Leaving aside the important information they got from Guardian, like the fact that during the second week they’ll have to fight other groups and that the third week might be them dealing with a natural disaster, which made the atmosphere a bit tense, things got more festive as Aster got up after finishing his dinner to then say.

"To finish today’s activities in a high note, let’s have our new teammates receive their evaluations and manuals", he said to which the girls of the sect all gazed at Guardian, the mare, the old cobra king and the young anaconda leader, king of flying beasts was also joining by the way, but the giant eagle voluntary stayed behind to watch over the forest.

In part because there had to be someone protecting the fort and in part because of the wounded wolf’s situation and the disappearance of both the lynx and wolf races, without any bloody battle signs left behind.

Under the sparkly eyes of the girls of the sect, the lynx approached the monolith to then be registered by Aster as a formal member of the group, which resulted in Guardian being bathed in blue flames as she was evaluated.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits and two hundred high grade merits]

[Feline related manuals, items and missions have been added to the exchange and mission monoliths]

"...", there was a momentary moment of silence, before a commotion broke out among the disciples.

"Sister Lynx got the same evaluation as sister Mira!", exclaimed quite a few girls, it’s worth mentioning that the cold on the outside but warm hearted ligress had gotten closer to the young girls of the sect after teaching them to fish and all, so she was no longer "white haired sister" but "sister Mira", similar to how Kana called her.

’As expected, she got the same evaluation as Mira and Espi’, thought Aster with a tinge of surprise in his eyes, the little wyrm told Aster that Guardian is the only animal that actually could pose a threat to her, so Aster expected her evaluation to be similar to Espi’s one.

Though the lynx is not a spirit beast, the blue flaming board takes more than just strength or race into account, otherwise the girls from the sect who mostly though indeed come from noble families of the four heavenly quadrants are not really worth mentioning in the bigger scheme of things, wouldn’t have gotten such high evaluations, potential as well as other more obscure aspects are probably taken into account as well.

"Grrr?", the lynx couldn’t help but look at Kana and ask if her result was good or bad, to which the little girl smiled as she answered.

"Sister Guardian’s evaluation is only second to big brother Aster’s one~", to which Aster added.

"Ahem, as far as I understand all members of our group can reach Perfect grade and the differences among those with Perfect grade are not based in terms of strength, but achievements".

"Welcome to the team", said the ligress girl, perhaps because Guardian comes from a feline race or because she has a rather calm and composed personality, Mira easily clicked with the lynx.

"Thanks", said Guardian as she smiled at the girls of the sect to then move aside and leave the others be evaluated, starting with the mare.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade and ten high grade merits]

She got a better grade than Ember but barely more merits which is understandable as she is many years older than the filly, so she of course should have more achievements than her, this also one of the reasons at to why the younger girls didn’t feel bad for their comparatively lower evaluations, they could equal and even surpass others it all depended on their effort, that’s why Aster said that not getting a perfect grade was not a big deal.

"I have decided on a name for myself as well, you can call me Selene, I’ll be in your care", said the mare as she bowed at the girls and elders of the sect, there was a certain invisible to the eye change on the mare which was detected by Guardian, Mira and Aster before the old king cobra also noticed it.

"Congratulations!", he was surprised and looked at the mare with a happy smile, the mare had just become a king level animal, this was an inevitable outcome, she led the resistance against the king of fangs and sacrificed herself to open a retreat path for the children of her race, among the horses if she didn’t quality to become a king, then no one did, as for Ember and her cousin the small, they were still too young, no one expected it to happen so soon though.

Of course, becoming a king level animal, doesn’t mean being necessarily stronger than every other horse, with her manual Ember could fight against the king of fangs to a certain extent after all and the same applied to the mare before, but she did gain a slightly longer life and more wisdom when compared to other animals.

"Thanks", after thanking others, Selene moved aside and left the old king cobra be evaluated.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Perfect", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]

[Reptile related manuals, items and missions have been added to the exchange and mission monoliths]

Surprisingly the old king cobra also got a perfect grade, but he didn’t get high grade merits, perhaps because he had his hands tied when it come to his race’s situation, figuratively, he is still comparable to an initial king level beast in terms of strength and his venom could threat the anaconda, so with a bit of effort he’ll become a king in the nearby future, after all, Espi doesn’t have any trouble with ruling over kings of snake races, as she is a dragon.

Amusingly enough the little wyrm didn’t unlock the reptile related stuff, her situation was special because she is Aster’s contracted spirit beast.

The lowest grade was for the young anaconda leader who was evaluated at last.

[Calculation completed, the result is "Advanced", which can be converted into five hundred middle grade merits]

His grade was the same as Ember, who is quite younger than him, but he got more merits, because he was still the leader of his race at least in name since most was under the control of the anaconda, as for names the old king cobra and the young anaconda leader knew they will need them, but they had to consider what to call themselves so it was left for later.

"Maybe you won’t start practicing now, but choose your manuals, familiarize yourself with them and start training tomorrow, don’t pay much attention to names, follow your instincts and choose a movement and an attack manual as well as your profession one only, for the time being", said Aster to those four.

"Grrr", the first one was the lynx who after placing her right frontal paw on the monolith and looking over the available options, made her choice.

"The attack and movement manuals are interesting, but to think that your profession manual is "Guardian Deity", how interesting", said Aster as he heard the lynx’s explanation.

Guardian Deity is the term used for cultivators to refer to spirit beasts that have reached a contract with a force or family to protect them, during a certain period of time, in exchange for resources or similar arrangements.

They are different that the spirit beasts that have been beaten into submission who are treated as watch dogs only as they can no longer advance from the moment they are captured, though both are of course non-contracted spirit beasts, the former has an agreement with an ancestor of the force they guard while the later has its life under the control of the other party and won’t be free unless they die and even then, most will drag the spirit beast down with them.

Needless to say, but while on the first-tier forces there are many with "watch dogs", there are only a few with Guardian Deities and all have had Heavenly Conquerors rise among their files, which were the ones that sealed the deal with said spirit beasts.

"Cobra grandpa’s profession manual is "Poison Master" as for mister anaconda it’s "Water-Land Traveler", what do you think big brother~", said the little girl as she translated the choices made by those two.

"Not bad, I bet the king cobra elder can work with Vivian and Mylene, as for the leader of the anaconda race, he can help when it comes to dealing with matters related to the lake", concluded Aster, as for the mare, her manual was actually the same as Ember’s, "Ruler of the Plains" so she had the war ride profession, as to who will be her rider, judging by how Selene gazed at a certain motherly blond roc girl with green eyes, after she received her manual, it was already decided.

’Mother and daughter and aunt and nice, how funny’, thought Aster to then say.

"You are free now, but don’t stay up past eleven, depending on today’s evaluation we’ll be more than busy tomorrow", originally Aster was going to give the girls of the sect, the fifth day as a holyday, well they would still need to fulfill their daily tasks, but there won’t be exploration so with Aster and the others here, they could relax.

This was to rest and prepare weapons to deal with the bear at the sixth day, but based on Guardian’s experience and Aster’s instincts, things won’t go the way they should have, even with the help of the blue flaming board.

"Thanks, and goodnight senior brother~", said those girls in unison as they went their own ways, some directly went to take a shower to prepare to sleep, others sat down to chat, some did light training it was around nine pm so they had time, as for Aster he was dragged away by Alice, towards their private bathroom.

"Humph", the ligress girl softly snorted at the previous, still Aria and Sarina though not as shamelessly as Alice, followed not wanting the wild dragon princess to hog all the fun.

There was a certain curious flash in Agnes’s eyes but she was gazed at like a mouse by an eagle by Valentina, so she obediently followed her cousin towards their own shared room, as for Camila whose face was red by being looked at by others as if they were wondering when was she going to join Alice and the others, she ran towards the shared log cabin like a scared rabbit, as for Vivian she had openly expressed her opinion of not minding taking a bath with Aster, but she was obviously restrained from doing so by Tiana, Nerissa and the other girls.

"I still find this whole situation weird, but I guess it is indeed interestingly fun", mumbled Lieze who had begun to adapt to the group.

"Espi is sleeping but you can come play with us, here I especially prepared a little "treat" for you though it is still just a test it’s not bad, there is enough for everyone to give it a try", added Mylene as she brought a bowl with cut strawberries slightly bathed in a brownish looking liquid and a plate with toothpicks, which made Kana’s eyes sparkle, that was homemade maple syrup prepared from the sap of maple trees that the girls of the sect found and collected during the past few days at the northeastern border of the forest.

Of course, it was a lighter version of maple syrup with way less sugar in it, since to make the version known by humans, you need like forty gallons to make just one of the real thing, which is why it was watery instead of viscous, but that was more than enough for the little gluttonous girl who hasn’t had candies in quite a few days.

"Thanks sister Mylene~", said Kana as she followed Mylene and the others towards the other log cabin to both take a bath and play for the next couple of hours.

....

While on the side of the Myriad Occupation sect, there were people enjoying different kinds of "sweetness", at Wade’s side there was a different kind of scene ongoing.

The camp on this side had actually made some progress, there were less simple refugees and a single large log cabin enough to accommodate twenty people was built, but it wasn’t for people to live in and in fact there was only a few benches surrounding a table inside of it, there was no door so the only privacy was thanks to a curtain used to cover the entrance, it worked as a meeting room for those who had a voice in the decisions of the group.

In here, besides Wade from the Ocean Aquamarine family, the elder representing the Mountain Amber family on one side, the representatives of the Redheart, Bayer families and the Marsh Domain on another side, the representative from the Supreme Elemental sect female and male representatives from the Pleasure Palace on another side, and lastly the representatives from the Marius and Teles families as well as the representative from the mercenaries.

As for Fawn, she and the bearded Otto were present and had seats, but remained neutral.

"Crack!", a wood cup was thrown to the ground by the elder from the Marsh Domain whose temper has always been quite explosive.

"So far there were only wounded people, but today I lost one of my sect members, because you bastards didn’t send reinforcements when they were needed!", he exclaimed.

Wade’s group has had a lot of bad luck, but there were no lethal consequences, until today, the reason for the previous is that they had reached the middle area of the forest but they were attacked from three sides, east, west and north by animals.

At first it was acceptable, all the forces entered a close formation and collected edible fruits, plants and even hunted a couple of the animals that attacked them, their way of retreat was clear so they were fine, this way they travelled a few times into the forest bringing back resources and food which was quite needed, as fishing was too time consuming and yielded small results with a rod at least and they still didn’t have enough stable rafts to travel deep enough into the lake to throw the sole net they had crafted.

However, there was a sudden change when a guttural hissing sound came from the depths of the forest, then a new kind of animal was spotted by the group for the first time, monitor lizards, a couple of dozens of them of around 1.5 meter of size rushed from the inner area of the forest, joining the attack of the other animals and encircling the exploration group before they could react.

It was due to that that not only the exploration team suffered wounds, but they had their first death, that was around midday and obviously after suffering such a defeat they stayed in the camp and for a change the animals stopped attacking them, but stationed themselves at the entrance to the middle area of the forest.

Which might sound like a good thing, but between animals that just madly rush at them and animals that know when to attack and when to retreat, the latter are way more dangerous, that guttural sound made it clear that there was an animal strong enough to control all the other races and it had set its sight on their camp and cut their way into the rich in food middle area of the forest, so they were back to have to make do with some fruit and scarce fish.

"All our groups were under pressure there back there, it was thanks to me that there was only one death, our side even gave you food enough to compensate for a single person’s quota for three days, what else do you want?", said the male elder from the Pleasure Palace.

Of course, he can’t say that when he had to sacrifice someone, he chose a member of the Marsh Domain because the leaders of the other forces had given him some benefits in secret, each representative was in charge of a round of exploration during the day, it was the consensus they had reached after a lot of fights had broken out between the members of the different groups, so they had to be supervised.

"That’s enough Green Marsh elder, while we expected an animal to be leading others our way, the coordinated attitude of the monitor lizards was out of our prediction, aside from the food all the other forces will chip in to give your group two bone spears and we’ll end this matter here", said Wade as he rubbed his temples to then say.

"We have enough fruits, fish and meat for everyone to have eat for the next three days, if we skimp a bit five days is the limit, but the impending problem is that animal commanding the others to attack us, if we don’t kill it, we won’t be able to sleep in peace, even now small animal groups come to attack us during night, so the more time passes the weaker we’ll get without proper rest, so I propose for everyone to participate in hunting it down tomorrow".

"Everyone will cooperate to the best of their capacities, weapons, rations, manpower, besides a designated temporary representative to lead the wounded people to defend the camp just in case, everyone else will go, any objections?".

After a moment of silence all the other representatives nodded, agreeing to what Wade said, because everyone was going to share the risks and because they had no choice.

"So, who will be staying behind?" asked the female elder from the Pleasure Palace, obviously wanting the spot, after all even if the one that stayed behind won’t earn any merits it won’t be exposed to danger as well.

Unfortunately, her fantasy was immediately shot down by cold glares of many people.

"The one who stays has to be a warrior, Fragrant Garden elder you are an alchemist and are working as a medic as of current, so you have to go", said the elder from the Marsh Domain, they used to be close with the Pleasure Palace, but the later sought refuge under the Supreme Elemental sect so there was open hostility between them now.

"I agree, besides the one guarding our base has to be neutral as to not show favoritism to any group in particular", added the elder from the Marius family.

"I think little Fawn perfectly fits the role, her subordinates can stay besides old man Otto since he is a strong combatant", said Wade which made the light brown-haired girl frown a bit.

"I can stay behind and let uncle Otto join you if that’s what everyone wants, but I don’t want any conflict to arise when it comes to sharing a fair share of food and materials from the animals later, I’m only staying because I was asked, otherwise I’d rather join the battlefield and hunt myself", she said, which took a few people by surprise.

The female elder of the Pleasure Palace, the representatives from the Redheart and Bayer families considered guarding the camp an advantage, but for Fawn it was an unfavorable task that needed compensation.

"I agree, we mercenaries can fight fiercely if there is someone trustable guarding our turf", said the representative from the mercenary group allied with the Marius and Telles families.

"We also agree", casually said the elder from the Supreme Elemental sect, which made the female elder from the Pleasure Palace swallow her complains.

As for the Redheart, Bayer and Marsh Domain coalition, it was three versus one so they had no choice but to agree as well, and with that Fawn was chosen to watch over the camp tomorrow.

Thus, with both groups having solved their respective last tasks, the fourth day came to an end, the next hours went uneventful too uneventful since even the evaluation coming from the bleu flaming board didn’t appear past midnight.

It was until five am in the morning that there was news.

[After a through deliberation, the last test of the trial development week was changed from free battle, to a defensive siege, the difficulty will be adjusted to match the changes so make proper arrangements, the battle will start at five pm]

This message was sent to not only leaders, but to every member of both Aster and Wade’s group.