Mystical Journey

Garen quickly retrieved the Green Vine Sphere, and respectfully handed it in.

Avic took it.

"Not bad. Go and have a good rest. You can directly report to me if anything happens. Let me give you a warrant which would allow you to directly retrieve what I’ve promised from the Royal Treasury." He quickly wrote a warrant, tore it and passed it to Garen. He then bowed his head to examine the Green Vine Sphere.

Garen took the warrant, bowed, and walked out the study.

After exiting the study, he wiped beads of sweat off his forehead.

In the study, there were multiple strong, colossal energies lurking in the dark, forcing pressure on him. Once something was amiss, there was a possibility he would be instantly destroyed. He couldn’t assess the extent of strength of the energies, but they definitely were not below third form.

As this was a matter of national safety, it was natural that there were exceptional powers on guard.

This was the gathering point of the strongest forces throughout the whole of Kovitan, the capital. A large majority of the Obscuro Society’s generals were gathered here as well. The power of the Elemental Generals wouldn’t be considered very strong here.

Moreover, Garen did not bring along the three Petrifying White Dragons. They were too far away to help. If a skirmish happened, he certainly wouldn’t be able to escape.

This fact made him miss the martial arts world that he was previously in. Martial arts was real individual strength. It wouldn’t be diminished by being apart. A person’s strength also wouldn’t be heavily reduced because of damage to totems.

He shook his head as he enquired of the herald at the door, who respectfully brought him towards the royal treasury.

According to his plan, by combining Vanderman’s technique with part of Obscuro’s principle modification techniques, he would have to face a huge risk in the transplant process. Even if he could perfectly control blood flow and had immensely strong vitals, it wouldn’t make a difference. The other difficulty would be that in order to adapt thoroughly, he had to be on the same frequency with the Dual Headed Salamander.

Luckily, after Garen’s experimentation, he had preliminarily identified one of the most effective methods.

He followed the herald directly to the royal treasury. After the chemist in charge asked of Garen’s request, he was given twelve tubes of glory potions and a tube of light potion, which recovers large amounts of totem light.

All of these were crafted by top chemists and stored for over a hundred years, concentrating them for much stronger effects. Especially the light potion. There was a totem user who diluted the potion and distributed it to five hundred other totem users. All of them managed to fully recover their totem light within half a day.

Once a totem user’s totem light was exhausted, it would affect transfusion to the totem, causing injury to both the totem user and the totem. The light potion, which could quickly recover and repair totems, was considered a rare totem recovery method.

Garen was preparing for emergencies, where he could use it to quickly recover his totem light. If he got hurt, at least this could be used for self-preservation.

On the other hand, the glory potion was something that he wanted. It could completely lull all pains. It allowed people to soldier on without fear of life and death, or in other words, act as an advanced stimulant. As the glory potion did not have any side effects, it wouldn’t cause harm to people compared to other stimulants. Hence, it could be used again and again compared to low level stimulants.

After obtaining what he came for and a permit to enter the Royal Databank, Garen also received a black, hexagon insignia from Avic. He then took his leave from the palace.

As for the Black Storm Doves inheritance, after going through sorting, it would be sent to Garen’s manor within two days.

　　*********************

Under bright yellow light.

As he carefully applied a special type of grease on both of his hands, Garen looked at the death row inmate lying before him. This was already the fifteenth death row inmate to be used for his transplant experiments.

He’d used his family’s wealth to bribe the warden of Kingdom Prison to obtain the bodies of twenty death row inmates every month.

For the past two months, he’d consistently practiced with the Dual Head Salamander’s cardiac transplant, becoming more and more skilled at it. At the same time, he’d experimented on his own body by transplanting small amounts of myocardium into his body. However, this always triggered strong rejection from his body.

Under the effects of medication and the cleansing effect of Dragon Blood, Garen meditated with his martial arts and was gradually able to connect with the transplanted myocardium. He slowly understood the process that he had to go through.

As a whole, it gave him a newfound understanding towards the transplant procedures.

"A very successful surgery." Garen wiped off the disinfectant grease on his hands with a wet towel. "This is the fifth. If things go according to plan, my heart will be much stronger than the average person’s. I will become abnormally energetic and there might even be further changes to my body. All of the effects should be positive, since I have decent impurity cleaning skills."

Glancing at the inmate’s expanding and relaxing chest, it was certain that she was no longer in danger.

As he left the operating table, Garen habitually looked at his attribute pane.

There was a huge increase to his potential points. Within these couple of months, his potential points had gradually increased to more than than three hundred points. It was obviously caused by the Petrifying White Dragon’s relentless hunts. In the beginning, Garen still had interest in his increase in potential points, but soon he grew completely numb. The potential points were constantly increasing, but he had no place to use them.

The limits of the body determined that he couldn’t use them to level up his body. Yet at the same time, he felt it wasn’t worth it to use them to upgrade silver totems.

"What’s up boss?" As he left the lab, Garen saw a white-haired man waiting for him outside the door.

The man was called Komodo, initially a death row inmate. After the successful experiment, he decided to follow Garen as a token of thanks for giving him a second chance in life. Naturally, Garen did not fully trust an inmate’s loyalty, but he wasn’t too worried after the empowerment.

Komodo volunteered to be empowered, and currently acted as Garen’s right hand man in his underground lab.

Komodo had a strong physique. Compared to others who would be considered tall at 1.8 meters, he was two meters tall. The flesh all over his body was tanned, and he had scars everywhere. His right wrist was chopped off in a battle, and currently in its place was a retractable alloy blade.

"Very successful. This inmate is really strong. Although she’s a female, you can rarely find such a strong body even among men. She might be on par with you." As Garen briefly explained, he strode towards the biggest underground cave.

Vanderman’s lab was huge. This was the originally the Kingdom’s air raid shelter, but it had been deserted. The lab only occupied a corner of the vast underground air raid shelter.

"This is the third success this month. Boss, you are getting more and more skilled." Komodo smiled. "But Boss, am I really able to injure the monsters out there?" There was doubt in him.

"Of course." Garen turned a corner. "Didn’t you try?"

"No."

"Go try it when you’re free. After i finish with my experimentations, I’ll appeal for your pardon. I am a nobleman. I should have the authority to keep the lives of a few inmates." Garen promised.

"Thank you boss!!" Komodo was delighted.

"Have you prepared the various equipments?"

"Yes, it is ready. The nutrient pool has been refilled as well. This time I switched to the biggest one. Miss Lala has been complaining that the expenditures have been too huge. The family’s finances are becoming a little tight." Komodo replied immediately.

"Let’s officially begin tonight." Garen pushed open the door of the biggest underground cave, and entered.

Komodo followed behind. Right in front of their eyes was a gigantic creature crouching in the biggest nutrient pool.

The giant salamander had two heads and his huge body was like a hill. It quietly laid in the pool, and every breath created a mild breeze in the cave.

Although he has seen the creature multiple times, Komodo’s legs still shook. Although he was still delighted by the promise, he still couldn’t resist the immense threat of the creature.

Komodo consciously went to check the oil level of the lamp on the wall, as an opportunity to keep a distance from the creature.

Garen went towards the dual headed salamander instead and raised his head to look at the giant creature.

"Tonight might be a new beginning for me.." Garen gently stroked the salamander’s skin.

He had been relentlessly pursuing the combination of martial arts and totems. From the ancient notes about Endor and his baffling arrival at this world, there was definitely some form of connection between martial arts and totems.

He took out his pocket watch and looked at the time 4:23pm. 　

He left the pocket watch on the table. Garen immersed his two hands into white disinfectant liquid. The liquid was like boiling soup but Garen’s expression remained steady.

He removed his hands when they turned slightly red, then dried his hands. He diluted the glory potion according to proportion.

The surgery wasn’t difficult. The difficult part was controlling blood flow after the transplant. Immense accuracy was required. Even for an apex martial artist like Garen, he had to put in a lot of effort for the transplant.

The person receiving the transplant had to have strong endurance. He had to endure pain that would kill a normal human. Moreover, without precise control of blood flow, the most the inmates could obtain from a successful experiment was a stronger physique and totem-natured change in strength. It wouldn’t have much change on their actual power.

For normal people it might be worthless. But for Garen, with the ability to increase his body’s limit through potential points in addition to having the skills to control the resonance stone, he could definitely surpass the limits of his body.

Moreover by relying on the pinnacle of martial arts, he had grasped the principles of the resonance stone. He estimated that even the Obscuro Society’s people could not reach this level in resonance stone techniques.

Martial artists really had strong senses.

According to procedures, Garen started to adjust his blood flow and body state, then closed his eyes to rest.

Once the surgery was a success, the array of martial arts from the previous world would be of use. At the same time, a new path would be opened.

He recalled the legends of the warlocks he had heard of in the previous world. Although the warlocks of the fairy tales appeared exorbitantly strong, a huge chunk of them could be distorted as the stories were passed on. But there were some among them that seemed to possess the power of totem users.

Thinking about it now, the martial art world and the totem world seemed to have an association with each other.

"Tonight will determine our success…"

Tonight’s transplant would determine whether martial arts and totems could combine perfectly.