Mystical Journey

"An upfront fighting style?"

Caesar couldn't understand what this meant.

"Isn't Waterbird Fist also an upfront fighting style?"

"That's different," Garen raised his right hand and his arm started rapidly expanding.

Bam!!!

With just one punch, he hit the ground underneath his feet, creating a blast of dust and rubble. A huge half-meter crater appeared under his feet. The dust around him was the cement that was completely pulverized by his strike.

The crater looked almost as if it was a hole that someone had dug out; it was nearly 10 cm deep. With the amount of the dust in the air, multiple students who unintentionally inhaled at the wrong moment started coughing uncontrollably.

However, some of them were not even choking on the dust but were coughing because their throats had started itching from the strength of the shockwave created.

Gulp.

Some of the students gulped in shock.

"This is an upfront fighting style," Garen pulled back his fist. His arm had no signs of damage at all.

The group of students was staring at his arm, trying to find any signs of damage. Yet, they couldn't even find a blemish on the arm.

At that moment, the students were starting to get excited.

If only I was that strong…

That was their desire within their hearts; every man would have a natural desire to become stronger. This type of monstrous fist style seemed to have won over their attention.

Garen was quite satisfied with the effects of his performance. He relaxed his arm and it started to return to its normal size, almost as if nothing had happened, except for the huge crater below him…

"Demonic Statue Technique, the principle is enhancing your body, making it stronger and harder and pushing your strength and recovery ability to the limit in order to achieve a deity-like state at the highest level. Those who want to learn this, please stand to my right."

Garen called loudly.

In an instant, out of the 15 students, 8 of them, all boys, stood to the right. All of them were in high spirits, feeling very excited. Amusingly, all of these boys were all on the skinnier side, and that included Caesar.

Out of the remaining 7 students, 5 were girls, and the other 2 boys were quite muscular. Although it seemed that they were very tempted to choose the White Cloud Gate, they all obviously had their own goals that they were very resolute on, and so they resisted the temptations offered to them.

"The remaining can go back for today. Those who are interested in the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique, gather here at 5 am sharp tomorrow," Garen raised his index finger, "Remember, all of you can only learn 1 fist style. If you start learning another fist style before you master the first one you learned, your progress will be extremely slow and it might even take years for you to even progress to the first level. Be wary, do not be fall for the temptations of greed."

"Yes." "Understood."

The remaining 7 students acknowledged his statement. After witnessing Garen's monstrous strength, none of them dared to treat him disrespectfully anymore. At the same time, all of them had completely acknowledged Garen's teaching methods.

The 5 girls and 2 boys left the gymnasium and walked past the Nighthawk members special defense line. They then drove back to the accommodation area nearby.

One of the girls tried to sneak back to peep on the training, but she was promptly ushered away by the Nighthawks.

Garen waited for the confirmation that everyone else had left, then turned to face the 8 boys before him.

Out of the 8 boys, some of them looked well-mannered, some looked creepy, and one looked sly, but all of them, at this moment, were filled with excitement, looking excitedly at Garen.

"Starting from now, I'll be explaining this technique. Please give me your undivided attention, as I will not repeat myself," Garen sternly observed the students, "This lesson may completely change your lives. I do not know whether you will regret this in the future, but since you're all already here, you can no longer turn back."

"Master! We won't regret it!!!" Caesar stood out and answered loudly.

"What we want is the strength to be able to control our own fate!!" a student who looked sickly and weak also stood out. This lad's name was Lumard, and due to doing excessive drugs, he'd become an addict, weakening his body steadily. Almost everyone in his family has given up hope for him, and he had been sent here as a last resort.

Garen looked into the eyes of these two who'd taken the initiative to declare their intentions and made a mental note to remember who they were.

"Alright! Now, let's start with the 1st part!"

The Demonic Statue Technique had 4 parts to it, the Divine Statue Technique, the Golden Statue Technique, the Metallic Statue Technique, and Bronze Statue Technique. This group of people's bodies were in such a frail state, they had to start training from the most basic Bronze Statue Technique.

This time, Garen did not have enough life force to support all of them; after what happened with his Slaughtering Hand, although he could still accumulate some life force, the amount has drastically decreased. This measly amount could only achieve the effect of extending life.

Hence, he had to be much stricter in their training as compared to his training with Hochman and Dahm.

Garen's true motive was to cultivate his own team of people, as in this world, it was difficult to work alone. He needed even more forces to be able to live an easy and relaxed life.

He was too focused on himself in the Secret Technique World, so when he fought with Cayduran in the end, he had been taken by surprise by a nuclear bomb, which led to him losing his first physical body. If he had a strong enough force and networking, this kind of issue wouldn't have happened. He would have gotten the news long before these things could happen, so he wouldn't have been taken by surprise.

This group of students were the seeds that he'd picked out, all of them blessed with certain conditions and requirements. With the right guidance, they would eventually bloom into beautiful flowers.

The training lasted for 4 hours. The Bronze Statue Technique was one of the most basic and fundamental "training secret techniques", combining the Mammoth Secret Technique and an adapted Breathing Secret Method. This made the students scream out in agony; all of them finally understood the true meaning of pain, and it felt as though their hearts were cramping terribly. They were lucky that they had undergone preliminary training by Garen, as the pain they endured from that managed to toughen their physiques, otherwise, they would have all passed out from the excruciating pain.

Garen used High-Velocity Oscillations as a core method to directly stimulate the students' blood and qi, forcing them to abide by the Breathing Secret Method and combine it with the Mammoth Secret Technique. This had great effects, as in the process, he could slowly merge the soul aura primer, making them latch on to Garen's Soul Seed while doing their own training.

He recently found out that ever since the soul seed aura has been planted into Hochman and company, as Hochman, Dahm, and the other Combat Club members continued to train, his own soul seed had started to have interesting changes as well, as if it had become stronger in tandem.

After completing the session with this group of students, he had his men bring them back to their accommodations. He even had professional masseuses and nutritionists to take care of their bodies for them.

As Garen left the gymnasium and started to drive off, he made his query to Black Sethe.

'Simple, even soul seeds have different levels,' Black Sethe answered in a carefree tone, 'After years of research by the warlocks, we have found out all the different types of realms a soul can exist in. Although we could have researched even deeper, even with this amount of information was sufficient for us to utilize for a long time.'

"A soul's realm? What do you mean?" Garen asked while still driving.

'The average soul is at the first level, it's very normal, and its strength is differentiated by its color. There's nothing much more I can say about this, and you've originally started from this level so you should be even more knowledgeable in this area.'

Garen nodded.

'The second level is the soul seed level, which is your current level. The reason it's called a seed is that it is highly concentrated and condensed into one single spot. Of course, it also implies that there's a possibility of it sprouting in the future. This level starts to have various different special effects, such as the ability to be able to change your body's vitality, improving it to adapt to the world's rules. This is the second level.'

'The third level is the true soul level, which is what I and the other warlocks once achieved. At this level, one can be considered a higher being, and your lifespan and even time itself will be greatly extended. With a true soul, you could survive in the Mother Stream, and even if you have died, if there's an opportunity in the future, you would have a small possibility of reviving yourself. At the true soul level, the soul's core cannot be put out or destroyed, hence the name true soul. It cannot be disintegrated by the Mother Stream, and even if you do reborn through the Mother Stream, you'll be able to flawlessly remember everything from your past life. Your soul has its space-time attributes so it is somewhat similar to a true soul, but it is far less powerful.'

Black Sethe gave a very detailed explanation.

'There are supposedly even higher levels of souls, but I have never attained them myself. There might be a few top-level warlocks that might have had a chance to reach it, but even the 3rd level is already impossibly difficult. We further separated each level to even smaller phases according to the bottlenecks in progress, creating tens of new phases in between each level in order to keep track of our growth and progress. You are currently at the basic of the soul seed level, so it's still too early to think about all of this.'

Garen nodded; as he had predicted, since the soul seed was called a seed, there was a possibility of it sprouting.

'When you've reached the true soul level, you will gain a true name for yourself, which is the written pronunciation of the name of your soul and must never be leaked. It has unimaginable power, in other words, the longer your true name, the stronger your soul is. Well, it's still too early to be talking about this.' Black Sethe brought it up, then decided that it wasn't the correct time for this talk.

"Soul, soul seed, true soul, 3 levels…" as Garen mumbled this repeatedly, his heart starting to yearn for it.

"How many more phases does my soul seed require for it to progress further?" he asked.

'It's still too early to tell. What's more, the progress of a soul cannot be that easily predicted, We've only managed to research one of the paths to it and there are still numerous unknown possibilities, so you shouldn't think too much about it now. Beings with true souls can effortlessly destroy even someone of the demon lord class, the strongest level among us Warlocks. There are a lot of Endor true souls hidden in the Mother Stream, but those are the ones who could not revive and are stuck in an unconscious state. They're just the remnants of our civilization from the movement of the Mother Stream, largely different from real beings with true souls.'

He paused, 'Actually, according to our theory, everyone has a true soul. In the Mother Stream, all souls will start to disintegrate until it becomes extremely small until it cannot continue to disintegrate. Then it will become a soul that cannot be disintegrated, which is what we call a true soul. If a living thing's intelligence and senses cannot permeate the deepest part of the soul, the innermost core, once exposed to the Mother Stream, that intelligence and senses will be completely wiped out and used as materials to create a new soul. However, if you can reach the true soul level, you can retain all your memories and continuously repeat the cycle of life unless your true soul is destroyed by someone.'

'Even among warlocks and void creatures, there are barely a handful of these kinds of existences. You should pay no attention to it. In comparison, your soul with its space-time attributes has an advantage. This kind of soul is not that strong but can adapt to the rules of time and space, and escape the fate of being wiped out, retain memories of past lives, and can withstand the power of the Mother Stream. Although it can still be damaged, it is far stronger than average souls.'