Mystical Journey

Not just him, even the two men in white uniforms were also looking in that direction.

"This has already been the fifth case of special talent prodigies this month… As expected of a big arena."

"Even if we're not some talented prodigy, we will still eventually become stronger than them!" A youth said in a dissatisfied manner.

Most of the people here were still kids, only a handful were full-fledged adults, Garen included. Listening to the words of the kids around them, even if these energy machinists had strong calculative abilities, they still lacked emotional stability. At this moment, they could not help but feel a surging feeling of jealousy.

Using this chance while everyone was still saving their full potential, Garen quickly surveyed the people surrounding him. The few youths with a more veiled willpower were all remaining calm, fully confident in their abilities.

"Without an experimental platform, my potential is only limited to my close combat. I'm definitely at a disadvantage against these guys. Whilst everyone was still saving their full potential, I should use this opportunity to go on stage and earn my 10 wins as quickly as possible. No point trying to snatch away others' rankings."

A few thoughts flashed across Garen's mind. He had been hiding, intentionally keeping a low profile, befriending Accord and Liz, all for two goals. The first was to fully understand the unfamiliar situation surrounding energy machinists. Now that he has a clear grasp of the situation, he learned that the energy machinists world has the same rules as any other world. As long as you don't cross the line, everything is based on your own potential.

The second… Although he originally still had his worries, there had not been any problems in such a long time, there shouldn't be any big issues happening soon.

He remembered the series of unfortunate events that happened back in the Blackboard Region which he was still slightly haunted by.

At this point, the fat boy on stage had already been defeated. To be defeated by a little girl who was at least seven or eight years younger than him, He frantically fled the arena in shame after he bowed to the judge.

"Now… It's time to test it out. Let's see whether or not my original hypothesis is true…"

With a swift leap, he lightly landed on the stage, standing right across of the little girl.

Hiss…

The swordfish next to the little girl started making snake hissing noises.

Without useless chatter, the two just nodded at each other.

"Be careful…" Garen said softly. Before he even finished, he furiously stomped down onto the floor.

Bam!

The entire stage started to shake, an ice blue mist radiation started to rapidly spread, completely engulfing the little girl and her swordfish in an instant.

A small black paper box suddenly appeared in Garen's hands, inside it contained strong Willpower forces.

Hiss… A void shadow stopped in front of the box in that instant, as if it was a car that activated it's emergency brakes. It was the small swordfish. If Garen had been even slightly slower in taking out the box, he would have been pierced through and been forced off the stage.

"I concede," the little girl's face turned green as she uttered out those words. In that instant, the terrifying strong Willpower forces started to expand, if it was released, her opponent's Willpower storm would have hit the entire stage. The first victim would be the swordfish, it was very likely that her swordfish that she spent so long creating could have had its Willpower core annihilated in an instant. She wasn't even sure if she could manage to survive through the Willpower storm herself. Hence, at that key moment, she stopped her attack.

The little girl jumped off the stage, and started bawling her eyes out. Carrying he swordfish in her hands, she left the selection test arena in tears.

Garen started to feel the guilt of bullying a child, but he swiftly discarded this notion and focussed on his next opponent.

At this point, the icy cold energy radiation had completely covered the arena's stage. This made the energy machinists on the bottom quite concerned. This level of energy field radiation required him to maintain his energy every minute was a frightful task. They realized that he wasn't just your average joe.

A thin and tall man jumped up to the stage. He looked like a stick of bamboo and he also did not have any energy machines. He relied only on his speed when he jumped onto the stage just now, he attempted to run circles around Garen and shoot him with the freeze ray he was equipped with. Unfortunately for him, the freeze ray seemed to have no effect on Garen. On the contrary, he started to get frost bites from the frost radiation, forcing him to helplessly get off the stage.

The next two who came up to the stage to test their luck were also helpless against Garen. At this point, the frost radiation had reached around -20°C. Even staying up on the stage for a brief moment would start to numb their entire body. It slowed down not just their physical movements but also their thinking speed.

Garen only used two moves so far, releasing the frost radiation and occasionally holding up the paper box. This huge threat he had on his hands was so strong that even the Level 4 energy machinist couldn't help but put his attention on the box, showing a worried expression.

"The fourth."

Looking at his fourth opponent was what seemed like a twelve-year-old child, Garen silently counted in his heart.

Ding.

Suddenly, his key emitted a crisp notification tone.

Liz's voice could suddenly be heard.

'Garen, I have successfully entered the sect, good luck to you.'

'Good luck,' Garen replied.

Using the paper box in his hand to accurately block his opponent's attacks, after a few more tries, his opponent helplessly got off the stage once more. When the willpower accumulated in the box had reached such frightening levels, even the Level 4 would not be able to block it.

The judge sitting below speechlessly shook his head. Garen employing this sort of strategy had made him slightly disappointed, but since Garen was able to release frost radiation for such a long time, it proves that Garen had a certain talent, so he just turned a blind eye to it.

Next, Garen used the same paper box tactic and his extreme reflexes, he managed to completely stall his six remaining opponents into submission via the effects of his frost radiation. If not for the ruling that they had to finish the battle within a fixed amount of time, he wouldn't have been so successful.

After successfully winning his 10 matches, Garen decided to quit while he was ahead, so he voluntarily leaped off the stage. This shameless act shocked not just the judge, but also the two men in white uniform.

At the end of the day, Garen only managed to show his extreme reflexes and his ability to release frost radiation, with literally nothing else.

The schedule then quickly progressed to the second phase, the test for their appraisal limits.

Garen barely passed it. The Ice Rainbow Sect's requirements were not that high, Garen's modification of the traditional Frost Radiation showed that he had a certain degree of modification and combat prowess. Thus, even though his appraisal limits were not that high, he was still given a pass.

Looking through the results slip of the test, Garen saw the stats for his bottleneck limit stated clearly at the very top.

"Bottleneck is Level 5, that's not too bad…" Bottlenecks represent the maximum Level one can manage to achieve, just that the amount of time needed in the later levels would be much longer. "50 years…" Garen was speechless.

This estimates shows that in theory, he could reach the level of a Level 5 energy machinists, but that would require at least 50 years of continuous hard work.

However, the most important part was that he successfully passed the test. A few of the Level 4 limit participants had been rejected. Garen learned that even though he barely made the cut, his quality as an energy machinist still wasn't as bad as he originally expected.

The final combined selection test was also a fluke. The others were having awesome battles, but only Garen was holding onto his paper box and being a one-trick pony. The opponents were all extremely wary of him and chose to avoid him as a whole. After all, there was no need to actually, since the rankings were based off win counts. Thus Garen got past the test easily once again.

Furthermore, he did not break any rules, the paper box he was using was completely built by himself, so it abides by the competition regulations.

In the end, there were a few people attempting to imitate his tactics, but they were easily defeated. This showed them that this type of tactic was not something anyone can pull off, it required an inhuman reaction speed and reflexes.

Out of the final five that passed, Garen was one that was being despised by the others.

Every batch would have around three to five passing participants, Garen was seen as the worst performing person in this group.

After several hours, all of the candidates have been confirmed. From a total of five batches, there was a total of twenty people.

There were three Level 4s ranked at the very front. Surprisingly, the hummingbird user Garen had seen earlier was one of them. However, it was understandable, since the Ice Rainbow Sect is one of the strongest sects outside the Big Three Sects. For him to choose this sect was no surprise at all.

"Howmet, look at this…" The judge saw that the numbers were almost enough, so he softly asked at the direction of one of the white uniformed man.

The white uniformed man slowly floated up and landed on the stage, looking down at the passing candidates.

"These ones should do," he reached out and grabbed a short dark golden cane from his sleeves and lightly waved it around. The tip of the cane suddenly shot out a white light, as if a peacock spreading its feathers it turned into countless light spots, slowly falling onto everyone below.

"Grounded Prison, Command, Aiz!" He roared in a low voice.

Immediately, the light spots on the bodies of the candidates started to lightly vibrate.

They started to shoot out both weak and strong pillars of light, pointed at the sky.

These light pillars could go up to 2 meters in height, with the shortest barely reaching the top of their heads. With the uneven heights, it looked like a white light pole behind their backs when looked from afar.

Garen's back also had a pillar of light, it wasn't too tall or too short, it was in the middle amongst all of these pillars.

The white uniformed man pulled back his hand and slowly flew above all of the candidates. Everyone that his sight scanned started to feel shivers down their spine. The sharp gaze of those two eyes felt like a knife cutting through your skin, making the person ache.

"Nilo, these people, are there too many of them?" The other white uniformed man flew past and said softly. The two bodies were emitting a strong inheriting level energy field as if it was nothing, forcing everyone's head downwards.

"It does seem like we have too many." The white uniformed man Nilo nodded his head and frowned. His gaze landed on Garen. "This person…"

"His performance was decent, although he made use of some exploits, his reflexes are extraordinary. In addition to that, he seemed to have made great self-modifications, adapting the radiation and halo-type energies. I'd say that he's fine," the judge's voice rang from below.

Nilo nodded.

"You, you and you!"

He simply pointed towards three others, they were the three people with the worst performance other than Garen. "You may leave. Your ranks are too low, you've been eliminated!"

Instantly, the faces of the three candidates changed drastically. It was two white-collar-looking men and a model student-looking girl and after they got called out, their faces looked horrible.

"On what basis!!?" One of the white-collar guys interrupted out loud. "Our performance wasn't the worst! On what basis do you want us to leave!" He purposely increased the volume of his voice to cause a commotion.

"On what basis?" Nilo laughed coldly, "When I tell you to leave, you will leave! On the basis of me, Nilo's, authority as the supervisor's disciple!"

Garen looked coldly from the sides. He was indeed not a match for these people, but after he had experienced their attacks, wanting to beat these people would not be a difficult task. After all, the difference in strength was not that big. The only thing was that a lot of people would dismiss his skills as nothing but fancy flourishes.