Mystical Journey

His nose couldn't smell anything, he wanted to shut his mouth, but he noticed that his lips were gone, even his tongue was rapidly disintegrating.

Not long later, Garen had lost all sense of feeling, his sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste, and even his sense of pain, it was all gone.

He had originally planned to give Andrela a hand, but he would’ve never expected to be caught in such a predicament. The power of the Mother Stream was too overwhelming, making it hard for even him to last for more than a few moments.

He felt as if he were floating in an endless abyss, there was nothing around him, he could not feel anything. It felt like the space the totem of the Nine-Headed Hydra existed in at the beginning, an empty abyss.

Garen knew this was his soul’s visualization of his senses, he guessed, his physical body might have already been completely disintegrated, leaving only his soul intact.

Even the strength of his Living Secret Technique had been dissipated by the overwhelming force of the Mother Stream. However, that seed, the seed that contained the Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique and his soul, used the protection from the soul and was floating right in front of Garen, perfectly unscathed.

Inside this dark abyss, the seed was the only source of light, silently floating in the center, emitting a soft blue glow.

As time waned on, Garen could only observe this soul seed to occupy himself.

It might’ve been a month, two months. A year, or even two.

He could no longer keep count. He counted the seconds up to the billions, and as he lost count, he started all over again. This process he repeated numerous times.

However, in all this time, he at least managed to confirm one key point.

His soul managed to resist the decomposition capabilities of the Mother Stream, or rather, the immense amount of force exerted while traveling through space and time.

Even after his body was disintegrated ages ago, there was no sign of any damage or harm to his soul. Even though the physical strength of the Living Secret Technique has completely been dissipated, the seed was still here.

The increased soul limit due to Cthulhu’s Origin earlier was still present, and all his abilities related to his soul still remain.

Not only did the soul seed contain the Living Secret Technique seed, after being absorbed by Garen, it eventually assimilated Garen’s style of martial arts, evolving into his personal point of origin.

The physical strength was only half of the capabilities of the Living Secret Technique seed, but the seed’s inert power is the foundation of the Living Secret Technique.

Under the Mother Stream’s decomposition, his physical body had been completely disintegrated, but Garen used the Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique to condense most of his strength, deep within his soul and put up multiple layers of barriers on the exterior.

He didn’t know much about sealing, but only creating barriers of simple defenses by repeatedly wrapping the seed in his strength. Although his soul had already offered a temporary form of protection, he thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

He noticed that, as time went on, the Life Technique seed was slowly changing as well, slowly becoming more and more condensed, small, and bright. As compared to physical strength, the strength of the soul seed was not tangible, it could only affect matter through a physical body, hence the parts of it that could affect matter had slowly been disintegrated by the Mother Stream.

What remained was this abstract, intangible power.

Garen calls this the Soul Strength. From his observations and analyses, he discovered that although Soul Strength could not directly affect matter, it could change one’s physical body through things like neurons, and then, use one’s physical body to affect matter. In addition, the soul seed seems to have another form of functionality, but Garen had not yet figured out the secret behind it.

As for the exploration of the soul, even if he obtained a few items from the Cthulhu King, he was still as insignificant as a weak ant.

In reality, all living things had souls, in other words, without them, we would just be a conjugation of multiple organisms.

Soul Strength was the embodiment of our consciousness, memory, and spirit, our unique form of existence.

But as time passed on, Garen was starting to feel that his soul was beginning to weaken.

Without the support of a physical body, the soul, in its rootless state, no matter how strong, will slowly start to weaken.

"How much time has passed?"

His consciousness was floating in this abyss, surrounded by nothing, only darkness.

In the center of this abyss laid the soul seed, emitting a mesmerizing blue halo, like a beautiful crystal or gem.

All of a sudden, he felt some sort of vibration.

Sound!

In the outside world that he had no knowledge of, under the dark blue water of the Mother Stream, the stone and silver Vector Ring had due to its impure material, after being submerged in the Mother Stream for such a long time, finally cracked. It’s originally clear, streamline path suddenly slanted towards an unknown direction.

The glowing red light emitted by Garen’s soul could also be seen to be flowing towards the new unknown direction.

******

Garen started hearing some sounds, as if people were speaking.

The voices seem to be muffled and unclear, it also seems to be in an unfamiliar language to him, somewhat like German, but with a slightly faster pace.

That’s when it hit him, his senses had returned to him.

His hearing has recovered, so had his sense of touch, but his sight and smell remained unchanged.

He felt like he was curled up in a tight space, surrounded by warmth, as if he was being submerged in water. He could also feel a youthful heartbeat nearby.

As time slowly passed by, his senses started to become clearer. An interesting phenomenon has also occurred - it seems as if he had shrunk a bit in size.

Or rather, not shrunk, but more like he had gone into a sort of embryonic state.

While his eyes were still sealed shut, he felt oxygen and other essential nutrients being pumped in through his belly button. The abnormal act of breathing through one’s stomach seemed to have amused Garen a bit.

Through the information he gathered with his limited senses, he estimated that he reincarnated due to his special soul talents. He most likely has been turned into a baby, a baby that was still inside his pregnant mother.

From outside the stomach, he could vaguely make out a male and a female voice, both which were very gentle, and also a small boy’s voice. Sometimes he would hear yelling, although he didn’t understand the language, he could discern the excitement present in the voices.

Garen’s curled up body silently started to form a vital energy and blood regulatory system while within his mother’s stomach. The baby’s vital energy and blood roadmap started to develop in accordance with the Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique. Under the manipulation of his soul, a series of complex and precise actions start to take place.

Since his old body that was thoroughly trained in the Secret Techniques was disintegrated, and this current body has barely started to develop, naturally, he’d want to strengthen this body as early as possible.

A baby’s body is extremely fragile, but fortunately, he had the Living Secret Technique’s immense regenerative properties, which further sped up the maturating of this body.

However, Garen was still puzzled about one thing; the Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique, such an overwhelmingly powerful Living Secret Skill, just where exactly did this power originate from?

Normally, secret techniques use the nutrients from food to develop vital energy, then through enhancing one’s vital energy and blood, improve oneself. However, the Living Secret Technique is different, it seemed like it could create a whole new, complex and precise regulatory system within a living organism’s body, almost as if it was a structure formed from countless seals, images, and solids.

These structures are naturally formed through a practitioner’s accumulated daily training. While a single image can bear no significance, when you accumulate them up to a certain threshold, there would be some sort of mystical reaction.

At the start of his embryonic stage, Garen started using his soul to clearly observe the formation process of the Living Secret Technique within his body every step of the way. Since the structure of his body was simple as most organs haven’t fully developed yet, logically, this was the ideal time to observe the formation of the Living Secret Technique. However, after observing it halfway, even Garen’s strong soul started feeling tired. From the dense and complex blood capillaries roadmap of the Living Secret Technique, to its effects and changes on other things like the endocrine system, even Garen started to get a headache from the overload of information.

The effects of the formation of the Living Secret Technique at the beginning was very minor, it was barely even noticeable at first, as it was only simple changes made towards the vital energy and blood. But as time passed, maybe after a month or so, Garen started to feel the difference.

The changes in his body under the influence from the formation of the Living Secret Technique slowly became more and more noticeable.

This change was leaning towards the Living Secret Technique, making the physical body more compatible with the Living Secret Technique’s potential, in turn strengthening it. With that, it also further sped up the changes in the body, as the strengthening reinforced the influence of the technique on the body.

This sort of mutual reinforcement made the changes come faster and faster.

"No wonder the Living Secret Technique is in the form of a seed. It functions just like a seed, starting slowly, then rapidly growing." Garen thought in realization.

However, the question still remains. Where did the power of the Living Secret Technique originate from?

From his close observation, when forming the Living Secret Technique, the baby’s body seemed to have produced a special energy out of nowhere.

It’s almost as if a person started drawing complex non-repeating symbols and images at random, and these images increased to a scary degree, suddenly creating a faint source of energy. This energy, though weak, started to reinforce the imagery, creating even stronger energy.

Although this statement may sound absurd, it was the conclusion that Garen managed to arrive at through his observations.

This was exactly how the Living Secret Technique worked, this influential power seemed to have been created mysteriously, as if it was miraculously created from nothing, completely ignoring the Law of the Conservation of Energy.

His infant body, under these changes, has also become strong and healthy, presenting an appropriate condition for the Living Secret Technique.

Finally, the day he had been waiting for was finally here.

Garren suddenly felt that his body was being forced out by a pushing pressure. From the outside, he started to hear encouraging words, accompanied by a lady’s cries of pain.

The squeezing force exerted on him started to felt stronger and stronger.

It felt as if his entire body was being squeezed through a cramped but elastic canal, moving towards a distinct direction.

He knew he was about to be born into the world.

Garen had a complicated range of emotions he felt at the time. He lived through three lifetimes, but now he was once again reborn from a stranger’s stomach. This lady had once again given him a physical body, given him a new life.