With Agnes’s lead, they soon arrived at the center of the neutral city, besides a huge clear area where a stage was being set up, there were four big buildings separated by a few kilometers from each other, and another two minor ones which were built near two of the large ones, clearly showing they were related.
Besides that, floating in the sky there was a large black stone plate with names written in a font similar to runes, emblems and other words appeared next to them, those on the bottom changed from time to time, but from the middle point onwards that wasn’t the case.
Aster and the others descended in front of one of the two lesser buildings, a small palace completely made out of a light green jade-like material, the entrance had an elegant design with black tiles and four flags positioned at both sides.
Besides the flag with the black sword there was one with a green herb, one with a silver anvil and the last one had a light blue cauldron emblem.
Something that caught Aster’s attention was that as they flew, he saw different color variations of the same emblems, but the restaurant only had one of those in the front.
Agnes noticed Aster’s curiosity and she explained as they walked towards the entrance of the green palace.
“While today there are factions within the four peaks, the emblems you see here, are the original ones decided by the founders… you’ll learn more about it once the trials start”.
In her mind, Agnes was dying to invite everyone over to the black sword faction, his words of them remaining as guest elders were still fresh in her mind.
Being in a faction had its advantages but at the same time they had duties to fulfill, and after interacting with Aster she was sure of something, he will never take orders from anyone.
And it wasn’t only him, he couldn’t imagine any of the other girls listening to anyone but him.
‘Ahhh, fuck it, the worst thing big sister can do is make me try her wacky experiments’, she yelled in her mind before she abruptly turned around and placed her hands on Aster’s shoulders.
“Join the Black Sword peak, I guarantee you full freedom from any obligation without reducing the benefits”.
In her excitement Agnes forgot that they were in public and that as a peak Genesis Manifestation, her physical strength was no joke.
Luckily Aster’s body was tough enough to only feel a bit of tension on his shoulders, on the other hand, he was surprised that Agnes dared to offer something like that, she is an internal elder, it’s not a low position but above them there were core elders and beyond that there were still the supreme elders which were in charge of managing the whole sect, because the ancestors or founders had other things to do with their time.
In other words, she was now taking a decision which was exceeding her authority by far, but it was beneficial for him and the girls so Aster had no reason to decline.
“Sure, you better not take back your words”.
Agnes had the sudden urge to jump and celebrate, but seeing the people around them starting to direct their attentions to them, she kept her cool and nodded.
“For now, let me introduce you to the food that the best spirit chefs which our sect could hire, can prepare”.
Listening to that, Alice and Kana immediately smiled, as they followed Agnes inside the green palace.
Surprisingly there were no guards at the entrance, but there was a hostess who seemed to recognize Agnes.
“Big sister Fey, how may I help you today?”, said the hostess with a polite expression.
“I want a room in the fifth floor”.
The hostess’s smile froze, she doubted for a moment but was immediately interrupted by a woman who was coming from upstairs.
“Let her in”.
Agnes turned to see the newcomer and she nodded.
The woman did the same and then smiled towards Aster and the others as she invited in.
“Please follow me”.
Everyone went upstairs, despite the “small” dimensions of the green palace, that was only in comparison to the other building which was a few hundreds of meters away, the green palace was in fact quite spacious.
Kana curiously looked at the open spaces who were full to the brim with disciples eating or chatting with each other, each level of the palace had two floors the open space and a second one which was closed and separated in many private rooms, after going through the first two levels, Aster finally saw a guard.
Or in this case guards, there were two women wearing light metal armor stationed at both sides of the staircase, which to the girl’s surprise were early-stage Sea of Knowledge cultivators.
‘Someone who could be the ruler of a star cluster, working as a guard’, thought Tiana as they walked pass them.
The same scene repeated on the third and fourth levels, where there were no guards, but judging by the cultivation of the woman that came to receive them, it was possible that she was the guard, she is a Void Manipulation cultivator after all.
The woman opened door of one of the fifteen doors which occupied the fifth floor and waited until everyone entered and took a seat before she followed, closing the door behind her.
“Agnes, I know you like to not follow the rules, but I hope you have a good reason to ask for a room which is usually reserved for a supreme elder?”.
Agnes pointed at Aster with a bright smile in her face.
“Is the first male core disciple on the whole history of the sect enough for you, Melisa?”.
The woman called Melisa raised an eyebrow, although she had no way to know Aster’s real age, unless she thoughtfully inspected him with her spirit sense or using a special treasure to measure it, she could tell he was only an early-stage Stellar Constellation realm cultivator.
On the other hand, the last person that would compliment anyone who didn’t deserve it, regardless of status of background, would be Agnes, hell she has insulted a supreme elder right on his face once before.
“Oh, that being the case, the food is on the house, please enjoy your meal”, said Melisa before she excused herself.
Aster turned to see Agnes who was all smiles right now, and he bitterly smiled.
“Now that you mention it, can you even become a core disciple from the very beginning?”, he asked.
Agnes nodded at him.
“There is one way… and no one has achieved it before, originally I thought Tiana would be the first, but now I think we’ll have five new core disciple candidates, in this batch”.
Leaving that aside, Aster experienced the innovations that an upper middle ranked stellar system had to offer, there was no waiter, the whole table had a small transport spirit formation engraved.
They only needed to select their dishes and use the communication talisman on the service bell, then the food will be prepared and sent through the spatial formation on the table.
It was quite luxurious considering the amount of spirit jades needed to power spatial type spirit formations, on the other hand the prices of the food here were also quite high, and the options of the menu reached even the Void Manipulation stage in terms of the ingredients used.
After their orders were placed, the food appeared in front of the diners, in Kana’s case Aster ordered for him and her since she was sitting on his lap.
Needless to say, but the food was in another level, for the first time the quality and the skills of the chefs totally surpassed the ones of the old woman back at the fragrant pavilion, that wasn’t all, the food was prepared so that it had beneficial effects on them.
With each bite, Aster felt the spirit energy circulating through his body, if a normal human was able to resist it, then it would probably jump all the way from being a non-cultivator, to the peak of the core condensation realm, the effects of the food were smoother compared to eating the meat directly too.
Lilia smiled to her son, he was now experiencing the huge gap between low and middle ranked stellar systems, the standards were impossible to compare with each other.
Everyone enjoyed their meal to the fullest as the large number of empty plates pilled next to Alice and Tiana, Kana limited to try little pieces of what Aster ordered besides her own dishes of course.
Satisfied with their meals, the time passed quite fast and before they noticed the stage was already completely set, Aster saw a lot of people arriving from all the sides to what was originally an empty space.
There were even personal sized spaceships which were arriving just now.
“It’s time, the trials are starting, I don’t know about the others but the first one is an age and talent test… I can’t go with you to the main plaza because I’m the one assigned from the Black Sword faction, to judge the aspirants”.
After saying that Agnes left the room without wishing them good luck or nothing like that, she knew they didn’t need it.
Aster and the girls followed not too long after, while it would have been hard to reach the front of the plaza with all the new aspirants that gathered, Aster simply let out a bit of his spirit pressure and the people unconsciously parted a way for them.
Of course, that caught the attention of others, that and the parade of beauties who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, by the moment they reached their destination thousands of gazes were looking at them.
But they weren’t the only ones, the personal spaceships which were floating opened their gates, and groups of people descended from them.
Casually one of the spots at the front which was occupied by Aster and the others “belonged” to one of those groups, and seeing that they didn’t move aside, the oldest looking person within them, snorted.
But as he was about to use his spirit pressure to force them to move, he was glanced at by Lilia and his pupils contracted like needles, clenching his fists he whispered something at some of his companions and they all landed at other place a bit behind the other groups.
“I-Isn’t that the people of the Fire Desert sect, the people of one of the top ten star clusters in Galatia backed off!”, mumbled someone starting a ruckus among the people gathered here.
‘Here we go’, thought Aster as he saw Lilia sticking her tongue at him.