Mystical Journey

The price of resources had naturally increased as war was near approaching.

No one expected that the unrest would be this serious and would last this long. As a result, everyone had started collecting all kinds of resources like stocks, and took it as a form as an investment.

Garen went to at least ten rice shops in the inner city. He eventually found a cheaper shop and used all of his hard earned twenty thousand rumbs to buy rice.

He knew that the moment a large scale battle occurred, society at large would not be able to harvest rice, and the price would ultimately inflate to an unbelievable amount.

These investments do not require him to wait for a long time, and he would be able to earn at least ten times more.

Garen rented a warehouse at the deserted part of the inner city and placed all the rice he had, called green rice there. This rice was extremely filling and had high vitality, which meant that it was very easy to reproduce them. This was the main reason why they were so cheap. When the war occurred, this green rice would be very popular among the citizens due to its high satiety. This meant that they could be sold off at a higher price than regular rice.

Garen felt much more relieved as he had found a lead in obtaining more potential points. He had decided to mingle around in Iron Tank City. Vanderman and the Trejons Household were protected by the RAL and survived the first world war. The Trejons’ manor crisis would only surface during the second world war, when the Three Heroes were defeated and the RAL had collapsed.

There were still about a year before the crisis occurred and Garen decided to use this time to train himself.

There was still one month left before the war spreaded, and the Obscuro Society officially made a large-scale mobilization. Garen decided to use this month’s time to come up with a good plan.

After he finished dealing with the green rice, Garen rested for two days, and took two solo investigative quests. Both were relatively safe and did not have a high reward. It was only two thousand rumbs, which was better than nothing.

Furthermore, he did not encounter any Luminarist during the quests. He did, however, encounter a few General-class commoners.

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

Bam.

The beer girl, who was as fat as a water bucket, placed a cup of beer, which was about the size of a water ladle, onto the table. The beer rocked about as a huge amount of foam bubbled to the top. A fully bearded customer picked it up and chugged it down without mercy.

Garen stopped looking at the adjacent table, instead choosing to quietly cut into his medium well steak with a small knife.

He sat at the quest hall that was filled with lights that resembled the sunset, surrounded by totem users and Beginner-level adepts. There were the high pitched sounds of beer bottles clashing into one another, people whispering among each other, drunkards shouting about and even people enquiring for information from the bouncer.

The air was filled with a mixture of the putrid smell of alcohol and vomit. It was horrendously nauseous.

The War Guild was completely different from the Luminarist Hiring Guild. It didn’t matter to the War Guild whether one was a Luminarist or a commoner, they only cared about the completion rate of the quests. There would only be business here when there were wars and would be completely deserted if there’s none.

The quests here were all high reward high risks quests. The lowest ranked quests that could be found here was the very risky quest of fighting against form 1 totem users. The relatively safe investigative quests were nowhere to be seen.

Garen had been here for the past few days, scouting for the quest that suited him the most. He had already completed three quests from the Luminarist Hiring Guild, and all of them were investigative quests. It was not challenging, and he didn’t have the opportunity to go against a Luminarist.

Hence, he came here.

"This is your quest." The beer girl with the waist the size of a bucket walked over and slammed a slightly crumpled piece of black, thin paper from the edge of Garen’s vision. She immediately left after placing down the piece of paper.

Garen picked it up, read it and quietly placed it inside his pocket.

The quest was very simple. It was to hunt a serial killer who had killed thirteen aristocrats from households in the inner city. The enemy was a form one totem user, and his totem was a leopard. He was also a rogue from the Obscuro Society’s outer circles. The Royal Alliance had started to invest a lot of money in attacking, and the Obscuro Society’s outer circle was one of the targets.

Garen wiped his lips with the handkerchief and stood up after he quietly ate the last piece of his steak.

"No. 25478 Has been revoked." A petite beer girl shouted from the quest counter as she wrote down the battle level and the latest quest onto the blackboard.

The battle level represented the highest level quest which the user had succeeded and it also represented the difficulty of this quest. The last quest was the quest where the numbered candidate failed. It was only when the death of the candidate was confirmed that the candidate’s number could be revoked.

This way, people would know the risk of the quest that was previously overlooked and prevent any weaklings from taking such a highly risked quest.

"It’s Lumba. I can’t believe he’s dead." "There’s at least ten numbers that have been revoked in this month alone. Looks like the situation is getting worse."

The hall was filled with discussions.

Garen stood up and left the hall with the quest receipt.

He didn’t have to do any investigation as the quest receipt contained the overall intel he needed in detail. The only thing he was required to do was to kill the target at the given time and location.

This was similar to an enforcer’s task. In the eyes of the royal government, The War Guild itself was the enforcer of the underworld. The employer of the War Guild was called the Hound, as in the Hounds of the Royal Alliance of Luminarists.

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

A day later. 3.26pm in the afternoon.

Among the scorching golden sunlight, there was a small alley in the residential area of the outskirts of the city.

Garen silently stared at the man in white opposite him.

The opponent was in white long robes with a white scarf on top of his head. It was a classic arabian attire, which was also what a majority of the citizen’s wore here. The light colored shirt and scarf could reflect more sunlight and prevent the body from overheating.

It was a brown man with blue eyes. He had very deep eye sockets, and a pair of eyes covered in blood vessels. He looked so tired, as if he hadn’t rested for multiple days.

"Royal’s lackey!!" He shouted as he stared at Garen. He felt comfortable as he saw Garen’s weak totem light.

This Hound seemed to be a misfit. With such a weak totem light, he believed that Garen’s attack wouldn’t be very strong.

"Wayne Stain. Do you have any last words?" Garen whispered.

He gently threw a black compass-liked item. As it landed on the floor, it immediately spread and covered the area of about 100m in diameter.

Within seconds, the noise and wind from the outside world stopped appearing. It was as if both of them were separated from the rest of the world.

"Speak? You people won’t let me go even if I said anything." The opponent immediately replied. "You really are a Hound from the War Guild. You even brought along the War Prison. What else do you want me to say?"

"This thing can only separate us from the rest of the world for an hour. It’s more than enough time for us to solve the problem. "Garen shook his head. "Since you don’t feel like saying anything, let’s start."

"What a joke. With such a weak totem light you…" He didn’t even had the chance to finish his sentence, before he was unable to speak further, his eyes wide open.

With ten of his fingers, Garen pressed at least 10 pressure points on the opponent’s chest.

As he inhaled, the flow of air started to become turbulent and became a white gas surrounding his body, like a white ribbon. His body instantly expanded from 1.78 meters to at least 2 meters.

His usual thin body was instantly filled with muscles that were as strong as iron.

Huuuu….

The air that he gently exhaled became white, and blew away the pebbles as it flowed to the ground.

Under the golden light, a giant shadow was casted from Garen’s body and completely engulfed the target.

"Let’s start… Let’s see how big of a difference there is between the totem light and a commoner…"

"You’re not even going to use the totem light!!" The target had noticed that the blue light on Garen’s body had disappeared and gave off a shocked expression on his face. "You asked for it! You asked for it! Haha!"

He swung his right arm and a golden spotted leopard slowly came out from behind him.

Roar!!

The golden leopard opened its mouth widely as it leaped towards Garen.

"Divine Martial Fusion!" Garen’s body expanded once again and a circular faint white light was floating around his body. The glowing white light was a divine phenomena when the aura entered the body.

He clapped his hand and instantly disappeared.

Boom!!

A gigantic hand filled with blue veins landed onto Wayne Stain’s head. However, the attack was blocked by a thin layer of yellow light filament. When the palm came in contact with the light, the sound of one hitting a wood could be heard.

Garen clearly felt that as he attacked, it was as if his attack had pierced through a very deep pond and its momentum kept going deeper and deeper but it wouldn’t reach the end of the pond.

"Red Jade!" Both of his palms instantly became as red as jades and gave off an incredibly high temperature. The sizzling sound could be heard as he was holding onto Wayne Stain’s head.

The layer of yellow light seemed to be burnt by the high temperature as well.

"Since it can be burnt, it means that it can be depleted." Garen said without changing his expression. His body instantly disappeared and appeared behind Wayne Stain and avoided the golden leopard that was attacking him from behind.

Boom Boom!

Another two palm attacks were released onto Wayne Stain’s back.

"Thousand Mammoth Traction!!"

Air flow and the scream of the elephant surrounded Garen as he attack Wayne’s back with both of his palms.

Boom!

Strong wind blew from all directions and the deafening sound kept reverberating in the alley.

The yellow light finally started to vibrate and destabilize.

"You bastard!!" Before Wayne could even react, he was attacked by Garen four more times. His speed was so fast, even the golden leopard totem couldn’t keep up with his speed. "A Master-level adept? How stupid! Do you think you’re the only Master-level who are trying to go beyond the limits?!"

His yellow gemstone ring on his right hand lightened up and swiftly drew some sort of a symbol with both of his hands. A trail of yellow light followed his hand as he drew the symbol.

Without any hesitation, Garen avoided the attack at lightning speed. A trail of yellow light flashed past the position where Garen originally stood.

It was a basic support tactic; only the traditional Luminarist would combine their totem with such tactics. These kind of Luminarists were very rare and he didn’t expect to meet one here.

Unfortunately, Garen came from the same background as well. Although he couldn’t use any supportive tactics, he had knowledge in tactics as he learnt it from Emin.

The tactic Wayne was currently using was an attacking created by focusing the totem light. Its attack speed was incredibly fast, and its direction could be easily manipulated.

This skill was incredibly useful when used against the Master-levels of this world. However, its damage towards a Luminarist could be completely neglected.

Unfortunately, Garen wasn’t afraid of such an attack, due to his aura and his knowledge in supportive tactics.

Without making any sound, Garen rushed up towards him with a very calm look.