Mystical Journey

Not bothered with the continuing slaughter, the fighting submarine battleships took off. These were now unrelated to Garen. What he needed to do now was to bring Mind Reader to a safe place for use.

“…” Garen felt this statement was weird but it didn’t matter. His goal was achieved.

The car he was in drove towards Ocean Capital’s airport.

Looking outside the car window, he could see crowds of people gathering to see what the fuss was all about. The people seemed to be oblivious of the danger, thinking that it was far and not exercising any awareness of it. They gathered around to have fun, and it was so packed that there was no end to it. His ears were filled with noises of discussion.

“How unafraid of death,” Garen sighed.

“The people of Ocean Capital have lived in peace for too long plus being one of the vital cities of Slann, they wouldn’t think they will meet with any danger,” the driver smiled as he commented. “Who would have thought that there’d be a killing spree less than a thousand meters away?”

While the driver was talking, he looked through the rear mirror at Garen with respect. Thanks to Garen, Slann’s reputation has grown internationally in recent years.

Slann’s national policy was focused on defense. They would not respond when provoked by other countries but with the birth of a Sword Master, with a support on combat power on the right matters, Vulture could be more forceful.

Almost any event involving the Sword Master would have the enemy at a major loss. The completion of tasks was more than eighty percent. His vicious name was spread far and wide merely in a year.

Garen shook his head and said no more. Beside him lay the unconscious Mind Reader.

He shifted his head to look out the window. The car was moving through the streets at a steady speed. Although crowds were densely packed on both sides of the street, no one was actually pushed out onto the roads as everybody displayed good citizen virtue.

As the car moved forth and was about to leave the jam-packed path, Garen saw the shop which he was having a meal earlier. At the shop’s entrance, a group of youngsters was being questioned by over ten police officers and amongst them were Cammy Ning and her two friends.

Still in a state of shock and with emotions still running high, the trio was describing to the police officers of what happened.

The driver noticed Garen’s line of gaze and followed through.

“Sir, is there a need for an arrangement?”

Garen did not say a word.

******

“I really do not know anything!” Cammy Ning argued. “Please, let us go. We need to go to class. We are students of Ocean University!” She tried to convince the police officer to let them off in advance.

Nobody would want to be dragged into a troublesome matter like this. This sort of event usually meant trouble for there would be endless questioning, harassment from the media and continuous requests for media interviews. Their studies were held up, her personal plans were held up, she had not even recovered from the pant-wetting emotions when she was stressed beyond exhaustion by the judgmental interrogations.

Cammy Ning really wanted to return and rest. It was not only her. Her three best friends were equally exhausted and in fear of the police officers’ constant interrogation. They were unable to leave this place until they were cleared of being suspects of soliciting conspiracy.

“… Alright, inform your family and friends to come over. There are a few items to verify.”

In the midst of full on interrogation, Cammy Ning only seemed to register this last sentence.

Inform family and friends!!??

Hearing this, Cammy Ning and her friends froze.

Once matters reached this level, what difference did it make with those who broke the law and were told to inform their family members to bail them out?

If this were to spread to school, even if they were victims, gossip was a fearful thing. In the course of gossip spreading, they may as well end up as suspects and there may be a record on her file.

“Couldn’t you bend the rules?” Feeling fragile, Cammy Ning hadn’t finished her request when the police officer cut her off.

“I’m sorry, as your involvement concerned national security so you cannot leave police surveillance before you are cleared of any suspicions.” The police officer was apologetic. “But don’t worry, once we confirm that you have no involvement, we will then…”

Cammy Ning and her friends couldn’t bring themselves to listen to what he had to say. They felt their ears buzzing a blur and felt only chill in their hearts.

The only thing that came to mind: They were doomed.

It was then a police supervisor in black walked over. Sizing up the three ladies from top to bottom, he frowned slightly and spoke reluctantly.

“Alright, let them go.”

The police officer was stunned while the three girls thought they heard wrong. They stared at the police supervisor in surprise.

“I do not wish to repeat myself,” the police supervisor blurted coldly with a straight face. He sized the three girls from top to bottom again before striding away with his hands crossed behind his back.

The investigating police officer was dumbfounded but obeyed the instruction and started to process the release procedure.

Cammy Ning was stumped by the sudden change of events.

“Quick, look over there!” Her female companion’s sudden shriek had her returned to senses. She looked towards her bestie’s direction of gaze and saw a black, fancy sedan slowly driving away.

The window was half opened and in it sat a man. He was smiling at her direction, bidding a farewell gesture to her.

“It’s Kong Xiaofei!?” Cammy Ning stared blankly at the man inside the car, feeling the drama of life. At first, she thought that he was a young jobless vagrant and now he was an important person, a personnel of high ranking.

The three girls stopped talking. For a moment, she felt down in the dumps but the other two became ecstatic.

“See that? That Kong Xiaofei is a hidden big shot!”

“We initially thought that he was… These big shots like to act weak? Must they give others a scare?”

“I think he probably is into Cammy, they are high school classmates after all, maybe…”

Her two besties started to discuss enthusiastically. They tossed aside their earlier decadent and worry and started to guess Garen’s identity and background.

The sedan was quick to drive out of sight. Cammy Ning slowly watched the car leave without saying a word. She felt an indescribable odd feeling as if life was a dream, a peculiar yet absurd dream.

“Ai ya!” One of her besties suddenly exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?”

“We forgot to ask Kong Xiaofei for his contact number!”

Cammy Ning suddenly felt that her two best friends were of poor taste yet she could not help feeling a tinge of regret.

She stared at the exaggerated car plate number at the rear of the sedan from afar.

“Perhaps we will never see each other again.” She suddenly had this feeling.

******

Vulture Headquarters.

In a specially sealed secret room.

Throwing Mind Reader into the secret room, Garen entered the room himself and started to undress.

“What is this odd feeling?” He felt chills on his back.

He turned his head and saw his secretary, Double-Tailed Scorpion, staring at him with an odd expression.

“I… I did not see anything!” Double-Tailed Scorpion quickly turned his head and muttered under his breath.

“…” Garen’s face grew black.

He thought about it.

“Bring the low-temperature cooler box over.”

“Understood,” Double-Tailed Scorpion immediately left and ordered his subordinates.

The low-temperature cooler box was moved in and connected to power supply. He dismantled the surveillance camera in the secret room at the same time.

The heavy metal door to the secret room was shut. Garen threw his top away and looked at Mind Reader who was unconscious on the ground.

“Soul Ring…” Soul Power poured into his eyes and he could clearly see the revolving structure of Soul Ring on Mind Reader.

It was a complete Soul Ring structure of five Soul Seeds! Much stronger than his current Soul Ring by a large margin.

“Such an envious sight. I struggled so long to only obtain four Soul Seeds and here the Four Great Cornerstones naturally has a Soul Ring of five Soul Seeds!” Garen shook his head.

Through thorough observation, he realized that Mind Reader’s Soul Ring was not his to control. The Soul Power that emitted was scarce. Mind Reader’s Soul Ring of five Soul Seeds on many levels was structured naturally. The nature of the Soul Power did not share one bit of Mind Reader’s soul characteristics.

“In other words, the supposed Four Great Cornerstones was the house of the Soul Ring. They are like a vessel that housed a terrifying Soul Power that could impact an entire planet. Just by the little Soul Power emitted naturally by the Soul Ring, produced many extraordinary phenomena. From that, one could see how horrifyingly scary this sort of natural Soul Ring could be.”

Garen came to a conclusion.

The Soul Ring of the Four Great Cornerstones could not be controlled as liberally as his but it was far more powerful and terrifying than his Soul Ring. Just the reserves of the Soul Power were five times his Soul Ring. It really was a huge monster!

“No wonder the Four Great Cornerstones is the core of this world. They bear the weight of four different origins of this world,” Garen quickly established the most likely model mechanism of the Four Great Cornerstones.

“Then how could the Soul Power be absorbed?” Obtaining an outline of the situation, Garen started to venture into ways to absorb the Soul Ring within Mind Reader.

“If it’s just slowly absorbing the wandering Soul Power, then over a hundred years wouldn’t be enough to finish it up,” Garen struggled to analyze. “There are a few ways. One is to stimulate the Soul Ring so that a large amount of Soul Power would be released for me to absorb. This way has its certain risk. If the degree of strength is not pre-determined and its force was overstimulated, then it may possibly cause Minder Reader to die and reborn elsewhere, losing the chance to absorb.”

Garen was quick to deny this method.

“Then the second type, pollute,” he walked one round around Mind Reader. “My Soul Power is mixed with traits of the Hellfrost Peacock Mother and could pollute the Cold Chaos. Moreover, the Hellfrost Peacock Mother and Nine-Headed Dragon shared an engulfing characteristic. It could, at a certain level, pollute the other Soul Power to one with a characteristic closer to its own and at the same time, lessen the digestive burden of engulfing and absorbing. This may take around half a year.”