The law enforcer frowned, although the other elders didn’t openly encourage the aspirants to join and go against Aster, how could he not know what they were thinking.
‘These brats have gotten too focused in competing with each other and the factions, that they forgot we are all part of the same sect, I must talk with those three’, he thought as he sighed.
Leaving aside Aster’s group, the others who also did well on the second trial were all accepted into different factions, the pair of twins got into the faction of the blue haired woman who was sitting next to Agnes.
The green haired girl accepted the offer of the elder from the Blue Lotus faction, the gray-haired guy seemed to be interested in the Black Sword faction, but since Agnes didn’t offer him anything else besides the status of Inner disciple, he joined the Red Sword faction, as for the red-haired guy who incited the crowd against Aster, to no one’s surprise, he also joined the Red Sword faction, but as an outer disciple which meant he had to participate in the third trial.
As for those guys who were accepted as outer disciples directly by the neutral elders or throned elders, they also decided to participate in the third trial although they had no need to, the reason was pretty simple, they either wanted the points offered by the elders or getting into their good books.
The favor of an inner elder was priceless for an outer disciple after all.
The pair of twins looked at Aster who was still flirting with Alice or Aria without worrying about anything, before they positioned themselves next to the blue haired elder.
“We won’t be participating in the third trial”, said the girl at the law enforcer.
Erick was the same, he smacked Aster’s shoulder and then walked towards Agnes
“Destroy them brother”.
The law enforcer looked at the rest of the aspirants before saying.
“Anyone else, past this point there is no turning back, whether you live or die it will be up to your skills and luck”.
The words of the law enforcer successfully scared some of the lower ranked aspirants, but it was more on the female side, making about two or three thousand of them to stand aside, they will be hunted first for their points so and there was practically a zero chance of them getting the 30,000 points needed to become an inner disciple, so why would they risk their lives.
Seeing that no one else was leaving the law enforcer stood up and waved his hand, the black stone slate opened sidewards and countless black tokens flew towards the aspirants who caught them.
“Those tokens represent your score, to get the points of your enemy you must destroy theirs, the points of said person be added to yours, you can see the current count and decide whether you want to look for opponents or not, the tokens will give away your position to the others though”.
“Okay, the transportation formation it will take you to the trial grounds in five minutes, I almost forgot about it, take out your weapon now because spatial rings won’t work in there, also your weapon can’t be above the low Mortal Transcending grade, don’t try to cheat, the formation will detect it and you will be failed”.
Another batch of aspirants were now slightly worried, some relied on the use the spirit formations in their weapons to increase their battle prowess, which isn’t wrong as wealth is also part one’s strength, but for test purposes the sect wanted to see their battle prowess without too much influence of external means.
While most people owned proper weapons which weren’t their main ones, Aster took out a golden large broadsword without any ornaments, the grip had no details and was practically an unfinished work, also it had no formations engraved.
Which of course made the crowd get angrier, because he was looking down on them to the point that he was using a crap even if he had to fight against all of them.
But they were wrong, Aster used all the training swords he previously created when Camila was advancing, and the new ones he created used his blood which now had a bigger concentration of the golden part, and the results were all above the limit set by the law enforcer.
“Luckily I kept this first try as a memento or I would have had to fight with my own hands”, he mumbled.
Aster saw the runes on the ground illuminating and knew they were about to get transported, he patted Kana’s head one more time and while others didn’t notice, he casted the golden light of the paragon body on her.
“Sis, you should be able to feel Kana’s approximate location now, have fun but don’t take it too far”.
“Mm”, the girls nodded and a moment later they disappeared from the plaza, leaving only those who were aiming for an elder position, in this case Lilia, Sarina, Eris, Mylene, Camila and Felicia.
Everyone’s attention was suddenly drawn to the original black stone slate which’s proportions were huge, some kind of secures popped out of its four corners and then a completely clean of information slate was displayed downwards the main body.
“All of you just sit down and enjoy the show”, said the law enforcer.
The formations engraved in the black slate illuminated and then the image of a mountain range seen from afar appeared.
Most of the people here were marveled by the usefulness of the black slate, but considering they had the best rune masters and spirit blacksmiths of a whole stellar system, it was to be expected, that being said this formation which allowed them to see what was happening in another place with so much clarity was new for them.
Normally they would just see a projection of the landscape of the trial grounds and a lot of dots representing each one a token or a participant.
The only ones who weren’t surprised were Lilia, Eris, Mylene and surprisingly Felicia, Lilia came from the highest ranked place in the whole Heavenly Quadrant and this technology was already implemented there back when she was younger, Eris and Mylene were the same, as for Felicia she saw a smaller version once when she travelled to the Atria star cluster.
…
The transportation was quite smooth and a few seconds later Aster noticed the surroundings changing to something like a mountain range, he spread his spirit sense upwards and after a few dozens of kilometers he hit an invisible wall.
‘So, we are in a dome of some kind, I guess they must be observing us right now, if that’s the case…’.
Without wasting time, Aster flew upwards until he was floating in the air at a height where he was easy to spot, after taking a deep breath Aster shouted.
“All of you come here!”.
The air trembled as Aster’s voice was amplified with his spirit energy, from the very beginning since the other aspirants appeared they started using their spirit senses to look for Aster, grouping when they found others who weren’t him.
They reached a mutual agreement to not fight with each other until they defeated him, even the stronger aspirants didn’t bother to eliminate the weaker ones, they could rob them out of their points later anyway.
So now that Aster was giving away his position willingly, they rushed to the area but stopped a few kilometers away from him.
Aster sat on the air and simply floated there with his eyes closed and his sword resting on his lap, waiting for the others to reunite.
Back at the neutral city, the elders frowned at the current scenes displayed on the black stone slate, one was completely chaotic, the female aspirants started fighting against each other as soon as they appeared.
Or more accurately they were being hunted by Alice and the others, in contrast, the scene at the male trial area was so calm that it gave anxiety to the elders and those who were watching.
The sound wasn’t transmitted so they could only see but not hear, meaning they didn’t hear Aster shouting, but saw him suddenly appearing on the sky and then after his lips moved, he just relaxed and sat on the air without doing anything else.
‘What is he doing, I asked if he knew the requirement to become a core disciple as a male, from the very beginning, if he doesn’t hurry up and prepare, he will lose the chance’, thought the law enforcer as he frowned.
Since he was the one in control, he adjusted the scene zooming out which allowed everyone to see all the other aspirants who were gathering around Aster, forming a circle to cut off any chance of retreat.
Aster sat there while the crowd kept growing for about twenty minutes, using his spirit sense he saw that almost all the others were here, and they started moving towards him.
The sky was literally blocked by all the other participants who were looking at him with greedy eyes, they were led by the red-haired guy as well as some of the other outstanding aspirants which were accepted as inner disciples.
“Well, well, well, look what we have here, an arrogant idiot who managed to be hated by all the new generation of the strongest sect in Galatia”
“Humph so what if your talent is unmeasurable, maybe if you kept your mouth shut and offered those girls to us, you could have been able to become the first ever male core disciple, but now you will die here, maybe you didn’t know the requirement which convinced everyone that joining as a core disciple from the beginning as a guy, as impossible”.
“Birds die for food and humans die for treasures; you can only blame yourself for getting in the bad books of an inner elder before even joining the sect”.
The red-haired guy and the gray-haired guy pointed their weapons at Aster which was the signal for everyone to launch their attacks.
Countless of lights of different colors and properties filled the sky as their long-range attacks surrounded Aster from all the sides.
Aster slowly got up on his feet with his sword on his hand, he looked at all the people who were here and then nodded.
“Not only I know it, I will surpass it eliminating more than half of the participants without suffering any wound”.
After saying that, Aster grabbed his sword with his two hands and his spirit energy sky rocketed dispelling the clouds above him and clashing against the ground below, essentially becoming a pillar of golden light of about three kilometers of height and one of wide.
“Sky rendering”, from within that pillar a couple of words could be heard before a wave of five hundred meters wide of golden light expanded with it as the center.
“What the hell!”, at the neutral city, the part of the black slate which was displaying the male trial area, was suddenly covered in golden light, making everyone think the black slate wasn’t properly working.
But the law enforcer as well as the elders knew it wasn’t like that, their reactions were quite varied, some were pale, other’s jaws dropped, others clenched their hands on their armrests so hard they broke them.