The rise of the pervert primordial

There were more details in a second message below the one Aster had read, first and formal the message said that during battle the camps that had no available members will be protected from external interference.

Not like that altered Aster’s plans, because even if they left this early towards James’s original camp, they would arrive past midnight and that is if they were to rush with the help of the horses who would be too tired to participate in the battle.

The idea was to set off today, travel at normal speed and camp until early in the morning of tomorrow, to then attack the camp while there were only some of them in watch duty and then be back home at night.

"The limit is ten items, let’s do it as we previously discussed, disciples and squad leaders all take four equipment with the exception of archers who’ll take their bow a quiver, five arrows each and a dagger instead", said Angela, she of course had already made theories on the limit of items and had an arrangement for numbers that went from one to fifty already in her mind ready to be implemented, as tedious as it sounded it only took her an hour to finish them all, as one would expect from a polymath multi-task master.

And that was it, the conditions to win, the number of items one could bring or if it was possible to give up for safety’s sake wasn’t mentioned, which was done on purpose of course.

"So, we don’t get to see the details about the match until we are there?", said Aria to which Alice added.

"It wouldn’t even be a challenge if we could prepare for it beforehand anyway, but I don’t like that they are testing other things besides battle that sounds annoying, as I thought paying a visit to those guys at the west sounds much more fun for me~", said the wild dragon princess.

If the match happened to require more brain than brawl, Alice could still outstand but she would be bored to death, therefore she already said that she prefers to go and crush James’s original camp than participating to which Aster couldn’t help but sigh.

’Oh well, I was not going to send Alice for our first time participating, so I guess this makes things easier’, he thought, there was a second message from the blue flaming board actually, probably caused by Aria’s comment from earlier.

[Details about equipment allowed and other limitations will be given thirty minutes before the match starts]

"Thanks for the reminder", said Aster as he felt the "presence" of the blue flaming board disappearing from his senses the next second.

"Now, let’s decide who will participate, for starters I have to go, maybe the next matches will be different but it will be good to get an idea of what we might be facing and for that same reason either miss Valentina or miss Mikaela have to go as well, for this time we’ll leave aside animals to not reveal that we have such a varied group, because we don’t know if complete elimination of the other party is allowed", said Aster.

Normally, the vast majority would decide to go all out during the first fight, since there is a total of three matches, probably to continue for the third week one must need to win two at least and winning the first one will give them a huge advatantage.

But Aster’s situation is different, his camp will fight in different fronts, therefore the first fight was for him to gather intel about the matches, it was fine even if they lost, so long as that didn’t mean any harm.

For now, not even the supervisors knew that so many animals had joined his group, because the whole situation with the komodo dragon king happened after Aster had cut down Red Cloud, so they would be kept hidden for the second or third match depending on how things develop.

"I’ll go, Mikaela is better at guarding the camp than me after all", said the purple lightning princess, she wasn’t lying, her childhood friend is a balanced defense and attack type fighter rather than a full attack one like Valentina, because even as a cultivator Mikaela uses both a sword and heavy armor, in fact her profession which is "Rearguard Master", made her fit to take care of these kinds of situations but we’ll talk more about that later.

"Mmm, I say we choose ten authorities and twenty disciples; we have two authorities who’ll be in charge of decision making and strategy already, one to actively participate while the other observes and interferes only if needed, medics, scouts, support and "special" combatants are left", added Angela as she accommodated her glasses.

"Lina and Nina can be the scouts", directly said Mina as she smiled at her younger sisters.

"Dahlia and myself will be the medics", added Mylene, the fact that Aster was open to the idea of losing the first match didn’t mean he would allow those girls to suffer, so the best medic of the group had to go and apparently Dahlia has gained the pink-haired girl’s recognition with her knowledge about herbs and gathering skills.

"What do you say Kana, don’t you want to go and support your big brother Aster?", said the blond motherly roc girl to her daughter who cutely nodded continuously.

"Mm, I’ll help mom take care of big brother and all the sisters of the team~", said the little girl.

"I think I qualify for the special combatant category, and I would like Mira to come with us as well", said the ice princess which took the ligress girl by surprise, that being said she didn’t dislike the idea of teaming up with Aria and her fate was sealed when Kana’s sparkling eyes looked her way as she said.

"Yes, come with us sister Mira, please~", and thus the grumpy ligress had no choice but to join, she still softly growled as she felt Aster’s teasing gaze on her though but those were cute harmless "purrs" for Aster’s ears since there was no real threat in them.

"Okay I think with the ten of us we can cover any aspect that might be counted for the match, and all of us are capable of combat in case is needed", said Aster after he had enough of messing with Mira.

"For the twenty disciples, we can go with the smallest battle formation which consists in squads of five people, I suggest taking Amanda, Brenda, Violet and Blair as squad leaders as well as two spear and shield users, one sword and shield user, and one archer and dagger user for each of them", said Eris, she is the one who has trained the girls of the sect in battle formations so she had the maximum authority in what that regarded.

Aster didn’t get to see Amanda Brenda and Violet’s participations when he visited the area west to the camp, but they had a good performance during the siege battle, so he didn’t doubt of their capacities to lead their fellow disciples.

Blair was a bit of a surprise, apparently, she had earned quite a few admirers among the girls from the battle peak because she made a lot of spears for her daily quota and used her training time to make daggers for them as well using the example gift dagger that Aster gave her to guide herself, so she ended up clicking well with them.

Though it seemed as if she had bribed those battle maniac girls, Eris wouldn’t have trained her to lead a battle formation if she didn’t have the qualifications for it, perhaps she learned to be quite responsible due to being the most outstanding disciple of elder Riley and the only core one who stayed with her master instead of returning to her family when a lot of disciples abandoned the sect.

Ah right in case you wonder where did the swords that they were going to use came from, Aster made them, the disciples of the blacksmith peak focused in making spears and arrows, while specific selected people made daggers as well, namely Blair and the elders of the blacksmith peak, while Aster took care of the most annoying one out of the equipment choices, the swords which required more work, he also took care of the defensive equipment, well, the base of the shields was made by all the girls of the sect since they just needed to carve wood pallets.

James who was in charge of the leather, added it to reinforce the base wooden shields and then Aster added the finishing touches with metal to secure the whole thing.

"What do you say?", asked Eris to which Aster nodded, it was a nice and well-balanced arrangement, with three shields, two middle range weapons, one close range one and one long range one with option to switch into close range once they ran out of arrows.

It’s worth mentioning that while Eris said "spear and shield" user and the like, it’s not that the ones chosen for that role could only use that, but that they outstood the most in that role instead, after all, the girls of the sect were being trained to use the four basic types of equipment, only the archers were a much more select group for obvious reasons.

"Sounds good", said Aster making the heavenly rose princess proudly smile in response.

"Those four are the core of my personal "project" I assure you they won’t need you all to interfere in the fight, unless something serious happens", said Eris as she sharply gazed at the mentioned squad captains who felt a shiver run down their spines, it was as if Eris was telling them "If you make me look bad, I’ll give you a "special" hell training course" to them.

’Help’, thought the new core disciple trio in unison, while Blair directly asked what was in her mind.

"Can we keep working in our own things or do we start preparing right away and rest for later?", asked the red short haired girl.

"You are free until midday, after that you’ll no longer partake in any activities, refresh yourselves, we’ll eat lunch and then we’ll gather all the things we might bring into the match into a single place, since we’ll only have half an hour to finish our preparations", said Aster to then add.

"The ones participating in the match can leave to do their own things, the rest stay a bit longer".

"Mm, okay", said Amanda, Brenda, Violet and Blair as they left.

"Here comes the fun stuff", said Alice as she tapped her tail against the ground lightly, and just with that she made a small crater appear on it.

"James, did you manage to identify those guys from your original group with the descriptions provided by Fawn?", asked Aster to which James nodded.

"Yeah, as I thought the leader survived, he was probably the one who participated the least in what happened to those female cultivators, not willingly but because he had to deal with all the trouble of the camp, that being said the other nine from the original group are the "weaker" ones, they also survived because due to hierarchy they couldn’t do... much, as for the new five members, they are indeed the male prisoners which I used to watch over", he answered.

James had already told Aster that the extra ten people the original group met didn’t come from the same group but were randomly brought with them by the red cloud supervisor, a couple knew each other but that was it.

So, it wasn’t that surprising that they didn’t care about the ending of the female cultivators since they were strangers to them, it was still unknown how did they manage to strike a deal with their captors though, because common sense would say that after the blue flaming board punished them which naturally made them weaker, they wouldn’t allow those five to join them in case they tried to turn things around.

’Mmm, perhaps their status was also bad after being imprisoned so the original group accepted them, since they still doubled them in number and were a team from the very beginning unlike them who came from different origins, whatever the case, they are also targets for elimination’, thought Aster.

"I wrote all the details about them in this notebook, the weapons they use, their fighting styles and the like, though I don’t know about their manuals, they wouldn’t go for anything they are not confident in mastering in a short amount of time, that’s what life as a mercenary is like after all", added James as he handed a notebook over to Aster who passed it to Angela instead.

"To go and return will take a day so let’s go with a middle-sized unit rather than an all-out army, their area is past the volcanic one where the bear lived and is similar in terrain to the rocky area past the forest to the west, I think thirty of us, horses to help with transportation, a few king cobras and komodo lizards will be more than enough", said Aster.

He was talking of about fifty members, it was more than enough to sweep the enemy camp even if they hid behind their defenses, especially because Alice was obviously going.

Speaking of which, the wild dragon princess just realized that she will be spending one night without cuddling with Aster, but she gritted her teeth to her insides and still decided to go because she needed to kill enemies with her tail to complete her mission.

’Tsk, as I thought that blue flaming board is quite annoying’, thought Alice as she pressed her tail against the ground, making a crater on it.

"Ahem, Camila, Tiana, Cayden and Sandra please join Alice, the rest is up to Mina who will lead the group", said Aster, though Aria was the best choice to keep Alice in check just in case, Camila and Tiana could make up for the lack of the ice princess since she was going to participate in the match.

Camila is also one of Aster’s lovers so Alice wouldn’t ignore her and Tiana completes the rivalry trio with Alice alongside Aria, Sandra was in surprisingly decent terms with Alice too, maybe because she has a boyfriend already so the wild dragon princess doesn’t see her as competition, as for Cayden, Alice treated the saber young master as she treated Erick, neither friendly nor unfriendly as she lacked interest in any other man besides Aster.

"Okay I’ll take care of organizing the advance team on my end, we’ll leave after lunch, same schedule as the one for those that will participate in the match, stop doing stuff at midday but prepare everything you’ll need before bathing and eating lunch", said Mina.

"And don’t worry about weight, we’ll bring some decent pack "mules" to carry our stuff and our friend horses to help with our transportation~", said the wild dragon princess, poor Mule felt a shiver running down his spine as he saw the red eyed creature glare his way.

’T-The golden eyed human won’t be coming with us, damn, if we screw up, she is going to make us wish we were dead!’, inwardly exclaimed the black horse.

Though Alice wouldn’t beat the horses just because she felt like it, that was if they behaved, they will be travelling outside, if any of the black horses tried to escape or something along the lines of it, he knew they will experience hell, because Aster won’t be with Alice, so she’ll look for something else to entertain herself, and since she is only lascivious with Aster, her other forms of entertainment are all mostly related to violence, like Aster said she is such a handful.

The black horse couldn’t help but look in Vivian’s direction, the white-haired human though seemingly terrifying due to the aura she radiated, was really kind and seemed to be in good terms with the golden eyed human king.

And as if his prayers were heard by some kind of miraculous and merciful being, Aster who was suddenly reminded of the improvised toxin mentioned by the giant eagle added.

"Ah right, they have a toxic weapon, Mylene is coming with me so what do you say Vivian, do you want to go with them?", asked Aster, Mylene’s anti-toxin potions should be enough to counter those guy’s poorly made alchemic products, but it wouldn’t hurt to be safe by bringing the queen of all toxins with them.

Also, Vivian liked to experience new things, so she will for sure love making a long travel and seeing different areas in the way.

"Mm, sounds fun, I’ll ask miss Selene to come with me if she doesn’t mind~", said the white-haired girl, she would prefer to ride on Guardian’s back, but the lynx had to stay because, well, her manual is similar in that aspect to Mikaela’s and her mission would progress a lot if she watched over the camp while a number of the strongest fighters are out, therefore she went with her second-best option.

The komodo dragon king would have been a good choice too, if his body wasn’t so big that it would be hard for him to maneuver and hide in the rocky area where they will be camping before attacking the enemies.

’Thanks to the beings in the sky!’, inwardly exclaimed Mule as he heard that Vivian will be joining the travel.

"Miss Valentina, I know it’s a bit rushed but please take care of what we talked about before, the plaques have been gathered in a container at my smithy, they should be ready by the time the match starts", added Aster to which the purple lightning princess nodded.

"Mm".

...

And with that the hours passed, everyone shared a nice lunch together after which the hardest ordeal was to get Alice to let go of Aster before the advance group left the camp, soon the time mentioned by the blue flaming board arrived.

Aster and the others who were selected to participate in the match, gathered close to the monoliths, there were many tables with a lot of different equipment, potions, miscellaneous items like compasses tools and clothes, rations such as boar jerky, dried fish and even candies which could provide a large amount of energy, carefully organized on top of them.

What they will bring will depend on the next information provided by the blue flaming board.

[For today’s match a total of ten objects without taking into account basic clothing, are allowed, alchemic products that cause death in less than a ten-hour period of time are not allowed, any try to infringe these limitations will result in punishment]

"Do these rules apply to both groups, what if the other party comes from an area that’s not under your management?", asked Aster, this was a doubt that Valentina had expressed before.

[The venue for the matches is located in the eastern zone’s jurisdiction, therefore it is under my control], answered the blue flaming board.

Aster already knew that they will be transported somewhere else, because Guardian saw human groups disappear in front of her back then.

’Those fools probably used the eastern zone as the base of their operations because the blue flaming board wasn’t in the picture, and they didn’t expect for it to return this time around either, so the preparations were already done and the blue flaming board just took over’, amusingly thought Aster.

On the other hand, this was also one of the best possible scenarios for participants even if they were from other zones, because the blue flaming board is fair, so it wouldn’t give anyone a preferential treatment unless they earned it, even to Aster’s group whom it regarded as allies.

"The limit is ten items, let’s do it as we previously discussed, disciples and squad leaders all take four equipment with the exception of archers who’ll take their bow a quiver, five arrows each and a dagger instead", said Angela, she of course had already made theories on the limit of items and had an arrangement for numbers one to fifty already in place, as tedious as it sounded it only took her an hour to finish it.