Mystical Journey

Haa… Whoo…

Haa… Whoo…

The loud sounds of slow and deep breaths could be heard from inside the mansion.

Garen's body was completely submerged in the pale yellow solution as white mist fogged the surrounding area. A blue dot of light was floating a short distance away from his body, emitting a twinkling halo, almost as if it was the eyes of the night.

The lights were out in the entire mansion. A Giant Blue Wolf was laying lazily beside the circular pond, occasionally letting out a yawn or two.

"It has already been five days since my return …" Garen opened his eyes suddenly, his pupils lighting up in a bright glow.

"The wounds on my body have been completely healed, not leaving a trace of any injuries. These injuries could've easily been healed using potential points but since it's hard to find them here, I better use them wisely."

He looked at the huge screen set up a short distance away, displaying his entire body's current status.

"Now that my Eighth-Grade Scarlet Snow Technique is fully operational, I'd only be slightly below Werder when it comes to absolute technique power. That fellow is part of the middle-tiered cadres in Moonshine, his potential should be weaker than March, but it wouldn't be too big a difference."

Garen stood up slowly from the solution and walked out of the pond nude to the control system. He fiddled casually with the control system's programming.

"My strong point now would probably be my newly acquired Red Eagle State. With the combination of the Red Eagle State and the Instantaneous Paper Box, it should be able to create quite a strong destructive power."

He pressed the control pad in front of him lightly.

Suddenly, an electronic sound rang crisply.

"Virtual target being constructed, simulation battle starting up…"

Bzzt!

Garen's surroundings transformed suddenly. The environment went from being a sealed lab into a lush green forest.

Approximately ten meters in front of Garen, a familiar figure appeared slowly. It was Joey who he had fought a few days earlier.

Without saying a word, Garen stomped on the ground, cracking its' surface as he turned into a void shadow lunging towards Joey.

"Red Eagle State!"

He roared in his head as his entire body started to glow slightly red. Rust red feather-like tough skin started appearing on the surface of his arms.

In an instance, Garen's speed doubled and was comparable to that of the Giant Blue Wolf's, going from the original three points of speed to more than five points.

Five points of speed were astonishing. Just as Joey on the other side raised his hands to form the Absorption Dragon stance, he had already been struck right on the forehead by Garen's palm.

Bam!

Joey fell a few steps back as his head started dripping fresh, red blood. Without a sound, he fell to the ground.

Garen shook his head.

"Looking at the original statistics, Joey shouldn't even be a match for me. His most powerful move, the Absorption Dragon, had a terrifying destructive power. However, its speed could never keep up with me in my Red Eagle State. No matter how strong a move is, it's useless if it cannot hit."

The virtual surroundings disappeared suddenly and Garen was once again back in his own laboratory.

He slowly adjusted his body's status, returning to its normal state from the Red Eagle State.

"After getting used to it over these few days, I'm now completely comfortable with using the Red Eagle State. Next, I need to see if I can manage to achieve the true Blood Eagle."

This was Garen's ultimate goal for adjusting his body conditions to its peak. After he finished adjusting his physical condition and reached his peak condition, only then will he be in the best condition to attain evolution.

He reached behind to grab the bottle of genetic essence; he had already formulated the liquid inside. Opening the cap, he raised his head and chugged down the entire bottle.

The instant he drank the liquid, his skin started glowing crimson red, almost as if his entire body was being injected and swelling with blood.

The different aspects of his body had also started to level up under the medicine's amazing power.

Garen had chosen the speed genetic essence. A perfect-level liquid essence can increase an attribute by two standard units in one go. Normally this type of medicine would be extremely potent, for the average energy machinist, it would take up to half a month to fully absorb it. However, once he returned to his laboratory, after adjusting his physical condition and activating the Red Eagle State, Garen had only dared to mix up a potion that increases the medicinal properties of the liquid essence and drank it all in one go.

Two standard units would mean four points of agility, which was an astonishing increase.

Bzzz!

Garen's skin all over his body started to crack open, revealing a scarlet muscle structure. Under his amazing vitality and the effects of his Peacock Technique, his body attempted to heal the cracked open wounds rapidly. However, just as the wound started to scab, the potency of the medicine caused the skin to crack open once again.

With a splash, Garen jumped back into the Biochemical Pool, leveraging on the power of the nutritional liquid to increase his healing speed for his wounds.

With the potency of the liquid and the healing power of the biochemical pool, along with the Peacock Technique and his strong vitality, the cracked wounds started stopped appearing and started to heal.

Traces of blood slowly dissipated into the nutritional liquid, dyeing the pool in a light shade of red.

Time seemed to tick by endlessly, ten minutes, or even half an hour.

Garen flew out of the pool suddenly, his arms slicing through the air like lightning.

Shing shing!

Two transparent air slashes flew across the room, hitting the hard inner walls of the laboratory, leaving two thin blade marks.

"Two standard units of speed increase, not bad. It worked!" Garen alighted lightly by the side of the pool, looking at both of his arms. Back when he was at his peak performance, he could also create air slashes with his arms, but the innate qualities of this body were different from his past bodies, so he thought he had no way of recreating it. However, now that he used the genetic essence, he finally managed to return to his original level of strength.

Looking at his Attribute Pane, he nodded his head in satisfaction.

'Nonosiva Lin - Strength 3.1, Agility 7.1, Vitality 4.8, Intelligence 8.1, Potential 2730%. Soul Limit 40.'

His agility stat increased from its original 3 points to his current 7.1 points. This genetic essence worth hundreds of billions of crystals if valued in Universal Units, the currency that mech pilots used, would be measured in trillions. It can be said that even just this bottle would be worth more than half a country.

This type of thing could almost be considered a peerless treasure. Garen had looked it up on the web. Scouring through countless online shops, auction markets, and even the top production industries, this item had never ever been sold. There were only a handful of people within the energy machinist circles with the skills to create this type of genetic essence annually. Even then, it requires a humongous amount of resources to produce hence the annual output level is extremely low. Only top-level geniuses and wealthy princes would have the privilege of using them.

If an average peasant wanted to obtain this type of essence, they only had two possible options -- the Spirit Mothership or the Killing Space.

"Killing Space?" Garen looked at the provided information. Killing Space is a special organization similar to a colosseum, with elements of an underground fight club. Experts from all around the world entered and participated in lethal battles; those who maintained a winning streak for a month will be crowned the king and receive spectacular prizes, one of which was the genetic essence.

"Better to just forget about this for now, this is not the time to be thinking of these types of things. First things first, let's see if we can reach the Blood Eagle."

Garen looked over at the gene pane at the bottom of the attribute pane.

'Red Eagle Gene +2 - Low-Level Gene, current speed increment: Level 2, achieved Maximum Level. Genetic Link completion level high, if continued to be strengthened, it will automatically select a stronger Gene Fragment, with a possibility of a stronger reversion into Blood Eagle.'

"I wonder how many points are required for the stronger reversion." Garen frowned. "Let's try it out."

His gaze fell upon the gene pane. After three seconds, it started to blur and the text on the gene pane disappeared, his potential points dropped rapidly by two points.

After a brief moment, the gene pane reappeared once more. Looking at the details of the gene pane, Garen sighed.

"As expected, it failed." The gene pane remained exactly the same, nothing changed.

However, due to his experience evolving creatures in the totem world, he knew that this type of gene fragment selection could have an increased success rate after repeated attempts. This was because the permutations of gene fragments were limited; after failing when selecting a certain gene fragment, he could effectively exclude that gene fragment from his next attempt. This way, the number of unknown gene fragments would decrease, hence increasing the success rate.

"However, I have no idea how many amounts of Red Eagle gene fragments there are in total. If there are too many, looks like the success rate would be extremely low."

That said, however, Garen is hugely tempted with genetic strengthening and once again he used his computer to look up the attributes of this Blood Eagle creature.

'Blood Eagle: An ancient predator that could control the blood flow of its enemies to a certain extent. It has a huge body and amazing strength. Its speed is its strong suit. It has a certain degree of capabilities in freezing the opponents' blood flow. It prefers to live in freezing climates. It is a medium-level mutated organism.'

If the Blood Eagle Gene strengthening succeeded, not only would he gain an increase in speed, but more importantly, he would gain the ability to manipulate blood. This type of ability is used in the form of energy fields, once combined with his Cold Radiation and his Scarlet Snow Technique, the power would increase exponentially.

After countless simulations, Garen concluded that if he managed to combine the three, its effect would not only suppress the energy fields of other Scarlet Snow Technique Practitioners but more importantly, it could increase his ability exponentially to freeze his opponents' blood flow.

This kind of power was something only the Twelfth-Grade Scarlet Snow Technique could achieve. In other words, this was an ability that only inherited level energy machinists could obtain. Once he activated his energy field, any lower-leveled opponent would have their blood frozen whenever they approach him, leaving them with no means of defending.

"Scarlet Snow Technique, when below Twelfth-Grade can be made up through other means. Physical power, defensive power, strength, speed, all of those could make up for the difference in the technique's potency, reaching a similar level of combat power. However, after the Twelfth-Grade, the difference could no longer be made up for. Once the hundred-meter wide energy field has been activated, the opponent would not even have the ability to face the user, much less defend against his attacks."

Garen exclaimed. Upon reaching a certain level, the gene's strength could negate the difference in power of different secret techniques.

By increasing one's physical fitness, one's defense against the Scarlet Snow Technique's invasive nature would also increase and would be able to resist it upon reaching a certain level.

Gene quality, secret techniques, and the energy machinist's computing power were the three pillars that served as a foundation of combat power.

For a secret technique like the Scarlet Snow Technique, increasing its level would also simultaneously increase the user's computing power. On the other hand, the increase in combat power would in turn positively affect the secret technique. It was a mutually reinforcing concept.

However, gene quality affects another aspect. It takes the path of modifying the path the user takes. It relies on a strong physical body and will, suppressing all the existing threats. This was the path of the Demon King in the Killing Space.