"Could it be that those guys managed to sohow obtain more things before the spirit beasts appeared, they seed to have it easier when it ca to harvesting resources, so perhaps their affiliation is a profession related force?", said the brown-haired guy, Jas.
"It could be, hey tell us how many resources did you obtain", demanded Maurice, to which the girls from the sect frowned to then say.
"Why should we!".
"Yeah, we didn’t receive any help from you unlike those guys, so we don’t owe you anything!".
Apparently, Maurice was deceived by the young and pretty faces of the girls from the sect, as well as their harmonious behavior from earlier, because he was clearly thrown off by the sudden fierceness with which he was t.
And after the initial shock brought by the previous, he of course answered with anger.
"Why, you ask, because I say so...", unfortunately, this ti it wasn’t the girls from the sect the ones to answer him, but Aster himself.
"Oh really?", casually said Aster to then add.
"Greedy pieces of trash like you would have already tried to rob us from the resources we collected if you were allowed to, but instead you went through the trouble of telling those guys a hint or two in exchange for the resources, so you hold no authority here at all, in other words, you are re errand boys that were sent to welco us".
"...", silence reigned for a mont, before those two jumped out of their cloud, landing not too far from where Aster was standing, though they tried to keep composed expressions, they were clearly ticked off by Aster’s words.
"It looks like the low difficulty of the trial road you faced, has gone up all the way to your head kid, or perhaps you believe the no aggression rule is absolute", said Jas.
"And unfortunately for you, you are only partially right, after several "tests" we have learned that while killing, gravely wounding and other "activities" are forbidden during the protection period for newcors, nothing prevents us from teaching you a little lesson as your seniors", added Maurice as he glared at the girls from the sect, to then say.
"After all, you won’t be able to use spirit energy until after using those resources, and it will take weeks before they are absorbed since, again, no spirit energy can be used prior to that, though I’ll have to give up the rits I was going to get in exchange for completing this damn punishnt mission assigned by the captain, you will be getting your ass handed to us "errand boys", for the next two weeks".
And with those words, the blond-haired guy ford a fist which he aid at Aster’s face, making a whole bunch of those fierce girls, tense their legs as they proposed to swarm that guy, in order to beat him into a pulp, regardless of whether they could use spirit energy or not, but they refrained from doing so because they saw the ruthless and violent red eyed sister, in other words Alice, not pay any attention to those two guys.
And then we have Wade, who was in cloud nine seeing Aster becoming hostile with people that have been in this place for a longer ti than them, at least until he saw Aster smirk at him.
’T-That bastard, don’t tell ...’, Wade’s eyes contracted like needles, but before he could warn Maurice, the damage was done, as in the blond guy’s fist stopped midway, thanks to the appearance of a good old friend, the blue flaming board, but it didn’t appear in the sky like at the trial road, but in front of Maurice, who stopped on his tracks, as a confused expression appeared on his face.
[Hostility between participants outside of the allowed periods of competition is forbidden... repetitive violations to the rules have been detected, the perpetrator will be administrated a fitting punishnt]
"Huh, what the hell is this thing talking about?", said Maurice as he tried to slap the blue flaming board away, and then another familiar sight made its way back from Wade and the other’s mories, as in the sight of soone being engulfed by those terrifying dark blue flas.
"Aghhhhh!", however unlike what Wade and the others expected, Maurice’s cultivation wasn’t decreased like it happened when they got punished, nor did he receive a penalty in any of the three paths, no, he was outright burned to a crisp and died not too long after he started screaming.
"Maurice!!!", the brown-haired Jas, scread at disbelief, one of his teammates just died for the first ti since they arrived at this place.
"Hey, red lightning cloud, a participant was killed out of a "duel", it was that guy’s doing!", shouted Jas to the sky, which actually resulted in a large red cloud to manifest above the area, red lightning started crackling all over it in a nacing way, but apparently the blue flaming board wasn’t done yet.
[Irregularities on the participants and rule enforcing entity have been detected, administrating punishnt]
And with those words, the flaming board disappeared, and not too long after, the whole sky, or at least the extension which all the present people’s eyes could see, lit up in dark blue flas, what followed was that red cloud being evaporated until nothing was left.
Jas was also engulfed in dark blue flas, but surprisingly he didn’t burn to death on the spot unlike Maurice, that being said, he fell to ground and rolled due to pain, while at the sa ti, any signs of his cultivation base completely disappeared, he wasn’t like Wade and the others, who were being restrained, but he genuinely beca a normal person in a matter of fractions of a second.
And as if that wasn’t enough, a small cloud appeared in front of him, from which the voice of an angered man, could be heard.
"What did you two bastards do... aghhhh!", the ssage was incomplete, but Jas whose face was pale, could recognize the voice, that was the captain of their group, and judging by his scream, he didn’t die, which ant that if he ever saw him again, he was going to be killed by him.
However, right now that was the least of his worries, because the blue flaming board once again appeared in front of everyone.
[Benefits obtained by breaking the rules will be confiscated and the perpetrators will have their gains reduced in half during the next developnt period as penalty, please wait while preparations are completed]
And with that, the resources that both Maurice and Jas had taken from Wade’s group, vanished into thin air, and speaking of Wade’s group, they were judged to have broken the rules, so the previous 60% of resources they had left, was further diminished, in half to be exact.
"No, my Golden Jade Ginseng!", roared a male elder from the Pleasure Palace, similar sentences with just different nas of resources could be heard coming from all over Wade’s side, apparently the part that was confiscated was selected randomly, so not everyone lost what they had obtained.
Still, the overall anger on Wade’s side skyrocketed, and of course said anger was directed to the representatives that accepted the deal, since that was what got them penalized, but of course, Wade and the others, imdiately shifted the bla to Jas.
"Capture him, we will have him return till the last resource he made us lose!", said Wade, though fighting was indeed prohibited, they could restrain soone so long as no violence was really involved.
Seeing the angry mob coming at him, the brown-haired guy who was now a normal person, having lost his cultivation, tried to look for a way out of his predicant, and as if he had seen a godsend, he turned to see Aster and bowed his head as he exclaid.
"I have knowledge about the nearby areas and other groups that have been stuck here for so ti, and unlike Maurice and so others from my previous team I never killed nor did anything despicable to anyone, please take in!".
"Huh?", Aster raised an eyebrow at the sudden proposition, indeed, if Jas had crossed the line like Maurice had obviously done, he would have been taken out by the flaming board, instead he got his cultivation taken away, so he probably only beat up a couple of people during his stay in this place.
’Oh well, we could use a temporary errand boy, specially since he didn’t recognize Wade, which ans there is a high chance he cos from a Heavenly Quadrant outside of the four known ones’, thought Aster to then say.
"Deal", with that, Jas imdiately got up and rushed to hide behind the group from the Myriad Occupation sect, which of course made Wade see red.
"Why are you interfering Lord of the Twin Sword Valley, he has caused my side to incur a great loss, he has to pay for it", said the Cascade young Lord trying to remain calm, imagine how much his blood pressure increased, when he was t with a simple and plain.
"Get lost", it was Valentina the one that spoke though, and while Wade quite literally was shaking due to anger, he stopped his side from trying to get Jas, because the image of the flaming board killing soone directly for the first ti, was still fresh in his mory.
"We’ll rember this", said Wade, though he suffered a loss, he still took a sigh of relief to his insides, since he managed to shift the animosity that had soared through the sky on his side, from him and the other representatives, to Aster, since he prevented them from capturing Jas.
"Let’s go", and with that, Wade’s side took distance from the side of the Myriad Occupation sect, since again, the land was really vast and the further they were from each other, the less chances of conflict were.
...
Now that the annoying pests were gone, the girls from the sect all turned to see Aster, with obvious curiosity glowing in their eyes, the sudden change from fierceness to cuteness, made Jas who was standing still, trying to not even breath too hard in order to not get noticed by said previously fierce girls, feel the urge to cry, unfortunately for him, no one paid him any attention.
The topic of interest right now, was how did Aster know that the flaming board was going to interfere, since from beginning to end, he who is not soone to react, but to take action first, didn’t show any sign of being on guard earlier when Maurice tried to hit him.
Even Valentina was curious about it, though she didn’t think Aster would have needed any help to deal with a re Star Tribulation cultivator, even if he had no access to his spirit energy, he has destroyed Transcending realm cultivators openly after all, and those guys didn’t feel like anything special.
Seeing those cute expecting eyes gazing at him, Aster cleared his throat to then explain.
"Ahem, arrogant trash are bound to flaunt at every given chance, and yet they didn’t ntion anything about scores, but what gave them away was the fact that they lacked the real fear for conflict and rules that would have been ingrained in people like them that had reached this place, which ant that they haven’t t the blue flaming board in the trial road, unlike us", he said, which made quite a few girls nod in understanding.
There is a clear example of the previous on Wade’s side, since no matter how angry they are at Aster, they still don’t dare to act on it, because the flaming board made an excellent work in showing what the consequences of breaking the rules, would be.
"The rest was easy to guess, they must have co through a "low grade gate", instead of a "high grade" one like us, which should also be why they don’t know about scores, they didn’t get any chance to benefit from the trials they faced which were easier than the ones we went through and thus their results aren’t graded".
’No way, he guessed as much just by our attitudes...’, thought Jas, he indeed rembers sothing about the gate the crossed through being a "low grade" one, but no one paid it any attention, because all the other gates that the people on his team were aware of, were also low-grade ones, what didn’t match for him was the fact that Aster said that the trials they faced were easy, which wasn’t the truth, they suffered a lot to pass them.
Which made him wonder, what kind of trials had these group of people, his life was tied to now, had faced
The previous made sense to those girls, however it didn’t explain how did Aster know the flaming board was going to interfere, but the answer to that was quite simple, Aster took out a small tal tablet from his pocket in order to show it to them.
That was what he obtained when the main distortion opened back then, and turns out could be used to see if the flaming board, which was the one that bestowed it to Aster, was present or not, an authority related privilege probably, Aster hadn’t noticed it before, because in the trial road they were already being supervised by the flaming board.
But after they crossed that portal, the tal tablet felt different, though the change didn’t last long.
"The very mont those two sent spirit transmissions, with information on how to cheat, the flaming board was already watching, you can imagine the rest", concluded Aster, he simply set up a trap for Maurice and Jas and they perfectly felt for it.
While that satisfied the curiosity of the girls from the sect, Jas wanted to cry, if they had just followed through the mission they had, things wouldn’t have co to this, but now even the issuer of said mission, in other words that red lightning cloud was gone, so he couldn’t even begin to think what was going to happen from here on.
What he did know is that his captain and so of his previous team, should still be alive, since he wasn’t killed either, and they will for sure try to take revenge for this, so he had to stick close to this group.
[Preparations have been completed, a proper developnt period will be implented for all the participants in the area]
And with those words, after a mont of silence, the ground below all the presents started trembling, it wasn’t a violent shaking though, since no one was thrown out of balance, in fact not even the spirit beasts that could be seen in the vicinity, showed any reaction to the slight tremor that was ongoing.
Then after a couple of second of the previous, a tall earth wall erged from the ground, separating Wade’s side from the one of the Myriad occupation sect, but that wasn’t all, far into the distance, another wall could be seen rising from the ground, as if limiting the area.
That being said, the area surrounded by the walls that were erging, was massive, Aster couldn’t see the end of it with his dragon eyes that weren’t being combined with spirit energy at least, but he was sure there were many different environnts included in each area.
’A body of water, a forest and a mountain area are within view, there must be other things a few hours of travel away from this place too, but what’s the idea, just to separate us so that we won’t fight each other?’, thought Aster, and as if to answer him, the flaming board appeared on the sky, probably because the ssage was being transmitted to not only their groups, but anyone that was in this place, at the sa ti.
[From this mont onwards a developnt period of seven days will be given to all the groups, all progress obtained outside of the gate will be sealed, survive and develop to the best of your capacities, the mission and exchange monoliths will be enabled to help the participants, good luck]
What followed was a collective blue glow which reflected on the sky caused by all the people that resided in this place being engulfed in dark blue flas, which caused so to panic, rembering the previous experience, while others simply remained quiet, as they had nothing to be afraid of, like Aster’s group for example.
Still, the result was enough to even take the usually composed girls from the sect, by surprise, they were now experiencing sothing new for the first ti in their lives, as in they had beca mortals with their cultivation, lineages, constitutions gone, even the clothes, accessories, and armor on them lost any special traits they used to have, they didn’t have weapons on them though, because they were sent into their respective spatial treasures by the flaming board, earlier in the road.
Their surprised reactions weren’t worth ntioning compared to the chaos that seed to be ongoing at Wade’s side though, based on the screams that could be heard from the other side of the wall, things were out of control there.
"M-My yang energy, no!!!", scread a male elder from the Pleasure Palace, to which an elder from the Mountain Amber retorted.
"What’s that worth crying for, I can’t feel my connection with the earth attribute, it’s like I have beco one of those mbers from trash branches of the family!".
’Even the clothes that had my blood in it were reduced to regular clothes, the properties are still there, but have been completely sealed, even I would have trouble to release the Paragon Body for a long period of ti now’, thought Aster as he closed and opened his right hand a couple of tis, in order to get used to his new state.
This wasn’t new to him though, because unlike practically all the other presents who were fed resources even before they were born, aning that they were already cultivators since the mont they ca to this world, he was born a mortal, not out of Lilia’s lack of care, but because of that incident in which he saved her life while still in the womb.
Seeing the girls from the sect though with still uncomfortable expressions on their pretty faces, return to being calm, Aster chuckled to then say.
"Now, don’t worry, your cultivation it’s still there, it’s only been sealed quite tightly by the flaming board, aren’t you more interested in what are those two things?", what Aster was pointing at, were two stone three-ter-tall pillars that had erged from the ground not too far from them.
One of them was blue and the other one was red, and certainly they caught the interest of the girls from the sect, Aster already guessed what their use was, but those girls needed sothing to distract them from the previous.
"Woah, there is a list of techniques we can obtain by exchanging the rits we got at the road, there are other tools... but no weapons or anything like that", said a girl from the Black Sword faction who had placed her hand on the blue stone pillar.
"This one has so missions we can accept to obtain rits, but the missions are quite strange, stay in a safe shelter from day one, build a proper fence, I think the only one related to cultivation is to attain mastery over one technique provided in the exchange center?", mumbled another girl from the Orange Lotus.
’Speaking of a safe shelter, those spirit beasts are now "dangerous", their cultivation has also been sealed like us, but they are naturally equipped to survive in the wilderness unlike us, I guess there will be a lot of things to do in the next seven days’, thought Aster.
Luckily, they didn’t gain the enmity of the herbivore spirit beasts earlier, since they didn’t attack them, but more importantly, since they didn’t spill any blood, there shouldn’t be any predators coming this way, for the ti being at least.
And that was perfect for the first step that anyone should take when arriving at a completely unknown place in the wilderness, which is exploring the area to decide where to settle for the night.
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