Mystical Journey

"What is this flame…" Stunned, Garen watched as a boulder was melted quicker than he could count to ten. It crawled, joining the other dark-red liquid that almost flooded the uneven ground. It looked like a red marsh that releases heat.

The heat reminded Garen the lava at the volcano back at Smoke Island.

"The flame is definitely close to a thousand degrees*…" Garen dared not get close. He stared at the ground in the area of the explosion, feeling kind of creeped out.

"If any common Luminarists have this power of this level…" He cringed at the thought. The power, the destruction, it was too horrifying!

"This isn’t a Grade D… This kamikaze attack is at least a Grade B!"

Garen immediately thought of the father of his current host body, Viscount Vanderman, and if he also had that explosive force.

In the beginning, the two was just fighting with mild strength, nothing too dramatic, but it’s actually because they’ve been keeping their full strength in. In that explosion, every inch of their strength must have bursted out, melting even boulders within thirty meter radius area. This is comparable to an explosion of a tiny volcano!

By association, Viscount Vanderman’s future enemy, Beckstone, as well as the elite members of the Obscuro Society, these are the elites of the elites within the Luminarist circle, outpowering the two significantly.

"If all common Luminarists were at this standard, then Luminarists as a group is terrifying…"

Garen felt as if his blood had been steadily rising in temperature, his exposed skin on his face and hands were hot from the heat.

Even though he had finished his inspection of the power of Luminarists, he did not feel any relief when he thought about the two major enemies he’ll have to face.

He honestly felt even at his peak and mastery over Divine Statue Technique, he wouldn’t be able to withstand the destructive power of the explosion and the heat he witnessed, and this was just the power of two ordinary Luminarists.

Now that Viscount Vanderman had killed Beckstone’s first love, as well as was involved in some infighting at the Obscuro Society, if it wasn’t because of his support for the royals, he would’ve been offed a while ago.

The seed of vengeance had already been sowed.

Flames devoured the trees nearby, lighting up the crowns of the woods. The fiery glow dominated the color palette in the immediate surrounding.

Crackles from wood burning kept coming from the site. The breeze carried the spark into the air and further away.

Black smoke rose to the sky, calling attention to this side of the woods. The smell of the charred woods repelled Garen from his spot, forcing him further from the explosion site.

He looked at the center of the explosion again. No movements. The two Luminarists were nowhere to be found.

If someone told him before that humans can survive that explosion, he might not have believed it, but now, he’s not sure. After witnessing the strength of the Luminarists, he wouldn’t be surprised by things that challenged his knowledge.

He heard the patrol coming from afar, chose a direction, and sneaked away from the burning ground.

On his way back to the manor, his heart felt heavy.

Luminarists’ power exceeded his expectation. The fight in the beginning looked just like the ones in the memory, mild, not very exciting. If it wasn’t for the final explosions, Garen wouldn’t have felt the energy within the totem beasts.

Everything within thirty meters radius area became a sea of fire, even boulders turned into lava by these two normal Luminarists.

Hoof…

Garen let out a long sigh.

When he thought about facing Beckstone and Obscuro Society in the future, he felt slightly depressed.

"Looks like I need deeper information about Luminarists as soon as possible…" He thought of the dates he saw in the memory, "I have two years until Beckstone’s arrival, I hope there’s enough time…"

Whether he like it or not, since he transmigrated into Acacia’s body, he would need to face this danger as him.

Luo Jing wasn’t sure if he would transmigrate again once he died in this body. The Luminarists were no joke in this world, they’re far stronger than the Martial Arts World. If someone could interfere with souls…

Witnessing the strength of Luminarists, Luo Jing started to doubt his own.

With his strength, even if the Divine Statue Technique has fully recovered, there’s no way he could withstand a high heat of a thousand degrees, let alone the stronger enemies after this.

Boom!

Once again, an explosion came from behind.

Garen turned around to look. The flames were getting smaller, the smoke thinner.

From his side, a team of guards in white uniform hurried over to his side.

"Young master! Are you okay? Young master!"

The lead guard was a man with trimmed beard, he asked as he arrived in front of Garen. His face was pale.

"We were late to come here. Why did you loiter around here? It’s so dangerous! It’d be bad if you got hurt in the explosion!" The lead guard pointed at two other guards behind him, "Luckily they reported back to us in time, or else this would’ve been a tragedy!"

"I don’t… I’m fine…" Garen used the Turtle Breathing Technique to create a pale, scared-looking face. "Let’s go back, I was just scared…"

"Of course, of course." Lead guard sighed in relief. "Let’s go, we’ll send you back to the manor!"

Garen returned to the manor with the escort of the guards. He took a nice warm bath and changed into fresh white clothes before noticing his housekeeper Du Qian’s arrival.

The housekeeper was the one he saw beside his father. She’s slightly plump. As she saw Garen, she inquired his health with concern. It was only after she’s sure he’s of good health that she got at ease and asked people to get him some nerve-soothing aromatic herbs. After that, she instructed people to put out the fire in the woods.

Garen closed his door, sat on his bed, turned off the light and pretended to sleep.

He started mapping out his future plans.

"Two years… from the information in the memory, only a Luminarist can fight another Luminarist. When I was in the Martial Art World, I only needed three years to get to the top, I refuse to believe I couldn’t reach a level where I can protect myself in two years!"

"How do I become a Luminarist?"

Garen started thinking about the question.

His father Vanderman is a Luminarist. If he wanted to become one, he only needed to ask. However, if Vanderman was willing to teach Acacia Luminarist in the first place, he would already have, not keeping any knowledge of it from him.

Garen glanced at the attribute pane at the bottom, it was slightly different than before.

‘Strength 0.8, Agility 0.8, Vitality, 0.8, Intelligence 0.4, Potential 1872%. Unknown Talent detected.’

Vitality had already increased by 0.1, obviously from the training for the past few days.

His gaze fell upon the Unknown Talent once more.

"What is this Unknown Talent? Is it the talent to become a Luminarist?"

After lying in the bed for a while, he heard sounds of Viscount Vanderman, it sounded like he was asking Du Qian about the fire. He insisted about his son’s health, that which upon he’s well, Vanderman relaxed audibly. Finding out that he’s asleep, Vanderman didn’t insist to see him.

The voices left as footsteps faded away.

Garen sat in his bed, and considered telling Vanderman frankly about wanting to become a Luminarist to gauge his success rate. At the same time, he was searching in the memory about becoming a Luminarist.

From the memory, Garen found a key point.

Luminarist is definitely a money burning job.

Becoming a Luminarist involves melting silver down to make very detailed work of a totem. He only knew the gist of how it works, but it wasn’t hard to extrapolate that conclusion from the fact that they use silver to create totems.

Garen scanned through the memory he’d received and found that silver was far more expensive than even gold, not to mention other metals, that’s different from how it was on Earth.

In this world, silver became the most expensive metal followed by gold.

Noble families in this world like using silver to indicate their honorable births. This includes Acacia’s clothes, they’re mostly laced with silver.

Garen did a little analysis and ruled out financial reasons. Acacia himself was a very prodigal person, but no matter how much money he’d lost to gambling, Viscount never minded, obviously their wealth is enough to support his lifestyle.

"If it wasn’t because of wealth, then it’ll be something else." Garen very carefully tried to recall Acacia’s memory.

He could vaguely remember a scene.

It was when he’s very young, he inadvertently saw Vanderman doing something mysterious, something fun-looking.

Vanderman was in a private chamber, lights flowed out of his hand, forming something silvery-white in the air, it was pretty.

The silvery lights arranged itself to become a something like a glyph, but the memory was too long ago, too blurry for Garen to make out what it exactly is.

As that was happening, Vanderman noticed little Cia, it seemed like he took a drop of blood from him, it wasn’t painful, just numbing. Vanderman left Acacia’s side and came back looking disappointed. Acacia lost his consciousness at that point.

This also made his memory fuzzy and thought it was just a dream. Now, it seems it might be real.

"Since it said I have some ‘Unknown Talent’, it may just be one for becoming a Luminarist. But Vanderman was disappointed, so if the memory is correct, that’d mean his talent didn’t meet his expectation." Garen sat cross-legged on the bed, analyzing. This body’s Intelligence is a little low, affecting his brain power and thinking speed.

"Intelligence is his weakness…" Garen sighed speechlessly. "Should I just spend some Potential on his Intelligence to make sure the calculations are correct?"

He thought his own Intelligence was low, but evidently, when compared to this body, he must be like a genius. This made him feel much better about himself.

Translator's Thoughts

J_Squared J_Squared

Translator’s Notes:

Here it wasn’t specified what temperature system Garen/Luo Jing is using, but since it was written for a Chinese audience, it could be extrapolated that it was the metric system, hence about 1000°C or 1832°F.