The wood training weapons obviously aren’t sharp, even their surfaces have been properly sanded so that the girls of the sect won’t accidentally scratch themselves while using them, being hit by them does still hurt though.

And yet the komodo dragon king felt as if his strong natural protective armor would have been useless against the female human in front of him.

’If this was a real fight, I would be dead...’, thought the komodo dragon king.

Now, it’s not like he believes himself to be the strongest or anything of the like, however he didn’t think that the bony armor which he grew stronger and stronger by causing himself wounds, would be bypassed so easily.

The komodo dragon king has good battle instincts, so he is sure of it, he would have been beheaded by Valentina if she was holding a real sword.

"No need to get depressed, miss Valentina here is the most skilled in terms of pure technique control among all of us", said Aster to the king who seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

It was normal, he trained his whole life to defeat humans but lost quite easily against one, but there is something the king wasn’t seeing here.

"It’s also worth mentioning that I’m sure our group is way stronger than the human groups that came to this place three hundred years ago", he added which made the komodo dragon king immediately ask.

"How much stronger!", he probably wanted to know how he would have faired against the sworn enemies of his race with his current strength.

"Mmm, well, there for sure would have been some exceptions, like that person Guardian met, but in average I would say that their leading figures were at the level of our regular teammates", said Aster to then add.

"Let me tell you something interesting, if we were truly limited to be mortal humans, miss Valentina would have been equal or stronger than me", if Valentina had a stronger body, not even one monstrously strong like Alice’s, but something like Agnes, she would be in the top five among combatants from the sect as of current.

Aster is an anomaly so he isn’t counted, the top five as of current are Guardian, Vivian of course, Mira, the little wyrm and Alice and what do they all have in common, they have monstrous physical capacities one way or another, though it’s called a top five, they are considered equally strong and dangerous with the exception of Vivian whose danger level is greater due to her poison.

Right behind of them, are all the members of Aster’s close group, the ones who are "abnormally outstanding" directly led by Valentina, Agnes, Layla who though has yet to make an appearance as she stayed behind to protect the camp earlier, has lost and won the same amount of training matches against Agnes making her an equal to the sportsy sun diamond princess, as well as Mikaela who in this place fell behind just a tiny bit when compared to her childhood friend Valentina and was on equal standing with those two instead.

To those four follow Sarina, Mylene, Aria, Camilla, Kana, Felicia, Tiana, Iris, Nerissa, Lieze, Mina, Selene, Ember, the old king cobra and Sophia who is a special mention as she was quite stronger than Erick in combat here, they outstand from the others noticeably due to one reason or another, this is in terms of pure personal fighting power of course.

If we were to evaluate other aspects, other names will pop up like Alexandra who can block a large number of enemies by herself, or Eris who can lead the largest number of people actively in the battlefield while integrating to fight with them herself, and the newest addition to the group, in other words Fawn who might not be the strongest attacker but her self-defense capacities were able to give a little surprise to Agnes.

After that group comes the "normally outstanding" ones like Erick, Cayden, Lina and Nina, Dahlia, the new trio Brenda, Amanda and Violet, the young anaconda leader as well as the giant eagle Blair and Mule are also in this category.

Past that come the elders, senior and junior disciples, the king cobras, there is the horses and the black horses, the flying animals, boar and deer and then there is James at the bottom.

The komodo dragon king is stronger than the average girl of the sect in this place indeed, but as of current he is only above the peak among disciples and elders, so he is a notch or two stronger and might even beat the other normally outstanding ones, but it is questionable whether he could defeat Sophia who is at the end of the abnormal list.

He is actually not weak by any means, as a fellow low-grade king, he would have destroyed the black horse before he was taken in by the red silhouette, it’s just that Aster’s group has adapted incredibly well and gotten quite strong in just five days since their arrival.

’So this "technique" power the humans have is this strong, coupled with the "equipment" which they can change at will to fit specific situations unlike our fangs or claws... no wonder we were defeated, but now I’m being granted that same power, kings from the past, watch over me from the eternal forest, I will absolutely protect our race this time!’, thought the komodo dragon king whose eyes were now burning with fighting spirit.

Previously he was interested in the manuals, but now he was determined to learn them, also hew grew interested in equipment after realizing that his natural armor wouldn’t cut it in a real fight, he was misinterpreting something though, most people wouldn’t have the technique level to reach one of his weakest spots like Valentina did so easily and if he were to be besieged instead, most groups wouldn’t have the weapon quality to kill him in a single move as well, but Aster didn’t want to rain on the komodo dragon king’s parade, so he kept quiet about it.

"I see, it seems like I was too pretentious, it was an honor to be defeated by a human queen, as I would expect from a mate of the human king, you are on a different level", said the komodo dragon king.

"...", Valentina who was happily receiving the praise from Aster and slightly jealous gaze from Agnes for the same reason, took a second to process the previous.

"Hey, what the hell are you talking about!", exclaimed the purple lightning princess, her serious self overwhelmed by her past rebellious one for a second.

"Huh, do the strongest females not pair with the strongest male when it comes to the human race, but from what I have observed, those of you who radiate the most dangerous aura all seem to be quite close with the human king?", said the komodo dragon king, his voice filled with doubt.

A union of two strong parents produces a strong offspring, so in the komodo dragon race the strongest females all flock towards the king, it’s worth mentioning that komodo dragons are not monogamous in nature, so while in this place the originally solitary and independent stance they have was overridden by a pack oriented mind set up, due to their circumstances, having more than one mate is still normal, the king himself has not had any children yet as he put all his focus in training, but he does have the three strongest females from his race as his mates.

"That’s not how it works... well, strength does matter but there are a lot of other things to considerate, anyway the point is that we are only friends", said Valentina in a much calmer way after being reminded that she was dealing with a mortal animal.

"You humans are weird", concluded the komodo dragon king to which the giant eagle nodded in understanding, only Guardian didn’t seem to disagree with Valentina’s words, perhaps because her evolution was more wisdom related so she had long ago stopped thinking as an animal, well, to begin with, the lynx always had a "spark" that her fellow race members lacked, that’s what drove her to ditch the king challenge that day to see what was going on and led her to become what she is now, she had the curiosity to know "what would happen if I do this" that made human civilization advance even as a mortal animal.

Aster who has been softly laughing at Valentina’s reaction since earlier, stopped doing so after being sharply glared at by the purple lightning princess for not clarifying things himself and making her say such embarrassing things.

"Ahem, in a rare case, the komodo dragon kin is not apt for the same battlefield as the rest of his race, the others can be placed in the lake to ambush those that pass close to it, then once the surprise factor has been used up, they can change to fight on the ground, the king however is too large for that, so I think we can place him on the back of the vanguard instead".

"Not only will his size and appearance act as mind pressure on the enemy, but just by being there, the enemies won’t be able to concentrate on the "small" and "weaker" girls in front of them, he’ll be perfect to become our "banner" with a bit of help here and there", said Aster as he looked at the neck and other vital points of the komodo dragon king, who seemed a bit confused.

"Grrr", the lynx softly growled while nodding, perfectly agreeing with what Aster had said.

"I’m weaker than let alone the protector of the endless forest, but even that young white snake though", said the komodo dragon king, to which Aster smirked in response.

"That’s precisely why, a little bit of human "wisdom" for you, unless you are going to fight on the spot, when in front of enemies, if you are weak you have to feign to be stronger than what you are and if you are strong, you must always feign to be weaker than what you are".

Who would pay too much attention to a slightly bigger than a lioness, lynx and a two to three meter sized white snake, when there is a six meter large and way more menacing looking komodo dragon standing more tan three meters tall on the back of an army, the answer is, no one.

In terms of battle prowess, Guardian and the little wyrm are miles ahead of the komodo dragon king, but he looks the strongest out of all, in fact it would be really hard to find a king who looks stronger than him just based on appearance and size, which is what the vast majority of people will pay attention to.

"I kind of don’t get it, but the human king must know better than us when it comes to deal with humans, so I have nothing against it", said the komodo dragon king.

"Besides, if word about of giant komodo dragon with a tail missing its tip and scars on his body spreads among human groups and there are people related to the ones that owe your race an explanation, there is bound to be a reaction of any kind from their side, then it will be child’s play to trace that back to them, think of it as a different kind of hunting", added Aster.

And with that, the roles those two will be covering in a large-scale battle were decided, originally the komodo dragon king as well as Agnes, Valentina and Guardian would now be free to go to do their own thing, since for the next subject on the list only Fawn, Kana and the giant eagle were needed, however that has changed.

Only Guardian and the komodo dragon king were leaving now, the lynx clearly wanted to put her claws to work and was also interested in the gift Aster said he was going to give to Mira and herself at the end of the day, the komodo dragon king had to read his manual and work on it as well.

"I want to see Fawn interacting with miss eagle", said Valentina to which Agnes added.

"Fawn is going to have a few more spars with me and I want to see how she fares against Layla as well, so I’ll wait".

’I get where Agnes’s interest comes from, but Valentina is... interested in why I took the initiative to ask her to mediate so that Fawn stays in the sect, how cute’, thought Aster.

The purple lightning princess knows that Aster never does something that is of no benefit for his family and close ones, and she is also completely aware that he wouldn’t be swayed by beauty contrary to what every outsider believes, so his aim is definitely not the potential princess’s outstanding looks, nor her connection to a ruler level family.

’Humph, acting all mysterious, you didn’t even correct that komodo dragon earlier, just you wait, I’ll find out what "potential" you see in Fawn that everyone else fails to see by the time I have to talk with her regarding staying in the sect!’, thought the purple lightning princess.

Naturally, Valentina wasn’t going to tell her to stay in the sect right away, it’s just been a day since she arrived, she probably has a good impression of them, but that doesn’t mean she’ll just change sides for real, easily, if she did then it would actually be a disappointment as it would mean she lacks judgement capacities.

Also, it’s not like Fawn was especially mistreated back at the mountain amber family, she received the usual cold shoulder that all non-specially outstanding members from branch families receive, but still had her fair share of resources within the advancement speed and comprehension she showed, also she was the apple in the eyes of her maternal family as she is the sole girl from her generation and was loved and cared of by the elders.

Only recently Bradley and the elders from the main branches of the mountain amber, had started playing tricks to win her favor, so she has no real reason to hate them, of course Valentina could tell her about all the scummy ways of those guys, but she would rather let her see and judge for herself, since she has nothing to hide on her end, a smart girl like Fawn will see things as they are.

"Are we going to do some training with miss eagle?", asked Fawn to which the giant eagle flew to then land on her shoulder, in just a day those two had gotten in rather friendly terms, with a bit of help from Kana of course.

"Something like that, you missed five days of training in your profession manual due to being caged in a poorly organized camp, so we are going to make up for that today", said Aster to then add.

"Your manual is called "Endless Freedom" right, do you know the name of its first technique?", asked Aster to which Fawn nodded as she answered.

"I think is called "Sky and Earth" but let alone knowing what it does, I don’t even know the conditions to...", the brown-haired princess had yet to finish her sentence when she saw Aster pointing his left hand at her which resulted in a dim blue glow to envelop her for a second.

’What is this, it feels different than when I was evaluated by the blue flaming board, this feels... as if he was giving "something" to me’, thought Fawn and she was right, because this glow originated on Aster’s efforts, as it was the "unique privilege" he earned, something that quite literally only he could do in this place.

[Unique Leadership’s effect was granted to you, Endless Freedom’s first technique is now available to be activated once]

The message from the blue flaming board that appeared in front of Fawn, made the potential princess nearly widen her mouth in surprise, she has been surprised a lot since she arrived at this camp, but this was something else.

After all, Aster cutting down a supervisor is an example of strength he was simply strong enough to achieve it not that the previous makes it less impressive but Fawn could still come to terms with that, especially since she saw him suppressing the whole battlefield back then.

However, being able to grant others something that had to do with manuals, is the territory of the supervisors themselves, so this is not strength, it’s "authority" instead and that is way harder to exert than just strength when one enters a closed space, separate realm or whatever this place where there are obviously special rules in place, might be.

"Don’t let the single activation condition scare you, technically there is no time limit, so as long as you don’t lose focus you can continue to use the technique, of course it will drain you like crazy if you don’t diminish its effect to the best of your capacity unless when it is needed", said Aster.

Interestingly enough, the blue flaming board did leave a "loophole" easy to notice when it comes to techniques, perhaps because they are not easy to be obtained or maybe as a test in itself, since if the one who used it was a reckless fool or simply overconfident it might mean death due to backslash.

So, once activated so long as you didn’t stop supplying the "fuel" needed for the technique to work, you could continue to use it, but you had to learn how to adjust and change the supply yourself, which meant training.

Also, techniques work in different ways, some take energy for their effect to work in a certain period of time and some do so in large single instances, Vivian is a good example of the former, the enhancement brought by the toxins works during a period of time, Guardian is a good example of the latter instead, since her claw slashes are single instance effects, because their effect is too strong.

And then you have Aster whose absolute field does both, maintaining the field requires payment for a certain period of time and then attacking takes single instance large amounts of it.

Anyway, the point is that as long as they don’t "let go" of the activation, they can continue to use their technique which sounds like an advantage but it is a dangerous trap as well, the kind that if you get drunk in recovering powers akin to those of a cultivator and use more than what you have, you’ll die.

As to why Fawn didn’t know about this, that’s simple, she might have been welcomed by others but neither the girls of the sect nor the elders and leading figures, would reveal such an important thing without consulting Aster first, even if Fawn could literally not tell anything about this as she was bound by an oath, it was a matter of principles, those cute girls absolutely don’t want to cause trouble to their admired senior brother.

"Go ahead and use it, depending on the result, I might use the other remaining instance on you and give you both tomorrow as well", said Aster, of course this is if her first technique did what he supposed it would do and also if it was safe for Fawn to use it twice in a day, it all boiled down to price and effect.

"Mm", still in awe but dying to test out her technique, the brown-haired princess activated it, for a second there she seemed to get a bit dizzy, which made Aster and Valentina frown.

’Is the price too straining for her?’, wondered the purple lightning princess only to see Aster smile at her as she turned to look at him.

"Woah, this is awesome!", happily exclaimed Fawn.

"Chirp!", the giant eagle joined the celebration as she jumped out of Fawn’s shoulder to then fly in front of her.

"I see what you see!", they both said at the same time.

’As I thought, her profession manual doesn’t teach her how to become a spirit tamer, it awakens and increases her affinity with it instead, sheesh the blue flaming board surely loves to make others work hard and earn things with effort’, jokingly thought Aster.

Just like having knowledge about it, didn’t make one a blacksmith in Aster’s case, knowing how to train with birds of prey wouldn’t make Fawn a spirit tamer, the manual however would make her a greater bird type spirit tamer if she became one, just like how Aster was becoming a much greater blacksmith thanks to the galaxy forging technique.

"I highly doubt just sharing vision is the effect of your technique, miss eagle please fly high into the sky, let’s see how deep the connection between you two is while in this state", said Aster which made both Fawn and the giant eagle have sparks in their eyes.

"Mm!" they both answered in unison.