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nMost of the women in the cages who just recently recovered some hope, became depressed, thinking that fate was just playing with them, the only exception was the group of disciples from the Alchemy peak, which were leaded by the girl who answered Aster’s question a moment ago.

n“Senior sister Dahlia, do you think he is actually a core disciple… but he is a man and not even those weird guests that visited the sect managed to do it”, one of the disciples, a short girl with brown hair pig tails, turned to see the girl that answered Aster with a worried expression in her face.

n“Lady Amelia would never give a rainbow grace pill to a nobody, besides I… have seen winged emblem rings before and his looks like the real thing, in any case the fact that he didn’t leave us behind at the first sign of trouble is enough for me to cheer up for him”.

nThe girl who turned to be called Dahlia, looked at her “cellmates”, they were all inner disciples who came from minor important families and joined the sect recently, as disciples from the Alchemy peak, their missions mostly consisted in harvesting herbs, or making pills and elixirs which took them up to some months to finally accomplish, due to the large amount of study, trial and error that concocting required.

nStill, the Green Lotus faction had a rule that required them to do a mission in the outside world, at least once in five years, because being inexperienced isn’t an excuse, and to their bad luck they were attacked by bandits while retrieving herbs from an outpost of the sect.

nThat being said, although this group of “greenhouse flowers” had close to zero experience in the real world, Dahlia was different, as someone that specializes in field work like tracking rare herbs and other natural resources, she has even seen friends betraying each other for the sake of rare finds.

nSo, she could more or less spot a hypocrite person, and the black-haired youth which was standing straight as a sword in front of them, didn’t look like one.

nThe girls who were whispering to each other, suddenly went silent as two figures came out of the tunnel from where Aster appeared earlier.

nOne of them perfectly fitted the description of the leader of the bandits, Gabriel Ossel, short gray hair, tanned skin and a skull tattoo on his shoulder which was visible due to him using a black tank top, his face had an obvious defeated and slightly humiliated expression.

nThe other one was guy who seemed to be on his early twenties, shoulder length blond hair and green eyes, he was slightly bulky and was wearing white robes with blue decorations, it wouldn’t be suspicious if it weren’t for the lecherous expression on his face, that couldn’t be hidden as he looked at the cages where the girls were kept.

nBut their expressions didn’t last long as they noticed something or more accurately someone, that shouldn’t be here, Aster outstood like a sore thumb in a room full of women of course.

n“Dry Bone, didn’t I tell you to keep your subordinates away from these little flowers, until I inspected them, how are you going to compensate me if he laid his hands on them”, said the blond guy with a condescending voice.

nDry Bone frowned as he shook his head.

n“He isn’t one of my subordinates, he should be one of the disciples of the Myriad Occupation sect that broke in the hideout, to look for the missing girls… maybe one of them is related to him or something like that”.

nThe blond guy smirked upon Dry Bone’s theory, specially because he saw Aster holding a sword in his hand, he used his spirit sense and felt Aster’s aura as a Stellar Constellation realm cultivator which made him laugh.

n“Very well, this young master has seen idiots like him, trying to get their little sweethearts back from me, just to realize they are “happier” by my side, it’s always funny, so what is Mr. white knight’s name this time?”.

nSeeing that Aster wasn’t answering the blond guy snorted, he waved his hand and took out a blue halberd from his spatial ring, and pointed it at Aster.

n“Feel honored, a trash like will have the honor of being killed by…”

n“Young master watch out!”, Dry bone reacted one second later, and powerlessly saw Aster swinging his left index finger, before both the halberd and the arm of the blond guy was separated from his body.

n“Aghhh, kill him!”, the blond guy fell to the ground and covered his shoulder trying to contain the bleeding, his eyes became bloodshot as he yelled at Dry bone.

n“You talk too much”.

nAster ignored the blond guy and pointed his sword at Dry Bone, his eyes were burning with battle desire and his spirit energy was boiling out of his body, making the air tremble, needless to say but the girls in the cages were speechless.

n“Sword intent… but even then, when the guards and all the male disciples attacked him, their weapons bounced and their attacks were returned right back at them”, mumbled Dahlia, unable to understand what happened a moment ago.

nDry Bone on the other hand immediately became serious, sword intent doesn’t have any color, when one uses the second level, other intent users see a “blur” around whatever is applied, but he caught a glimpse of a faint golden color which impacted the robes of the blond guy, before the air slash severed the arm as well as the weapon.

nStill, there was something that didn’t made sense here, the blond guy was a Star Tribulation cultivator and his weapon was at the peak of the Mortal Transcending realm grade, there is no way that a Stellar Constellation cultivator would be able to destroy it just like that.

nDry Bone took out his weapon, a heavy spear with a black metal tip before saying.

n“Don’t you think that hiding your cultivation to tempt a younger opponent to attack you is a coward thing to do, not something I would expect of the righteous green disciples from the Myriad Occupation sect… tell me who are you?”.

nAster shook his head in response, without letting his opponent say anything, his spirit energy exploded as he became a golden flash which shot itself towards Dry Bone.

n“Booom!”, a loud explosion followed by the sound of metals colliding, made all the girls cover their ears, Aster’s sword clashed against Dry Bone’s spear and the sole impact sent Dry Bone backwards, making him destroy a wall behind him.

nA lot of dust raised due to the previous exchange, but Aster dispelled it with a wave of his hand, he then dodged sidewards as the ground next to him opened revealing Dry Bone who came out of it, the tip of his spear which was splintered, was now letting out a green smoke.

n“Ptuui”, Dry Bone spat the blood that was leaking out of his mouth, originally, he didn’t use his spirit energy to reinforce himself, since his attribute was bound to kill the girls in the cages in such a close space, but even as a Sea of Knowledge cultivator whose body was naturally tougher as well as a middle stage Body Solidification cultivator, his hands felt numb and his organs felt the previous impact.

nHis instincts told him that if he didn’t take this seriously, he would die, and while he was trying to wonder how could it be that a Stellar Constellation caused him to feel threatened, he noticed the ring in Aster’s left index finger.

n“I-Impossible, you are a core disciple!”, Dry Bone’s face became pale, as a native of Galatia, he knows the requirements for a man to be a core disciple. And after the previous exchange he was more than convinced that Aster wasn’t an impostor, and that terrified him.

nNot because of Aster himself, but because such an important seedling of the sect, must be accompanied by a powerful cultivator whenever he comes out of the sect, maybe even one of the law enforcers, and if that was the case then…

n“Young master Daniel hurry up and call senior Julius, this guy is a core disciple of the Myriad Occupation sect, so there must be a Void Manipulation elder watching over him”.

nThe blond guy who was called Daniel, immediately exploded.

n“Do you think I haven’t done it you fool, he is on his way so hurry up and kill that bastard unless you want to die!”.

nSeeing his way to live being cut, Dry Bone’s eyes became bloodshot, Daniel had those special clothes which should protect him, so he stopped restraining himself, with his body as the center, green smoke exploded filling the whole room.

n…

n“Booom!”, one kilometer above the room, the ladder of the mountain suddenly exploded, liberating pressured green smoke which melted the rocks, a green cladded figure came out of the hole on the ladder, followed closely by a golden flash.

nDry Bone smirked, his attribute wasn’t too flashy and it prevented him from being attacked by the beasts of the New Moon planet, that’s why he chose to build his hideout in this god’s forsaken place.

n‘So, what if you are a core disciple, that flashy spirit energy will be your downfall”, thought Dry bone as he inwardly laughed, but then his smile froze on his face as he noticed the many eyes hidden in the oversized vegetation, looking at them before disappearing as if they were afraid of something.

n“Don’t worry, no one will interrupt this battle, in fact if you kill me no one will obstruct your retreat, give your all, otherwise you are dead meat”, said Aster as he flew towards Dry bone.

nThe whole point of this was for Aster to find his limits, since a Mortal Transcending realm was barely his match, then a Sea of Knowledge should do the trick, but so far he wasn’t impressed.

nDry Bone gritted his teeth, feeling as if he was being toyed with.

n‘This **ing young masters and privileged brats are annoying’, he shouted in his heart before he unleashed all the spirit energy he could, forming a green smoke sea which covered a few thousands of kilometers.

nEach realm’s name alludes a trait developed after reaching it, Mortal Transcended can survive in the space and breath underwater using spirit energy instead of oxygen, which separates them from normal mortals, in the case of Sea of Knowledge cultivators, their spirit energies mix with their attributes to enhance them and their reserves grow exponentially, the more they learn about their attributes the bigger the increase, so that whenever they unleash it, a “sea” of it, is formed.

nAster smirked, he manifested the paragon body cladding his arms, legs and upper body in a dazzling golden armor, he then dived into the green smoke sea with his sword in his hand.

n“Booom!”, not even a second later an earth-shattering thunder like sound filled the sky, even the smoke was dispelled due to the impact, revealing a shocked Dry Bone whose arms were shaking as he was sent back a couple of steps.

n“Who the hell are you!”, he shouted as he stabbed frontwards with his spear, shooting a line of green light which Aster dodged, as he blocked at his left using his sword.

n“Clang”, as if he predicted it, Dry Bone’s spear was stopped in cold, making him nearly suffer a mental breakdown, he a Sea of Knowledge cultivator was being looked down, by a Stellar Constellation cultivator.

n“I already told my name, to those who will be alive once this battle ends”, said Aster before he broke the stall by swinging his sword once again.

n“Fuckkkk!”, Dry Bone shouted to give himself some courage as he moved his spear sidewards, making it clash against Aster’s sword.

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