Mystical Journey

Hoo...

As Ice Wolf opened its eyes, long tubes automatically withdrew from its body, retracting back into the experimental platform.

Its gigantic, three meter length body rose slowly from the experimental platform, leapt down, and landed beside Garen.

Underneath its layers of soft and warm coats of fluffy blue fur, the Ice Wolf was at least a Level Five in terms of combat strength.

"I have now almost fully regained my overall strength level when I was a Pilot," Garen stroked the Ice Wolf's head and grinned with satisfaction. "The experimental subject has no duration, so there is no need to eat as long as it recharges enough, that's the only good thing about semi-mechanization, but unfortunately each person can only own one."

He could feel the other two wolves' Willpower connecting.

"My greatest strength is in energy machine creatures, but if there is a lack of space to carry them away, there is no way I can build them in time. The building process will take a longer time, and I would not be able to fully unleash my true potential…seems like we will just have to find a better Space Equipment."

If he intended to use the Big Wild Wolf and the Ice Wolf, he definitely could not let the enemy know, therefore ensuring there would be no chance to expect his power card.

"Space Equipment that's big enough…"

In Garen's hands now was a tiny Space Ring used to store materials. It was given to him by the sect as a prize, and it was the cheapest kind, the kind that could not be used to store objects.

He scrolled through his computer, filtering out the top ten prizes given for the top-ranked.

"Space Equipment…"

Soon he turned to the individual division column.

'Valledoria Stone, one standard unit space, worth 1,000 points, cannot hold living organisms.'

'Al Stone, one standard unit space, worth 1,500 points, can hold living organisms.'

'Thunderous Stone, one standard unit space, worth 2,000 points, can hold living organisms, additional single release and group release function.'

'Moonlight Stone, one standard unit space, worth 3,100 points, can hold living organisms, additional release swap function, additional ten meters beam projection function.'

There were only four of these stones in total for selection. They were all Space Stones, so all he had to do was choose and simply mount it on an earring or a necklace.

One standard unit space can store up to at least five creatures as big as a Big Wild Wolf, or maybe three creatures the size of a Saber-Toothed Tiger.

Garen checked his savings. A bitter smile flashed across his face as he was greeted with a mere amount of five measly points.

"In the past five years, other than the necessary quests, I've only accepted one quest that rewarded me very little points, and they are even the lowest ranking points."

"Besides getting another Space Equipment, I need to progress to the next level as soon as possible to secure my current rank. With such a stable Willpower, what I need is…" He searched the list of prizes once again but sadly, the prizes this time around were just external goods, Space Equipments, items that strengthen energy machines, and a few rare training method handbooks.

Inherited secret methods were fundamental in the sect, as for training methods, nobody cared what kind of training methods the Energy Machinists chose, because no matter what training method it was, it was disguised by a scientific name of an inherited secret method. Basically, they were private and confidential secret techniques that could change an Energy Machinist's life.

After many inquiries, Garen had confirmed the information regarding the qualifying competition, the method of participation was fairly simple. All he had to do was integrate his results before the 30th after two months. If he qualified in top ten, he would automatically have the rights to choose a prize, the higher-ranked ones would get the priority to choose first.

The higher the placing, the more points will be accumulated too. Being the first to choose a prize would also mean that the most valuable item would be chosen first, naturally, the reward of power was extremely high too.

After all, there were only so few items.

There were even specific details about the reward-punishment system at the bottom of the web page.

Among the details was a simple method to gain points.

With a flick of his hand, Garen scrolled down the page to read the content displayed.

'Integral system: Kill first disciples of the Dragon Eye Sect -- Ten points per person.

Second disciples -- 100 points per person.

Third disciples – 1,600 points per person.

Lufthansa – 3,000 points, Ferrero – 5,000 points.'

The further he scrolled down, the bigger the gap between the second-ranked and third-ranked disciples, ranging from 100 points to 1,600 points, it was crazy. Did that not mean that 16 first disciples barely equaled to the value of one second disciple?

Even though Garen had no clue, but from the looks of Lufthansa and Ferrero listed at the bottom, it was obvious that they were the elite third disciple powerhouses of the Dragon Eye Sect. Just like Carthage from the Scarlet Snow Sect.

He carefully reviewed the prohibition guide once again. Those already participating in the killing zone were at the Dragon Swap region, a piece of wasted, vast land between the Dragon Eye Sect and the Scarlet Snow Sect. Most of them were jungle areas, a small area of hills, mountains, lakes and various sorts of complicated terrains. Moreover, mutated monsters were all over the place. Numerous bones were piled all over the place, who knew how many of those bones belonged to the aftermath of the killing between both sects.

After looking through the information once more, Garen then only took out the communication device given to him earlier by Joey.

Gently knocking on it, a tract of Willpower converted into a piece of thread and entered the small hole.

All of a sudden, a virtual three-dimensional image of a body was projected in front. It was the white powerhouse earlier on, Joey.

"I'm glad it didn't take you long to get in touch, my dear friend." Joey held out his arms as if he was enveloping Garen into a hug with a large smile on his face.

"How are we cooperating on this?" Without further ado, Garen jumped straight into the topic. He needed a good enough Space Equipment or else his power card would not be able to be used to the maximum of his advantage. He really needed the Space Stones. If he was to go onto the market now and buy from the black market at the bottom of the hill, the resources needed to trade for points would not be a small number. Besides starting on quests now, he had no other way. Not only that, quests that offer a high number of points were remarkably dangerous. If that was the case, he might as well not join the competition at all.

It was also pretty normal for the price to be pushed up at least double in the black market. To be able to enjoy such resources without risking one's lives and just splurge on resources that were acquired by those who put their lives into danger, setting a sky-high price was normal. Some even raise it by three-four times, maybe by five-six times and it was still nothing out of the ordinary.

"Nice!" Joey extended his index finger and drew a mark before his eyes, immediately the face of a lady appeared in between them. It was a lady with short, green hair who looked about 20-ish years old. Her looks were charming and beautiful, and she had a hint of flirtatious aura.

However, someone who is an Energy Machinist who was capable to reform one whole self, looks and age were not something to be trusted. Although she looked mid-twenties, she could easily be over 100 years old.

"This is just a temporary team up, I'm the leader, Yiling," the green-haired lady spoke. "Each killing integral naturally shows how powerful your imprint is, everything is decided on the force of impact. The system is pretty fair, if the both of you have any comments please do speak up."

"So the three of us will be teaming up?" Garen frowned. Originally he thought it was just him and Joey, he did not realize that he would be teaming up with somebody else.

"Yes, I am in charge of the main system, Joey's the deputy, and you just broke through so you will be responsible for investigating the situation. Garen, your group of wolves should be at least Level Two, right? How many more can you breed?"

An ordinary Training Method Level Four Energy Machinist could generally only control three wolves, which was when a Level Two Energy Machinist just have the qualifications to earn an Energy Machine Imprint, every level allowed them to control one more cannon fodder. But most of the Energy Machinists found ways to increase this number through special training methods like scarce resources, and special secret methods.

Garen nodded. "I have three Level Two wild wolves but I don't have any Space Equipment, so I can only make them on the spot, their duration is about three hours." What he said was all the ordinary cannon fodder.

"Three hours? That's not bad. I have five Level Three Pentatonic Bats, their duration is about five hours." Joey smiled in return.

This information was enough to quicken Garen's heartbeat, and these were just cannon fodder creatures, nobody had even brought up the elite version of experimental subjects, and Joey already had Level Three creatures. This guy seemed like a master powerhouse. The accumulated power he had was indeed strong.

"I have two Level Four Mountain Apes, so just let me handle frontal combat, Pentatonic Bats are white in colour and is not good for investigation, so Garen, investigating task will be all up to you." The green-haired lady spoke lightly. It was obvious from the looks of the power of her cannon fodder, this lady should have reached Level Five already, but she was still not a third disciple, he could tell that she had not entered the resonation phase.

Level Five! That would be the peak of a second disciple, at least a powerhouse ranked top ten. Garen observed this lady carefully. He completely did not expect her to be a host ranked top ten.

"There's a lot of cannon fodder for investigation, why did you choose my team?" Garen asked.

"Idiot!" Yiling could not help but cursed before vanishing into thin air.

Garen felt a rush of anger. His face darkened as he was about to say something.

"Don't be mad, calm down." Joey immediately plastered an apologetic smile on his face. "Let's go form our teams and finish our quest, now that we've returned late, the others are preoccupied with other matters. Among those still here, only you have the strongest power, so both of us benefit from each other. Moreover, this is your first time so you'd have a promotional discount. If your team receives a small integral point, it can also be used as 1.5 points. This is the treatment only newcomers get, just for this one time."

"So that's it." Garen now understood the newcomer treatment. No wonder they approached him. Besides being one of the few stronger ones among the other new recruits, the others had been dragged away.

"Don't hold a grudge against Yiling, although they don't allow murders within the sec, once you get hit or injured, you might just spend the next one or two years lying alone…" Joey explained in a hushed tone, "Yiling has a very bad temper, now that the crucial impact resonation phase was approaching, her rival had already entered the phase before her, so it's best if you don't piss her off, or I wouldn't be able to save you either if she goes cuckoo."

"Hurmph." Garen grunted and remained silent. Approaching the critical point of Level Five, he did have true potential, a Level Four cannon fodder must have cost a lot in order to upgrade the biochemical pool, this was a powerhouse with a huge amount of accumulation, it was not worth it to create nemesis with such a powerhouse over a petty little issue.

This was the only way to come in contact with such a social circle, he then only realized, the triple effect his Distorted Seed gave off seemed nothing next to a powerhouses' who had other ways to achieve the same effect as he could.

This also meant that his level was just considered average compared to the other Energy Machinists, if he was not a little more careful he would not even know what hit him when he gets killed.

"Alright, we shall now discuss the topography of the Dragon Swamp region and some information on what the Dragon Eye Sect's disciples' expertise are…"