Mystical Journey

Its strength kept increasing until 14 before coming to a pause, and the Dragon’s heads stopped increasing once it reached eight. However, there was a new bag of meat on its back, suggesting a possibility of having a ninth head.

Garen observed that the existing nature of this Dragon was rather elusive as it didn’t have an actual body. The eight headed dragon indeed did not have an actual body, as it didn’t interact with everything else. However, the strength he could use from the Dragon would increase greatly when it appeared. The strength he could put out was twice the strength before he released the totem.

Garen named this new creature as the Eight Headed Dragon. Although he named it as such, anyone would have assumed that the ninth head would come out sooner or later, due to the bag of meat on its back.

The second head of the Dual Headed Salamander had the Life Tear ability but the remaining new heads didn’t seem to have any unique ability. Perhaps it’s due to it not having an actual body or some other reason that these new heads didn’t have other ability, and all of them had the Life Tear ability!

As these heads were born, Garen could feel that Life Tear had been enhanced to an incredible level. Although he didn’t know the extent of this effect, he believed that it should be at least 6 times stronger than the original Life Tear, and it shouldn’t be weak no matter how he looked at it.

What the evolved Eight Headed Dragon brought to Garen wasn’t just an enhanced strength, he had also a new ability -- Gravitational Vortex.

With his grey robe on, Garen reached out his right hand and flicked his finger.

Pew!

An invisible vortex was shot up and floated in front of him no more than one meter away.

This vortex was about one meter in diameter and rotated the air surrounding it, attracting everything from its surrounding. There was an unknown hole in the center of the vortex which lead to an unknown space.

Garen counted that he could released eight of these vortices at the same time, which was the same number as the heads of the Eight Headed Dragon.

These eight vortices rotated at a high angular velocity, resulting in the formation of a strong whirlwind causing huge amounts of items flying towards the vortices. It was like a powerful tornado.

In a blink of an eye, large amount of shirts, wooden racks, scientific equipment and nutritional wastewater were absorbed into the vortices. What was left in the hole was those items that were hard and solid.

As Garen dissipated the vortices, he rubbed his stomach with a weird expression, as he felt that something had entered his guts.

He felt that those items that were absorbed into the vortices were transported into his stomach.

It seemed that those items had been refined and turned into nutrients and entered his body.

"Could it be that these eight vortices are the Eight Headed Dragon’s mouth?!" Garen guessed.

He then started to analyse these eight vortices in detail.

After some time of experimenting, Garen finally understood the theory behind these eight vortices.

It was the same as he imagined. These were all the mouths of the Eight headed Dragon, and they could swallow everything from the outside world, including rocks, debris and some dangerous sharp weapons. Furthermore, the debris that it swallowed could turn into pure energy and replenish the totem power.

One had to realize that one would spend their totem power whenever they activated their totem, be it a core totem or a support totem. The more totems one activated, the more totem power was spent. A typical form one totem user could engage in a high level battle without breaking a sweat.

However, a form two user could only engage in a high level battle for about half a day and a form three totem user would have spent even more totem power. The typical form three totem users wouldn’t activate their totem casually and would only use them when necessary. Furthermore, a lot of totem users would rely on their low grade support totem as an energy source to reduce their expenditure of totem power. This was also the reason why the totem markets kept existing.

As for the strong spiritualized totem similar to that of Beckstone’s spiritualized totem Sunflower, he would feel exhausted if he were to release a small amount of power even with the support of the Heirlooms. Regardless of whether if it’s related to his physical strength, this also proved that a spiritualized totem required a lot of energy.

Garen wanted to find a solution towards the Crystal Derivator’s flaws, as he cherished this item a lot. This was because the empowered totems which were controlled by the Crystal Derivator did not require an ounce of totem power. The totem itself would eat and rest to recover, which was one of its major advantage.

Naturally, it had its own disadvantages as well. While the empowered totem did not require any totem power, it required a huge amount of food which was rather troublesome. He would need to spend a huge amount of meat daily to feed the large amount of Deep Swarm Crocs and Parasitic Beetles. If their food source were to be interrupted, they would be weak and might even die. On the other hand, the Primitive Totem was very convenient as it didn’t require rest nor food and it could be carried with him anywhere.

Garen didn’t know which class he was in anymore, but what he was sure was that he was much stronger than before.

He felt that his core totem’s state was similar to that of the legendary form four, which was purely elementalization. In this era, where spiritualized totems were considered rare, the fourth form totem, elementalization, was completely in the realm of the mythical. In addition, he had yet to account for his physical attributes, where his strength had increased to 14 points and had 10 points of constitution. Under these extreme limits, he could be considered more fearsome than the totem itself.

Garen walked towards the side of the nutritional pool as and looked at himself in the reflection. He looked weak, gentle, slim and handsome, which gave off a delicate and beautiful juvenile vibe. He was very satisfied with his current look as his demeanour would definitely confuse his enemies. While his biceps did not look physically strong, it possessed an incredible strength that surpassed any living being.

"Reylan had mentioned before that the Elemental Generals of the Obscuro Society were all spiritualized. Each of them had at least two spiritualized totems, this without considering their ability to control their General-level subordinates. Based on this, an Elemental General would have the strength of an army of Spiritualized Totems, with most of them being form three creatures. Since there creatures able to kill Elemental Generals, this obviously means that form four creatures exist, and the reason I hadn’t encountered one at all was because they are very rare. To think that the Marshall of the Obscuro Society is able to take back his territory by letting the creatures escape as they smelled his scent, this means that there is something stronger than elementalization, which places him at form four or form five. If this is true, then the Obscuro Society’s overall strength is clear as day."

Garen sorted out his chain of thoughts.

"We can ignore the Marshalls for now; those are the people who manage the overall situation of multiple countries and are under the direct command of the Hellgate of the Obscuro Society. They basically wouldn’t appear because of any one situation, as I have never heard of a form four of form five Marshall class appearing before. The strongest person in charge is definitely the Elemental General per country, who is at the Spiritualization level. Judging from the looks of it, my totem strength has reached a certain peak."

Now that he had a clear understanding of where he stood in terms of strength, his totem was at its peak before the mysterious creatures appeared. He would have to fight with this mysterious creature to find out that who was the stronger one.

As he looked at the holes caused by his messy experiment, his sight landed on the corpse of the Dual Headed Salamander. This old Salamander was so thin that it practically didn’t have any muscle at all.

"Komodo." He turned around as he walked towards the door. "Clean this place up."

A tall figure peeked his head in from the entrance and Komodo relaxed as he saw Garen.

"Alright Sir." He was glad when he saw Garen was safe. This meant that his future was insured.

As Garen walked out of the cave, he could faintly hear Komodo’s cries echoing from within.

"Oh… The cave that I cleaned up just a moment ago…"

Garen laughed as he walked up the stairs in the laboratory. He was so swift that his figure faded as he went out.

A few seconds later, he stood at the exit of the underground laboratory and gently opened the door.

Wow.

Garen was blinded by the golden ray from the outside.

He squinted his eyes and walked out of the experimental room, the door behind him closing shut by itself.

It was noon. The scorching wind blew in from the balcony, rustling the pots’ leaves by the wall.

Garen turned right, and went into his bedroom and wore an undergarment which he took out from his wardrobe. He then took out the Secret Agent Armor given by His Majesty himself.

It was an all-black hardened armor and looked like it was connected by many small squares. He had a black hood on and two pauldrons protruding out from his shoulder.

A pair of band collars surrounded his neck and the left band collar had the national flower, the Golden Iris Flower of the Kovitan Empire sewn onto it.

It was the first time Garen saw the iris flower, even when he was on Earth and the world of Secret Techniques. This Iris Flower that was sewn was golden in color, the overall shape was a perfect equilateral triangle as if two three leaf clover superimposed each other and formed the petal. Two three leaf clovers overlapped each other, and formed a perfect triangle. The stamens at the center of the triangle formed another perfect triangle, which gave off an exquisite vibe.

He touched the cloth, which seemed to be made out of golden thread.

As he wore the full body armor, the upper body was hardened armor whereas the lower body was a black skirt. He even paired it with black trousers and a shiny long boots.

Garen stood in front of the mirror and admired himself. After refining his body, he had gotten slimmer, and his body was well portioned. He wore a pair of gloves and his hood, which totally covered his face. Only his pale chin and red lips could be seen.

The armor didn’t require any body support, and everyone seemed to be able to fit into the armor. If he were to slightly lower his head, no one would be able to recognize who was wearing it.

Surprisingly, Garen didn’t feel overheated as he wore his hood and gloves. The sun blazed overhead outside, as waves of heated drafts gushed in from the balcony.

He analysed the the armor and realized that there was something on both of the pauldrons. Both pauldrons were engraved with a simple Solidifying Tactic. This armor was very similar to the War Chain that could release the Solidifying Tactic and its effect.

Garen analysed the workings of the armor, and it seemed that it could absorb the totem user’s naturally leaking totem power and use it for the armor’s tactic. Hence, this airtight design’s purposes were to remain hidden and collect as much totem energy as much as possible.

Whether it be illuminarists, totem users or Forgers, as long as he possessed totem energy, he or she would naturally lose a minimal amount wearing this. It was similar to a human body losing body heat to the surrounding.

This armor made full use of the these, and recycled the energy to the best of its extent.