Portugal, Vesnan City
Near the seaport, there was a smattering of pale yellow boats floating on the sea. Some of them were small fishing vessels, but there were also mid-sized rafts.
Under the twilight rays, the red light dyed the surface of the sea by the port a bright red.
There was a constant flow of carriages by the seaside, two locals were taking their child on a walk in a stroller. On the flat concrete floor beside the port, there were several young men and women dressed in coats, one of the women had pretty features, but she looked rather cold. Surprisingly, there was a gruesome scar on the right side of her neck, it extended from her neck to the middle of her chest, and then it was blocked off by her clothes so no one could tell just how long it was.
The woman had shoulder-length hair that was naturally red, and not dyed.
There was also a middle-aged man standing with her, as well as a young girl.
“Why did you call me out so late? I’m in a rush to get back for dinner,” the red-haired woman said calmly.
“Isaros, it’s been over half a year since I got you sisters involved in this mess, hasn’t it?” the middle-aged man said in a low voice, his expression guilty. “If I hadn’t met you guys back then, perhaps you would still be living peacefully in that little town.”
“What’s the point of saying that now?” Isaros said calmly. “Whatever you have to say, just spit it.”
The man looked even guiltier, hesitating for a while. Instead, it was the other girl beside them who could not take it anymore.
“Let me be the one to say it,” the girl stepped up and spoke. She looked no older than seventeen or eighteen, but the aura in her eyes was as deep as that of an old woman.
“As we are all Scarlet Moon Blood Breeds, we hope that we can contact the human organization, the Holy Fist Palace, through you, and thus contribute to our light party.” The girl spoke with no restraint whatsoever, as though this was only natural.
“Contact the Holy Fist Palace?” Isaros frowned slightly.
“Yes, your sister is protected by the Holy Fist Palace, so you should be pretty close to them. If you can contact them to join our forces, as a Scarlet Moon Blood Breed, I can make an exception and obtain another Blood Breed position for you.” The girl spoke as though a Blood Breed position was such a glorious thing.
Isaros frowned. Ignoring the girl, she looked straight at the middle-aged man.
“Pritto, is this your intention?”
Pritto smiled bitterly, it had been several weeks since they escaped the secret party in America and ran here to Portugal, and now they had officially joined an organization allied with the light party. This organization was centered around two light party upper level Blood Breeds, and secretly resisted the secret party in hiding.
“We are too weak right now, so we do need your help to contact them, then we’ll go to America together.”
“Contacting them is no problem, but I cannot guarantee that they will give you face and agree to cooperate.”
“No problem, we’ll take over negotiations after that,” the Blood Breed girl said confidently.
*********************
On a snowy mountain peak
Holy Fist Palace
The snow danced in the air, covering the entire building of the Holy Fist Palace with a thick layer of white.
Garen sat in a room on the rightmost edge, nearest to the cliff. Sitting at his desk, he raised his pen and began to write something slowly in a black notebook.
The room was lavishly decorated, covered in all white and gold. There was a fire burning away merrily in the fireplace, emitting a faint warmth, raising the temperature of the entire room.
Sofa, bookshelves, single bed, and a super-thin television hanging on the wall.
The floor was smooth white marble, strangely clean.
Garen sat in front of a desk, it was the one he had brought over from Berlin, unchanged in the slightest.
The black notebook underneath his hand was giving off a strange and blurry feeling. If someone wanted to see the outer appearance and the inner content of that notebook more carefully, they would end up feeling slightly dizzy. But once they moved their gaze away, they would still be naturally attracted to it, it just pulled others’ spirits into looking at it.
The scrawling sound of pen on paper echoed through the room.
Garen wore a mask over his eyes, and his only functioning eye, the left one, was actually shining with a hint of gold.
After goodness knows how long, he put down his pen slowly, closed his eyes and rested for a while. Only then did he close that strange notebook.
“I’ve already recorded down the true essence of the Holy Phoenix Scriptures, but it’s still missing something,” he said softly, as though to himself.
‘You’re still lacking some deeper understandings, if you could understand the Holy Phoenix Scriptures at a deeper level, perhaps you could speed up the completion of your Demonic Book,” Black Sethe suggested.
Garen nodded slightly.
The Holy Phoenix Scriptures were divided into three levels and nine different states. But if one intended to really delve deep into this cultivation method, they would first need to investigate the compatibility problem he was facing with the Hellfrost Peacock Technique he was currently practicing.
Up until now, Garen was still in the midst of finding his own path. The Peacock Technique could achieve Army Level, but it was still lacking in practice supplies and resources. He did not know how far he could take the Holy Phoenix Scriptures either, and he could even tell that this was a path doomed for destruction, yet it helped with his gathering of the Soul Seed.
‘This is a matter of your own priorities,’ Black Sethe said softly. ‘The Soul Seed strengthens your soul, and there is a high chance that you’ll encounter a dead end with the Holy Phoenix Scriptures when you need something you don’t have. The other way, with the Hellfrost Peacock Technique, you still won’t be able to level up without the required resources. It might be better for you to just practice the Holy Phoenix Scriptures first. Leave thinking about it until the incompatibility happens, right now your main job is to increase the strength of your Soul Seed. That’s where your foundations lie.’
“True.” Garen nodded, and was no longer hesitant.
The Demonic Book was more or less complete. He had recorded all of his techniques in there, including the Holy Phoenix Scriptures that he had just learned. He should have fully completed his second Soul Seed by now, but because he did not have a deep enough understanding of the Holy Phoenix Scriptures, he was still lacking that last push.
He glanced at his current condition and attributes.
Garen Thomas.
Strength 7. Agility 7. Vitality 10. Intelligence 11. Potential power 7966%. Soul limit 30.
Soul Seed: Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique
‘Void Pursuer: inheritor of the Ancient Endor civilization, arch enemies with the Void races. Has the natural ability to heal and strengthen oneself by hunting the Void Creatures’ Cores. That is a natural power bestowed eternally by the mysterious power of Ancient Endor.’
‘Hellfrost Peacock Technique: Grade one elementary level (Total of five grades, with three grades of derivative grades, a total of eight grades) Every time the practitioner reaches the next level, their blood and veins will be purified, and they will slowly approach the Hellfrost Peacock body type, finally becoming the ultimate form, the Hellfrost Peacock King, with Army Level being the limit.’
‘Seven Star Life’s Secret Point: fifth grade (maximum of seven grades).’
‘Violin Skill: Grade 2, Proficient Grade (Total of three grades).’
‘Slaughtering Hand: first grade.’
Looking away again, Garen was slightly disappointed that he had only accumulated so few attribute points after obtaining five masks.
Thankfully, after the martial arts exchange event, the students that Hochman and Dahm recently taught, such as Caesar and the others, were all leaving the Holy Fist Palace to find Garen new masks. Of these groups, Dahm was heading to Memphis Forest, the sixth mask at the moon river. It had been several days since he departed, and Garen did not know how the situation was going.
Standing up from his desk, Garen looked at the snowflakes floating down in front of his window, and suddenly felt inexplicably lost.
Ever since he reincarnated this time, he had still been chasing after power, and he had even gotten himself involved with the huge history of war between the Void Creatures and the Ancient Endor civilization. With the threat of Nadia constantly approaching, he had no choice but to continue pressing forward.
But the resources in this world were far too lacking, they were not nearly enough to fulfill the requirements of a peak-level secret technique. That was why he had no choice but to stop, and use his own invented technique to gather his second Soul Seed.
If he could truly practice the Hellfrost Peacock Technique, the speed of his forming his Soul Seed would surely be exponentially faster, and he might even activate some legacies that continue from there. He would not be so at a loss about the true soul levels after that.
Black Sethe helped him a lot with that as well, every Living and Dead Secret Technique was an extremely complex system containing part of the truth of the universe. These were not things to be created just like that.
It seemed as though there were thousands of these peak-level secret techniques, and any one of them could lead to an extremely high level. But all of them began with caution and wariness, these steps that looked complicated or simple, each of them could lead to extremely serious results if they were changed even a little. Grievous injuries, paralysis, disabilities or even death, all were possible.
Every step in these secret techniques had to undergo thousands of trials and countless agonizing lessons learned, before they could truly become a path to take.
And the supplies or resources needed were also compulsory.
Compared to the situation back there where the resources were plenty, Garen’s current situation was like eating white rice without even oil to cover it, and trying to build muscle from there.
It was the same with peak-level secret techniques, if you wanted to be extraordinary, you would naturally need better resources. And this world had none of those.
Looking for the training materials for the Hellfrost Peacock Technique was like looking for dry sand in the ocean.
‘How do you plan to handle the matter with Tu Lan?’ Black Sethe asked quietly.
Tu Lan Wellington had escaped after injuring Cece, and was now rapidly approaching the other family’s territories. If she was not dealt with quickly, and managed to escape into the other family territories, she could incite another war on an even larger scale.
After destroying the Wellington family, the whole northern America had become part of the Holy Fist Palace’s territory. This included the few smaller countries that AG and the Dark Colors witches would cover. This was all allied territory.
And now the Blood Breeds were still busy raiding the light party. After the battle last time, the other families knew that normal power was nowhere near enough to take down the Lightless Alliance, so they had no choice but to call a time-out. They probably planned to stabilize their internal ranks, and then gather up a force to dismantle their opponents.
“We’ve already gathered sufficient information about Tu Lan, she should have returned to the state of Mintosa, that’s one of the secret party’s Blood Alliance bases, I’ll make a trip there myself,” Garen said calmly.
Cece was grievously hurt, there was no way he could let that slide. And those people from the Bailey Group got mixed up with the Primary Colors, so it was time he dealt with them.