If before some people weren’t paying attention to Aster’s group, that changed after that little interaction between them and one of the many groups that descended from spaceships which were floating above the stage.
But soon the topic changed from that friction episode, to something along the lines of “where do these beauties come from”, while not everyone had high backgrounds, there were people which came from the ruler families of their respective star clusters.
In other words, all the talented people from the while stellar system gathered here, and had heard or knew each other to some extent, that’s why such an… “eye catching” group like Aster’s, couldn’t go unnoticed.
“Silence”.
The people started mumbling and whispering to each other, there were some who tidied up themselves but before they could approach to greet the girls, a calm but imperious voice filled the whole area, followed by a strong spirit pressure which made those who could still turn around, to see the origin of the voice, the stage which was empty besides twelve thrones displayed in sets of three.
Besides that, there were some stands at both sides of the thrones but unlike the thrones who were clearly labelled with the flag of their respective peak and faction, the stands were in blank,
The spirit formations on the stage illuminated and nine people appeared, eight of them took one throne with the exception of the one who spoke a moment ago.
Aster also turned to see the man whose spirit pressure seemed to be suppressing everyone, but he could tell it was for focused on them.
His gaze met with the ones of the man, who now had an interested glint flashing on his eyes, although he wasn’t going all out, anyone below the Mortal Transcending realm should be paralyzed, and yet there was a little girl curiously looking around totally unaffected.
‘It seems they aren’t just the usual troublemakers’, thought the man as he retracted his spirit pressure.
In most cases the elders accompanying their respective groups were the ones in charge of protecting their youths, and they did just enough so that they wouldn’t feel as if they were suffocating, but Aster was covering Kana with his own spirit pressure so that she wasn’t affected at all.
Making him stood out like a sore thumb, he was directly going against a law enforcer after all, but the man didn’t seem to take it personally, still his job was to make others follow the rules so he had to give some words to everyone before the trials started.
“Fights aren’t allowed in the neutral city even for the disciples of my Myriad Occupation sect, you are all still candidates so I can brush this little incident off, with just a verbal warning, the next time I will revoke both parties right to participate in the trial, understood?”.
The elder form the group whose spot was taken by Aster and the others, inwardly gritted his teeth, but on the outside humbly bowed, as for Aster he simply nodded.
The law enforcer then proceeded to introduce the people sitting on the thrones and the dynamics for the trials.
“The trials this time will consist in three parts, first we’ll test your age and talent, for female disciples, those above 25 years and below the Stellar Constellation realm will be rejected, for males being older than 20 years and below the Stellar Constellation means you are disqualified”.
“Alternatively, the male aspirants have the option to enter as assistant disciples, the requirements are 30 years old and Stellar Constellation realm”.
Needless to say, but many of the people that were gathered had troubled expressions, but no one said anything until one of the elders from the groups that descended from spaceships raised his hand.
Once he got the confirmation from the law enforcer, the elder bowed before exposing his opinion.
“Senior, wasn’t the requirement for disciples 22 years old and Stellar Constellation the last time?”.
Seeing the bitter expression on the face of a lot of the male aspirants the law enforcer shrugged.
“That was ten years ago, younger generations must always surpass the older ones, those who just trained the bare minimum to reach the qualifications and then fooled around aren’t fit for the strongest sect in Galatia”.
“For females who wish to apply for an elder position, the requirements are not being above 250 years old and being on the Mortal Transcending realm, as for males the age is 200, same realm”.
“Again, the alternative for males is joining as deacons, 300 years old, Mortal Transcending realm, no bargaining, if you don’t meet any of those criteria leave”.
After listening to that some of the people’s expressions got even worse, they wanted to curse the law enforcer but who in their right mind would insult a peak stage Void Manipulation cultivator, with a status on par with the core elders of the sect.
“Those are the conditions for normal disciple and elders, if you wish to enter as an internal disciple or elder, that would be decided based on the results of the second and third trials, as well as the discretion of the neutral elders, if you catch the attention of a faction elder then, you can consider yourself lucky”.
“We’ll only accept those whose talent’s test result are level three at least”.
About a third of the aspirants immediately turned around and enduring the shame, left, not without looking at the law enforcer as if he was crazy.
“I was told to not come to the Myriad Occupation sect… I should have listened to my friends, level three means that they only accept those who are granted to reach the Void Manipulation realm”.
“They are crazy, they want us to work as assistants, when the requirements asked to be a normal disciple are the same to be an inner disciple at the nearby guardian sects of other stellar systems”.
A red-haired man sitting on a throne with red colored sword emblem, snorted listening to the comments of those who were leaving.
“A bunch of trash trying to get into the Myriad Occupation sect, that’s why we haven’t been able to become a high ranked Stellar system”.
While the people leaving was at must mumbling with a low voice, the red-haired man even amplified his, making sure that everyone heard it, which resulted in an elder finally not resisting it and pointing at the red-haired man.
“You raised the requirements without any announcement and now expect us to become assistants and deacons, bullshit…”, the elder who was complaining suddenly stopped, he looked at his chest and saw a red ruby like sword stabbed on his chest.
Then without even having the time to scream, his body exploded in orange flames and was reduced to a crisp, the red-haired man indifferently waves his hand and the sword returned from the corpse as he laid back on his throne.
“I recognize his clothes, he was from the Narand family, of the Kasil star cluster, they are banned from this and the next trials, get that thing out of my sight”.
Those who were accompanying the now deceased elder trembled with anger, but they had no choice but to oblige, still there were some among them who still had the chance to enter the sect but were now banned.
“Objection, the Narand family has contributed to the sect”.
“The punishment is denied”.
The red-haired man who was laughing at the disgrace of those who were banned, frowned looking at the other two people who were sitting next to him.
The first one to object was a woman with long blue hair, and the other one was none other than Agnes, both of them had sword emblems on their thrones.
Ignoring the drama, the law enforcer snapped his fingers and about one hundred disciples who were wearing the white and yellow colors of the sect, but without any blazer nor emblem entered from both sides of the plaza carrying each one a spherical glass like treasure in their hands.
“Now form lines, state your name and get your age and talent tested, disciples first then elders”, the law enforcer crossed his arms and stood there supervising the whole thing.
,m Now Aster understood why those guys tried to get the spot back from them, even after a third of the aspirants left, there were more than one hundred thousand people here, and they were now in a position to be tested among the first five hundred or so.
“21 years old, early-stage Stellar Constellation realm, level 3 talent, rejected”.
“20 years old, early-stage Stellar Constellation realm, level 2 talent, rejected”.
…
The people got tested one after the other and while some passed, most got either rejected which meant they could only join as assistants, once about two hundred people were “accepted”, a small portion of the huge black stone plate which was floating above the stage, separated and the names of the aspirants as well as their classification were listed.
“18 years old, early-stage Stellar Constellation realm, Bone stage body cultivation, level 4 talent, pass”.
The one on the top of the list was suddenly replaced, causing an uproar among the aspirants, everyone turned to see one of the disciples at the left extreme of the line where a tall red haired young man was getting tested.
But just as the red-haired guy was smiling with sufficiency, when suddenly a loud glass shattering sound echoed through the whole place, drawing not only the attention of the other aspirants, but the elders on the thrones, the stands and lastly the law enforcer.
“1-15 years old, early-stage Stellar Constellation realm, peak stage Body solidification stage … level 5 talent, pass!”.
Under the surprised and shocked eyes of everyone, Alice returned to her brother’s side and hugged his right arm.
Then another explosion occurred, making the law enforcer raise an eyebrow.
‘Could it be…’, his supposition was confirmed, when a disciple announced the result.
“18 years old, early stage Stellar Axys realm, peak stage Spirit Opening realm, level 5 talent, pass”.
Agnes had to give her all to not laugh out loud, knowing they already accepted to enter the Black Sword faction.
Aria calmly returned to Aster’s side, not without giving a provoking gaze to Alice as she hugged Aster’s left arm.
Which of course made most of the male aspirants and even some of female elders to frown.
“Don’t delay the line”, the other aspirants who were waiting for Aster to take his turn, started complaining, and seeing that they were being ignored made them grit their teeth.
Aster didn’t know whether he should laugh or cry, he was being held by those two, who were in some sort of stare competition right now.
‘If you two keep clinging to me, how am I supposed to take my turn’, he said through the mental connection, making them reluctantly let go of his arms.
Aster slowly walked towards the disciple who tested Alice and now had a new sphere, he placed his hand on it, the spirit formations illuminated but the sphere immediately shattered as Aster said his name.
“Aster”.
The disciple bitterly smiled, he took another sphere and tried it one more time, but the result was the same.
The law enforcer waved his hand and then a black sphere appeared floating in front of Aster.
“This is the measure treasure we use for elders, give it a try”.
Aster placed his hand on the black sphere and as the disciple was about to give the result, he froze in the spot.
The black stone plate lit up like a torch and as the name on top was updated.
“12 years old, early-stage Stellar Constellation realm, peak stage Spirit Opening realm, talent… unknown”.
“Crack!”, not even a couple of seconds later, the black sphere cracked, making the law enforcer feel his heart clenching, so he retrieved it.
A suffocating silence fell on the whole place while Aster frowned at the last part, he didn’t know how they measured “talent”, but apparently it was only an approximation calculated based on the age, realm and purity of the spirit energy.
“You pass”, since the disciple in charge of the test was still frozen, the law enforcer announced the result himself.