As Aster introduced himself, he evaluated the woman in front of him.

A tall, slender but well-proportioned body, thigh length jade green hair, pale skin and light green eyes, she was wearing a white and green dress with a side cut skirt, her shoulders were completely exposed, and she was using long sleeves, something caught Aster’s attention was the wings on her head, which he wasn’t sure if it were real wings or just decorations.

Needless to say, but the Emerald Whirlwind was speechless right now.

“I didn’t mean it like that… but I guess I can’t call you “human” since you aren’t one”.

“And yeah, I’m what you call the “Emerald Whirlwind”, are you really fine, that was something that could drill a hole in the body of a Genesis Manifestation cultivator you know?”, said the woman with a curious voice.

Aster nodded as he dusted off his shirt.

“Yeah, what I don’t understand is why did your security system attacked me?”.

The woman grabbed a piece of debris from the ground and then showed it to Aster.

“The room for the second trial had a formation whose function is to inspect and produce the element that counters the one of the people inside of the room, but with you the formation misfunctioned since it was activated”.

“Not only because of that last attack, but because the limit of elements I set was twelve, which is my level of achievement regarding the three elements I currently have domain over, but for what I can see the formation couldn’t find how to counter you… so the next order I gave it was to fight “quality” with “quantity”, and apparently even that failed, so the next instruction which had never activated in the whole time I have been here, was summoned”.

“Basically, the third instruction was to just generate the strongest elemental tune I engraved in the formation, which wasn’t what attacked you, in fact I would say it was about ten times weaker than that, I don’t know why my formation was altered or why it didn’t work as it was meant to”.

‘That’s easy to solve, her formation tried to measure the unmeasurable, and since the result is obviously an error, the solution was to destroy it’, said Rya from the mind space.

Aster nodded.

That would explain why her security attacked me, I was seen as a “threat” which fell at least on the same category as whoever was that attack destined to’, thought Aster.

‘Yeah, basically, this woman’s rune mastering concept, “elemental runes” is really good, but it is still incomplete probably because she is lacking a fourth element which is needed to make a stable divine rune’, added Rya.

Ultimately Aster shrugged, though this information was probably critic for the Emerald Whirlwind, he wasn’t obligated to share it with her… unless she ends up joining his group of course, but until that moment they were strangers.

“I guess I passed the second test, what now?”, asked Aster.

The woman was a bit lost on how to deal with the black-haired youth in front of her, no one has been in position to directly speak with her, in a number of years which she can’t even count at this point.

Not to mention this conversation partner was pretty peculiar, even for someone like her who has seen a lot during her lifetime.

“Everyone has to take the third trial at the same time, so you can’t advance right now, but I guess you can see the rest of your group go through their own trial, it will only take some minutes anyway.

As the woman spoke a pair of green crystal chairs raised from the ground before some of the projections, she used to see the performance of the participants appeared floating in front of the chairs.

Aster accepted the invitation and sat on one of the chairs, the first projection which he looked at was of course Kana, the room in which she resided had turned into a maze, which made sense since her element is wind.

But then he also noticed some parts of the ground released smoke, before some lava leaked through the breaches on the rocks.

“That’s a bit too much if you ask me”, said Aster.

But the woman shook her head as she pointed at one of the corners of the projection.

“Say that after looking at this”.

Aster’s eyes followed the direction in which the finger of the woman was pointed, and he couldn’t help but smile at the strange situation being displayed.𝒐𝐯𝐋xt.𝗰𝑜𝕞

Though Kana was having a bit of a hard time to find the way to advance through the maze, wherever she approached some of the areas affected by the lava, the thing was somehow absorbed back into the earth until she was out of imminent danger.

“Originally I thought that little girl had good luck because she is from the royal lineage of the Storm Roc race… but that’s not something achievable for them, heck there is people who the spirit energy favors, but this is something I haven’t heard or read about before”, said the woman.

“Well, my Kana is just a really good girl, it’s only fait that the world reciprocates her kindness a bit”, said Aster with a playful voice.

The Emerald Whirlwind raised an eyebrow at Aster, it was obvious he had an idea of why this was happening, but at the same time it was obvious he wasn’t going to tell her, so she didn’t bother to ask.

After making sure Kana was doing okay, he next looked for Vivian as those two were the ones he was more worried about.

Surprisingly the scene Aster expected didn’t appear, Vivian’s trial room was in blank, and every time it started to show a sign of change, a different pattern on a part of her body, so that the formation had no time to start working before it had change itself.

‘I didn’t know she could do that’, as far as Aster knew Vivian, it was clear that her body constitution wasn’t under her control, once it activated to “protect” Vivian it was a pain to deal with.

But right now, apparently Vivian learned of a way to manipulate it in a critical moment before its activation.

“That girl has some spirit, unfortunately her body can’t handle my existence, so it is impossible for her to become my companion”, said the woman wanting to see Aster’s reaction.

But the response was clearly to what she expected, the black-haired youth softly laughed before saying with a firm and confident voice.

“No problem, she just needs a one time help from you, and since you’ll be coming with my group then anyone of us can do it”.

The Emerald Whirlwind couldn’t help but find Aster’s self-confidence rather interesting, but after a moment of contemplation she inwardly shook her head in disapproval.

‘Words are cheap, let’s see how you all fair at the third trial’, thought the woman.

Mylene, Natasha, Charlotte, their protectors and Ixas were doing it pretty good too, Mylene had taken the first position among the whole group, because although her attribute was “decadence”, making the room generate a life-nature environment which should have made her feel uncomfortable or at least lethargic.

She could also control some plant species, such as those vines Aster rode once before, so she could navigate with relative ease through the forest.

Soon the participants started approaching their goal, and Mylene was actually the second one to finish the trial followed by Kana who took a wrong detour almost at the end, giving Mylene the victory.

Next was Vivian and then Ixas, followed by the Luan girls and their protectors last, but even after they all cleared the second trial, the third one didn’t start for about five more minutes, meaning they were among the first ones to finish the trial.

“Mm?”, as Aster saw that a teleportation formation appeared below him, he turned to see the woman.

“You’ll be taken to the third trial now… as a way to compensate for the error in the formation, I’ll give you some information, no one has been able to surpass the third trial so far, not even the one who created that formation”.

Aster wanted to ask a few questions, but he was teleported from this place to the last stage.

…

A few moments later Aster’s surroundings changed, this time he was in a vast black space, it wasn’t dark as he could perfectly see at distance, but there was nothing else besides a black space.

“So, what’s the deal with the third trial, I just hope it’s not patience”, mumbled Aster.

But nothing happened for the next minutes.

Aster had to admit that this black space was bad for one’s mental health, not only it made you feel depressed but there was certain pressure trying to crush you all the time, it could be considered a psychological challenge just be here.

Then all of a sudden, a sign appeared on the sky in front of Aster.

Congratulations on being the one that lasted the most in the “void room”

A gate appeared in front of Aster appeared, from which the woman he met earlier entered this black space which returned to its normal state.

It was basically an underground facility of some kind.

“Well, I guess it wasn’t so unpredictable, the question now is if you are compatible with me, lend me a hand please”, asked the woman as she extended her hand towards Aster.

Aster accepted the handshake and after a couple of seconds of holding the hand of the Emerald Whirlwind, the text on the sign changed one more time.

Compatibility 100%

Aster nodded, annihilation wasn’t classified into any of the divisions it wasn’t of ying or yang nature, so Aster wasn’t limited in that aspect, that’s why even as a male whose natural inclination is yang, he was able to wield Rigel’s flames, or at least that’s the explanation Rya gave him.

The woman seemed to be positively surprised by the result, she then looked at Aster directly to his eyes as she asked.

“That solves it, are you willing to take me in as an equal companion, to fight and grow at my side?”.

Aster saw the pretty light green eyes of the Emerald Whirlwind and then with a big smile and a gentle voice said.

“No”.