you go".
Surprisingly the mist didn't occupy the space which laid ahead of them, it was an open area within the forest, there was a set of stairs that led to the underground and also a big sign, written with blood.
"Kill a spirit beast to enter, or kill a cultivator to get a treasure and the choice of entering".
And that is what was causing the current scene, the participants were looking for easy targets to kill among those who arrived, the people in the mist were the perfect targets and that's why they were attacked.
On the other hand, those whose teams had stronger members also killed the weaker members of other teams.
Aster saw that once a cultivator was killed, it became like the guy who he killed a mummified corpse and then a small array appeared from the corpse, to give the reward promised by the bloody sign.
"Ah damn, that guy had bad luck all the way to the end, I only got a low ranked Stellar grade weapon, whatever I can still sell it and earn some spirit jades", said the guy who killed someone a moment ago.
The eyes of many people fell on Aster's group, since they were the newcomers, but seeing the blood in Aster's sword and the strong aura of Nerissa despite her young age, they ignored them and looked for an easier target.
Aster saw an array appear in front of him, for some reason he didn't get a "reward" when he was in the mist, but now that he was near those stairs on the ground, he was given his reward for killing someone.
Aster saw the treasure that came out of it and he smirked.
'Do you want to get me with such a lowly tactic, well I guess a lot of idiots fell for it, bird die for food and humans die for treasures, is a say for a reason', thought Aster.
"Crack!", not only he didn't take the "reward", he imbued his sword with a bit of annihilation and cut through it, destroying the light armor which clearly was designed for women, and was also a middle grade Stellar treasure.
Those who saw it had the urge to curse, that was a decent treasure which would have fetched a nice price, and the guy in front of them just destroyed it as if it was nothing, they were outraged, but some recognized Aster, he told the son of the Steel Tower's sect patriarch to fuck off, so they were way of him, as he probably had a strong background.
Visit freewe𝑏nov(e)l.𝗰𝐨𝐦 for the 𝑏est n𝘰vel reading experience