Mystical Journey

Garen left this trip to the combat club with a feeling of mild satisfaction.

That Xander could be considered a good prospect, but his sense of hostility was too overpowering, so he needed more training. And that Asian girl was pretty good, under his presence and pressure back then, she still had the guts to stand up and support Quentin. That was the sort of bravery needed for combat.

In fighting and killing, the most important part was actually one’s heart, those with a naturally decent heart would attack without hesitation, and one-tenth of their power could have the same effect as others’ full power. Those with weak hearts would keep hesitating, and even their full strength would only be as effective as one-tenth.

Hesitation, terror, delay, these were all the most serious taboos when fighting to kill, as soon as you hesitated, your moves would slow down, your actions delayed, and naturally your power would diminish.

Garen did not have the time to train others’ hearts, so he naturally was only looking at their inherent advantage.

Other than these two having talent, the other six from the combat club were all quite promising, although their form had been set somewhat, and they required time to change them, they could still be considered possible potential assets, with a bit of tweaking, they could still become his remote limbs to help extend his reach.

All in all, the harvest this time was not too bad.

Returning to his hostel, as he expected, Serena’s message finally arrived after a few days of silence on the combat club’s side.

That Asian girl with the ponytail, Cece, was looking for him. But she did not know his address, so Serena was asking if she should tell her.

"Tell her." Garen lay on his bed, holding his cellphone. "Tell her, anyone from the combat club who wants to meet me can just come over themselves."

"Is that alright? There might be more people then." Serena asked quietly, she sounded somewhat excited as well.

"Has the word spread? Okay, then, you find a more isolated place, and bring fewer people. Everything else, I don’t mind." Garen considered for a moment, and replied flippantly.

"Alright, then, we’ll arrange everything, leave it to us." Serena replied with certainty.

Garen hung up, his lips curving slightly.

"Although I feel bad for you guys, isn’t it also your fault for being so easy to use?"

He was already preparing to execute his plan on the six leaders from the club, Xander, and that Asian girl Cece.

After some deliberation and time, he had arranged a new special secret skill from scratch, just like Nighthawk and co’s Shooting Shadow Secret Skill -- the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist.

This was the unique secret skill he had invented after taking some inspiration from the White Bird Holy Fist.

Upon activation, matching it with some special skills and moves, would allow the user’s hands to create an intensely powerful internal jolting effect to inflict harm on the enemy.

It was just like how he merely had to move his hands lightly to easily defeat the six top fighters in the combat club. The power of this secret skill lay in the user’s hands, upon activation, they would become a powerful lethal weapon that even he could not control, if the power was not controlled enough, just a touch would be enough to easily incapacitate someone. But at the same time, it looked light and beautiful, the instant it injured the enemy was as light as a waterbird touching the surface of the water.

This secret skill was even stronger than Nighthawk’s Shooting Shadow Secret Skill. After activating it, the user’s speed, strength, and reflexes would simultaneously double, the strongest was the Waterbird Fist’s internal force, gathering in the arms with great destructive power, he just needed to touch the enemy with one finger, and it was very likely he could kill the enemy invisibly. Used well, it could even kill someone easily with the touch of a finger, by making them die to an internal wound like bleeding in the brain. Soundless, everyone none the wiser.

Of course, the side effects would naturally also be more terrifying, it was a shortcut that could instantaneously increase someone’s power dramatically, so naturally there would be a terrifying price to pay.

Anyone who successfully practiced the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist could not let themselves stop, if they ever wanted to stop and give up, then after a certain time, the side effects would manifest, bringing the practitioner an intense and unbearable pain and itchiness all over their body. That sensation was several times worse than a regular skin disease, it was a powerful punishment applied directly to the nerve endings deep in the body.

If the practitioner still insisted on stopping, then the internal force created from the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist would backfire, and the practitioner’s blood vessels would continuously explode and split, the efficiency of their organs rapidly declining, and they would age quickly, their life fading away, until finally they died from a loss of essential blood.

As with the Shooting Shadow Secret Technique, this secret skill also needed Garen’s primer, every so often, Garen needed to give the practitioners a primer, to suppress the internal force of the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist in their bodies that was going to run wild. To use this shortcut to obtain immense power, but without a body that could properly withstand this power, they would naturally need external suppression.

This secret skill was a terrifying technique derived from the Slaughtering Hand Demonic Technique, if they were in the Secret Technique World, this secret skill would probably be a third-grade secret technique, like the Mammoth Secret Technique, but to the people of this world, the power of this secret skill was indeed far stronger than most normal people could imagine.

Since it was born from the Slaughtering Hand, only the primer formed by Garen, the strongest person who unifies the entire system, that was mixed with the aura from his Soul Seed, can properly suppress this internal force. That was why this secret skill was basically a tailor-made power system for him to control his subordinates.

Once the practitioner accepted his primer and successfully trained that skill, then the aura integrated into Garen’s soul could easily affect the practitioner’s life, or even control their body and will.

*********************

A week later…

In a manor in the suburbs outside the school.

Garen sat on a red leather sofa with his fingers laced and his legs crossed, closing his eyes as though in meditation.

The black president, Quentin, Jamie, and that bespectacled boy with the noble aura, six of them in total, stood awkwardly facing him.

The Asian girl, Cece, and Xander stood on the other side. Cece’s expression was calm, but there was a hint of excitement and desire in her eyes. Xander, on the other hand, was somewhat hesitant, his head lowered as he could not bring himself to look at Garen’s face.

Serena sat on a sofa by the side, also looking at them rather uneasily, glancing at Garen and then looking at the president and the other five.

"Please teach us! Those things you said just before you left, weren’t they meant to bring us under your wing?!!" As a girl, and a pretty one to boot, Quentin naturally took the initiative to speak.

"We know, simply asking someone else to teach us your secret techniques, is a very impolite request." The boy with the glasses spoke, "We can pay a price, in exchange. Allow me to hire you as the club’s private coach, how about a monthly salary of five hundred thousand? If it’s not enough, please, just state your price."

"Money?" Garen opened his eyes, the corners of his lips curving. "Do I look like someone who needs money?"

He naturally had no shortage of money, what he truly needed could barely be bought with money. Otherwise he would have long ago used some psychological or hypnotic secret techniques to amass large amounts of fortune. To someone like him, rules were meant to be broken.

"Then what do you need before you’ll agree to teach us combat techniques?" The other vice president spoke, she was also a girl, with short brown-red hair, wearing a man’s white shirt and well-fitting long black slacks. She also had the aura of a noble, which meant her family background must be something special, her only flaw was that she was not all that pretty.

"Whatever conditions you have, just state them, we’re all elites who are here to fulfill your conditions and are determined to learn from you. Why beat around the bush?" A boy with his hair dyed flowery and green crossed his arms and said coldly. By sitting here and posing like this, wasn’t Garen trying to up his price?

Boom!!

In an instant, Garen’s gaze turned, and it was as though the air in the whole mansion’s hall shook, a huge and suffocating pressure pressing down on this boy.

Bang bang bang!!

The vice president who had been all cocksure before rapidly took three steps back, his face instantly reddening, his pupils dilating, staring at Garen as though he had seen a ghost.

His chest rose and fell drastically, like rapidly blowing bellows, and in that instant alone, there was already a sheen of cold sweat on his forehead.

"You…!!" This vice president’s voice was shaking.

And the others around him did not sense anything amiss at all, they just saw Garen look at him, and then he himself was so scared that he had to take three steps back before he could steady his footing.

Quentin glanced at him condescendingly, normally she never really took this vice president seriously, she just thought he had some aura and skill, so she did not really hate him, but to think just a glance was enough to scare him to such an extent.

The club had five vice presidents in total, Quentin herself, Jamie, and Hochman with the glasses, all three of them came from families in the business field, controlling large corporations, whereas the girl with the short auburn hair, Raelan, and the green-haired boy, Dahm had families involved in politics, so they were truly the second generation politicians of America.

Raelan was still okay, she was more introverted, and had opened a bar of her own outside the school, so she kept a very low profile. But the green-haired Dahm was a different story, he was extremely arrogant, and lived a life of vices, it was common for him to have a different sex buddy every day, drugs, gambling, coercion into sex, all of that was normal to him. Earlier this year, he had even personally beaten a schoolmate to death, a young and defenseless girl, and in the end the verdict was self-defense, they claimed that young girl wanted to rob him.

And the rumors had actually been silenced by his old man, the final verdict being they paid a few hundred thousands and called it a day.

This incident made Quentin look down on this guy even more, but since he had a powerful family background, plus he was the only child that his family had gotten after so long, she decided not to break ties with him over an outsider.

In truth, Garen had also bought some intel on the six of them from the black market through the Baldy, the most detailed information about their backgrounds.

As the peak-level elites in an elite school, these people were all the stars of tomorrow for their respective families, the glow of a prestigious school to add on to their families’ own presence, so naturally it was extremely easy for him to get information on them.

Unlike the America he knew, the power in this world was still controlled by the authorities, and he had also seen the great achievements this green-haired boy Dahm had, forcefully killing that girl was just one of his many dirty deeds, there were more that just had not been exposed yet.

The America in this world was also controlled by the large corporations, the power of the public opinion here was nowhere near as strong as on Earth. Of course, perhaps it was the same thing on Earth, and he just never came across that level.

But power sure was a good thing… Looking at the green-haired boy, a hint of a smile flashed through Garen’s eyes.