Chapter 382 The First Trial (Part 1)

The woman in the second floor of the castle was in awe as she saw projection in front of her.

A moment ago:

After Aster made sure that he had drawn out a decent quantity of annihilation, he stopped and then all the golden light bas condensed into a thin layer that covered his whole body.

'Let's see you try to absorb this', thought Aster as he walked straight towards the crystal pillars.

Aster had to admit that these crystal pillars were amazing, while he wasn't surprised to see that his spirit energy was absorbed by them, the fact that even his sword intent was absorbed with it too.

Also, although the Emerald Whirlwind didn't mention it, he couldn't take anything out of his spatial ring, meaning weapons weren't allowed.

Then as Aster expected, once the crystal pillars tried to absorb the energy that was covering him, and the result was that the crystal's structure lost its integrity which ultimately led to two options, collapsing and turning into dust upon contact, or exploding due to all the energy accumulated being released at once.

Regardless of the result Aster simply kept walking, going through layer after layer of crystal pillars, when the shards resulting from explosions clashed against him, they turned into thin dust which Aster then dusted off his clothes.

The woman in the second floor of the mansion saw that bizarre display, and she was dumbfounded for a moment.

"What the hell is that attribute… decay", she mumbled, but then she looked at her right.

The projection in which she focused showed a long pink haired girl in her middle twenties, her method of going through the first trial was similar to Aster, in the meaning that it was unorthodox by all means.

The pink haired girl first tapped her finger on one of the pillar crystals, before she cracked her knuckles.

"Humph, break for this young lady!", with a loud shout, Mylene took some impulse before her pale little fist crashed against the crystal.

"Crack!".

Anyone would expect to see the bloody and tragical scene of a beauty harming her hand, but instead of that, the whole crystal pillar shattered and the pieces were thrown all over the place.

Unlike Aster, Mylene had to manually block the flying debris that could have impacted her face and other soft parts of her body, as for the rest it clashed against her but didn't cause any damage.

After seeing how Mylene dealt with the crystal pillars, the woman in the second floor of the mansion shook her head discarding the possibility of Aster's attribute being decay.

"The decay of the Ash Nether clan makes other things age, which normally wouldn't affect those pillars as minerals become stronger with the pass of the years, that lass is pretty smart, just affecting certain spots to create cracks and then hitting with a crushing force to break them".

"But that kid didn't use any force, it was as if the pillars withered away… not even the attributes of those monsters could do something like that", she mumbled.

She then observed other of the two people who she remembered where in the same group, with those two irregularities.

The third one was also pretty showy, as soon as she entered the cave, her red hair exploded in pretty orange flames, but she remained quiet at the entrance of the cave, then after a couple of minutes the crystals began to melt, though they were able to absorb the spirit energy, the heat of the flames was impossible to absorb on time for it to not be affected.

The girl then took off her shoes and happily walked over the melted red burning crystal, without any concern in the world.

The fourth projection that caught her attention was as showy as the previous one, a tall blond-haired girl stayed at a certain distance from the crystals, before she extended her arm with her palm facing upwards.

Her spirit energy which was of a pretty sky-blue color gathered in her hand, before it started to rotate, after a few seconds water was produced too, creating a whirlpool, only when it had reached a certain number of rotations, the girl threw it at the crystal.

While the spirit energy was absorbed, the water was rotating at such a speed that the physical impact of it shot a hole on the crystal pillar, the girl then nodded and continued her path.

"I guess the whole group is pretty warlike, well that Rock Gigas guy was with them too, though it seemed to have actually reflected on his actions", mumbled the woman.

Then by sheer luck, her eyes landed on the projection which she put less attention to, as she didn't expect too much from the person in there.

This projection showed a blond-haired little girl who chose the cave too, nothing out of the ordinary as most people do the same, what was different was the fact that unlike the others who tried to use spirit energy to cross the crystal field, which simply made things harder for themselves as the crystals grew and blocked their paths, resulting in them finding a way to brute force their way through the crystal field, or giving up on the cave landscape and going to one of the other two.

But to the woman's surprise, when the girl in the projection placed her hand on the crystals… the things actually moved aside, just enough for the little girl who was humming and smiling all the time, to pass.

"Wasn't that girl one of the lost members of the Storm Roc clan, is her attribute space, but no one can be born with it as it is acquired according to the heavenly law, and she is really far from that".

The woman had to come out of her daze as she saw the first projection that caught her attention, the black-haired youth was the first one to reach the exit of the cave, and by doing so, he broke the previous record time… by about five hours.

But then she noticed that in fact the batch that arrived this time was speeding through the cave landscape trial, at least the ones that were eligible to be her companion, although the ones at the Genesis Manifestation realm were allowed to take the trial, they were out of the range for possible companions.

The woman then looked at some of the other projections, where a red-haired girl with a sword hanging from her waist was climbing the mountain that raises to the sky using her fingers sharpened with sword intent, to grab onto the mountain to avoid the strong gusts of wind to blow her away.

The other projection showed a man in his twenties with a purple blazer who chose to enter the swamp landscape first, accompanied by a skinny girl who was missing an arm, they were enduring or countering the many poisonous plants and spirit beasts found in the swamp with their own poisons.

"Those Orcrary guys are really troublesome, to think they managed to eliminate almost all the competitors near the surprise secondary entry point that I opened this time", mumbled the girl.

The two people in those projections were none other than Iris and Victor, the two people that entered along with Aster through the entrance of the secret realm at one of the wastelands of the Dragon Legacy Heavenly Quadrant, more accurately at the Green Firmament stellar system.

Judging by their current appearances, they had gone through their own adventures some good other not quite so, but ultimately, they were lucky enough to have found their way into the trial of the Emerald Whirlwind despite them not finding the Emerald Heart mansion.

…

"Mm?", while others couldn't notice that they were being observed, Aster did manage to feel the difference in a "piece" of the air that existed in the cave, so he knee the Emerald Whirlwind was watching what he did, but he didn't care, no matter how knowledgeable one can be, there is no one who can see through annihilation in the "modern" age, at least according to Rya.

In a matter of minutes Aster reached the exit of the cave and was surprised to see he simply returned to the point where the three paths converged, there was a difference though, the path at the right which used to lead to the cave, now led to a small gate and the sign at the side of the path also changed.

[Congratulations on finishing one of three landscape riddles, you are now able to continue to the second trial, or challenge the other, be aware that if you fail the next riddle you'll be disqualified]

Aster chuckled, while the rules said he didn't need to solve the three riddles, it was obvious there was a reason for the three to exist, otherwise there would be no punishment for failing them.

Having taken his decision, Aster went to through the path in the middle, this time he was welcomed by what seemed to be a swamp, one that was suspiciously full of life too, as green dominated the area, though the vegetation had thorns and a slight tinge of yellow in its trunks or leaves.

To his surprise even with his spirit sense he couldn't feel any danger, nor see one with his eyes, but that didn't mean there was none, as good as a creature can be to hide its presence to the point of looking like a pebble at the bottom of the swamp, as an animal and a deathly poisonous one on top of that, Aster's nose was capable of noting it.

And while he could beat this "riddle" with annihilation too, he had a better thing fit for the job.

"It's not easy to find a free meal nowadays, so enjoy it", mumbled Aster.

The ground below his feet started making cracking noises as ice started to form with him as the center, then his body exploded in blue flames, before Aster started walking into the swamp.

Upon contact, the green swamp started evaporating, which would have normally created a mist poisonous enough to exterminate a whole city, but the mist that was liberated from the contact with the blue flames and the swamp, actually had a refreshing scent of nature and coldness, like a pine covered in snow.

That wasn't all, the spirit beasts hidden in the swamp or in the branches of the trees, fled in terror, as if that mist, the blue flames and the black-haired youth walking through the swamp as if he was walking at his own home, were the plague.

The woman at the second floor of the castle was beyond words right now, she actually jumped from her chair for the surprise.

"What the hell is this guy's attribute", she said while she bit her finger, squeezing her brain to figure out, how that horrifying golden light whose nature seemed to be ang by all means, now turned into blue ying oriented flames.

Not only that her hear was bleeding seeing some of her poison reserves and poison providing spirit beasts, being turned into that harmless mist, and that wasn't all, she could tell those blue flames became stronger with each millimeter of poison that was turned into mist.

And to top it off, she saw an even more strange display at other of the projections, were that little blond girl approached the swamp and then one of the most aggressive spirit beasts in her arsenal, a ten-meter pitch black snake came out of the swamp and happily offered the girl a ride on its back, after the little girl patted the head of the snake as if touching it without a thick protection of spirit energy wasn't enough to kill a Genesis Manifestation in a matter of seconds.

'Have the heavens gone mad or what!', she screamed in her heart.