The rise of the pervert primordial

But before that, there were some things that needed Aster’s attention, since those two stone monoliths were the key to the question of what use did merits have, they needed to be investigated before anything else, also right now they were just a group of humans having been deprived from their cultivation, and practically everything that made the presents to be considered, talented.

“It’s okay to look and all, but don’t buy anything nor accept any mission yet, okay”, said Aster to those curious girls who were making a line to place their hands at one of the four faces of the exchange and mission monoliths, since they didn’t want to be in the way of Aster and the elders.

“Mm!”, with excitement in their eyes, the girls from the sect continued checking on the monoliths, while Aster and the others also approached them, the moment Aster placed his hand on the monolith, the image of the flaming board appeared in his mind.

[Welcome to the exchange monolith, the currency needed for all the objects in display is merits, be aware that some items have score, merit grade or even achievement requirements to be available, transfer of ownership is not allowed until further notice]

[The conversion ratio is of a hundred merits of the previous grade, per ten of the immediate superior one, the same ratio applies in reverse, just be aware that once converted you won’t be able to turn those specific merits back what they used to be]

[Be careful with your spendings because refunds aren’t possible, though under special circumstances compensation is an option if the object in question doesn’t fulfill the promised objectives, at the same time there will be penalties applied to participants that try to abuse the previous]

[Merits can be obtained through missions that are listed on the mission monolith, by fulfilling special conditions which are up to the participants to discover, or by selling valuable objects obtained in the development area, current balance: 500 high grade merits]

There was a welcoming message, which gave some basic directives about how the monolith worked, after that, there were two main sections available “Manuals” and “Objects”.

So, Aster first opened the manuals sections and was met with five smaller divisions “Attack”, “Defense”, “Movement”, “Profession” and “Special”, a total of five options, out of which Aster naturally chose special, since the others had self-explaining names, also special was the only sub-division that had a condition stated for its appearance.

Which was “Full scores”, in other words, the only one that as of current had access to that tab is Aster, imagine his surprise when he saw that there was nothing there, a new window of the flaming board did appear, but it was in blank, so there must be conditions to be met, in order for something to become available there.

‘Oh well, let’s check out the other options’, thought Aster as he went through the lists of available manuals of the other four divisions, the first thing he noticed is that the highest requirement in terms of score is “Perfect”, which makes sense, since the flaming board didn’t answer when he asked about what his “Unique” score represented.

Still, he had all the Perfect score manuals available for purchasing, so his superior score was recognized at least.

“So, the lowest price for everything from “High” grade and below is the same, five low merits, which means that Mediocre, Intermediate and even Regular are paying more for less”, said Aster with an amused voice, that was probably a penalty for those that had bad performances in the trial road.

But at the same time, it was motivation, because it meant that if they improved their scores, the next time they got graded, they would be able to buy better things for the same amount of merits.

There were classifications for the manuals too, they went from one to five stars and the base prize of a one-star manual was of five low grade merits, but the increase in the price varied, some jumped directly to the next grade of merits, while others simply multiplied their price in terms of the same ones.

And that made Aster frown, since there were different arrangements for the multiple manuals, it meant that they… weren’t put to sale by the same person, it basically confirmed what Aster supposed when the blue flaming board destroyed that red cloud, which apparently was the entity in charge for the groups that had arrived before them, which is that there are many different beings watching over the trials.

And that was a source of trouble, because conflicts of interest were for sure going to appear later, but for now there was no point in worrying about it, in any case it seemed like the one behind the flaming board at least had no ill intentions towards the participants, was a fair judge and more importantly, it had a strong influence.

At the very least, the highest ranked manuals which are five-star Perfect grade ones, all have the same price, which is of a hundred high merits, that might be the reason behind five hundred high grade merits being the reward for getting full scores like Aster did.

It’s so that the participant can get one of the highest ranked manuals of each of the four sub-divisions, but the remaining one hundred aren’t probably meant to be used on the special one, but to be “pocket change” to buy other things at the object division.

Speaking of which, the object division was way simpler, there were only two sub-divisions “Tools” and “Necessities”, and as their names implied the first one was filled with things that could be used to develop a place, from big things like axes, hammers, saws, to even small yet important tools like nails, and no, all of them were forbidden to be used as weapons.

The necessity tab on the other hand, had basic stuff like clothes, soap, towels, paper, pens and other things of similar standing, but there was a limit to the “kindness” of the exchange center, for example no mattresses or any furniture was on display. Read full story at novel{f}ire.net

‘This trial surely is getting rid of all the commodities of being a cultivator… or more accurately the commodities that being able to use spirit energy brings you’, thought Aster, like at the road, the main goal in Aster’s mind is to decipher what’s the purpose of the trial, because once has done so, it would be easier to obtain a better result.

So far, there were key points which he had discovered based on the items on display in the exchange monolith, the first is that if they want weapons, they’ll have to make them themselves, the same applies to basically anything related to other professions, from alchemic products which includes medicines and other remedies, to even food, nothing of the like was sold ready to be consumed.

After having more or less reviewed the exchange monolith, Aster changed to the mission one.

[Welcome to the mission monolith where participants can earn merits by completing certain tasks, there are permanent and time limited missions, some generic missions will be available regardless of grade, while others will have requirements, the number of times that they can be accepted by a participant will also vary, however there will be a chance for participants to accept all the missions available for them at least once]

[New missions will be issued on a daily basis, and special missions might be triggered if their requirements are fulfilled by a participant, for the commodity of the group, if one of their members triggers a mission, it will be visible for all the group, however not all might be able to accept them]

[Be aware that the maximum number of missions a participant can accept at the same time is tied to their score, from lowest to highest, Mediocre and Intermediate graded participants can only accept one mission at the time, Regular and High graded participants have a limit of two missions, Outstanding and Advanced can accept up to four missions and Perfect graded participants can accept six missions]

[Last but not least, carefully read the details of each mission you accept, because some might have penalties if not fulfilled in time or manner, at the same time, stricter missions will usually have higher rewards]

The missions also had divisions, namely “Professions”, “Manuals”, “Miscellaneous” and of course “Special”, which needed one to have achieved full scores, and once again was in blank.

Professions and manuals were self-explaining, one had to make things related to the subject in question, as for Miscellaneous, it included a bit of everything, from building a fence like one of the junior disciples mentioned, to stay in a safe shelter from day one, like another disciple said.

Besides that, the same ranking system of stars that was used in the exchange monolith, appeared here, having finished reviewing both monoliths, Aster directly exchanged ten of his high-grade merits into a hundred middle grade ones, to then use ten of the previous to exchange a hundred low grade ones as well, before buying some paper sheets and a pen, he then turned to see a certain girl with glasses as he said.

“Angela, please make a list of missions whose objectives overlap, for those whose scores are below Perfect grade”.

“No problem”, Angela’s eyes glowed behind her glasses, managing information is her fort, so she enjoyed these kind of tasks that most people would find annoying to deal with, in fact she was already relating which missions would be more efficient to accept at the same time for each of the grades that the girls of the sect obtained, but certainly it was going to be way easier with paper and a pen, now that she couldn’t use her constitution’s abilities.

While Angela put hands to work, Aster first told all the girls from the sect to look at him, something that was easy for them, before going into the profession tab of the manual division, and directly buying the manual for Blacksmithing of the highest grade available, which he found the most interesting.

[Thanks for buying the “Galaxy Forging” manual]

Imagine everyone’s surprise when a thick book with a blue hardcover appeared in front of Aster.

“I don’t feel any spirit energy coming from it, don’t tell me it’s… a regular book without any preserving means on it”, mumbled Valentina, to which Aster nodded in response.

“Yeah, it’s just a regular book with information written inside of it, which means that not only it can be damaged quite easily, but it can even be stolen, though the other party won’t be able to learn it”, he said.

The knowledge of this perfect grade five star ranked manual can’t be shared with others, but nothing prevents an enemy from stealing it, so that Aster can’t learn it, of course that’s easier said than done, since escalating the walls is not allowed as of current, but in the future who knows.

“And that’s not all, one would originally think that the manuals contain spirit techniques, but after a close look, that’s not the case”, said Aster dropping a bomb for all the presents, just by reading the first pages of the book it became obvious that this is a pure technique manual.

In other words, it can be used to forge yes and bases on the experience Aster has a spirit blacksmith, it’s a technique that far surpasses what he has seen, heard or learned before, yes, but the methods are completely deprived of any use of spirit energy, and so the results will be the same.

It’s blacksmithing at its pure base form, meaning that the one who learns it won’t develop meridians related to it, and thus it could be seen as an incomplete manual, which would align with the theory that this place was stuck in past technologies, that some girls of the sect had mentioned.

But Aster thought otherwise, because Mylene and the others had confirmed that the Heavenly Law was way weaker than at the four heavenly quadrants, of course they couldn’t know how it compared to their respective places of origin, because even at their primes, they weren’t strong enough to get an accurate feeling of the Heavenly Law, but it was enough to know that they were at a higher ranked place than the Dragon Legacy heavenly quadrant at least.

“That means the other manuals also only contain pure techniques, and there is no option to cultivate spirit energy, so we can assume that even those Immortal grade resources won’t produce any spirit energy related effect”, concluded Mylene, which was exactly what was in Aster’s mind.

That could be the origin of the differences in the appearance of those herbs and the images in the records she has read before.

“Also, learning the contents of the manual won’t be as easy as it would usually be, so don’t be guided just by the grades, go for a more efficient and steady option with results that would be noticeable in a short period of time, for example in a rough calculation it’s going to take me from five to six days to be able to forge something with this technique and you have an idea of my skills as a spirit blacksmith”, added Aster.

The girls from the sect all took a breath of cold air, especially the ones from the Blacksmithing peak, even the core elder from the Yellow Anvil faction, Riley, who isn’t present as of current, wouldn’t dare to affirm that she can forge better spirit treasures than Aster at the same rank.

The one advantage she has over him, is that her higher cultivation does allow her to create higher ranked treasures, but in terms of quality she recognizes her defeat against Aster’s creations at the same level.

Long story short, if it was going to take Aster almost the whole period of the current trial to be able to produce a result, had they chosen something of the same grade, they would have ended up without anything to show for it for a way longer period of time, that’s what Aster wanted to transmit to them.

“But we don’t have anything to worry about, disciples and elders can choose the item from the profession of their chose in which they have the most experience in terms of creation that would be of use for our current situation and choose a manual that focuses on it, that way you can reduce the grade of the manual but achieve high ranked results”, he said, which made the girls who had downcast expressions to smile on the spot.

There were manuals that focused in a smaller area of the profession in question, let’s say that instead or blacksmithing as a whole like the one Aster chose, the manual focused exclusively in making spears, that lowered the grade of the manual because it covered less subjects, but the results produced by it will be on par with manuals of a higher grade.

But Aster’s smart idea wasn’t the end of the plan, imagine those girl’s sparkling eyes when he also added.

“Of course, there is nothing better than improving when it’s possible, so for those that wish to challenge themselves, they’ll be given priority to learn the highest ranked manuals they can buy, if they wish to do so, after this week, also remember to not buy more than two manuals, one for your profession and one for either movement or defense, those from the Battle peak should go for movement and attack”.

That satisfied both the efficiency and stability of the group, because with this arrangement they will be ready for whatever will happen at the end of the development period, and no one will be left aside as well, it was simply taking turns but it wasn’t easy to implement, because there was nothing one could do about what others wanted to exchange their merits for.

In other words, for such a “simple” plan as the one Aster proposed, complete trust between both parties was needed.

“And luckily for us, there happens to be a bunch of skilled blacksmiths in the vicinity, so it’s not like we won’t have decent weapons, armor and other metalware for the next five days, right?”, jokingly said Aster as he looked at the girls from the Blacksmith peak who blushed in response to his compliments.

And with that solved, the girls of the sect were free to choose the manuals they wanted while taking into account Aster’s advice, while Aster and the ones that knew they could handle the difficulty of the highest ranked ones and obtain results before the week ended, chose theirs as well.

At the same time, Angela had finished her task so she handed the paper sheets which had her notes written on it, to then proceed and choose her own manuals.

“The first batch of recommended missions for those whose scores were below Perfect grade, are, gathering wood, water and food respectively, while accepting the build a temporary fence mission, once the first three are finished you can switch to accept a mission related to the manual you selected, cleaning the area, helping to cook and be on watch, take turns so that you can fulfill all of them in the shortest period of time”.

“Perfect grade scorers can manage their missions however they want, just follow the same principles, miss Valentina and elders please help me arrange them appropriately”, added Aster which made Valentina raise an eyebrow, wondering why Aster wasn’t finishing the details of the plan, when he was doing it amazingly so far, a doubt that was solved the next second when he added.

“Besides someone to supervise the group, in this case Mylene, I need five people with good stamina in case we need to bring back anything that it’s worth the hassle and two who are quick on their feet to act as scouts, we’ll go explore the nearby areas and return by the end of the day, any volunteers?”, asked Aster to his close group, of course the first one to jump in was none other than that wild dragon sister of his.

“Here, take me please~”, said Alice as she held onto Aster’s right arm, of course she meant it as she has good stamina, she is a secondary path body cultivator after all, also she was of course mockingly gazing at Aria since she has a poor body condition, at least when compared to Alice, it wouldn’t have been that bad if she had access to her constitution, since she can recover by using yin energy, as that counts as returning to her pristine state, but now that capacity has been sealed.

“Two more here”, said Felicia offering both Tia and herself, making the energy constitution daughter sigh.

“Count me in”, said Iris, to which the sister in the middle, Lina also raised her hand with that energetic attitude of hers.

“I have confidence in my speed, so I’m in as well!”.

“My subordinates will remain to help here, let me tag along brother Aster, I’m confident in these shoulders of mine to carry stuff”, said the saber young master, Cayden, while his girlfriend Sandra added.

“I also focus in speed, so I’ll take the other scout slot if there are no objections”, surprisingly there was one, well, it wasn’t exactly an objection, but more of a request, as in the youngest of the three sisters, Nina, raised her hand to then say.

“I also want to go…”, she said, the three sisters are secondary path body cultivators, and though she doesn’t appear to be so, Nina who is the youngest is a heavy sword user, so she has confidence in her strength, even with her cultivation and basically all progress, sealed, she has been stronger than her peers since she was little after all.

Aster turned to see Iris who nodded at him, one more person wasn’t a problem, so he agreed with Nina’s request.

“We are settled then”, of course there were some girls who weren’t happy with the arrangement, like Aria who didn’t like the fact that Alice was going to be with Aster the whole day, while she stayed behind.

And there was also Kana who wanted to explore the wilderness with her big brother, but was convinced to stay and help her sisters by Sarina, and last but not least we have a certain training obsessed Fey princess, Agness.

“Aren’t I your designated supervisor”, mumbled Agnes, which made Aster chuckle.

“Mylene is the most knowledgeable when it comes to resources and she is also a secondary path body cultivator, on the other hand it’s not like we won’t be exploring tomorrow”, he said.

Only then did Agnes accepted to let someone else take her determined role, since the situation demanded it.

“You are also going, we have a lot to talk about”, said Aster to James who immediately nodded and then stuck close to him, who knows whether those fierce girls would beat him up if the black-haired youth who is the one that accepted his proposal, and appears to be the leader of the group, left.