Mystical Journey

Of course, this happened when the Green Vine Sphere was given Totem Light characteristics.

However, these exercises had to be created, and although they were minor exercises in the Secret Technique world and therefore were very rough, once they were integrated with Totem Light, they could then be considered as rare and powerful resolutions.

However, exercises were merely exercises, and of all the people who had practiced Secret Techniques like the Southern Holy Fist Gate, Neptune Fist, Red Sand Sword, Star Ring Door and many others, how many of them had actually reached the absolute cutting edge like Garen or Cayduran?

Appraisal, perseverance,will, luck. They were all elements that one could not lack on the path to the top.

Thus, though these exercises were created, a worthy disciple would still be needed to inherit them.

The techniques of the Green Vine Sphere would be discovered sooner or later. It was a matter of time. However, the imprints left by these exercises would never disappear.

A great martial art with this as its foundation would need to be established, to allow the disciples to possess a sense of belonging, so that everyone would automatically allow themselves to be part of the group.

Of course, preparations on the Green Vine Sphere were needed as well. Then, they would truly be able to achieve an incomparable synergy, and regardless of whether or not the Green Vine Sphere techniques would be discovered elsewhere, the effects on them would be negligible..

Garen narrowed his eyes and left the flower garden. After washing himself, he wore his clothes neatly, before walking straight out of the Black Fire Palace, towards the palace book collection hall.

Currently, he and Ivycius were the only ones living in the palace due to the sheer destruction that swept the area. The princess and the royal family had moved into the other palaces on the opposite side of the abyss to seek refuge.

The whole KIngdom was separated into three hilltop territories. The center of which was near to a large canyon where large clouds rolled by, and each side was connected by a stone bridge,

The Palace District and the Cloud Light District were conjoined on top of the largest and tallest cluster of hills. Looking from afar, the black palace had undulating layers, towering minarets, and high, scale-like walls.

The other two hilltops were slightly smaller, and were both Trading Districts. One of the hilltops had been built with a palace.

Along the way, Garen saw many of Ivycius’s subordinates supervising the tasks being carried out to clean up the debris in the damaged palace.

When they saw him, they all bowed with their faces in awe and their heads lowered.

He reached the book collection hall, where there was only a single Black Fire Guard guarding the doorway.

Walking into the palace, on both sides of the dark golden hall were countless, tightly-packed copper-coloured bookshelves.

The interior of the palace was almost completely empty; there were less than ten people who were standing in front of the bookshelves with books in their hands.

In the book collection hall, as long as the aristocrats paid a reading fee, they were allowed to come in to research information and learn about subjects that they wished to have a deeper understanding of. Of course, the books were separated by level, and books of different levels would require different fees. Moreover, they were not allowed to be borrowed out to be read outside the library.

Garen walked in quietly, without attracting anyone’s attention. He glanced at the bronze notice sign at the doorway which acted as a directory to the different contents of each area’s bookshelves.

Garen, who had already visited this place yesterday, immediately walked towards the area that he was looking for. He stepped past a few bookshelves, before taking out a black copper key and opening a small door on the wall, then walking inside.

There were two large bookshelves filled with books inside. This was different from the outside, because the books on these shelves all had black covers, while the front of the bookshelves were engraved with secret characters.

These were the records of the research findings by the scholars and researchers after many years, under the command of Avic. There were research notes, and also some precious documents that were nearly out of print, including some of the best academic books.

For most people, even if they were Form 2 or Form 3 Totem Users, if they stood in his position, they could not even dream of understanding the important information there. Perhaps the Forgers and Luminarists who were proficient in research would be able to understand, but even ten years of painstaking studying were not equivalent to reading these Bible-like books.

But Garen was different.

Although Attribute Points were unable upgrade Secret Techniques, learning new knowledge could still prove to be extremely useful nonetheless.

Garen’s foundation was already very good, firstly because of Edin’s teachings and books, later Reylan, then Windling, and Vanderman’s underground book collection and research journals. After his exchanges and the nurturing he received from these talents with excellent techniques, it added to his terrifyingly powerful photographic memory.

Here, the advantages of his ten full intelligence points would finally come to fruition.

These attributes allowed his logical thinking to become more cautious and efficient. His memory and rationality had become stronger as well. In other words, it made his brain more advanced, enabling the potential of his brain to reach frightening heights.

But to Garen, these things were only useful when he was studying and acquiring knowledge here.

It was as if someone was handed a pistol but never fired a round, which, in the end, would result in the the pistol being completely useless. Even with an advanced brain, Garen himself did not like using schemes to solve his problems and troubles. He had always used his raw strength to crush his opponents.

If he could not beat them, he would just flee, and once he had returned and strengthened himself, he would go back and fight again! He would fight until the end!

This habit of his made planning completely unnecessary.

Therefore, even if his brain became any stronger he still refused to use it. Naturally, none of its uses would become apparent.

Garen had always treated everything in front of him as opportunities that he could use improve himself and move forward, transforming them into forces that would make him stronger. This allowed him to constantly increase his strength and deviate more from normalcy one step at a time.

A force that was strong enough to increase the pace at which strength was gained. This increase in speed would, eventually, reach a terrifying stage.

However.

While most people were still coming up with schemes to beat their strong villains, Garen had already unconsciously surpassed his enemies, and had become stronger than his opponents.

He had already become the King of the Century, and while he promoted his abilities to reach far, another reason was this.

This was one of the threads connecting all the different worlds together.

Even a genius with an agile mind would not necessarily possess the persevering characteristics that ensured a life of success.

There was only one factor, which was to remove distractions, and to find the right direction and the courage to go forward. That was the key element to achieve success.

Geniuses always had agile minds, and a lot of problems were not serious to them. Many troubles were also minor issues when placed in their hands.

This way, the chances for them to encounter difficult obstacles were far and few in between. The desire to become stronger was insufficient. If a motivating force was insufficient, they would naturally take a back seat. Resulting in them stagnating.

This was similar to the reasoning behind the hare and the tortoise, except that in real life, the tortoise was never as slow as most people assumed, and neither was the hare as fast as they had expected.

Many times, the act of surpassing others isn’t as difficult as they thought it would be.

Thus, Garen’s method of thought paid attention to ensuring that he would never end up like the devilishly smart geniuses that chose battle strategies that involved scheming their way to victory. Although conspiring was still a type of strength to be had, it was not the path that he wanted to pursue.

A large chunk of biochemical research and Totem research knowledge had been stuffed into Garen’s brain.

He stood in front of the bookshelves while the faint yellow sunlight reflected off the crown of his head, and continuously flipped through books and read them.

The ceiling of the book collection hall was not thick, and was made with a layer of polished yellow crystal stones. When the sunlight touched it, went through a refraction process, allowing some light to pass through while not harming the books. Instead, it expelled the moisture within the book collection hall.

Garen hurriedly flipped through the informative notes inside the records. It passed through his own experiences and experimental statistics in his mind, and kept correcting some of the mistakes, while some of the unclear and blurry parts where temporarily marked out. Waiting for future experimental verification.

A large chunk of the knowledge and statistics in his mind were continuously intersected, perfected, and deepened.

Garen was indeed a professional in this field, who had once given himself core organ transplant surgery. He had modified a part of his body, experienced and practiced Secret Techniques for many years, absorbed so much of Obscuro Society’s knowledge, plus deepened his knowledge through the notes in the palace. There was probably no one in this world who could possibly be stronger than himself.

Obscuro Society specialized in Creature Totem modifications. Terraflor Society specialized in plant cultivation research.

Meanwhile, the Royal Alliance of Luminarists had an assortment of things, and had all kinds of information which was all sophisticated, but none of them were the deepest in the world.

Garen was most concerned about human body modification techniques. He was the successful result of a human body modification that was alive and well too. Although many death row prisoners were sacrificed in exchange for this, it could not be denied that through this path, Garen had successfully lifted the restrictions of a Luminarist whose Appraisal value was insufficient.

If only another person was able to obtain King of the Century’s precise control and Secret Technique realm, plus this technique, and had a Silver Totem that was able to adapt to organ transplants. If they were able to control rejection reactions and after effects, perhaps they would achieve Garen’s current state as well.

Other than human body modifications, Garen had seen many other things, such as research reports and records that involved the Green Vine Sphere’s techniques.

The research regarding the Green Vine Sphere was kept in Vanderman’s underground library, and Garen had already understood it deeply, and was now combining it with the royal research notes and knowledge systems.

He had gotten a better grasp of it, and after he had mastered it thoroughly, he was one step closer to perfecting the Green Vine Sphere.

Once he had actually come into contact with the Green Vine Sphere’s core techniques, Garen finally understood the importance of the coincidence that allowed Vanderman to forge this plaything.

There was a very low possibility there was another thing like the Green Vine Sphere in the entire world.

Because its main body was made of an endangered plant that was likely to have been destroyed more than ten years ago.

After Vanderman had moved back home with this plant, there were issues with its climate and temperature, and there was no way to stop it from constantly wilting to death.

He never expected that during one coincidence, when an accident occurred while Vanderman was practicing his Totem Tactics, would ultimately affect this plant.

Most of the plant died, but one stem of it barely survived. This was the original part of the Green Vine Sphere.

As he had never expected that even Totem Light would be unable to destroy this plant stem, Vanderman began his lengthy research journey. He search the four corners many times in between, in an attempt to find more of these plants, but unfortunately, this plant had soon died out completely, because it was unable to adapt to the ever-changing climate environment.

Thus, Garen was not worried that someone would be able to discover the secret of the Green Vine Sphere in such a short span of time. Most of the highest royal scholars were only able to touch the shallowest surface layer as well. Unlike himself, who had Vanderman’s research notes.

His visit to the book collection hall this time, was mainly to find a way to combine the techniques of the Resonance Stone and Green Vine Sphere, to form more complete and complicated Green Vine Sphere abilities. If it was possible, he hoped that he could break out of his current bottleneck situation.

Other than that, he was also hoping to see the other Core Totems of the other Totem Users that were stronger than the Nine-Headed Dragon, to find out how they actually obtained them.

Although his Nine-Headed Demon Dragon was not an actual ancient complete body, its powers were not to be dismissed. It was actually ranked around number one hundred on the list of Totems.

This made Garen wonder about the remaining Ultimate Totem Users, and how they came about. He also wanted to know how it was possible that their Totems were stronger than his own Nine-Headed Dragon!