Aster approached the black altar which the evil spirit created using a huge yin accumulation crystal and he casually grabbed it with his bare right hand and lifted it, as if the yin it was radiating wouldn't normally corrode the hand of any male cultivator below the Void Manipulation realm.
Aster didn't even need to use yang radiance, his yang overflowed through all his body naturally, so he didn't need to use it for himself, that's in part why others tend to confuse him as a dual cultivator, the women who enter in contact with him on a daily basis, have traces of his yang on them, regardless of the nature of their relationship, of course some are obviously more affected by it.
Anyway, Aster sent the yin accumulation crystal to the mind space, since keeping it in a spatial ring, might deteriorate the ring due to the corroding effect, as it hasn't been refined yet.
As the evil spirit said, below the black altar there was a secret compartment of a kind Aster hasn't seen before, it was created with a similar material to a spatial ring, with the idea to create a mini portable space.
The difference is that, this had a trap incorporated, judging by the runes which Aster could recognize, up to the last moment of its life, the evil spirit could have destroyed the entrance to the mini space, and the contents of the secret compartment would have been lost forever, wandering in the void.
This was a popular method for ancient cultivators, since runes were less refined back then, spatial rings didn't exist, instead of that they used space bags, which were easier to rob, so this self-destroy feature was installed on them.
What made Aster curious is that the evil spirit could have just used a destruction type formation to blow the contents of the secret compartment, why go through all the trouble, as to make this complex formation, he wondered.
It was then when the last words of the evil spirit flashed through his mind.
'He mentioned that besides the map, there was the continuation of his cultivation manual, but he went and self-destroyed himself, only leaving a soul fragment and a piece of flesh, a treasure that endured the explosion of more than four hundred peak Heavenly realm cultivators, shouldn't be something that could be found in a mortal plane, not to mention he was a Soul Sovereign, so the continuation is above of that', he thought.
Aster's eyes lit up, he already knew that past the Heavenly Realms, one would need to get a new manual to cultivate, the so called "Immortal grade", was the best possible for Mortal realm things, which included spirit techniques, manuals, treasures and so on.
The fact that the evil spirit was capable of getting this, probably meant that the laws on his Heavenly Quadrant were laxer than in the four Heavenly Quadrants Aster know off, also this place shared a similar property since it was influenced by the galaxy-scale formation of the Yin Azure Palace, which made it related to a Divine Firmament.
"Guess I'll send it to the mind space for now, it's good to know that in this place tribulation lightning isn't going to attack us just by mentioning anything past the Heavenly Conqueror realm, casually said Aster.
The other girls were used to hear such weird things from Aster, but Nerissa which is new to the group couldn't help but curiously stare at Aster, she heard the conversation he had with the evil spirit and was naturally surprised by it, and what surprised her even more, is that Aster talked about such things with the evil spirit as if he was used to it.
'Master has told me that I shouldn't be complacent, since the Heavenly Realms aren't even close to the peak of cultivation, just who is this little brother of ours?', she thought.
Besides the map, the manual left behind by the evil spirit was inside a black wood chest which Aster inspected before sending to the mind space, he then grabbed the map and injected his spirit sense into it.
This thing wasn't a normal map, it had formations engraved to make it a living map, which meant that it will show a projection of where the user is, and move in real time with the latter, quite a convenient tool.
"Let's go", said Aster to the girls, the evil spirit naturally had a secret way out of this underground space, a secret exit which it built for when the time to go get the thing at the center of the Silicon Forest came.
The girls followed Aster, towards a fake wall which hid a room sized gate formation, and they used to leave the underground space.
…
A few moments later the scenery changed from the enclosed space in which they were, to the landscape of the middle area of the forest, with the wider crystal trees and all.
"This is still the middle area, but we appeared at a deeper spot", said Aster as he saw the size of the crystal trees, naturally the evil spirit wouldn't use the same point where the stairs were located as the exit, in Aster's rough calculation they should be halfway into the middle area.
As Aster was about to use his soul energy enhanced spirit sense as a flare to show Eris's soul energy where they were, her soul energy arrived at them in a hurry, the interference made it so communication talismans didn't work, but Eris who meddled with the surveillance formations installed by the Fritz over the years, to use them as network repeaters, could communicate through them.
In fact, she progressed with the overtaking process quite a bit while they were out of contact, because unlike before where she could only see them, she could now talk to them directly, well at least to Aster and Felicia whose soul cultivations were the strongest in what spirit sense regarded in the group.
'Are you all okay, you where out of reach for quite some time and things have gotten quite interesting out here', said Eris.
'Sorry we had a situation to deal with earlier, but now everything is fine, I also learned the story behind this place and it is related to a Divine Firmament', answered Aster.
'Hoh, that means it is safe to talk about it inside this secret realm, just like it happened at the one you brought Mylene previously, right?', asked Eris.
'Yeah, we'll discuss about it later, how's the situation outside?'.
Aster wanted to know if the Fritz had noticed that yin obstruction which trapped everyone in the middle area of the forest, not to mention the tides of yin spirit beasts which had started to attack despite the three suns being on the sky.
'I wanted to ask the same, earlier I felt a huge wave of yin energy spreading through the whole place, after that, many of the participants started dying, among which some of their elders had started to swarm this place to demand an explanation, and now they are making modifications to allow the Genesis Manifestation elders that came to enter', she said.
Aster chuckled; the Fritz had bitten off more than what they can chew, in their try to appeal to those armored guys, they agitated the spirit beast protecting the cage in the center of the forest, in fact there is a possibility that the Glacial Liger had woken up and is trying to escape or something like that too.
That would explain that yin obstruction, since the spirit beast naturally wants to swallow and absorb the spirit ice to further evolve, who could want to let go of such a precious resource after all.
Aster raised his head and looked at the sky, the suns will be setting down in a couple of hours, and they needed to move to find a place to spend the night, since the beasts will only be getting wilder now.
'It's better to discuss things face to face, do you think you'll have enough authority over the surveillance formations to directly enter along with Agnes, soon?', he asked.
If there were Law Integration spirit beasts, then he was going to need Eris and Agnes to fight against them.
'In a few hours yes, but I think it's better to use the opening that the Fritz are creating for the elders of all the other participants, to directly jump to where you are, I just need you to work as the coordinate, I would say that in twelve hours they should be ready, the others will have to rush from the start point, so we'll have time to get some advantage over them'.
Aster nodded, naturally Eris's rune mastering abilities were higher than the ones of the Fritz, even with the interference she could open a portal to his side, instead of the entrance of the forest, like the others.
'Please do so, last time Mylene had some fun, so prepare for a good fight, there are Law Integration enemies in this place'.
After saying that, Aster could feel the happy fluctuations of Eris's soul energy, which made him laugh, he then cut the communications since they couldn't stay still in this open area, the beast will start to appear anytime.
"Let's find a place to spend the night, before it gets darker, ladies", said Aster.
"Mm", the girls nodded and they split into pairs like before, the difference is that this time Nerissa was with them and she tagged along with Aster.
It wasn't hard to tell she had something to say, based on her expression, Aster didn't ask the evil spirit to only speak to him, because this encounter with something that surpassed the limits of the Heavenly Quadrants, was also her fortunate encounter.
He had no right to deprive her from it as it is beneficial for her cultivation path, naturally if she was an enemy, then Aster would have killed her, but he is sure she isn't so there is no harm to it.
"When you stare at someone, try to not leak sword intent, it makes it a bit too obvious", jokingly said Aster.
Those pretty blue limpid eyes of hers were staring at him quite intensely while they ran through the forest looking for a place to stay, the map the evil spirit made only covered the center of the forest since the middle area for him could be covered by flying, as he would have been a peak Transcending being after its revival.
Nerissa's eyes relaxed a bit before she said.
"I was wondering why you are staying in a middle ranked Stellar System, with your talent you would be on the top even at a high ranked one, you even have big sister Agnes's backing you after all".
Aster shrugged as he got back at her.
"I could say the same of you, miss Valentina is your master, and you can cross a major division to fight".
Nerissa remained silent for a moment as she looked at her blue jade sword, Valentina told her that she could stay until she entered the Transcending realms, or she could stay until she had to return to her native place, she decided to follow her master to whom she owes so much and she doesn't regret it one bit.
Unknown to her, Valentia did it as a trial, since the resources she gave her were on par with what the people from the main branches of her family had, she didn't follow her by greed and that's why she gifted her that Immortal grade sword when Nerissa recognized her as her master, though they treated each other more like sisters.
Aster frowned, there wasn't any place to spend the night in the vicinity and it was starting to get darker.
'Ladies, come to where I am, this is taking too much time, I'll make a place to rest', said Aster to the girls, though his spirit sense.
He then just looked for an open area where there weren't any trees nearby, and used one of the giant arms of the golden armor to dig a hole into the ground, with the giant hands of the armor it didn't take him too much to create a hole of about one 150 square meters, once the girls arrived at where he was, he asked Camila to cover the place with metal before he covered it once again with the earth, he excavated earlier.
"Open an entrance for us, let's get inside as soon as possible", said Aster to Camila, he has been having a bad premonition since a couple of minutes ago.
"Mm", Camila noticed Aster's expression and she waved her hand to finish the last touches, which were some conducts to let air flow into the underground shelter they made, then an opening appeared on the ground and the girls jumped into it followed by Aster.
Since it was built in a rush, it was dark since Aster didn't have time to take out the lamps and other furniture, but now that they were safe inside the shelter, he snapped his fingers and took out the beds as well as the lamps and the portable bath.
"You could also notice it right?", asked Felicia to Aster, to which he nodded.
"Yeah, that guy's information wasn't completely right, there isn't one Law Integration spirit beast, there are at least three of them, and each lead their own pack, the three armies had started fighting".
As soon as Aster finished speaking, the ground trembled a bit, luckily Aster asked Camila to reinforce the walls with metal, or the shelter would have crumbled, they were still in the middle area, so the strongest spirit beast that appeared was at most at the Sea of Knowledge realm, the problem is that there were a lot of them.
The three suns hadn't left the sky, and the beast had started appearing everywhere, this time they weren't only fighting the undead, but fighting among themselves, so beastly roars could be heard coming from everywhere within the forest.
Not everyone was as lucky or more accurately as fast as Aster in reacting, the group of the armored guys which had increased in number after other people gathered to follow them, in exchange of protection, only noticed the beasts after they had appeared.
They also built shelters in the ground, but only three were finished in time, and so out of the around eight thousand they have gathered, only three thousand were able to hid in time, before the crazed spirit beasts appeared and started killing everything in their way.
"Ahhh, no, open the door!", one poor guy was bitten by a large lizard and his legs were thorn apart, he tried to knock on the ground but was ignored and it turned into food for the lizard.
Inside the main shelter, Renard who watched the previous scene was pale, five thousand people were turning into food for the spirit beasts outside, he thanked the heavens that he was able to follow the group of the Castle Armored sect, since even under these circumstances, they didn't seem to be worried at all.
"Senior brother Patrick, how far are we from our destination?", he asked, the sooner they finished the mission, the sooner they could leave this place, which has turned into a deathly area, he didn't know what they did to stimulate the yin on the atmosphere but it was too effective, the beasts that were appearing were the ones at the border of the deep area, most of the participants never imagined they will get to see them, or more accurately to die under their teeth and claws.
"According to the Yang Sealing Compass, our objective is in the center of the forest this time, tomorrow we'll arrive at the area where the immature Diamond Bone Orchid was found, using the soil in which it grew, we will be able to calculate the approximate direction of the gully grown one, with the merit we'll all go up a few notches in status", said Patrick as he walked towards his private room followed by a couple of girls, as he ignored the screams outside.
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