Mystical Journey

The secret skill was only a tool he used to raise his own forces as quickly as possible, it was fast-acting and powerful, but other than the considerable side effect, there was also one inherent problem that he found quite troublesome.

That was, if he disappeared or had to leave for a short while, the people under him would not have a chance to get their primers, and it could trigger an extremely powerful backlash instead.

And as he recruited more and more elite members under his wing, it would also slowly become a troublesome thing to have to consistently apply primers to each of them personally.

Garen was wondering if he should raise some generals that could control the members in his place.

Cece was under his consideration, but he still needed to observe her for a while longer.

Right now, no one in the combat club was fighting for the position of president anymore, the eight leaders had all silently acknowledged Garen as the only president, the true leader.

Leaving the teaching block.

Garen sat on a long bench by a small garden beside him, the flower garden was ring-shaped, and there was a black statue in the middle, of a little boy with one hand raised, pointing towards the distance.

Garen sat behind the statue, taking out his phone and sending Baldy a message.

After waiting for more than ten minutes, there was finally one reply.

"Boss, the Stone Clock of Fortune’s auction items are broken, should we sell them in pieces, or not sell them at all? I'm joining the auction tomorrow."

Garen thought about it, "Continue on, send it to me once you get your hands on it."

"Understood."

After testing for a while, waiting for the bell signaling the end of this class to ring, Garen finally stood up slowly, waking back to the school area he had come from.

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

In the time after that, Garen completely put Cece and the others to the back of his head, they would still take some time to successfully achieve the technique, and even if they succeeded, it would take nearly a year before the side effect was triggered, so he was in no rush at all.

Garen returned to that rhythmic and ordinary life he led before that.

He was dragged into joining banquets held by some other clubs, and met more than several tens of people over just a few short days.

They were all acquaintances he could just say a few things to, they might never meet again to chat after that, but nobody really considered that.

The story about Garen joining the combat club began to spread, and many boys came to him upon hearing his name, while many girls would ask him out to dance at the balls. There were even three girls who subtly or not-so-subtly hinted, that they would be willing to be his sex buddies…

To a lot of students, they clearly did not believe that Garen was as powerful as the rumors said. They were just interested in his good looks and well-mannered behavior, so of course there were also girls who did not like him,

The basketball team’s head cheerleader was also a first-year junior like him, she was a pretty girl with long golden curls, and she was utterly not enamored with him, every time she saw Garen, her expression would sour.

Just like this, his life in the first year of university was not too different from other normal university students.

It was just that their studies were heavier, their stress was higher, and there were fewer students on drugs. Of course perhaps that just meant Garen did not come into contact with him, but he had no interest at all in taking drugs, no matter how strong the effect of the drug, could it possibly more intense than the pleasure he got from controlling his own nerves with his aura?

From what he knew, the combat club’s infamous playboy Dahm had completely quit drugs. He spent all day mysteriously researching something, but nobody knew what, it was only when his useless friends saw him occasionally that they felt as though he had gotten somewhat more mysterious.

Garen knew, that the guy had probably learned the technique.

The reason why he classified the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist as a demonic technique, was because others could learn it too fast, and while it was fast-acting, each time one practiced it, it would come with an intense sensation of pleasure, this pleasure was much more intense than making love, it was the direct effect of the internal force stimulating the inner nerves. It made people addicted to it despite themselves, driving them to keep on training and training.

That was the characteristic of a demonic technique, there were fast effects in the early stages, but towards the middle and late stages, it would trigger unimaginable side effects, and be much harder to progress in.

This was something that even Garen could not control or change.

This was the natural law of the universe, for anything at all, it would be divided into thick or thin, easy or hard, and the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist was the same.

All he had done was bring the easiest part to the very front, putting the best in front, and putting the hard parts at the back, that was all.

The natural laws of the universe stated that if you wanted to achieve certain heights, you needed to pay the cost in enough effort and talent, the demonic techniques seemed to be a shortcut, but in truth the only difference they had from normal techniques was the order of things.

Some would prefer pain and then pleasure, while others preferred pleasure over the pain, it just depended on what they chose.

It was the same with constructing a building, to reach a certain height, you either had to spend a lot of time on the foundations, slowly climbing up step by step. Or you could simply make your basics, and rapidly build towards the top.

The former would have strong and stable foundations, if there was no fatal flaw, it could withstand even a more serious disaster.

But things were different with the latter, perhaps progress would be extremely fast in the beginning, and no one would be able to tell the difference, but the taller it was built, the more pressure would be exerted on the foundations, and the floors could collapse with the slightest trouble, much less an actual disaster or tremor.

It was the same with the pinnacle of any profession or secret technique, if you wanted to go higher and further, your foundations would need to be solid enough, that was the proper way. If you followed the demonic way, the higher you went, it would naturally become more dangerous, and at every step, you might collapse because your foundations could not handle the pressure.

This was the most basic law of physics, even Garen could not change it.

Of course, the many revision he had made also had their effect, the reason he could amplify the power of the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist so much, was because he had used the power from his own Soul Seed, and mixed it with the Slaughtering Hand demon technique’s force as a primer.

While this primer controlled his subordinates, it could also magnify and enhance their destructive power.

The price of that was this power was something their wills and spirits could not control, which meant they naturally needed the interference of external forces to suppress the side effects and dangers of it, to balance it out.

In other words, the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist that they were practicing was actually Garen’s demonic-styled Waterbird Fist, although it was much weaker, it still had the same impressive aura-like psychological effect on outsiders and enemies, it could create a seemingly hypnotic effect, and had a special living destructive effect.

As for the complete version of the Shooting Shadow Secret Skill, naturally the price to pay was reconstructing part of their foundations, so the progress in the early stages was extremely slow, it had practically become a proper secret skill, with the same principle as the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist.

If Garen were to teach them the proper techniques, he could, but the problem was it would take too long, by the time they grew up, he would already have achieved a terrifying level on his own, and would not need their help at all. In that case, what was the point of building his seed faction?

So he had no choice but to sacrifice them, at the most he would treat them differently depending on whether they were good or bad.

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

Smack.

"Full Lights! Hahaha, I win again!!"

Messi happily splayed the cards in his hand onto the table.

"Pay up, pay up! It really pays to be with Garen! Hehe."

It was not just the four of them in their dorm, there were also the two and three from the next room and the opposite room, they were teamed up in groups of two, playing cards.

The card game was called Full Lights, and it was Garen’s first time as well, it relied more on calculation and memory skills.

But these were undeniably Garen’s largest advantages, his calculation and memory skills were both decided by his attribute points, and right now his secret technique level was about to reach 3, so he was already entering a non-human level compared to the normal people.

Messi, who was teamed up with him, was grinning so widely his mouth went sideways.

The others just kept scolding them and cursing their luck. Even the boy among them who had taught them this game had lost so much his face was beginning to turn green.

"What’s this shit!" One of their black friends threw the cards down, "I’m quitting, I’m quitting, if I go on I’ll lose all my living fees too!"

This friend of theirs was undergoing an intensive language class, it was specifically for international students, but he improved rather quickly, at first he could barely understand any of their slang, but now he could communicate with the people in the hostel freely.

"Cards aren’t that fun, how about we play computer hacking and defending?" One of the young, well-mannered white boys with glasses suggested.

"Forget it, wouldn’t that just be you winning?" The other few looked at him condescendingly.

This guy was a computer prodigy, his short-sightedness was more than seven hundred degrees because he spent too much time on the computer. In high school, he had participated in a national anonymous hacker war, and had been the main offensive power in it. Of course, no one knew if it was his tall tale or the actual truth.

But even Garen’s little bit of hacker technique was nothing to him, he could be taken down in two or three tries, and then he would write ‘weak’ in large font on Garen’s desktop.

Just a while ago, he had designed a new game, it was a hacker game of offense and defense designed to look like an entertaining tower defense game, so even newbies who were not very good at this could play.

Of course, it still required basic calculation skills and imagination, these were necessary to break through defenses and swerve around attacks.

But the result was completely one-sided.

After that, he and Garen were called the Two Great Bosses of their dorm level, the Boss of Cards and the Boss of Computers.

Garen shook his head, bored, as he began to keep the cards.

"You were the ones who pulled me into this because you were bored, don’t blame me."

"Dammit! The move I just learned didn’t work at all!" Alexander said out of pain and frustration.

"Did you get your report to pass?" Messi asked offhandedly.

"Of course, who do you think I am!" Alexander patted his chest, even though he had evidently lost quite a bit of weight recently, and all they could hear was the sound of him hitting bone.

"There’s a lecture in the afternoon, it’s an economic research talk by that Professor Milo who just won a prize, any of you going?" A blonde boy asked from outside the dorm.

"The Milo who just won the McDermis Prize?" Messi was instantly interested.

"That’s right, he’s going on a guest lecture tour of universities all around the country, a few days back they said he was coming to our school, didn’t you see?"

"I was busy with social practice survey, see how I forgot about it?" Messi patted his head, "I planned to enter the School of Economics in the second year, I can’t miss this lecture!"

The remaining few yawned and began to scatter, while Messi discussed some economics-related topics with that boy excitedly, constantly spewing some complicated specialized terms.

Garen was not interested in this whatsoever, he was planning to study medicine, Gullivier’s two strongest aspects were economics and medicine, he had already settled on his direction of study, if he studied the medical field here, maybe he might reap some unexpected results.