He closed his eyes once again and calmed himself down. Garen’s vision fell onto the part where it stated his Willpower.
‘Willpower — Middle Basic Level,
(Training method: Blackboard Manipulation. Blackboard Academy’s training method is free of charge. However, continuous training would result in weaker effects. The speed of progress would be one level for every twelve years)’
“Is that still on the Middle Level?” Garen frowned slightly. But just at that moment, a faint cold current slowly trickled down into his upper abdomen, the first position of his practiced Willpower.
The moment the cold current entered his upper abdomen, his Willpower’s Skill Pane finally changed a little.
Suddenly, it was as if the words of the Middle Basic Level jumped about. It went blur for a while, and then it became clearer once again. However, the words had now turned into Upper Level.
‘Willpower — Upper Basic Level, (to strengthen the increase of a certain level of Living Secret Technique)’
“It has an effect!” Garen relaxed. According to his deduction and analysis, the first position of the training method is the upper abdomen which is also the stomach. Hence, the Living Secret Technique should be able to strengthen the quality of his whole body. Naturally, his stomach would definitely strengthen too, and it would be affecting the training method of Willpower. After all, Willpower came from the awareness field that gathered all the cells. If all the cells had strengthened, then the increase of Willpower was without a doubt.
“If in that case, in the meantime, while I’m practicing the Living Secret Technique, my Willpower will definitely increase,” He sighed with relief. He was afraid that the Living Secret Technique would not affect Willpower at all.
He then checked the slight magnitude increase of Willpower.
At first, he was close to achieving the Upper Level. Now that he had been promoted to the Upper Level, he was almost at the top of this level.
In fact, the different levels were just a way of dividing each range of category. Even the middle had it’s gap. The increase of Living Secret technique this time had also directly increased his level of Willpower. Even though Upper Basic Level would not achieve the same standard as Level 1 and it could not freely control a mech, compared to before, this was a huge improvement.
“At least there is hope.” Garen started putting the impurities of the White Peacock Stone powder into the bottle. This power was still mixed with some other mineral impurities, but it was much easier to collect when compared to before. With slight processing, then he would be able to extract the expensive high-energy fuel powder. When the time comes, he could then solve his money issues very quickly.
Garen saw the terminal on his watch. On the top, there were only about few thousand Universal Units left; with so little money, he had almost spent it all without noticing. Even worse, he had spent two hundred over Units for buying someone dinner. Now, he only had 1402 left.
“I have to think of ways to earn money. If I can make another batch of White Peacock Stone next time, then I should be able to breakthrough Level 1. But I would not be able to make it now. I just had a breakthrough and I still need time to stabilize. I also don’t have money to buy enough White Rainbow Stone,” Garen did a mental calculation.
He then looked at the bottles of powder that were ready.
“These powder will be able to earn me some money, but I need to have a reasonable cover up. Otherwise, how can I, a mere scholar separate such high-energy fuel powder? Once people start realizing this cheap technique I use, it would be a crime!”
The only place that can separate such high-energy fuel powder is…
“The laboratory, a biochemical plant, research base, and more. Only these places with high precision technology can achieve this separation of fuel.”
Garen pondered.
“How can I put on this layer of leather?”
On one hand, he did not have a clue as to how he could do it. If he built his own laboratory but he did not have connections with strong capital resources, then he did not even need to think about it. However, a laboratory was the third cheapest option out of all.
For a moment, he tossed that idea out of his head. Garen looked at the time, where the sky was slightly brighter. Even though he did not sleep for the most of the night, but he was still very awake. It seemed like the advanced Peacock Technique had also strengthened his vitality.
He simply woke up and straight away took a shower. After that, he sat cross-legged on the bed and started practicing the training method.
In such a meditational-like state, time passed by very quickly. In the blink of an eye, the alarm he had set on his Watch Terminal started ringing.
When Garen opened his eyes, he could already vaguely hear scholars’ talking and footsteps as they passed by. He could also make out the sparsely beeping horns of the suspended vehicles that constantly came in from the outside.
He let out a long sigh. Garen could feel the Willpower in his body that still had not reacted. From that feeling, he knew that this time’s training method had not much of an effect and it was far less refreshing than absorbing the White Peacock Stone.
“It seems like money is the most important thing at this point.”
Very quickly, Instructor Hamm had called.
“How are you? How was your rest?” Instructor Hamm’s chubby face appeared on his Watch Terminal. His face also carried a hint of drunken flush; his hair was in a mess. It looked like he did not sleep after the celebration last night.
“I’m good,” Garen nodded his head. “Instructor, you guys did not celebrate the whole night, did you?”
“Ha… Let’s not mention that. Do your best today. To be honest, I don’t think I can be as satisfied as I am calling you now. After this, no matter if you win or lose, we have already won! Don’t put too much pressure on yourself,” Hamm cheerfully waved his hand.
“I understand. All I have to do is put in all my effort — I will do my best,” Garen understandingly nodded his head.
“As long as you understand, it’s good enough. You should quickly come out for breakfast. I’ll hang up first.”
“Okay.”
After he hung up, Garen looked at his SMS messages. There were his parents’ messages — encouraging him to do his best in the competition, be aware of his safety, don’t be too hard on himself. Then, it was his siblings’ congratulatory messages, as well as some of Aier and Mina’s congratulations and questions.
Once he was done with all his replies, Garen blow-dried his hair, and immediately put on his Moonfang before he left.
Outside, the entire school was broadcasting the review of the final’s results. Garen avoided those that were not relevant, and only picked out the important ones.
“In the semi-finals of this Qualifier Match, Merseus used the Level 3 technique of a triple beam gun to suppress Nobis’s red shield. Finally, she broke the limit with an easy victory using the back raid ion jammer. That was the third time Merseus had demonstrated the Level 3 technique. Does this indicate that she is about the enter Level 3’s general standard? Even if we use our Blackboard’s criterion, Level 3’s standard is considered an Instructor’s level of standard. Since she was young, Merseus was already a talent. When she was ten or more, she could activate her Willpower and practiced the toughest development of the Hourglass training method. Even at nineteen-years-old, she could break through to the standard of Level 3. This speed of progress…”
After that, it was a series of words that praised Merseus. Merseus, this young female scholar who was in the same class, and had such unbeatable strength and figure such that she had already been imprinted into the minds of all the scholars who were in the same class.
While Garen was walking, he was eating a nutritious meal that he bought at the road-side shop — a bread, milk box, and a nutritious ball. These were artificially produced by synthesizing grain supplies. Although it looked like bread and milk, in reality, it is not. Instead, it is a replicated product. The real and natural food products were really expensive. For an average family, they would only be able to afford it during special occasions.
Since the exploitation of various high-energy fuels, the rapid development of scientific and technological civilization, and the reckless destruction of the war, it has caused the planet’s ecological environment to worsen. The disadvantage it brought was that food could only be synthesized, just like drugs. Otherwise, there would not be enough food to go around. The pressure of the population was so huge that even things such as hybrid grains were useless.
Along the path to the Academy, he got onto the Academy’s car and went straight to the Arena.
The Arena was almost full, half filled with a crowd. Most of them were scholars’ parents, who rushed here from the outside just to watch the battle. Nonosiva’s parents were working in the outer states; his younger brother was working, or maybe he did not come because he was afraid, and his sister had disappeared all day. He did not know what was going on too.
“Hey, I’m here.”
When he walked into the Arena, Kendall’s voice came from the upper right side. Following the sound, Garen looked up and could not believe that this bastard really did come into the Academy to watch the battle.
He waved at him and immediately walked towards the area where the contestants would enter into the field.
The Arena was getting livelier. There weren’t a lot of remaining contestants. When Caus, Bally, Merseus, and more entered the field, they attracted a lot of attention.
After going through the same prompts as before, the competition officially began.
Garen sat quietly in his contestant area, eating the breakfast in his hands. As the synthesized food went into his stomach, he used the ability from the Peacock Technique to swallow.
When he swallowed, he could feel the food in his stomach digesting at a stunning speed. He stuffed a bread, that was the size of his fist, into his mouth. Within half a minute, it was completely digested as if he had not eaten at all.
When he finished eating, he then drank four bottles of nutrient solution under both Fervale’s and Sara’s shocked gaze. The solution flushed into his stomach like it was a bottomless pit; no one could even see the bloating of his stomach.
Garen himself felt a little weird too. But he could feel the insides of his body, the lower part of his stomach, vaguely storing a cold liquid thing. As his food intake increased, the thing became bigger and bigger.
“In the meantime, while the swallowing ability increases the magnitude of the body’s quality, it can also condense the produced impurities to form a power that can freeze the opponent. Unless this is that thing?”
Garen guessed.
However, there wasn’t much time left. Very quickly, it would be his turn to compete.
‘Class of C5’s Nonosiva versus C2’s Long Yuka.”
The broadcasted voice immediately rang out.
Garen stood up from his seat.
“All the best!” Instructor Hamm pumped his first in the air and smiled, “Be careful of your safety and that’s all. It doesn’t matter if you lose.”
“Don’t worry,” Garen replied with a ‘no problem’ gesture. He smiled for a bit and quickly walked towards the opened passageway into the Arena.
At this stage, most of the opponents were absolutely the top elite talents. No one was here because of luck.
As he sat in the Mech, Garen eyes squinted and stared at the black Mech on the opposite side.
“Long Yuka? Weird name.”
‘The competition has now entered the battle of the top ten. Now, Team Grade C will compete. Long Yuka, ranked in eighth class will compete against Nonosiva, who is ranked in ninth class. Both of them are powerful in their own ways — Long Yuka’s previous battle results barely lost to both Bally and Usala in two separate battles, even though he won all his other battles. Whereas Nonosiva is much more powerful. He never lost a single battle, and entered the finals with his absolute victory…”
The broadcast was not a mechanical sound anymore. Instead, it was a professional narrator spluttering as he explained the situation of the competition.
In the Arena, two Mechs confronted each other with a distance of over a hundred meters. Similarly, both of them had chosen the long-range shooting method. More so, it was a similar long-range defense play with long range weapons as well as defensive shields.
The huge black and white shield tower covered the almost half of the back of the two Mech’s body.
Although this shield looked mighty, if they did not know how two use it, it would only take two hits for it to be broken.