Garen sat on his knees. He felt that he was on the verge of turning into an ice sculpture, as the majority of his body had been covered by an extreme cold.
Crack…
Finally, the last impure White Peacock Stone turned into dust.
Countless icy blue lines on Garen’s palm, which couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, slowly melded into his palms.
He stared at the Skill Pane upon which he’d finally seen a change.
‘Hellfrost Peacock Technique: Living Secret Technique of unknown origin. First grade learned, Second grade progress at 12%.’
The progress amount started to change.
The rate increased over time as his progression of 12% raised to 15% at an increasing rate.
16%… 18%… 22%… 30%… 45%… 69%… 92%… 100%!!
The moment it reached one hundred percent, Garen could clearly see the Hellfrost Peacock Technique’s icon on the skill pane turn muddy for a while, and it looked totally different as it became clear again.
‘Hellfrost Peacock Technique: Living Secret Technique of unknown origin. The second grade, Heart Reformation. The heart shall reform with the blood of the Hellfrost Peacock as the basis to enhance the overall quality of the body. Time required to reform: two months and fifteen days.’
‘Third grade’s progress is 24%.’
Garen looked at the changed icon with satisfaction as he recalled the reason he had been unable to upgrade the Hellfrost Peacock Technique. There were two requirements to enter the second grade. The first one was an extremely cold environment which was impossible, as even the cold storage wasn’t even cold enough to fulfill this requirement. Naturally, the second requirement was the White Peacock Stone.
Although he wasn’t able to fulfill the first requirement, he could absorb a large amount of White Peacock Stones, melting them in the process to forcefully simulate the unique environment. This was the reason why he had absorbed so many impure White Peacock Stones. Even so, it had only amounted to this little progress.
In comparison, these two hundred plus impure White Peacock Stones were equivalent to twenty plus pure White Peacock Stones. Garen only needed one to enter the second grade and the remaining had been used to simulate the extremely cold environment.
“It’s a success,” Garen clenched his fist as he felt the coldness around his body. The seed of the Living Secret Technique had absorbed the contents of the White Peacock Stones and had started to sprout inside his body.
“Two months and fifteen days should be the time required for the Hellfrost Peacock Technique to completely reshape the heart. I wonder what effect it will bring after a complete reformation?” Garen was very eager.
This was the traditional path the ancient Warlocks had taken.
He stood up and took another shower as his body was now covered in a layer of faint blue viscous fluid which gave off a faint stench. It was the body’s expelled impurity from when his body was going a transformation.
After bathing, he changed into a clean uniform before sweeping the impure White Peacock Stone dust into a bottle he had prepared earlier on. The dust completely filled the big bottle, which was as tall as a typical water bottle.
“These remains are high energy fuels and can be sold for money.”
Garen cleaned everything before resting on his bed, in which he dozed off into his dreams.
Beep… Beep…
His Watch Terminal started ringing, which woke him up from his sleep.
He raised his hand and looked at the Watch Terminal to find out that it was a call from Aier.
Garen pressed a button to allow her access.
Aier’s face appeared on the monitor.
“What are you doing, Nono? Took you a while to answer my call.”
“I was sleeping. What’s the matter?” Garen yawned since this body was but a commoner’s body. The Hellfrost Peacock Technique’s reformation would require time to do its job and it wasn’t something that could be hurried. The strain from the frost and the absorption of the White Peacock Stones had completely exhausted this body.
“Do you want to go and see Mina?” Aier softened her tone. “I’ve met his cousin sister today and I heard that something has been going on in Mina’s family, which was why we couldn’t see her on the battlenet.”
Garen recalled the female friend who had sat together with him, who had also kept visiting him when he was undergoing his surgery. She was considered one of Nonosiva’s two good friends.
“When do you want to go?”
“Tomorrow. The qualifier match officially starts the day after tomorrow, though you guys will definitely be summoned before the competition.”
“Alright.”
After confirming the time with Aier, Garen switched off the Terminal. He tried to call Mina but to no avail, hence he called Instructor Hamm to enquire the location and time for the qualifier match, along with the time and location to gather before the competition. After memorizing the details, he decided to adjust his current state.
“Should I try out if there’re any changes to my training method?”
After breaking through the second grade of Hellfrost Peacock Technique and changing his physical qualities, Garen guessed that it would have a positive effect on his Willpower training.
He sat on his knees on his bed sheet once more as he tried to enter his training method once more.
Unfortunately, there was no change and his progression was still as slow as a snail.
After spending half an hour, Garen got out of the training method. He then switched on his laptop and opened up the news station.
‘… Regarding the interview with the Royal Academy’s team lately, Maria Academy has sent out the first seat Suanna who holds the title of Zero Gun to welcome them. These two academies between districts have a very good relationship as they share the same view on many topics. They have also signed a technical exchange transaction document that spans across multiple districts. It’s still unsure if the cooperation between the Royal and Maria districts would put on some pressure on the alliance between Blackboard and Aurora…”
Garen looked at the news’ video. Within a luxurious golden flying ship, a few guys and golden-haired girls in black skintight bodysuits interacted with one another as they posed for the reporters’ pictures.
Maria Academy and Royal Academy were Blackboard’s neighboring districts’ powerful academies which held a lot of power. There were three major districts near Blackboard, and the ones that possessed the most lands were Royal District and Maria District. The smallest among the three was the Aurora District and there were also seven to eight small districts. With the strategy of befriending the distant and attacking the nearby districts, Blackboard Academy had allied with the Aurora district. This had obviously put pressure on the Royal and Maria District.
“Rumor has it that Maria and Royal Academy are different from Blackboard. They’re using the standard academy training regime, which is completely different from the survival of the fittest regime here,” Garen recalled the relevant information in his mind. According to the record, the Blackboard Academy was considered an irregular type. It was still fine for the typical students but it would be survival of the fittest for all of the elites. They would use the elimination method by throwing all the elite students into very dangerous missions to train them. The ones who survived would be considered the strongest elites.
On the other hand, the majority of the academies would act in a peaceful manner as their members would be imaged as protectors. There wasn’t much competition among the students as well. However, in comparison to Blackboard, it was much harder to be admitted into those Academies.
Garen changed the station.
The top of the monitor showed that this was the second station of Blackboard. The Blackboard District was very huge, so huge that it was a big as a few provinces on Earth. Hence, it was natural that they had multiple stations.
The second station was displaying some sort of recruitment advertisement. He changed the station once more to an entertainment channel where it was advertising a robot for homes, an intelligent flying car, a fully automated full body massage chair and even imported man-made adult dolls from the outer districts, which looked exactly like humans.
Garen went back to the news station.
After the local news, it showed the live footage of the chaos in a city. The female reporter, together with the cameraman, was squirming within the crowd.
‘The chaos features Sir Black Star Diofie who will be officially participating in the investigation. The Blackboard’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Kreis has officially announced that they would fight back as best as possible against this chaos. They will sweep all the terrorists that endanger the society’s order and the safety of the citizens off the map!’
The reporter squeezed herself through the crowd while reporting with difficulty.
Garen noticed that the reporter had mentioned a name.
“Black Star Diofie?” He knew this person. He was the Blackboard Academy’s strongest first seat, who possessed a powerful Mech which was called the Black Star. He once had an outstanding result during a battle outside the district. He had managed to take out thirty-five Special Mechs and six destroyer battleships, turning the tide of the war on his own.
One had to realize that the Mechs he faced weren’t normal Mechs. All of his opponents were elite pilots. It wasn’t something to be proud of when one destroyed thirty-five normal Mechs, but it was a different story as he’d taken out thirty-five elite pilots.
All pilots who were crowned elites were at the very least level two and the stronger ones were level three or even level four. The differences between skills were drastically far apart between levels.
As Garen listened to the news, he started to understand how the world around him worked.
Within the Mother Planet Federation, conflicts between districts increased every day and the war to conquer all would eventually happen. Hence, every academy was trying to nurture the strongest elites. The separation between districts could no longer be reversed and civil wars had been going on endlessly. If there was a ceasefire on this side, a war would occur on the other end. With the Light of the Sky’s System, which was floating in space, all nuclear weapons of mass destruction, radiation guns or strategic weapons had been disabled. However, small-scale conflicts were unavoidable.
As he gently pressed onto the computer’s monitor, Garen stared at the news without any expression. War occurred in this district and continued in the other. Many people had died or had been severely injured everywhere and the Blackboard District just had to increase the construction investment for the civilians.
Such was the current state of news, where their countries were peaceful and prosperous while the civilians from the outer districts couldn’t even afford a proper meal.
After that, it started to report on news regarding the outer planet district, where they were still trying to establish a connection with the other outer planet districts.
As the Mother Planet had fallen from within, all alliances had decided to isolate them and the communication between planets had been completely cut off. Tens of planets had turned into independent empires. It was fortunate that there were outer forces which tried to infiltrate them, or else the federation wouldn’t even have joint forces to fend off the outsiders.
The other neighboring countries that tried to infiltrate the Federation had lost all their battles against them, and they even had a few small planet countries taken by the Federation. It was unclear what standard had been used between the planets, but they would always work together to fend off their common enemies when crisis befell them.
The Galactic Alliance had waged a war against the Finites. It was so chaotic that they literally ignored the chaos on this part of the district.
If this continued, the first thing Garen had been reminded of was the state during the Three Kingdoms Period. It was the same as now, as the Princes had segregated their own lands. Some attacked, some defended and some formed alliances. There were also many feudal princes everywhere.