aster could feel the hostile gazes of a few people who watched him destroy a treasure just like that, not everyone here came from high ranked sects or had high statuses in their forces of origin.

this silicon forest is both a land of death and a land of opportunities, it depends on who is taking the spots, however every year the spots must be used or they get auctioned by the fritz, so when an outstanding disciple doesn''t take the mission, the sect just assign some poor bastard as a punishment, in order to not lose the spots.

those who were eyeing aster over the destruction of a middle grade stellar armor, are mainly those type of participants, they are told they can return once they get something valuable for the sake of the face of their respective backers, and that armor equaled a life for them.

unfortunately, they didn''t know what was happening at the outskirts of the middle area of the forest, or they might have gone crazy, since their way of retreat has been severed, now even if they accomplished that requirement, they can''t leave.

aster gazed back at those guys as he leaked a bit of his murderous aura, for those at which it was aimed, it was as if the world had turned colorless.

their legs wobbled and their bodies felt cold and numb, this gray world they were experiencing right now, was the feeling of certain death approaching their ways.

"s-sorry, we didn''t mean to offend you senior!", all of a sudden, a few people in the crowd, kneeled down and loudly shouted, others could hear the sound of their teeth were chattering as they spoke.

surprisingly they all seemed to know each other, which made sense, since those in similar situations will naturally group in order to survive, despite the fact that they belonged to different forces.

aster ignored them, those who glared at him earlier were too weak to notice the gap between their groups and his, if not they wouldn''t have been so open about it, so he really didn''t care about them.

he isn''t one that enjoys bullying the weak after all and his murderous aura is far too strong for someone that belongs to the young generation, as the scene of those guys trembling on the floor would suggest.

just his spirit pressure would have been enough as an answer, the reason as to why he leaked murderous aura was because there was murderous aura coming from the stairs that led underground.

which probably was triggered because he destroyed the treasure that was "granted" to him.

''heh, so you are angry that i didn''t participate in your little game, but so what, what can you about it'', it''s what aster''s murderous aura transmitted as it clashed against the one that coming from the stairs.

"ahh, what the hell the mist is expanding, who messed up!".

the mist which was previously just covering the area surrounding this place, now expanded and also invaded everything nearby the stairs, which can be considered as the difficulty increasing, as now others had cover to assassinate someone to get a treasure.

aster saw the response from the being hidden inside the space underground to which the stairs led, and he smirked, the really dangerous enemies are those who remain calm and aim for the kill directly, the thing hidden there was just childishly retaliating after being provoked.

if he can get that much of a reaction, just by refusing to participate, then the enemy is quite unstable, and that makes it way easier for aster to deal with it.

aster anted to confirm to whom those faint traces of soul energy lingering in the mist belonged, and the trace went down into the stairs when the mist expanded, as he expected the mist was being manipulated by something.

a yellow glow was radiated by aster as he used his yang energy to drive away the mist around him and the girls, similar glows lightened up all over the place following aster''s example.

yang radiance is a well-spread technique, as long as you are a man you can practice it, the difference lays in the amount of yang one can release, let alone covering a group like aster was doing, the others could barely protect themselves.

"tsk, another damn dual cultivator, the pleasure palace is surely getting more and more rampant lately", mumbled some guys as they saw aster''s yang radiance.

aster didn''t bother to correct them, he didn''t wear his ring from the myriad occupation sect on purpose, he instead turned to see the girls before saying.

"ladies, take out one core from the beasts you hunted, we are going to take a peek at the situation down there", said aster as he pointed at the stairs.

here there were signs of other people participating in this little game, sings like puddles of blood, broken armor and gnawed dead bodies to be exact.

not to mention he pretty unique sound of bones making friction, caused by the countless undead that were blocking the way.

"i guess the second part of this game is a riddle, the objective is to pass through the swarm of undead which can''t be eliminated by fighting", said aria.

aster nodded, that explained why there were "leftovers" of dead cultivators, normally the skeletons wouldn''t leave anything behind, they were a hungry type of undead, i fact they were pushing at each other while they bit the air as they tried to approach aster, but were blocked by an invisible wall.

apparently, they couldn''t leave their designated area, the guys who passed here previously, probably killed some unfortunate bastards and used them as bait to advance while the swarm of undead fought each other for food.

that''s probably the result the one who set this place wanted, but naturally aster isn''t going to follow the rules, as he isn''t participating for the treasures that are being used to satisfy the greed of the participants.

as aster was about to use annihilation too scare the undead away like he did back at the cave, aria stopped him from doing so.

"let me try something", she said as she gazed at aster with those pretty blue eyes of hers.

aster nodded, and then let her take the lead this time.

"sure".

aria inwardly smiled, aster could probably pass all the obstacles by himself, but she also wanted to actively participate, that''s why she has been training to be able to stand at his side forever.

the temperature around aria dramatically dropped and cold mist was released from her body, before she started walking towards the swarm of undead that were clashing and fighting each other to see who will get the first bite.

but aster didn''t worry, he tends to spoil and maybe overprotect the girls, but that doesn''t mean he thinks they are weak and need him to fight for them, at all, if they say they can do it, his job as their lover is to believe and support them with all he has.

aria soon reached the area were the undead were being contained, and her pretty jade-skin hand entered the protection, the other girls were surprised to see that the undead ignored aria''s hand, it was as if they couldn''t see her.

aria then jumped inside the protection and the undead not only didn''t attack her, but they didn''t approach her even.

she then returned to aster''s side and held his hand, aster saw a thin layer of ice covering his skin but he didn''t resist, aria will never harm her, and he more or less understood what she was doing.

the undead only have interest in two things, first devouring the living, second devouring each other, which means that as long as one is either yin or yang oriented, they will attack you.

so how come they didn''t react when aria entered if she has a yin constitution you might wonder, that''s because they couldn''t see nor feel her presence right now.

she was using her soul energy in combination with her ice spirit energy to project an illusion around her, besides the bewitching ice fairy which she used back then to charm aster and get him to low his guard for a second, a technique she created exclusively to use against him,

her charming side was only for aster''s eyes, so she naturally created another version which didn''t require her to use any charm, so she could use it with enemies.

the others saw the air waving around aster before he disappeared from their sights, well all the girls but felicia who though was surprised she couldn''t see aster, she could still notice his overall position.

"it''s called ice mirage, illusion mirror", what do you think?", she asked to the empty space in front of her, which was actually aster.

"pretty good, even if others use spirit sense, they will see the reflection of the nearby area, it''s a good camouflage", said aster before he became visible again.

"though it''s a bit cold", he jokingly added, aria might not feel the ice that has to cover her body to use this technique, aster did.