Mystical Journey

He still lay in the blood of the dual headed salamander. He was floating in the blood between the arteries and veins; two different levels of oxygenated blood that looked as though they were separated by a thin invisible film. As arterial blood flowed through this area, it became venous blood.

Garen released a white golden aura, and felt his heart rate slowly synchronising with that of the dual headed salamander, beating at the same frequency. A strange sense of affection and intimacy was birthed.

It was as though there was an unusual connection between him and the dual headed salamander.

His own heart grew stronger in the resonance of their heartbeat frequency. As his heart continuously beat with the help of the salamander’s heart, an unknown energy surged to his heart, causing the initially rejected transplanted heart to slowly come to life.

Garen released an aura, and sensed the foreign blood flowing around him. The vital energy and blood flowed from the heart of the dual headed salamander and circulated all throughout its body. An extremely complicated and detailed map of the blood vessels appeared in his mind.

He closed his eyes again. His heart had not been completely activated yet, and still needed to rely on the continuous resonance of the salamander’s heartbeat. Not only that, as the blood pumping out of his new heart was a combination of the salamander’s blood and his own merged as one, an adaptation process within his own body was required.

Garen carefully examined his own body. Once there was a reaction in any part of the body, he would immediately employ the secret technique to make adjustments throughout his body.

This process was extremely dangerous. Different from the simple surgical procedures done on the prisoners previously, Garen needed to be on alert for any signs of rejection while keeping up the resonance of the heartbeat.

If he were to falter at any time, it could result in his immediate death.

Although he had already predicted this step through simulation modeling, he was only aware of how critical and difficult it truly was after he had personally reached this stage. It wasn’t like what he had previously deduced.

If a rejection occurred, it would affect the resonance achieved by both hearts beating in sync. If not resolved immediately, Garen would suffer from the double blow of hypoxia and bodily reaction; it would either end up with him suffocating to death or death due to the disturbance of vital energy and blood.

In the underground caverns.

The dual headed salamander lay in nutrient fluid that was slightly reddened. It’s eyes were slightly closed. The creature’s body gave off a feeling as if it was way past it’s prime; it seemed to have aged.

At the top of its body, four white beams of light converged into a white light ball, evenly covering the body with white light. Even so, the scales on the salamander dulled slowly, losing the sheen it once had.

Sssss…

The dual headed salamander let out a long breath of air, opened its eyes to quickly survey its surroundings, and continued to close them.

At the edge of the nutrient pool, Komodo was washing the floor while holding onto a basin.

He took a sideway glance at the salamander, then zeroed in on the abdominal wound that had already healed; shaking his head.

"Lord is crazy…It has been 3 days…could it be that he had already…"His face was filled with traces of worry.

Since Garen had saved him from the death row, he had pledged his loyalty to this thick piece of ham. If anything had happened to this thick piece of ham, he would definitely be unlucky too.

It was also an unspoken fact that he did not have the status of a freeman, and that he was part of the private property of Trejon’s clan leader. If the clan leader were to ever lose power, his future would also be bleak.

Hua!

He poured the remaining water onto the ground and mopped vigorously.

Well, it was no use thinking about all these now. Let’s just work earnestly.

Day by day, time flew by…

The fourth day.

Komodo began adding lamp oil to the lights on the wall. He had a look at the dual headed salamander in the nutrient pool; nothing seemed to have happened, the only difference seemed to be in how the giant beast had aged significantly.

The fifth day.

Komodo placed two letters on the edge of the table, glanced at the giant beast that exhibited no trace of movement, and walked out.

The sixth day…

The seventh day…

The eighth day…

The ninth day.

Ba dum!!!

The entire cavern was sounded with a dull thud, as if it came from the vibrations of a giant drum.

Komodo who was stifling a yawn awakened immediately from the shock. He stood up and surveyed his surroundings.

"An earthquake?!?!"

Splash! In the nutrient pool, the dual headed salamander elongated its neck and gasped in anguish, but there was no sound.

Its huge body was trembling slightly, it seemed to be suffering from a violent convulsion.

Ba dum!!!

Another dull heartbeat reverberated from its body. This huge beast had aged significantly in comparison to 9 days before, leaving only a bag of bones. After a few frantic roars, it collapsed heavily and panted with difficulty.

At the center of the beast’s heart, Garen opened his eyes. A large and powerful surge of energy he had never experienced before sprung up all over at different parts of his body.

The resonance of the salamander’s heart weakened with each second.

Garen’s heart on the other hand, was pumping with an massive force of life and vitality; it was just like new life, containing an unlimited amount of energy.

He held both of his hands interchangeably; the thick layer of blood scab congealed on his skin fell away with force.

All of a sudden within his body, a strange route of blood flow caught his attention.

Garen sensed the spontaneous route of the blood flow and felt a sense of vague familiarity.

Suddenly, he remembered something.

"Is this…!? The secret technique roadmap!!!"

His eyes snapped open, and he began to observe the spontaneous route his blood flow had naturally taken on within his body. These complex yet delicate routes were either fast or slow, and mapped out a complicated, three-dimensional blood and vital energy roadmap. It also had an inexplicable resonance in frequency.

The weirder thing was, Garen realized that roadmap was similar to a secret technique that he had practiced before.

This is…the Myriad Water Jasper technique?!!"He finally remembered. This roadmap was from the previous world; he got this top level secret technique from an exchange with Celine.

This secret technique was one of the branches of Neptune Fist, a legendary ancient martial arts organization. Celine did not mention how it came about, only mentioning that this was one out of the three oldest techniques there.

What surprised Garen the most was, his body was currently operating the Myriad Water Jasper technique’s first layer of vital energy and blood roadmap automatically.

Different from common folk, the vital energy and blood from his body had dual headed salamander characteristics. When he operated the first layer of the Myriad Water Jasper technique, mini cyclones were formed in the blood, reverberating throughout the blood vessels with great speed.

"Secret technique…Totems…" Garen had a vague hypothesis in his mind.

The Myriad Water Jasper technique has 5 layers to it. It was incompatible with the Divine Statue technique as the roadmaps were in conflict; he was only able to master the first layer, and it was only for the sharp force that the method offered.

And now his vital energy and blood were employing this technique naturally. Garen felt his Divine Statue technique depleting; the strong network constructed by the secret technique’s vital energy and blood was currently being dissolved by this bizarre Myriad Water Jasper technique.

"My Divine Statue technique…" Garen had no time for regret; he immediately checked the attribute pane at the bottom of his field of vision.

Right behind the attribute pane, a clear black and red symbol appeared. It consisted of 3 small black and red dots lined up in a triangular formation.

"Activate ancient memory of dual headed salamander, the body in question is going through changes. Myriad Water Jasper technique is going through mutation due to resonance.

Garen sensed the constant flow of the technique in his body. The heart constructed from the salamander produced a huge amount of fresh blood; at the same time, the salamander’s blood was also absorbed through the skin pores in large amounts, all sucked in by the Myriad Water Jasper technique. While all of these things were going on, an invisible and delicate force was generated.

This force appeared like countless invisible whirlpools, densely covering the entire area of Garen’s body.

It completely covered Garen; spreading out at the same time. It affected the giant dual headed salamander’s body.

Days passed.

Dual headed salamander appeared completely dried up. Its large volume of vital energy and blood was close to being sucked dry; its whole body weakly laying in the nutrient pool, void of any movement.

It could feel near its heart –the point of convergence of vital energy and blood, there seemed to be a black hole that was continuously swallowing up all its blood. This black hole had even grown bigger and bigger, its absorbing power becoming stronger and stronger.

Sssss!

It growled weakly; both eyes slowly dimming, losing its color.

In the underground cavern, Komodo looked from afar at the beast on the brink of death; his eyes full of shock.

The dual headed salamander’s chest suddenly expanded like it had a huge red growth.

The growth had a heart beat that was continuously pounding, a red fluorescent light vaguely appearing.

As the red fluorescent light around the growth grew brighter and brighter, the light in the eyes of the dual headed salamander grew dimmer and dimmer.

"What is this…! My God…"Komodo took a few consecutive steps back, almost backing up against the entrance of the cavern.

Finally, the growth expanded till its limit. It shrunk fiercely all of a sudden, as if all of the red light was sucked into a center.

Then, there was no light.

Ripppp!!!

A blood red, fresh rip appeared on the abdomen of the salamander.

A pair of bloody hands stretched out and grabbed both sides of the open wound.

Garen slowly walked out from the opening; his body covered in blood scabs. He looked like a bloody devil returning from hell.

He looked at the nutrient fluid below that had turned clear; the water reflected his current appearance.

The man staring back at him was completely blood red; his features were unrecognizable, so was his face. Only the 3 red glowing dots between his brows was as clear as day.

"I have succeeded. Secret techniques and totems, I knew they had some kind of connection."He muttered, reaching out his hands to touch the place in between his brows. The red lights were coming out from 3 birthmark-like red dots.

These red dots could not be felt through touch, and had the nature of normal skin. The 3 red lights were lined up like a triangle, and had an unusually neat placement.

This was just a physical change.

Garen was more concerned with the changes happening on the inside.

He looked towards the attribute pane at the bottom of his field of vision.

"Strength 6.66. Agility 3.11. Vitality 2.97. Intelligence 2.53. Potential 41128%. Possess the qualities of a luminarist.

Secret technique – Myriad Water Jasper Technique, Ten Thousand Mammoth Battle Skills."

The moment he saw the attribute pane, he finally took a long sigh of relief.

He knew, he has finally achieved his goal.

Breaking limits, breaking past the limitations of his being; this was a road that no one treaded on before. Talking about that, Sylphalan was just like him; they both chose to modify themselves.

Once Garen finished his thoughts, he brought back to memory his attributes from before – Agility was at 2.72. Vitality was 2.82; both increased. Although the difference was not huge, it was an improvement. Being able to increase right after reaching his limit; this was a huge buff.

At the same time, his body possessed totem light attributes; he had achieved his goal successfully.

The weakened and greatly aged giant beast had already closed its eyes quietly; not a sound was heard.

Garen reached out his hand and slowly stroked its fragile scales; there was a trace of sadness in his heart. He knew it was him that had completely sucked the essence of the salamander’s blood until he was dry. Also, this dual headed salamander had used his entire being to give birth to who he was now.

But this did not mean that the dual headed salamander had completely vanished.