Mystical Journey

At the outskirts of the Lily of the Valley, in a deserted mountain area.

A group of people parked their car just beside a small forest. Garen, Kong Xinxue, Nine-Tailed Fox, and the two siblings who wished to be trained, Yuria and Yurijie, a total of five people had got down from the car.

All of them were in the dark green camouflage military uniform with all sorts of items hanging on their bodies. They were also carrying a huge backpack, which looked rather packed.

Nine-Tailed Fox led them deep into the forest once they had gotten down from the car.

"This is an emergency base where my subordinate would use to train. Feel free to stay as long as you like and I'll let you use it for free," Nine-Tailed Fox said generously.

"Thank you," Garen nodded as he looked at Yuria. "My training towards you will start from here."

"Understood!" Yuria replied loudly. He felt that Garen was filled with mystery. He, who was just a normal secondary school student was able to come in contact with so many mysterious things. Furthermore, he seemed to strangely have a very wide network as well and his powerful Saber Art seemed to be trained out from an actual battle.

"Let's go..."

Garen then followed Nine-Tailed Fox as they headed forward swiftly.

Yuria and his sister followed tightly from behind and Kong Xinxue was the last one walking behind everyone else.

They walked passed a few Tripod Surveillance Towers which had swivel surveillance systems with red lights coming out from it.

"This is the scanning system installed for this base. It can scan and detect any movement in an area of up to two hundred and fifty meters," Nine-Tailed Fox explained. "I've spent tens of millions on this system."

She explained as she walked further in.

Soon a jade-green pond appeared in front of the forest. The oval-shaped pond looked rather sticky and one could even smell the faint stench coming off from it.

"This is it," Nine-Tailed Fox pointed at the pond.

"This is the location?"

Garen walked towards the pond, turned around and looked at Yuria as if there was nothing wrong with it.

"This is where you'll train."

"Huh?" Yuria walked towards the pond and looked into the water confusingly.

Then, Garen revealed a mysterious smile.

"This is the best place for your training, where you can enhance your actual strength within a short amount of time."

"Is that so?" Yuria looked at the stinky water inside the pond and could not figure out why this place suited him at all.

"Don't believe me?" Garen smiled as he gave him a strong kick on the back.

Yuria immediately plunged into the pond and a huge splash followed along.

Yurijie and the rest were stunned but they suppressed their doubts within themselves. They knew that Garen would never harm Yujia, hence, this action was definitely part of the training.

"Brother Saber?" Yuria surfaced his head out of the water with a confused look on his face.

"This is your training," Garen laughed.

"My training?"

Yuria was confused. It was not just him as the rest were confused as well.

Garen then hinted him on what his next action would be.

"Try and raise up your right arm."

Yuria then raised up his right arm confusingly as he heard the instruction.

His entire arm that was exposed was densely filled with black leeches, These black brown leeches were attached to his arms with their tails hanging freely downwards. they swung about freely like a bunch of black ropes...

Yuria then swung about the leeches on his hand.

"Are these... Leeches?... Ahhh!!!!!" He started screaming madly as his face turned green and then purple before his face became distorted. "My God!!!"

He immediately tried to swim up towards the shore.

"Hehe. There's at least thirty four of them. Pretty popular," Nine-Tailed Fox was impressed.

"That's right..." Garen nodded.

Yurijie looked at him from the side with a worried look as she covered her mouth with her hand whereas Kong Xinxue was just crossing her arms and observed coldly as if she was looking at a circus act.

"What are you afraid of?" Garen moved forward and tried to kick Yuria who was almost out of the pond back down into it. "Haven't you realized?"

"Brother Saber! I'm dying! For real, I'm about to die...! This is a murder, not a training!!" Yuria was on the verge of crying as he fell back into the pond. This time, his entire body which was exposed to the water excluding his face was covered in leeches, which could not be pulled off.

"Looks like you have not realized it," Garen shook his head. "Enjoy yourself inside."

The Nine-Tailed Fox took out the ropes that she had prepared beforehand with a crafty look on her face.

Ten minutes later... Yuria was entirely tied up and thrown into the pond. What was revealed was his face so that he could breathe

"Help!!" He cried out loudly, but Yurijie did not come and attempt to save him at all. Instead, she was pulled to one side by someone and gave up after a few moments of hesitation.

"Enjoy your bath. We will head in and have our meal," Garen waved his hand as he brought the rest into a small house which could be faintly seen.

****

Two hours later...

Yuria was on the verge of dying...

Three hours later...

Yuria was on the verge of dying...

Five hours later...

Yuria was really about to die...

It's dark...

Yuria was...

"Eh? It's already dark..." He opened his eyes as he realized he had fallen asleep.

There was a person squatting beside the pond. It was Garen.

"Are you awake?" Garen said calmly. "How's the sleep?"

"Pretty comfortable. Despite it being rather smelly, it was the best sleep I have had for a long time," Yuria responded truthfully.

"Have you realized?" Garen asked calmly.

"What?" Yuria was shocked as the horrible memories came back to him where he was still inside a leech's pond!!

"Ahh!!!!" He started screaming again.

"Stop screaming!" Garen slapped his head. "If the leeches are able to suck your blood, do you think you would be still alive?"

"Uh.... that makes sense," Yuria reacted. He raised his hands up and looked at his arms, where all the leeches were still densely attached. However, none of them were swollen and it was obvious that none of them had sucked his blood out at all.

"What is the meaning of this?" He finally calmed down and asked.

"What's going on? You'll have to answer it yourself." Garen stood up. "Feel it carefully. Your body is currently rejecting the leeches from sucking your blood and the leeches seem to see you as some sort of a host. A host that they can attach onto."

"A host?" Yuria did not understand the situation.

"Yes. Try and feel it. Feel your body's abilities. This is the essence of your training," Garen walked away slowly as he ignored him. Yuria was gifted with this ability and all he had to do was to awaken it.

The sky gradually became darker and dimmer.

The water had become colder as well but Yuria was not able to perceive it as his entire body was covered in a thick layer of leeches.

"Ability? I have a natural ability?"

He muttered softly as he realized that something was off since the leeches were not sucking his blood at all. They were just hanging by his skin as if they were a bunch of short ropes.

*********

"Will he succeed? With this idea."

Kong Xinxue asked softly as she and Garen stood near the pond, peeking at Yuria who was in the pond.

"Perhaps he will. Perhaps he won't," Garen did not have a definite answer. "He had already awakened this ability from the previous battle and all I'm doing now is to making him realize how to utilize this ability."

"However, it sure seems very disgusting," Kong Xinxue covered her nose. "I couldn't help but have goosebumps just by seeing him with so many leeches attached on his skin."

"You'll get used to it," Garen sat on the floor. "I'll take a rest. Just give me a shout when he realizes that he could use the ropes to escape to the shore."

"Sure," Kong Xinxue nodded.

Garen had something planned for himself as well, where he planned to take this opportunity to use the Soul Ring to forcibly increase his Saber Art.

From the moment he had decided to increase it until now, he had accumulated enough Soul Energy to increase his Saber Art by one grade.

The amount of Soul Energy required for this upgrade was actually very little. However, since this world's restriction towards this pure energy was so great, it took Garen a very long time to accumulate to this amount.

If it were the past him, he would not even bat an eye to spend this small amount of Soul Energy as the amount of energy that could not be sensed meant that he had only spent a very minute amount of it.

He then stared at his Skill Pane and locked his sight on the Saber Art option.

'Unnamed Saber Art - Third Grade. Thorough Comprehension Realm. Full Completion.'

It was a simple introduction since it was a foundation of all the Saber Arts that he knew. Hence, it was just a simple derivative technique.

Garen attempted to guide the Soul Energy to connect it to this skill slowly.

The Soul Energy then slowly but surely moved towards the Skill Pane in the form of transparent threads.

Pew!

The vague noise started ringing inside Garen's ears as he witnessed the Skill Pane absorbing the Soul Energy greedily and crazily.

He was still sitting on his knees with his eyes closed on the outside. Kong Xinxue leaned against a tree as she looked at Yuria from afar and did not notice Garen's situation at all. She could not realize, to begin with.

There was nothing strange going on in Garen's body.

The Soul Energy's Threads were soon absorbed completely by the Skill Pane and disappeared.

Hence, there was a new modification to the Saber Art in the Skill Pane.

"Unnamed Saber Art +1 - Unnamed Realm, effect: All Saber Art techniques would have a +1 in speed, strength, precision. Has an unknown effect.'

Garen was looking forward to it as his body had already reached the pinnacle of this world. Only the Ancient Endor's civilization had this unique ability to forcibly enhance his Saber Art by a grade and caused an unknown effect, forcing a mortal's power to a realm where one had never seen before via the Soul Ring Energy.

"It's unfortunate that I couldn't find any Potential Points here since it is also one of the ways to increase my skill," Garen stood up remorsefully.

He saw that Kong Xinxue had already fallen asleep as she leaned against the tree.