Mystical Journey

Black Wilted Flowers, minerals such as the Evolution Crystals, the mysterious dagger, and the legacy of the Illusory Demon Eye.

Garen thought about it, and tried his best wrap all the Solidifying Tactics into his clothes and put on the Healing Breastplate, it was a bit small, but after a bit of adjustment it fit his figure nicely.

He had stuffed away more than a half of the things on the three racks, his pockets bulging and threatening to overflow. Only then did Garen retreat towards the door, satisfied.

Outside the door, those countless dense black cracks had disappeared, the darkness was empty and utterly motionless.

Garen narrowed his eyes slightly, one hand holding the package made from his clothes as he put one foot on the doorframe.

Bam!

With one dash step, he rushed out of the doorframe, his figure like a shot of lightning as he burst out of the room.

Ker-chak!!

Many black cracks appeared all around him in the blink of an eye, madly extending towards him.

He had no idea what these things were, but they seemed to ignore his defenses altogether, Garen’s Totem Light acting like tofu in front of it, unable to withstand even one hit.

Before he could think too much of it, many black cracks chased closely behind Garen, as he dashed straight out of the black tunnel, shooting back into the treasury hall with a whoosh.

With a bang, he somersaulted in the air, a black light formation lighting up under Garen’s feet, and he landed lightly on the floor of the treasury hall.

His back was already covered with many wounds and cracks, many wounds deep enough to see bone, a mess of blood and flesh.

Garen’s buckets of sweat flowed down both of his temples.

"What a terrifying defense system!" He looked at the Nine-Headed Dragon totem in the black space, two consecutive heads had utterly withered, evidently completely killed by these black cracks.

Two dragon heads equaled forty potential points, Garen felt his heart ache as he watched the forty potential points get deducted, and the Nine-Headed Dragon returned to its Nine Life state.

But in his attribute pane, the potential points pane was left with only seventy-odd points.

He had always been losing without any gain, who knew how long it would take for his Secret Technique to reach the second level.

Smack!

Suddenly there was a sound from between Garen’s fingers. That Black Light Formation Ring issued by the Secret Service finally broke completely. It had probably been touched by the black cracks just now, this was a common heirloom, a tool to borrow some momentum. After being used for so long, after enduring so many battles, it finally shattered completely.

This was actually already a sign of its incredible endurability and high quality. To have lasted this long, it truly inspired admiration in the endurability of the three departments’ skills.

Garen frowned.

"This sort of tool to borrow momentum isn’t very precious, but it’s still not something just anyone can make. I need to find another suitable flying apparatus." After getting used to being able to move by borrowing momentum whenever he wanted, Garen was really not used to suddenly losing the Light Formation Ring.

Taking the things as he walked out, he saw some bodies strewn all over the Treasury, each of them with faces turning purple, grasping their throats tightly, their death masks horrific.

These were all totem users who gave in to their greed and came here looking for good stuff, there were even some normal strong fighters.

The poisonous gas that Garen had released earlier was now completely gone, and he was beginning to hear some voices come from the front half of the Treasury.

"...It’s the Royal Treasury! It’s the royal family’s, our forbidden area, what do you think this means, Dill?" A woman’s voice, suppressing anger, could be heard.

"It means whatever you think it means." A deep man’s voice replied calmly. "I don’t know anything about any Royal Treasury, I only came here on my teacher’s orders, I don’t know anything else."

"You guys are committing daylight robbery! Aren’t you worried about Her First Highness investigating this?" another cold man’s voice said.

The other side seemed lazy to reply, and simply fell silent.

Carrying his things, Garen walked out boldly.

There were two groups facing off in the first half of the Treasury, one side was obviously the First Princess’ grey-clothed underlings, whereas on the other side was one of Ivycius’ disciples, that nineteen-year-old boy Rose.

There were still seven or eight people behind Rose, each of them aggressive and not particularly kind-looking. As soon as he saw Garen come out, Rose immediately took a step out.

"Teacher Garen." His arrogance from before completely gone, he said humbly and respectfully.

"You guys are here?" Garen nodded, ignoring the grey-clothed female leader whose eyes looked ready to spit fire. "The country is in crisis right now, in order to secure the safety of the Royal Treasury, I took the initiative to hide some of the heirlooms, to prevent some lowly characters from taking advantage of the situation. I’m thinking of the larger picture for the royal family here. You guys don’t have any objection to that, do you?"

He looked at the woman in grey calmly.

Beside him, Rose and the others were already looking fierce, their Totem Light threatening to come to life. Evidently they were planning to silence the witnesses once and for all.

The woman in grey gave a shudder, and hurriedly was all smiles.

"No… none. Your Excellency the Black Fire Palace Master is here, and since it’s the Palace Master who’s here, naturally there’s nothing for us to say. We’ll take our leave now."

Garen watched the group of people in grey retreat outside in orderly haste, but had no intention of attacking them.

There was no way he could hide the fact that he had gone into the Treasury, and everyone had openly declared war already anyway. With Avic’s death, nothing else had to be hidden anymore.

After these people had left completely, Garen finally looked at Rose.

"Get your people to take as many things out of the Treasury as possible, I want half of everything, got it?"

"Got it!" Rose nodded obediently.

"Make sure you maintain a balance." Garen nodded.

"I understand." Rose gave a smile, meaning ‘we all get it’. "Oh, yeah, Teacher Garen, the two Grand Dukes are back, and right now they’re gathering all the middle-class and above nobility into the palace meeting hall. Now that the three departments have left and abandoned Kovistan, we cannot just sit here and await death. The two Grand Dukes are probably planning to gather everyone’s power. They even invited Teacher, and you, sir."

"I got it." Garen mused. He had planned to go look at his cousin and the others, although he had told them long ago to go to Prynne’s grandfather’s at the first sign of trouble, and he believed Prynne would take good care of them, it was still safer for him to go and see.

And then he needed to summon all of his family’s members.

Garen gave the package in his hand straight to Rose.

"Give these things to your teacher for safekeeping, make sure not a single one is missing, remember."

Rose was nearly crushed under the weight of the package, and almost lost his grip on it. He hadn’t expected this package, wrapped in clothes, to be this heavy.

Hearing Garen’s words, he nodded hard.

"Please leave it to me!"

In the entire Kingdom, even if he dared to lust over Teacher’s things, he would never dare to touch the Black Fire Palace’s things. Compared to the cool and calm of the Silver Palace, news of the Black Fire Palace Master’s cruelty and horror had already spread throughout the Kingdom.

In these chaotic times, such a terrifying reputation was the most effective.

Garen hurried straight towards his family estate.

Under these circumstances, he had long since told everyone to gather back at the Blue Bay estate.

Using about a dozen whole minutes, Garen rushed back at full speed, noticing how the streets on the way were getting emptier and emptier, most of the citizens having hidden into their homes and leaving the place a lot clearer. It didn’t affect his speed, in any case.

Hurriedly he returned to the suburbs where the estate was.

Garen could already see two people waiting at the estate’s main entrance, and one of them was the knight Edney.

This old woman had been working for the Trejons family for so long, and now she was pacing back and forth, seeming rather anxious.

Seeing Garen’s figure appear on the road outside the estate, Edney’s face relaxed instantly. She came up to greet him.

"Chief! You’re finally back!!" She finally released the breath she’d been holding, "Come in, quick, our people are all in here."

Garen nodded, walking past the wide-open estate doors.

The front hall inside was filled with a large crowd of people.

They were divided into two groups, one of them comprised of the family’s few remaining totem users, surrounding Maxilan.

The other group was made of the Black Fire Palace Guards, they sat quietly at the side, saying not a word but giving off an impression of sternness.

There were also two kids, a girl and a boy, next to Maxilan, they were totally black from head to toe, and so thin they were basically skin and bones, wearing clean, newly-changed clothes. They were both practically toddlers, their little hands gripping Maxilan’s clothes tightly, evidently treating him as their only source of comfort.

Seeing that Garen had noticed the two children, Maxilan smiled slightly awkwardly.

"Chief, these are the couple of kids I found on the road, their parents were both killed in the chaos, and I thought they were pretty pitiful, so… You don’t mind, do you?"

After Garen inherited the position, he and Edney were both assimilated into the Trejons family line. At first the two of them were just normal citizens, but once they entered the family, they were now truly members of the family. That was why they both called him Chief.

With a sweep of his eyes, the two kids’ full body conditions immediately appeared in his vision, completely unobscured. He was using the Secret Technique aura flow to sense the intricate parts of these living bodies’ conditions.

"It’s okay." After checking that the two of them weren’t spies sent by the other powers, Garen decided to leave them be.

The two children, however, were terrified into hiding behind Maxilan.

Just then, all the people in charge came up to Garen one by one, to give in their reports.

"Chief, I’m Leian, in charge of the chain stores. Right now the stores aren’t in very good condition, they seriously need people to help in defense, we could only gather all our hired power to gather everything from the warehouses up and defend those. But even now we’re barely holding in under Chief’s name, it probably won’t last long."

The one who spoke was a fatty.

"Guard One, take two people to help with defense, help organize the defense for all the shops." Garen said calmly.

Beside him, three people stood from the Black Fire Palace. They walked up to the fatty wordlessly. Taking two guards with him, the fatty rushed out of the estate, and returned to defend their family stores.

"Chief, more than half of our farms were taken over by hooligans."

"Send two Black Fire Palace guards over to subdue them, execute all the hooligans." Garen waved his hand, sending out two regular Black Fire Palace guards. Even regular Black Fire Palace guards would be in a completely different league from these warring farmers.

"Many of the houses and about a dozen shop lots around the auction house have been emptied out, Chief, I suggest we immediately expand our territory, and claim all that land!" A thin person said in a deep voice.

"Guard Two, you take two people over." Garen sent out one of the four most elite Black Fire Palace guards.

One by one, the people in charge came up and gave their reports, while Garen sent out the Black Fire Palace guards one by one to solve their problems.

It wasn’t just that the family fortune took a hit, unexpectedly, the family property expanded as well. It wasn’t expansion through power, taking advantage of the situation to expand, but rather two small families came to find them of their own accord, intending to become Trejons family branches.

"Branches? Interesting." Garen touched the stubble on his chin. "Where are they?"

"I arranged for them to rest at the back." Edney replied softly. "I asked about their situation, both families couldn’t afford to protect themselves in the chaos, and after hearing of your… reputation, they came here to seek us out as their last hope."

"As the family’s branch, that means all their family property will be assimilated into the main family, and they’re still willing?" Garen asked with interest.

"They have no other choice." Edney explained, "The chiefs of both families aren’t nobles with land, one’s a viscount and the other’s a baron, their general situation is…" She was interrupted by Garen with a wave before she could begin.

"That’s enough, I have no interest in their affairs, you just take some people to settle their matters, if we bring in their property, what do we need to do in return?" Garen asked the key question directly. If there wasn’t some danger approaching, there was no way that these nobles would be willing to join another family, and hand over everything they had.

"They’re two middle-sized families, they hope they can use this money to earn your protection over these two families."

"There will probably be a lot more of these things, you handle it directly, Big Sister Edney. I’ll give you some people."

Garen waved his hand, sending Guard Three and five Black Fire Palace guards to stand behind Edney.

By then there were only four people left in the Black Fire Palace Guard, and that was including the last Guard Four. Three of the strongest four Black Fire Palace Guards had been sent out to handle trifling matters.

"Chief, then what about us? What can we do?!" The modified human Komodo and the other large man stood together, asking stiffly.

"You guys go with Big Brother Maxilan, listen to whatever he says."

"Lord Chief, then we…?" A female representative stood out from the group of five Form One totem users that had always followed the family faithfully.

Garen was a lot more polite towards these people.

"If you’re willing, you can be in charge of one shop each, or you could be supervisors of the auction. To be honest, I would still hope for the auction business to bloom."