Mystical Journey

“One, two, one two, one…” Garen was in the midst of doing push-ups, counting non-stop in the yard.

It was the weekend, which marked the end of this week’s holiday. The extra corresponding courses in school meant nothing to Garen, except that he would have lesser time to train and to recover.

After finishing ten push-ups, he got up and wiped away the beads of sweat off his forehead. Although his physique was slightly better, he still had to give Kong Yuan and Kong Xinxue some mental preparation as well. He could not just suddenly recover, that would be suspicious.

“Up so early huh… Xiaofei,” Kong Yuan yawned as he walked out of the house in his black pajamas.

The sky was not even bright yet.

“What do you want to eat? I can go buy it for you.”

“Bread and eggs,” Garen answered simply.

Kong Yuan nodded, “Go see if your sister’s awake, and see whether she wants anything.”

“Alright, I’ll go see.”

Garen pressed on his T-shirt to ensure the black material stuck on his skin would absorb his sweat; he then marched toward Kong Xinxue’s room.

Thump thump.

Nobody responded to the knocks on the door.

The door opened by itself, so perhaps it was not closed properly.

“Makes sense. The weather’s too hot, no way she would just stuff herself in her room,” Garen knocked harder.

Thump thump thump!

“Who is it?”

A barely-awake voice came from the room.

“It’s me,” Garen answered.

Not long after, Kong Xinxue opened her bedroom door. Her hair was a mess, as she stood there in her white nightdress.

“What is it?”

“Dad’s asking you what do you want for breakfast.”

“Same as you,” With a slam, Kong Xinxue closed the door once again. She seemed mad.

Baffled, Garen staggered back to the living room and relayed the message to Kong Yuan. He had no idea why Kong XinXue was angry, perhaps she just got up on the wrong side of the bed.

After breakfast, Kong Yuan went out to buy some vegetables.

Garen and Kong Xinxue were left in the yard under the cool morning sun, both of them sipping fresh tea.

The pale green tea was rickety in the cup as Garen kept swirling his cup around. It seemed thrilling as the tea almost spilled out of the brim every single time.

“Just drink your water, stop playing,” Kong Xinxue sat upright at her place with a stern look on her face, both hands circled around her cup.

With no other alternatives, Garen placed his teacup back down. He could not possibly tell her that he was actually training the accuracy of his body control.

Sitting in the yard, both of them were at their wits’ ends. Garen was still wearing spectacles, and his messy long hair covered up part of his face. Moreover, his spectacles were slightly oversized. With that combination, his face was basically covered up already. His clothes were untidy as well, the sweat on his T-shirt had already dried up, emitting a rank odor.

On the other hand, Kong Xinxue was dressed entirely in white, her hair tied into a simple ponytail behind her using a simple black silk. In addition to her delicate facial features and her proper posture, she gave off an elegant vibe.

“Recently… Do you have enough pocket money?”

They really did not have any topics to talk about, therefore, as the elder sister, Kong Xinxue took the lead and spoke first.

“If you don’t have enough money, I have some here.”

“It’s enough,” Garen replied curtly.

Then, it was silence.

The sun gradually turned half of the yard into a bright shade of gold as cicada sounds could be heard from the only brown tree in the yard.

“I’m going to take a shower,” Kong Xinxue stood up and walked toward the house.

“Okay.”

Garen responded shortly as he watched her enter the house, and only returned his gaze once he heard the sound of the bathroom door clicked shut.

Lifting the teacup gently, Garen took a sip again as he slowly regulated his breathing and heartbeat.

After a week of recovery, plus the nourishment of his powers, he was almost fully recovered, already reaching the normal standards of this body. Due to the fact that the body showed a heavy deficit along with plenty of damage in the congenital structures, he could only improve them in the future. At the very least, his powers were not fully exhausted yet.

“But I can’t just fully rely on my powers. I’ve got to choose a secret technique as my foundation,” Garen had been forcing himself to wait until this moment to begin thinking about this problem. He could only wait until his body was completely recovered before he could consider the training issue, otherwise not only would he be not training his physique, he would be hurting it instead.

All the secret techniques and killing moves he once masted slowly came to mind.

“This universe’s rules are indeed harsh, it would take an extremely long period of time if I want my own flesh to achieve the level of being able to resist heat weapons. I need about two years time and a killing move that can quickly come to form. It has to be highly destructive and capable of driving my body to train…”

After searching through all the sects, a swordplay similar to the Japanese Kendo came to Garen’s mind.

“To use the weapon’s sharpness to make up for my shortage of destructive power is indeed the shortcut for combat power. I’ll go with agility, it should not be that bad”

At a realm like Garen’s, although he did not comprehend Boards, his martial grades were thoroughly revised, already reaching another state of a realm. Most of the principles behind swordplay and fistfighting were somewhat similar.

Garen just simply focused all the essences from the other secret techniques on this certain swordplay, and soon, an extremely complex yet precise killing move was slowly taking shape.

Picking up a broken branch from the ground, Garen started drawing strokes in the air.

Up and down, then four corners. Every direction consisted up to thousands of different coping techniques to face all sorts of situations.

This was an extraordinarily-precise swordplay, no mistakes could be made on every track. Once an error is made, a brand new swordplay would be required to rectify. The entire swordplay was basically unlocking a series of locks. After the entire chain locks were unlocked, the effect produced would be groundbreaking.

To activate an extraordinary power as an ordinary mortal.

Of course, this was the original effect of this swordplay, who knew to what extent it would have in this world.

“Just try it then, let’s see to what extent can this pure technique be activated.”

Garen picked up a branch and slowly started drawing strokes in the air.

The branch became blurry between his fingers as it slowly started getting faster. As it accelerated, the blurry appearance intensified.

Wind!

All of a sudden, the branch stopped.

Crack!

With a soft crack, the branch broke in half, and the expected extraordinary power effect did not take place at all.

Garen sighed in disappointment.

“Although I did expect this, I really did not expect it’d be this hard to activate the extraordinary power’s boundary… This universe is indeed…”

He threw the branch away.

“Looks like I can only seek pure material attacks then.”

Ah.

Suddenly, Kong Xinxue’s scream could be heard from the house.

Garen’s expression changed instantly as he darted toward the house.

The first thing that came to mind was the Four Great Cornerstones. Did they decide to come earlier!?

“There’s no water…” Kong Xinxue’s urgent voice sounded.

But there was not enough time.

Garen had already reached the door of the bathroom and reached for the door handle.

Click.

The bathroom door opened with just a slit, and there was Kong Xinxue, stunned, staring back at Kong Xiaofei who was at the door. Her entire upper body was covered beneath a wet white towel, but the lower part of her body was not covered and strands of black hairs were visible.

“There’s no water?” Garen was shocked as well. Looking at Kong Xinxue like this, he was startled as well. Being too fast can be a pretty troublesome issue sometimes…

“Get out!” A red flush crept onto Kong Xinxue’s face as she yelled. “Get the hell out of here!”

********************

Garen had never expected such a thing that would only happen in television dramas would actually happen to him.

After about ten minutes or so, Kong Xinxue sat in the living room, still angry, right across where Garen was at.

“I can understand that as a boy sprouting from the youth of his teenage years, there would be intense urges coming deep from within you, feelings you may or may not have before. But please, don’t go wild expressing your unsatisfied and lewd desires towards your own sister for no reason at all! Do you even know what your own sister means to you? Or maybe you’re suggesting that you, as a seventeen-year-old young boy, have absolutely no knowledge on moral education?”

Bang!

She brutely slammed the table yet again.

“I, Kong Xinxue! The eldest daughter of the Kong family. I’ve always tried to put up an image of a proper, serious eldest daughter in front of you, Kong Xiaofei. I’ve always tried to live my life representing the positive life values! But I can’t imagine that the corrupt society we live in would put up with those toxic on the internet. Yes, toxic! Toxic that were able to poison and make my very own brother, my closest relative, to change.”

“Can you even understand how I’m feeling right now? Hmm? Kong Xiaofei! I’m talking to you!?” Kong Xinxue noticed that even now, Kong Xiaofei was distracted! Distracted!?

She was lecturing her one and only brother and he was distracted!?

Unforgivable!

Bang!

A loud noise sounded as she slammed her hands vigorously against the table, causing it to shake.

“Every single day I return home, I’m doing all I can to restrain myself from any sort of vulgar behavior and using words of profanities, all this to provide the only boy in our Kong household a positive environment to grow, in the perspectives of human life, the world, and moral values. Yet, look at yourself now. In time you will learn how to keep yourself in check. Now, have you stooped so low to the point where you peep at me while I was in the showers!?”

Her voice instantly raised by an octave.

“Well, I say… Can you lower down your voice…” Garen forced a wry smile. “I wasn’t trying to peep at you in the shower…”

“You were ogling!” The urge to lecture that was buried deep within Kong Xinxue finally burst out now.

“Although they both have the same words and there’s only one character difference, there is a vast difference between these both serious natures! (TL Note: In Chinese, the term for peep and ogling shares the same Chinese character.) Hu…” She exhaled heavily. “I’m still contemplating whether to tell Father straight away.”

“I think you had better not…” Garen was completely speechless, “I told you, I really wasn’t peeping. I just heard your scream and that’s why…”

“And you’re still making up excuses for yourself.” Kong Xinxue took a sip of water. “I can understand your feelings right now, always hiding in the corners sneaking your so-called reading materials that cannot bear the light of day. Even though I did give it a try, all just an attempt to understand my only brother, to understand what kind of thoughts he would have. Thinking back now, these things are really just disgusting…” She said as an appalled look was written all over her face.