Mystical Journey

Crack!

All of a sudden, a crack formed on the Scarlet Snow Technique’s Crystal. In a split second, the crystal shattered into ten pieces of red diamond-shaped shards which started to spin rapidly.

As the shards were spinning, a vast amount of Cold Energy from his Scarlet Snow Technique started flooding inside.

Garen knew that this was the key moment, that this whirlpool was created by the crystal’s broken shards. The center of it was whirling at an extremely high speed and the small amount of Inherited Level essence energy formed was the power of the source.

Of course, this sort of cohesion process required a tremendous amount of energy that needed to be accumulated over the year, but the amount of energy surging from his Hellfrost Peacock Technique at that very moment was formidable. Even the whirlpool was increasing by its size as seconds passed.

Garen could barely stabilize his own breathing, but luckily, the red gem was covering his breaths. If not, he would have been sniffed out by Carthage already.

Whiz!

Two figures emerged from the passageway, appearing midair in the desert from before. There was another black whirlpool in front.

Carthage dived into the second whirlpool without a word.

Garen followed suit with a swift leap. In the blink of an eye, he arrived at a snowfield in the wilderness of Planet Scarlet Snow, which he soon realized was the snowfield he left earlier.

It was still moments before dawn. On the snowfield was only him and Carthage standing across each other.

“You are free to roam around. I will inform you in about a year’s time when we have our next operation.”

With these parting words, Carthage turned and walked away slowly.

“Yes,” he replied softly with Blue Pole Star’s sister in his arms.

It was not until Carthage left only did Garen look down at Blue Pole Star’s sister who was still unconscious in his arms.

This young girl with short blue hair was wearing a blue-black corset top with a white pleated mini skirt. Her black knee-high socks reached mid-thigh, showcasing her long slender legs. She seems to be an energetic girl but at the moment she just looked pale and lifeless, whoever saw her delicate face would immediately feel for her.

This reminded him of his own sister back in Secret Technique World. She was just as adorable and people could not help but be fond of her. Unfortunately…

“Just blame yourself for the bad luck…” Garen sighed and typed out an order in his Energy Machine Imprint.

Not long after, a black flying ship with a triangular head zoomed across the dark sky. The flying ship was soundless, even its tail was not emitting any sort of gas.

Garen jumped up and charged towards it. He then entered from the side.

*******************

A few hours later…

A star region far, far away from Mother Planet and the Four-Star alliance, a planet which was behind time. A black hole suddenly appeared as the flying ship with a triangular head emerged.

The black flying ship flew out from the black hole towards the light yellow planet below.

‘Welcome to Resourceless Planet. According to Civilization Ordinance, your flying ship must leave after the planet rotates three times. Otherwise, you’d be violating the Civilization Union Act’s number three hundred and twenty…’

Bang!

Garen smacked the control panel before him and turned off the smart computer’s alarm.

The Civilization Order Act were the rules arranged by the Finite people and people from races implemented by ordinary people. On the other hand, the rules meant nothing to high-ranked Energy Machinists. Even the Slaves Planet had someone to control and run the place, not just some Civilization Union Act.

If it was not the fact that the planet was too far away from the main star regions, those greedy bastards would have already conquered it long ago. Even for Garen to travel all the way here this time around tired him too.

With that, 20 golden crystals worth of resources was gone. Only a few people could actually jump with such high expenditure. This was actually the distance of millions of light years. After traveling to and fro space multiple times and greatly jumping around far-distanced planets, Garen finally found a planet that did not have humans who appreciate its resources.

Looking back at the short-haired girl who was soundly asleep in the ice coffin, Garen shook his head.

“That’s good. With such a distance, we’re far away from the war, the clamor. You’d be able to forget about everything and just live a peaceful, normal life as a normal person.”

The flying ship accelerated and flew through the atmosphere, passing through layers of clouds. Yellow mountains stretched along the horizon could be seen from above, it was like grey patches of civilization.

“Activate stealth mode.”

A sound rang through the flying ship.

The flying ship continued flying downwards until it finally stopped right above the city.

Garen got dressed in his stealth clothing and descended the flying ship with the girl in his arms.

********************

“Ouch… My head hurts…”

Inside a crisp white room, the girl finally regained consciousness. Rubbing her head as she slowly got up, her mind was completely blank just like a hard disk that had no memory at all.

Staring at the unfamiliar scene before her, she blinked her eyes rapidly. Looking down at her blue-black blouse and short white skirt, she finally pulled herself together.

“Oh, I just returned from the cosplay event but I fainted because I had a low blood sugar level. Who knew I’d be asleep for so long…”

She picked up her credentials which were scattered around the floor. Her ID card, bank card, and a few member cards.

She looked at her ID card and stared at the short-haired girl who had a sweet smile.

“Tian Tian…” An unfamiliar feeling overwhelmed and not knowing why she had the urge to cry.

“What’s wrong? Is it because I’ve watched too many sad TV dramas?” She slapped herself lightly, “I’m Tian Tian, a store manager of a cosplay themed cafe. My income is pretty decent and more than enough to cover my living expenses. I’m twenty-three years old this year, both my parents are dead but I have a brother who is missing….”

As the words came out of her mouth, tears started streaming down her face.

She was overwhelmed by her own emotions flooding all over the place.

Looking down at her ID card, the girl did have a sweet smile plastered on her face, but it suddenly seemed unreal.

Just right outside the garden of this residential building, a tall man wearing a black windbreaker was looking the whole time. With a sigh, he turned and walked away.

********************

Garen strolled along the streets on the planet. Storekeepers were busy attending to customers, eagerly introducing their own products, backpackers were walking around with their huge backpacks behind them, a lady who was browsing through store windows with her handphone in one hand and her child on the other…

Surprisingly, every planet he had been to so far had living habits and customs similar to back on Earth. They had the same civilization and hustle, yet it was still somehow calm.

Hu…

A bright blue convertible brushed by Garen’s side, sending bursts of cool wind. It then disappeared at the end of the empty road.

Loneliness suddenly hit Garen. As he transmigrated between worlds more and more often, he used to feel the tinge of loneliness back when he just started off, but right now when he finally let reality hit him, he could not just simply brush off the heartache he felt.

Whether it was relatives, lovers, or the different sorts of people whom he met throughout the way, it was like he had just been floating around and moving forward non-stop. There was no turning back anymore.

He had given it a thought sometimes, that perhaps he would grow old at one place and just die there. But after he dies, he would just be reborn.

Hu…

He let out a heavy breath. He had been so crazy and worked up while chasing after power, but he was just trying to free himself from this feeling of just drifting with the tide.

All of a sudden, another bright blue convertible drove by his side again.

“Hey, cool uncle. Can you give us a hand?”

The car came to a stop abruptly on the road right beside Garen. The driver was a white-skinned girl with huge sunglasses on. She screamed of extravagance and was currently eyeing Garen with an interested look.

“Just asking, where did you get your outfit from? Which cosplay character is it?”

Although they were just acquaintances by chance, the girl was not at all shy with strangers and was actually really open and friendly.

Garen looked at the girl, then looked at what he was wearing. His outfit was actually just a special effect, it was Scarlet Snow Sect’s Third Hearted Pauldron’s Guise function.

He did not think about which cosplay character was he imitating or whatever because technically speaking, there was not supposed to be such a situation.

He eventually realized the problem as his eyes paused at the blue scimitar slung on his waist.

No wonder people whom he passed by just now kept a safe distance away from him, something went wrong with the details. But since it happened already, he might as well keep it with him.

“I’m not cosplaying anyone,” Garen smiled and responded politely.

“Then why do you have a knife with you?” The girl asked curiously. Based on her trendy getup, her black long hair flowing down on her shoulders, her sleeveless white blouse matched with a pink mini-skirt and black fishnet stockings, she seemed mature. But in reality, Garen knew that this girl was no older than nineteen years old.

“That is for safety precautions,” Garen replied casually.

“You’re lying. You think just because I’m a little girl, you’d be able to cheat me?” The girl showed an offended expression.

Garen smiled briefly but said nothing. Looking at the scimitar, there was a red hexagon print – the identification of a Scarlet Snow Sect’s Energy Machinist.

“Wow, I couldn’t tell that an uncle like you would be so trendy, hmm wearing a ring at your age?” The girl seemed to be more interested in him now, driving her car slowly alongside Garen. Garen had accidentally exposed his Space Ring already.

The model of this certain Space Ring was very unique. It was all black with a ferocious-looking wolf carved on the surface that symbolizes Garen’s identity representative — the black wolf.

“Little girl, being mature is not something you can easily pretend. It’s dangerous out here, don’t come out and loiter around. Go home…” Looking at the innocent girl hiding behind the mature facade, Garen shook his hand and said gently.

“Why you old man, are you seriously acting so big just because you’re older? You look just about twenty years old, who are you trying to cheat? You’re just a little older than me!” The girl was obviously agitated.

“Just simply making conversations with strangers is a very dangerous thing to do, little girl,” Garen advised politely.

“Humph! Something’s wrong with you, uncle!” Surprisingly, the girl retorted. “If everyone has the same mindset as you, then nobody will ever make the first move. Then, people of the world would become cold and ignorant as the distance between humans grows further and further. If you’re scared of your life, just stay at home in your little circle, you’d be able to avoid all contact with the external world. So why don’t just stay at home for the rest of your life, what are you doing roaming in the streets then? There are so many dangers you might face when you’re in the streets, like robbery, murderers, frauds… You might even get hit by a meteorite falling from the sky and die from that. And don’t forget the murder cases that start with small fights, do you think that never happens?”