Mystical Journey

The radio was still broadcasting the news, this method was already slowly replacing newspapers.

‘From the Enderian side, the country’s Construction Department has announced that the world’s largest underground palace, has finally been completed. This construction process was a historical miracle, after ten years and six months, this huge underground palace will soon become the biggest architectural pride of Enderians in history."

"Eternal Night Palace?" Garen smiled coldly, the Enderian King was a madman who chased power, and the Eternal Night Palace was actually an incomprehensibly huge Totem Tactic formation, it was meant to merge his own body with Ender’s largest sleeping statue, in his pursuit for the unprecedented, strongest power.

He was just a madman who wanted to be god, it was just that he wasn’t showing it yet.

As he listened to the news, Garen cleaned up a bit, ate some fruits, and then put on his clothes and sat cross-legged on the bed, beginning his daily secret technique practice. His practice every day was part of the basic steps to merge the Nine-Headed Dragon.

In the next ten or more days, Garen didn’t waste his time wandering about, he just stayed in his room and told everyone else that he was absorbing the Seed of the Ancestral God, when in actuality he was waiting for the Cthulhu's Origin transaction time.

Obscuro was growing more and more low-key, after that battle against the Royal Star Court, it was as though the whole Obscuro Society vanished without a trace, it made no move at all, in the intercontinental news, international news, and even within the other countries’ domestic news, there wasn’t any news at all.

The yearly Seed of the Ancestral God activity had ended, and the many totem users from various different countries also began to leave.

The Ancestral God Grounds became quieter and quieter. This was originally Daniela’s holy ground anyway, Phiros was always standing guard over this place, he lived right on the largest Ancestral God Tree. Now that there weren’t any Ancestral God Seeds left here, the totem users from other countries have no reason to continue staying here either.

These past few days, the Star Court’s two Court Masters had also left in a hurry, but no one knew if it was because they were slightly injured in the battle against God Cloud or some other reason.

The three departments also never got along well with each other, by the time Garen found out that they had left, they had already gone two days ago.

Daniela’s sixth royal daughter would occasionally visit Garen and co as well, she was evidently very interested in Garen.

Finally, when the people from the Cthulhuism Society were about to leave, Garen finally got the news he was waiting for.

Scylla sent someone to inform him that they were ready for the deal

The time was set at three in the morning, the location Ender’s ambassadorial hall.

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

Two in the morning, in the middle of the darkness, Garen abruptly opened his eyes, pulled off his covers and sat up in bed.

Looking at the small clock on the cupboard by his bed, the neon green needle was pointing at half past two.

It was all dark in the tree hole, and there was only a slight ray of green light coming in through the curtains on the circular window.

Garen got out of bed, and put on a black folded dress.

The structure of the dress was very simple, a circular hole was cut out of a piece of rectangular cloth, so a person’s head could go through. And then a silver belt was tied around the waist, two pieces of cloth in front and behind the person’s body. The waist was tied tightly, two hidden zips on either side pulled up, and a simple yet beautiful dress was done, suitable for both men and women.

The only flaw was that such a dress didn’t have sleeves.

Garen had actually only gotten these clothes after the last time he took a hit from the Cthulhu King, and his own clothes were destroyed, the servants here had offered these up for a change.

He took his waist pouch of ingredients with him, although Garen wasn’t strictly a totem user who relied on tactics to fight, the many ingredients and materials in his waist pouch could be indispensable at times too. In order to deal with many different surroundings and situations. Inside, there were healing potions, recovery potions, anti-poisons and other similar things, but of course the most important was still the Glittering Water he was planning to trade off.

Putting another wide black hood over his folded dress, Garen began trying to utterly conceal his own aura and Totem Light. When even he couldn’t feel any energy from his own body, he finally opened the door and walked out of the tree hole.

Outside the tree hole, the two sleeping maids moved slightly, as though about to wake.

Garen took some powder from his waist pouch, and scattered it.

Their heads tilted, and they were once more asleep, leaning against the door.

This was Traceless Sleeping Powder, in small doses it was a sleep medicine, in large doses it was an instant tranquilizer, it acted really quickly too, and was hard to detect. It was part of the preparation Scylla had sent over.

Garen glanced up at Wukang’ tree hole, he could hear the even breathing of four people from inside, it went without saying that the guy went and hooked up a few more Daniela girls again last night.

Garen stayed quiet, pulled his hood close, and took a black mask out of his pocket, stuffing all his golden hair into the hood, and not leaving a single trace. Only then did he follow the tree hole both of them stayed in, walking out.

There were more than ten tree holes in a row, all squeezed close to each other, but there wasn’t the sound of breathing coming from the other holes, they were evidently not in use.

Garen exited the tree hole area easily, and reached the vine road.

There were three people in black hoods standing at the flight area as well. One of them wore black gloves with golden dots and patterns, this was the sign Scylla had told him about in advance. Seeing Garen come out, Scylla took one step forward to greet him.

"You’re the last one." His voice was deep and hoarse, completely different from usual, he had evidently used some methods to change it.

"And here I thought I was considered early." Garen took it one step further, and had directly changed his voice to a slightly hoarse woman’s voice. He was an expert in secret techniques and the structure of the human body, after all he had messed around with the King of Nightmares for some time, so a slight change of his voice like this was nothing to him.

Scylla and the others were slightly dazed as well, as though they hadn’t thought he would be so adept at changing his voice.

If it wasn’t that the black hood he was wearing was the same design as the one Scylla had given Garen, Scylla would have suspected if he was the same person at all.

"Since we’re all here, let’s go." He quickly recovered, and looked at the black-hooded person on his right.

That person nodded, took out a round black ball, and tossed it into the air.

Noiselessly, a huge black bubble formed in mid-air, it was a full six meters in diameter.

The black bubble floated down slowly, and landed in front of the four of them.

Scylla was the first to step inside, followed by Garen, and then the other two.

The black bubble instantly took flight, floating slowly towards the black night sky. Its surface reflected bits of the starlight, as though it had vaguely merged together with the starry sky, and the two were inseparable.

The bubble left the Ancestral God Tree, and slowly flew towards the direction of the Ancestral God Grounds. After about more than ten minutes, soon enough, they could see several figures also dressed in black hoods among the trees below.

The black bubble landed solidly, on the right side of this group of people.

The bubble scattered, and Scylla’s group of four walked out.

"I thought you wouldn’t come this time?" Amidst these black figures, an old man’s voice came. He was facing Scylla, and evidently talking to him.

"How would that be possible, last time was just an experiment, this here is the real deal." Scylla shook his head, "I just got some stock, at first I wanted to collect more before I made the exchange, but there’s no time anymore."

"Me too." The black figure nodded, and said no more, evidently they were just like Syclla, one person leading a group, coming here together to exchange something with the Cthulhuism Society.

The two groups together made up to more than ten people, Garen took a look around, and not too far away from where they were, amidst the trees and foliage, there was a black wooden stake stuck into the ground, there seemed to be some tiny black tactic glyphs glittering on the stake.

Soon enough, two more black bubbles landed from the sky, and more than ten more people in black hoods walked out of the bubbles.

"We can begin now." Scylla said.

"Of course." A clear woman’s voice replied from one of the black hoods that had just arrived, and someone in a black hood stepped out, walking to the very front.

"According to our old rules, let us first complete the promise of exchange from last time." The woman’s voice said calmly. The black hood blocked away all recon methods, so that no one could tell if the person was a man or woman, or how strong they were.

As the person spoke, all of the black hoods glowed slightly, as though there was silver light flowing on the surface. Silver numbers rapidly appeared on the chests of the hoods.

From number 1, to number twenty-eight.

Garen looked at his own number, number eleven.

The black stakes surrounding them suddenly and abruptly fell silent, emitting a layer of grey powder mist, slowly enveloping this whole area, forming an upside-down hemisphere.

The sky also began to take on a layer of grey. It had evidently been completely blocked away by the black stakes.

"Let the deal now begin. I’ll start first." The woman’s voice came from the black hood again, her number was one. "This time it’s my turn to be number one, the item I have is one Blood Jade Pillar, about five hundred years old. I want to exchange it for a Spring of Attas, one or more units. The quality cannot be lower than White Light."

She flipped her right hand, and a small intricate red jade stick of wood appeared on her black-gloved palm, it looked just like a normal stick of jade, and was not extraordinary in the slightest.

"I brought the Spring of Attas, but if you want to get a unit of White Light quality or above, your Blood Jade Pillar is still rather lacking…" A person in the number sixteen black hood from the group on the left of Garen and company stepped forward and spoke directly.

Similarly, he held a transparent crystal cup in his hand, it was filled with a viscous white liquid that was emitting white steam.

"Then I’ll add on five Evolution Stones."

"Done."

One deal was quickly completed, and after both sides checked the items, they readily exchanged.

Garen watched them coldly from aside. This was evidently a small-scale transaction, they weren’t just exchanging the Cthulhu's Origins. The so-called Evolution Stone was just an Evolution Crystal, it was evidently a form of hard currency.

And then the second person stepped out, completing the promised transaction from last time.

There were mainly two ways for them to make the deal. One was this item-for-item exchange. Even if it was something they didn’t have right now, they could make a promise to meet again one year later here.

And the other, was to exchange a condition. Using a treasure, to exchange a favor of one fight from a strong fighter.

Just now there was one person who gave a strange dagger that could grow upon absorbing blood in exchange for a powerful fighter’s promise to fight for him once.

Because of this, Garen had also noticed that of everyone here, five of them had different robes from the rest.

Himself, Scylla, and two people from the group on the left, and then there was number one who had first stepped out from the group opposite.

Their five hoods were all slightly blacker than the others, the color purer.

This was evidently a sign of their power.

They stood out one by one, some exchanging treasures and supplies, some exchanging promises to fight. These exchanges were not very believable, after the person who promised to fight obtained their item, it depended on them whether they really were going to fight or not.

But most strong fighters wouldn’t break their promises in order to protect their long-term trustworthiness, otherwise next time nobody would seek them out for such transactions.

As for the side that provided the treasure, all they could do was pray that they were lucky. After all, to hire a fighter of that caliber, in the normal world, that was practically unimaginable.

At such a level, they were incomparable to any War Guild or Assassins’ Guild.

Soon enough, the deals reached the end, and from the group opposite them, the first person who had spoken, Number One, finally stepped out again.

"Alright, now it’s time for the main event. I’ve brought the Cthulhu's Origins that I promised last time. Anybody who needs to trade for them, you can step out now."