Chapter 565 Vivian’s soft heart (part 2)
Before anything, Aster confirmed a few things, just like the elder previously said, there was a space disruption array covering the whole area, so not only space treasures such as spatial rings didn't work, but any space related technique was rendered useless here.
Naturally, since this first stage of this monthly trial, whose limit was the Earth realms, meaning there weren't even Mortal Transcending realm people participating here, the spatial restriction wasn't meant to restrain them, but the life-saving metho they might have.
Galatia stood at the apex of the middle ranked Stellar Systems, and in some aspects, they for sure didn't lose compared to the weakest high ranked Stellar Systems, for example the Myriad Occupation sect, which outclassed each and every sect in all the other middle ranked Stellar Systems, by far.
The point is that, even middle level families and forces, want their young generation to enter the Myriad Occupation sect, and even if they have to be at the bottom of the food chain like it happens to 90% of the male disciples, outside of the sect their statuses aren't exactly low.
So even if they have to tighten their belts, they will go out of their way to get their representatives, some life saving measures, such as talismans, because even if they can't climb up in the sect and most end up giving up and leave to join the Pleasure Palace sect, their time in the Myriad Occupation sect has its uses.
The previous contributed to the cases where the male disciples at the initial stages of the sect, acted unrestrained which led to them being utterly crushed by the members of the law enforcing hall and the punishment hall, in other words the faction of the old Salazar.
'Heh, it seems those godmothers of mine are quite serious when it comes to the monthly trials', thought Aster.
If those life saving methods were allowed, just by spending money, one would be able to get further into the trial despite not having the qualifications to hold whoever rank they reached.
And that wasn't all, among the tons of formations Aster's eyes could discern, there were some that caused an increase of fatigue, there were traps that would summon spirit beasts, and more importantly, there was an insanely amount of different poisonous things all over the place.
Everything was perfectly calculated to create an environment that would force all these members of the young generation, to face unpredictable and harsh situations, even the guardian of the trial, had a purpose, an elder from the Orange Lotus faction was selected, because they specialize in antidotes and healing alchemy products.
From time to time there were some poor bastards who thought they were smart and drank or applied a long-lasting universal antidote, before trying to take the trial, technically doing so wasn't against the rules, unless you were caught, in which case the guardian wouldn't tell you, but upon entering the trial, you'll appear in an extremely poisonous area, where you will be affected by countless of different poisons, as a punishment.
By the way, so far no one has managed to trick the guardian, in part because of their expertise and in part because of a detection formation which is said to have been laid out personally by the Ancestors of the Alchemy and Rune Mastering Peaks.
Even using spirit sense or soul energy was tricky here, because there were poisons that could affect you through it, spread here and there, also the spots, poison types and traps changed all the time, it was a strangely controlled yet unpredictable environment.
"This trial is set to imitate a regular mission, in the real cruel world where you can die at any moment of carelessness, luckily I have Vivian with me, I'll leave the leading role to you", jokingly said Aster.
Naturally with his dragon eyes he didn't even need to use spirit sense much less his soul energy, to detect the countless traps and poisons, not to mention this level of poison won't be able to harm him, even if he were to swim in them, courtesy of his monstrous dragon body.
Which is why he brought Vivian here for their date, this was a picnic for him, and the idea was to see how Vivian faired under pressure, these poisons were harmless for her as well, but her body constitution can get aggressive due to her being surrounded by threats, Aster wanted to see how much her control has progressed.
"Mm, follow me and move in the exact way I do", said Vivian with an enthusiastic expression on her pretty face, every one has their own role in a group, when venturing outside, detecting poisonous things is an important role.
Initially in Aster's family, they all were multitask, which is the basic level of a group, they all did a bit of everything, even Lilia had some experience in making elixirs and pills as well as some forging, though her assigned area was 100% the battlefield.
But now, slowly but surely, they were moving forward to much more high level group by dividing activities, as the talents of each girl had started to shine, Sarina who is aspiring to become a spirit chef for example, the little girl who has the potential to cultivate spirit herbs, not to mention Mylene and Eris who are already the designated pill and elixir Alchemist and Rune Master of the family, respectively.
The previous even includes Aster, since he has taken interest in spirit blacksmithing, and now there is Vivian whose focus is between being a poison master and an antidote master, a different area compared to Mylene who focuses in concocting pills and brewing elixirs, it's worth mentioning that their similar fields of expertise, as well as Kana introducing her, made it so Mylene was the first one to which Vivian opened to, well, besides Alice whose unfiltered shameless character, made it easy for her to approach the introvert white haired Vivian.
The way Aster and Vivian were casually strolling through the plain, without having found any setback so far, naturally caught the attention of the other participants of the trial, there were some that even tried to shamelessly follow them from behind, but they couldn't fully imitate or follow Vivian's steps, like Aster, so they ended up triggering a trap or stepping on a poisonous item, which ended with them rolling on the ground in pain, or suffocating.
Something interesting is that only the one who triggered either the trap or the poisonous item, was attacked by them, a good counter measure for those guys that just wanted to leech or mess with others.
The green plain was just the introductory part of the first stage, the poisons there, were mostly paralyzing ones, and the river that could openly be found, cleansed them away, but it required some time, so while you could rush through the plain, and then jump in the river, which was blocked at the entrance of the forest, you'll still lose time waiting for the poisons to be cleansed.
Also, the river won't help you recover the energy and stamina that the poisons would take from you, so it wasn't a help, but more of a trap for those that were careless or believed there was a shortcut, it was a mentality test.
her pretty gray/lavender eyes, observed the path ahead of them, she also slightly wrinkled her nose from to time, and in some cases Aster amusingly observed Vivian serious yet fun-filled expression as her pretty gray/lavender eyes, observed the path ahead of them, she also slightly wrinkled her nose from to time, and in some cases crouched down to carefully discern between two different spots.
The trickiest part about poisonous things, is that a lot look quite similar to non-poisonous ones, and naturally the one who created this place, used that to make the participants as miserable as possible.
Even the grass had patches where it was poisonous and parts that weren't, for those who could bypass that, there were the traps, which basically consisted in vials and pills that were buried on the ground, and would break over the slightest amount of pressure applied on them, and lastly there were underground cages with poisonous spirit beasts, that would be released by someone stepping onto the detection formations above them.
The last ones, however, gave the participants a hint, in the form of an almost unnoticeable faint scent of the poison that the beasts as well as those pills and vials, had, the trick is that it was a replica of the scent of said poisons, so there was no side effect by smelling it, meaning you wouldn't notice it is poisonous, unless you had knowledge about it of course.
And Vivian has been accurately guiding Aster through all that, without having triggered any of it, while she was having fun by solving this complicated puzzle.
Aster who was smiling as he observed Vivian, looked backwards as he felt ill intent coming from a lot of the other participants, but he limited to smirk at them, with a provocative expression.
Vivian was having her fun, so it was time for him to have his.
"Targeting the alchemist is an effective way to deal with an enemy group, the question here is, if you have what it takes to get past through the one guarding said alchemist", said Aster at the groups of participants that were clearly approaching them with unfriendly intentions.
Robbing others was allowed here, in fact it was encouraged, because when the bottles containing the pills that each participant had to buy to enter this trial, were opened when the participant was in need of the pill inside the were automatically disqualified.
That being said, others could take the bottles and open them, to eliminate the owners of those bottles, alternatively you could beat the others until the arrays that prevented the participants from killing each other, were triggered and took out the defeated participant.
It was quite a realistic situation, for a trial that was taken in a sect's main planet, you could be robbed, beat up, coerced into obeying the strong etc. Naturally there were some things that weren't allowed, any kind of sexual harassment was strictly forbidden, there were surveillance formations, with members of the law enforcing hall on duty 24/7, so any poor bastard that thought of this place as place to hunt the female disciples, would be processed according to the rules of the sect.
The dignity of the disciples was guaranteed as long as one was inside of the territories of the sect, outside was a different thing though, the sect was supposed to push the disciples to become stronger after all, if they were protected all the time then they would fall behind, which is why, taking missions outside of the sect was obligatory for all the disciples, even Core ones, the only privilege is that they had to take only one every certain period of time.
"D-Don't be afraid, he can't use his sword here, the elder gave them high grade pills, even without opening the bottle, just the medicinal aura radiated by those pills will help you get deeper into the forest!", said one of the many guys that were targeting Aster.
"Yeah, and he can't use that unfair formation to increase his strength, during the trials, unless someone with a much higher cultivation attacks him, the one who takes him down will skyrocket in terms of popularity and will receive the attention of the sect, don't hesitate!", added another guy, who of course had the emblem of the Blacksmith Peak, where most male disciples aspired to rise in the ranks, especially since Edward had emerged all of a sudden.
Aster of course knew that those pills were on a different level, than the ones that other disciples could choose to buy, not only they weren't available for anyone that wasn't a Core disciple in the top hundred of the Heavenly Ranks, but the price was quite high too.
Also, the pill bought, regardless of whether you used it or not, it could only be kept by those who entered the leaderboard, which was limited to ten people per batch, it was a trophy that brought fame to those who possessed it, and it was also one of the items that when appearing in an auction would fetch a higher bid than its real price, due to its meaning.
Aster laughed, these guys believed that he was defenseless without the Twin Sword Valley formation, or his sword, but it was understandable, not everyone would believe his continuous achievements were real, or they thought his fame was exaggerated by the female disciples due to his popularity, so this was their chance to gain the fame of having defeated the dreamed idol of a vast portion of the female disciples… or so they thought.
Aster's image suddenly blurred and the next thing those guys knew, was that the first one to point at him earlier, was being held by his neck and lifted into the air by Aster quite casually.
"Mm, peak Star Axys realm, no second path, I wouldn't have used my sword against you outside of this place anyway".
"What are you waiting, fucking kill him… aghhh!".
"Booom", the insults of the guy were interrupted when Aster casually smacked him against the ground, making his upper body sink into the ground, exploding a few of the pills and vials buried underground.
Though the poisons here won't have too extreme effects, they caused pain and other incommodities, and spoiler alert, when combined their effects strengthened, so as a result, that guy's screams could be heard coming from the ground as he squirmed trying to get up, but he was in shock due to Aster's attack and the multiple potions entering through a weak area of the body, namely, his eyes and mouth.
Aster casually kicked the guy on the stomach, making his body fly a dew dozens of meters, breaking the ground all the way to there, when the guy stopped moving, his eyes had rolled backwards, and his face was filled with wounds and blood.
The others who were trying to gang up on Aster, took a breath of cold air as they saw the formation forcefully taking out that poor guy, that meant that with a single attack, the opponent was brought to the point where his life was in danger, otherwise the formation wouldn't have activated.
"W-Wait, mercy please… aghhh!", the guy from the Blacksmith Peak immediately turned around to run for it, but Aster casually appeared in front of him, and before he could finish begging, he took a fist to the face, which made a few of his teeth fly out of his mouth, the impact blew him away around a hundred meters, that being said, he managed to stay conscious, because he was a body cultivator.
Still, he immediately took out the bottle with his pill and opened it with a horrified expression, which marked the end for his first and last opportunity to get a reward from this trial, as he was
transported out by the formation.
The others, a total of around twenty cultivators from different peaks and factions, whose realms went from the peak Star Constellation to the peak Star Axys, immediately spread, hoping that other caught the attention of that monster, allowing them to successfully escape.
But their little hopes were crushed as they heard the screams and explosions coming from all over the place, Aster's image flashed as he took out all those guys with just a punch or a kick, he has reached the point where numbers can't threat him since a long time ago after all, these random mob never stood a chance to begin with.
Also, without them noticing, Aster only stepped on the spots that Vivian had marked as safe earlier, so even with him going through the whole nearby area, beating the crap out of those guys, he didn't trigger any trap, or stepped into any poison.
It didn't take him even a couple of minutes to knock out all of them, naturally he gladly took their pill bottles which were the only valuable thing they had on them, since spatial treasures weren't useful here, no one brought them, as robbery was allowed too, Aster and Vivian didn't bother in taking them off anyway.
"Oh well, maybe there is a reward if we gather a few of them and then return it to the guardian elder", said Aster as he used the cape of one of his victims to make a bag in which he put all the bottles, that were now empty since he emptied them, so that the formation would take those fainted guys out, disqualifying them.
Vivian didn't interfere in the fight, because she had her own task, which was keep marking the way, while Aster got rid of the enemies, during the fight, she had mapped a 100% safe route for the next two hundred meters.
"Those fatigue causing formations are new to me, if anything they Vivian's side.
"Aster is a monster, after all those movements you only feel a bit are making me feel a bit hungry", said Aster as he returned to Vivian's side.
"Aster is a monster, after all those movements you only feel a bit hungry, I just did some light activities and I feel as if I haven't eaten in a few days", mumbled Vivian.
Aster was taken aback, this introvert girl, just made a snarky comment, naturally there was no ill intention, in fact she seemed to be waiting for Aster's response, which was him softly laughing.
Only then Vivian seemed to relax.
"Alice told me that friends should joke with each other like this, was it good?", she curiously asked, making Aster bitterly smile.
"Don't believe everything you hear… especially from Alice", he said, as he inwardly cursed that shameless sister of his, for teaching such a thing to the socially unexperienced Vivian.
'And that makes it two pending punishments for her, I guess I'll get to see how these two interact in our next mission', he thought.
"Ahem, how about we look for something to eat, that is part of the trial and more importantly, is part of our date", said Aster.
"Mm~", Vivian happily nodded and then guided the way to a bunch of fruit trees that were a few dozens of meters ahead of them.
The trial lasted three days, which was a single day on the outside, normally that wouldn't be enough for a cultivator to need food, at most body cultivators would feel like having a snack, but that was under normal circumstances.
Inside this trial, there were formations that slowly drained stamina and vitality, the effect would increase depending on the activities done by each person, and the cultivation path they were following.
In other words, the participants needed to eat whether they wanted it or not, it was that or be hungry and lethargic in a place where you could be robbed and disqualified at any moment, if you were to be careless.
There were tons of edible herbs, fruits and even some fishes in the river, the problem was to discern which were poisonous and which weren't, since directly ingesting poison would have a stronger effect than just being exposed to it externally.
'Those godmothers of mine, are quite cruel…', thought Aster, out of all the edible things, around 80% had poisonous properties, in different levels, a minor headache being the softest effect and a really terrible stomachache which would force you to retire from the trial being the worst.
The toughest part, is that you could endure the effects of the poison as long as you were lucky enough to not eat the things with the worst poisons, so it wasn't an immediate disqualification.
Luckily, with Vivian here, finding something to eat without any side effects, among the pile of dangerous things, was a piece of cake.
She collected fruits and a few herbs while Aster caught the fish, she specifically asked him to, as for the water, the one from the river was perfectly clean, the only effect it had was cleansing the minor poisons that could be found in the plain area, nothing more and nothing less.
After getting the ingredients they needed, they advanced a bit more until they reached a proper place to have a rest, under a large tree which wasn't poisonous, Aster took a few twigs and rocks, to lit up a campfire.
Naturally Aster who "didn't" have access to his spirit treasures, nor have fire attribute, should have had it hard to lit a fire, unless he knew some "savage" mundane techniques like hitting a couple of rocks against each other, or crate friction between two twigs.
Of course, with how tough his skin was, Aster could have snapped his fingers and produced sparks, but he left the task to Vivian, who didn't disappoint, an orange flame pattern appeared on her pretty left index finger.
Her finger lit up in flames which she used to lit up a twig, naturally the flames produced by a fiery poison were poisonous, as the wild looking flames on the twig suggested.
But then the pattern on Vivian's finger changed, from that orange flame shape to a light blue icicle, she then touched the twig with her finger, and the flames changed from wild to a normal appearance, in other words she neutralized the poison with another poison.
Aster nodded in approbation, the fire was now safe for cooking, Vivian put the twig over the others and successfully lit up the campfire.
From afar, the other participants observed Aster and Vivian who acted as if they were having a picnic, with varied expressions, some were jealous due to Aster being accompanied by a pretty girl like Vivian, others were afraid since they saw how Aster moped the floor with the ones who aimed to rob him earlier, and there were also those who disdained him for losing time just to flirt.
There was another group with a different sensation, which were some of the female disciples that were looking at Aster personally preparing the food for Vivian, with dreamy eyes.
'How romantic, I wish senior brother would prepare me a meal~', they thought as they also grouped to carefully look for something to eat.
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