Mystical Journey

"How strong is an army level individual?"

Garen asked as he walked out of the secret chamber.

‘You were close to an army level when you activated your fifth star…' Black Sethe pondered for a moment before responding.

"Then why is there the need to learn the Peacock Technique?" Garen casually put on the shirt on the hanger by the door.

It was already night time outside.

The silver moonlight shone through the window and settled on his face.

‘Secret Technique isn't just strength,' Black Sethe muttered.

"That's because that strength isn't powerful enough," Garen rebutted.

Black Sethe went silent. Recently she’d been reacting strangely and would keep quiet instead of speaking up.

However, Garen understood that the illusion created by his overwhelming increment in strength, the feeling of being able to force everything to go his way was nothing but an illusion of the strength that overflowed from his body.

His current limit was still thirty points. This wasn't just because of the genetic limitation, it was his soul limit as well.

A weak and fragile soul would not be able to handle a powerful body. Similarly, a weak body would not be able to contain a powerful soul.

A weak soul would be easily affected by the status of the physical body. One would most likely lose oneself and become a beast. On the other hand, a weak physical body would not be able to contain a powerful soul. If one were to fully utilize the strength of the soul, one would die as due to the overexertion of one's body.

"I can only reach the limit of a human by purely increasing the strength of my physical body. I still sleep, need oxygen to breathe and these are all my disadvantages. By practicing Secret Techniques, I can mimic other advanced beings and obtain their advantages so that I could completely eliminate any weaknesses that I have."

Garen had finally woken up from his obsession with strength and he suddenly felt that his body had become taller and stronger. After activating the fifth star, his body was affected by the potential points once more and had become even stronger. Perhaps this was the aftermath of achieving ten points in Vitality as well.

Just as he’d upgraded himself, a battle arrived at his doorstep. Under these circumstances, Nadia was easily defeated by him.

Perhaps this was due to the masks' suppression on Nadia, which prevented her strength from reaching the limit of thirty points of strength. For her to go against Garen who had thirty points, she was completely oppressed and Garen managed to win the fight with a decisive punch.

He gently touched his forehead where he'd been struck by Nadia's Ominous Space Path. The Ominous Space Path's unique feature was that she would counter the attack without fail if he were to attack her.

Garen was blocking the opponent's huge sword but his forehead had been slashed by it. However, as he was in the fifth-star state which allowed him to possess the upper limit of strength, his whole body was as tough as an alloy or even better.

It was because of this that he was able to withstand that slash.

"How can I defend against such an attack...?" Garen stood under the moonlight as he pondered.

"There are three ways. Firstly, I should not let her have the opportunity or time to draw her sword at all, then this technique would be useless against me. However, that's impossible. Traitors are a subset of Void Creatures and they can appear at any moment. No one would be able to predict when they will appear or disappear."

Garen walked towards the window and opened it to allow the cold night air to enter the stuffy room.

"The second approach is to decrypt the mystery of this technique and find a way to counter it. There is no perfect technique in every world but this is something I'm not able to do at the moment." Garen shook his head as the Ominous Space Path was the strongest technique he'd ever seen. To be able to counter-attack while being attacked and attack through spacetime. All the mystery was packed in that instant and his five senses weren't able to process everything in that instant. Hence he wasn't able to understand its mystery.

"Then the third approach would be distraction…" Garen reached out his hand and looked at his ashen palm.

Fantasy Fist was a horrifying fist technique that would misguide the opponent's target. If he could use it against all living beings…

This fist technique could be used on humans as its principle was to affect and oppress the nerves in the brain. If he could find a way to extend this effect to the soul, perhaps he could lift the original limit to beyond living beings.

However, he didn't possess the knowledge to modify the technique at the moment, as he was too unfamiliar with the nature of the Void Creatures.

If this were to be completed, he would be able to distract Nadia's power and misguide her to attack other places or even other targets. This was distraction.

After thinking of ways to counter her technique and not achieving anything, Garen looked back at his Attribute Pane.

He had 234 potential points remaining and it would have very little effects if he were to use it on his attributes as he couldn't exceed that thirty points limit no matter what. He should use it for other stuff.

He had a few options. He could add them to the Secret Technique but he was unable to increase the core of the Hellfrost Peacock Technique and he would most likely encounter the same situation if he were to change to another Living Secret Technique.

He could use it for what he had been doing all these while, which was to recover his injuries to prevent any incidents.

Another option was to focus on one attribute point. When it reached a certain height, a unique feature would appear.

For example, when his intelligence reached twelve points in the Totem World, it had the effect of Double Critical Attack. It wasn't a strength that could be achieved by using the Seven Star Life's Secret Point. He would need to possess such characteristics in order to achieve it.

With the Double Critical Attack, he would produce twice the amount of strength with his fists. What seemed to be a single fist would have the strength of two fists superimposed onto each other. It was the effect of disrupting the nervous system at a high level.

That was the first time he'd obtained an ability from his attribute. Even when other attributes had reached twenty points, he didn't obtain anything at all. Up until now, he knew that twelve points of intelligence would give him an ability.

After pondering for awhile, he chose to increase his Intelligence.

He focused his gaze on Intelligence and it immediately jumped from seven points.

It reached eight points at the cost of 20 potential points. Sixty potential points to reach 9 points and another sixty potential points to reach 10 points.

Once the Intelligence had reached 10 points, he had spent 140 potential points, leaving behind 94 points. Once the attribute had reached ten points, it would require a hundred potential point to increase it, but he currently had only 94 points.

"I need more potential points," Garen had completely absorbed the potential points from all four masks that he had obtained and he wasn't sure how long it would take for him to slowly recover. However, he could immediately obtain a mask from Halo and it might be able to push his Intelligence to 12 points, which would give him the Double Critical Attack effect.

With that, his strength would be improved greatly.

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

After a few days. It was a sunny day.

The water of a fountain kept flowing down like a multi-layered cake. It was like a three-tiered mini waterfall.

There were two small metal birds playing around on top of the fountain. It was very life-like.

"The item is underneath there and we can't get any closer than this." Allen Hill's face was pale as he stood in front of Garen and Rod, pointing at a huge tree in the forest.

The tree was black, had no leaves and there were countless thin vines coming down to the ground around it like a banyan tree. The tree was slanted slightly to the left as if it was about to topple over.

Three of them stood inside Halo's secret garden, looking at the mysterious cannibal tree in front of them.

"The cannibal tree possesses a strong attack and it is very poisonous. Our people will be attacked by the vines if they get close to it and none of us are capable of resisting the poison," Allen Hill explained.

"How about your protective suit?" Rod frowned.

"It's no use. Except for killing the tree from afar to obtain the mask, we've tried everything and failed. Unless it is a very thick protective suit made out of a unique material, it would be eroded within a very short amount of time," Allen Hill glanced at Garen, waiting for him to suggest something.

"I've promised you before that we will obtain the mask without killing the cannibal tree…" Rod smiled wryly as he looked at Garen eagerly. Frankly speaking, it was Garen who agreed to it instead of him. In order to save time, avoid any unnecessary trouble and create more enemies, Garen chose a conservative solution which both parties agreed: To obtain the mask without killing the cannibal tree.

Allen had agreed to bring them to where the cannibal tree was after Rod’s vouch. Deep down, he knew that even if he were to reject him, he wouldn't be able to stop Garen anyway, so he agreed in order to look like the bigger person.

"You guys can think of the way. We're helpless from this point on," He retreated to one side and looked at them. He had already prepared himself that the cannibal tree would be killed. He wouldn't dare to push this issue onto Garen so naturally, Rod would be blamed for this. You could say that he had already hated Rod.

"I'll go for it," Garen was in a black stretch vest and exquisite black leather jeans, contouring his streamlined legs.

He glanced at Allen Hill as he grabbed and cracked both of his hands and exercised his shoulders before walking towards the cannibal tree which was a distance away.

It was morning and the weather wasn't that hot yet as the sun was only half the way up. Only a small ray shone onto the garden, landing onto Garen's right side and the ground, which made the grass greener than usual.

What made is strange was that with the cannibal tree as the epicenter, there were no other green plants within tens of meters in diameter. Only black dirt and white bones were present.

As the breeze blew, it couldn't be confirmed if it was the breeze that had made the cannibal tree's vines moved or it had started to move on its own.

Suddenly, it was as if the tree felt threatened that it had started to vibrate.

‘Wait!' Black Sethe's voice suddenly appeared.

Garen stopped and stood still. "What's wrong?" He frowned slightly. No matter if it was a cannibal tree, it was just a big tree.

‘This tree feels very strange after being affected by the mask,' Black Sethe didn't know what exactly was happening as well, ‘Be careful.'

The few people behind Garen was staring tightly at him. Although they didn't understand why he stopped moving, Rod and Allen Hill had their own thoughts as they stared at Garen, waiting for him to get near to the cannibal tree.

Garen, who had stopped moving, started to move once more.

Suddenly, his vision went blurry and the sky turned dim all of the sudden. The guards nearby had disappeared as well.

Garen frowned as he felt an intense headache.

He turned his head around and realized that Rod and Allen Hill had disappeared. He was the only one left in the garden.

He turned back and he could faintly see a girl in white dress peeking at him around the big tree.

The girl's face couldn't be seen clearly as most of her face was blocked by the vines. Only one of her eyes and long black hair could be seen. Her eye was huge and didn't blink at all.

Unknowingly, the sky was filled with dark clouds and it was now incredibly cloudy.

"It's the Dream World," Garen was very familiar with the sensation as he often entered into this realm. This allowed him to detect the abnormalities around him. He believed that he had been hypnotized by the cannibal tree and had entered the dream world. It seemed that the mask's effect had made this tree rather strange.

He looked at the girl by the tree as he took a few steps to the left, trying to see the woman's face clearly.

However, the girl kept revealing only half of his face. As he moved, the girl moved as well.

"What a boring game," Garen smiled coldly as he walked towards the cannibal tree.

The distance was getting shorter and shorter. Ten meters, nine meters, eight, seven, six, five…

Immediately, Garen stopped.