Formless Ascension: My Affinity Is Limitless

For several seconds, the guy didn’t know how to react.

The sincerity and lack of emotion with which Uhtred had asked the question made him confused as to what Uhtred’s goal was in particular.

”I—I don’t...”

”Haha. Of course you have no need to hide,” Bradley took over smoothly, stepping forward to position himself as the leader of the group.

The others remained silent. The guy Uhtred had been speaking to clenched his jaw hard. He looked as though he was beating himself up about his timid response.

For some reason, even though he felt no powerful emanations from Uhtred, he had not been able to respond naturally.

As if Uhtred could sense the guy’s disgruntlement, a lazy smile played on his lips before he turned his attention to Bradley, who had an easy air about him.

”How long have you guys been here?” he asked before Bradley could engage in conversation.

”What do you mean? Hasn’t it been only about forty minutes since the trial notice even appeared?”

”Of course, I know that. I am asking, how long have you guys been here in the trials?” Uhtred deadpanned.

”Literally seconds before we saw your team...” Bradley replied with a confused look on his face. ”What’s with the weird questions? We literally just saved your team, for crying out loud. Why are you treating us like you’re suspicious of something?”

”We should have just left their asses out to burn,” the girl from before, Bianca, added scathingly. ”We went out of our way to burn part of our essence that’s already leaking in the first place, and this is what we get?”

Uhtred said nothing. He simply glanced at Zara, then smiled.

”It seems we’ll go with your method this time.”

Zara, who had begun to look bored, her eyes looking distant as if she had begun to think of something else entirely, refocused on the present.

For the first time, a smile, though very light, coloured her face as she stood up from the large rock she was sitting on.

Bradley became alert as she strode forward unhesitantly toward the girl who had just spoken.

”What are you doing?” Bradley barked, activating a ball of fire in his palm as Zara headed for his teammate.

He moved to block her path, but she continued forward unimpeded.

He used his free left hand to try and grab her by the shoulder, but she weaved under his moving hand like a snake till she had moved behind him and grabbed him by the neck with the crook of her arm, pressing against his windpipe tightly.

Bradley had not even seen what had happened. He hadn’t seen her move. Nor had he been able to react. By the time he realized what was happening, he could barely breathe, and Zara was bending his body backward into an even more vulnerable position.

His anger flared, and he slammed his right hand with the flame in his palm towards where he thought her head was behind him.

However, both the flame in his palm and the hand that had shot out were grabbed tightly by Zara in a crushing grip.

A loud scream erupted from the depths of his soul as he felt several finger bones crushed in an instant. But even his scream could not escape his throat as Zara’s arm was still locked tightly against his neck.

The rest of his teammates wanted to move, their spells at the ready, and their bodies primed for action, but they remained standing still, trembling in their spots.

They had all seen how very easily Zara had incapacitated their leader, the highest leveled individual among them. She had made it seem like a simple wrestling move, but all of them knew the power Bradley’s fire spells packed and even the base level of strength his body possessed.

Yet Zara treated him like a simple kid.

Right before them, the bright blue-eyed girl went on to snap several of Bradley’s bones. The grown man began to shed tears of pain throughout the entire process.

And worst of all, Zara’s grip remained tightly locked around his neck, preventing him from even letting out his cries. The entire process shocked the team to their cores, making them forget any trace of bravado.

The ladies were the first to quickly start speaking.

”I swear it was Bradley’s idea!” Bianca fell to her knees, looking towards Uhtred with a pleading expression.

”We must have arrived just moments after you guys, because we saw the whole process of what happened on your end! At first, we wanted to help out of goodwill, but Bradley asked us to simply watch for the meantime as he quickly analyzed the details of the trial!”

Her voice was trembling as she spoke rapidly.

”We could all feel the cosmic essence loss, and we were all frantic about the situation, but not long after those beasts started to attack you guys, Bradley found a solution!”

Uhtred raised a brow, intrigued. He had also checked through the System notices after arriving, but he had not found anything related to a method to stem the cosmic essence loss.

Bianca continued immediately, seeing the look of intrigue on Uhtred’s face urging her to continue:

”A—Apparently there is someone selling a general use essence core on the trial exchange...”

Trial exchange?

Uhtred shared a quick glance with Zara before quickly pulling up his status panel and every other panel that was available to him here within this trial.

Very quickly, he saw exactly what Bianca was speaking of.

In the place of the locked multiversal store, there was a new thing called a trial exchange, or more aptly, just an exchange system. A panel showing listings from individuals within this trial who were willing to exchange products, cores, and materials, for merits points or very specific items in return.

This was something Uhtred would have found out on his own eventually, but because of the urgency of their situation right after they had landed, he hadn’t had the time to carefully go through everything available to him.

Man... Hasn’t it only been forty minutes, though? How do all these guys have items listed already?

His eyes scanned through the entire exchange panel as Bianca continued to speak.

”As long as general use cores are available, we can always top up our essence reserves indefinitely,” she said, then paused, swallowing.

Her eyes darted to the rest of her team members, who looked sullen, but they didn’t seem to hold it against her that she was revealing everything.

Though, from the quick glance she gave them, it almost seemed like she was asking whether she should go ahead and say what she wanted to say next...