Mystical Journey

In the previous floor with the goddess, the two were already waiting as Garen walked out of the tunnel.

On Divine God Palace Master was a green silk robe that looked as good as new, as though he hadn’t just walked out from a battle. He laid back onto the left side of the statue and had a shuteye.

Cthulhu King looked much worse; burn wounds of different sizes could be seen, his red robe was torn and it showed the red metal armor beneath it. He stood in front of the god’s statue, as though he were observing something.

As they saw Garen coming out, both of them diverted their gaze towards him.

Garen wasn’t in much better shape than Cthulhu King. Even though he wasn’t really hurt elsewhere, his arms were completely charred, it was apparent that the injuries were concentrated.

"We are more familiar with the topography than you, so we’d arrive first." Cthulhu King nodded, "I have already ordered my subordinates for some gunpowder, anything else you need would need to be requested now, on the third floor after the second, the Living Secret Technique should have the stronger guardian, we would need to cooperate to get it."

"Gunpowder may not work." Garen said softly, "After the fire men and single blade shadows, who knows what other troublesome characters are there. We need to prepare the best defensive equipment."

"I got them to bring some fire extinguishers, perhaps that would work." Cthulhu King had obviously given it some thought. Unlike Divine God Palace Master, they were obviously in different leagues. If he couldn’t even go against the firemen, then single blade shadows were out of the question.

"Perhaps we can head out together." Garen suggested,

"We don’t know which tunnel would the Living Secret Technique will be in. The Three tunnels were split into three different directions, plus, there’s more than just Living Secret Techniques in this ancient ruin..." Cthulhu King snickered.

"Let’s wait for a while."Divine God Palace Master decided, and then the three no longer said a word.

Garen walked up to the right side of the statue, and rested by leaning against it.

At the same time, his vision went from the hall into the lower parts of his Attribute Pane.

"Strength 14, Agility 10, Vitality 11, Intelligence 10, Potential 54521%"

"545 Points? That many?" Garen’s eyes had a hint of surprise.

After absorbing the Cthulhu’s Origin to increase his attributes’ limits, he had always stayed in the kingdom without going anywhere. He actually hadn’t managed to try out his new abilities obtained from the Cthulhu’s Origin.

One attribute point would require 100 points. This amount was just staggering, even he couldn’t increase it that much in a short time.

After he left the kingdom for the ruins here, he had not killed mutated creatures on any large scale to increase his potential points, as he needed to avoid detection.

"I didn’t even have 100 points originally, but now it actually reached over 500 points, it’s obvious that I gained these in the tunnel." Garen was thinking, "Just in time to see how much of a limit extension Cthulhu’s Origin gave me."

He fixed his gaze upon ‘Vitality’, but his body walked over to a shadowy part of the hall behind the goddess’ statue, blocking himself from the other two person’s field of vision.

As his gaze fixed in place for three seconds, the vitality pane had a sudden jump, and then blurred for a moment. When it reappeared, the number changed from 11 to 12, whereas the potential points dropped to 400-odd points. One hundred points only provided one point of attribute.

Just after his Vitality was upgraded, Garen felt a cold breeze around his body. The burn wounds on his arm were recovering visibly quickly; the charred skin outside fell off like a hard-boiled eggs’ shell, without a sound, and was caught by Garen as it gently fell to the ground.

The previous injuries from the impact with the black shadow had also completely recovered; his body was beyond perfect at this point.

Upgrading vitality actually had the function of regeneration, Garen actually almost forgot about it. However, as he was feeling it, the vitality pane had actually reached its limit, and could no longer be upgraded. He felt that it was a waste. If he played his cards right, this kind of regeneration could perhaps even allow leeway for another life during critical moments.

After adding onto Vitality on top of the one point from before, he deduced out that the Cthulhu’s Origin gave around 2 points. As he looked at the remainder of the points, the feeling similar to his vitality increasing occurring again. It was very likely that the two points of his attribute limit were distributed equally.

All this increased his limits by two points.

This should be the function of Cthulhu Origin.

Garen looked at the remaining three hundred odd points, he could add three more attribute points, and this would need careful consideration.

Garen stole a glance at the other two. Cthulhu King fished out a green colored ointment bottle and carefully applied it on himself. He seemed like he was tending to his wounds.

He did not leave the ruins for somewhere more convenient to recover. Garen then looked at Divine God Palace Master, his face had a calm, unfazed expression to it.

"Don’t be surprised, even if you headed beyond this place, you still couldn’t use unnatural powers to heal these wounds.." Cthulu King noticed Garen’s gaze and explained promptly. He then suddenly glanced at Garen’s arms. "Your arms?"

Garen shook his arms.

"The injuries weren’t deep to begin with, it was just the surface that’s charred black." The lie was as natural as it could be.

"Let’s prepare, the gunpowder is here, as well as three reinforced shields.." Cthulhu King nodded and announced.

Soon, a buzzing sound could be heard from the entrance of the forest, as though it were the howl of a tornado. Suddenly, a ray of white light descended upon the tunnel entrance for a few seconds. The white light slowly dispersed. Many bags of gunpowder appeared on the floor, as well as dark red inverted-triangle shields. The shields were unusually thick, and were actually ten shields stacked and reinforced into one. Its thickness was about the size of an open palm. The shields looked like three dense, heavy metal beams..

"They’re here" Cthulhu King led the way and walked over, he lifted it with one hand and lightly tossed it towards Garen, "Try one for size?"

Garen extended his hands to catch it

Bam!

A shield over a meter in height handed in his arms with a loud thump.

"Forged using the premium metals with anti-fire properties. Sayer Iron has good fire retardancy, as well as extreme defensive powers, albeit being slightly heavier." Cthulhu King said, "They weigh about two tonnes each."

"Two tonnes plus?" Garen meticulously gauged its weight,it’s already considerably light for him, but it was obvious that Cthulhu King made this based on his own specifications and body, a long-range totem user will never be nearly as strong as a close quarter combatant, let alone being in a place that negated all unnatural powers. Without unnatural powers the three of them can only rely on their sheer physical strength to use this shield. They were considerably weaker inside compared to when they were outside.

Without unnatural powers, Garen was also left with his body and Secret Techniques, as well as combat skills. Even those Secret Techniques like the Red Jade Hand, Myriad Water Jasper Technique or Black Water True Technique have devolved into nothing but the worst of the lower class combat skills without unnatural powers.

Without the support of unnatural powers, some techniques and abilities were for nothing but showmanship in the ruins, and were without purpose.

As they carried the shield and distributed the gunpowder, the trio convened closely in minute details about their experiences and the time taken during their journey, and then separated once again into the second floor of the ruins.

Compared to the first time, Garen’s footsteps were much louder and heavier with a two-tonne shield on his hand, he took each step slowly.

He could make up what the tiles were made of. It was actually sturdy enough for it to not leave any footprints even with such a load.

Garen was much faster during his second descent. He was almost running; with the additional point on vitality, there were visible improvements, especially in terms of endurance

With just two days, he had already advanced into the second floor met with the first wave of shadows.

Bam! The giant wolf shadow rammed hard against the shield, and a large portion of the tiny spikes were broken off. The shadow had also been hurt from the spikes, with a painful groan, it seemed to be even more agitated.

It expanded once again, almost taking up the entire space of the tunnel, and furiously rushed towards Garen.

Garen put up the shield and threw it forwards with both hands and all his might.

Fu Fu Fu!!! With deafening sounds of rotations, the shield turned into a high-speed revolving dart, which lodged into the shadow like a blade.

Unsurprisingly, the shield hit dead center and have split the shadow open. It continued to fly for about ten meters before it hit onto a wall of a corner, more than half the shield was lodged in the wall.

The shadow disappeared without a trace, the darkness surrounding it faded and returned to its usual blue hue.

Garen took a long sigh, then he walked over to dislodge the shield with a great heave.

It was a scene of serenity ahead and behind him; the blue mist continued to linger, but visibility was reduced to a ten meter distance..

Garen continued hurrying through his journey while carrying the shield, then it was the second wave of shadows. It was similarly unimpactful beyond the scare, it was clear that having the shield made things easier.

The third one, the fourth one, there were more shadows in this trip, but they were easily manageable.

After half an hour, the man with the burning head appeared again.

The yellow light immediately dashed towards Garen the moment it appeared with extreme speed. Just like an afterimage, it reached Garen in the blink of an eye.

The shield was positioned in front of him while he knelt down with both his hands against the shield.

Bam!!

The tangerine-yellow fireball disappeared after a moment. In the tunnel, Garen was pushed back several meters behind the shield, and the floor was left with a streak of black charred marks.

The shield had emitted white smoke due to its high temperature, and the air had a strong burning stench, just like the smell shorted electrical cables let out..

Garen slowly stood up from behind the shield and saw that the tunnel returned to the usual blue, serene setting. He looked over at the charred shield, but there were minimal dents on it.

"Not bad." he shook the shield, and the soot on top vibrated slightly and the fell out in large pieces, revealing the uneven dent of the dark red metal layer beneath it.

As he continued advancing with the shield, the pitch darkness appeared once again.

In the dark, a black silhouette slowly stood up from the floor, much like a liquid slowly forming a human shape.

Garen could barely make up the opponent’s features. It looked like a shadow that was about the same height as a regular person, its right arm was the shape of a blade, without palms or an arm, only a blade attached.

The shadow charged towards Garen without uttering a word the moment it had its eyes on him; it didn’t even make a sound, as though it were an actual shadow.

Dang!!

The blade hit the shield and left a deep cut in. Sparks flew from the clash in the darkness, brightly illuminating the darkness surrounding it for an instant.

Seeing that one strike was ineffective, the shadow leaped upwards and suddenly disappeared in mid air, it then reappeared behind Garen, and the right arm’s blade was aimed towards Garen’s nape in the next chop.

In that eye-blinking speed, one second hadn’t even passed between the interval of hitting the shield to the ambush from behind.

As the blade cut through the air, even though it didn’t produce any noise, it produced a black streak in front of the blade in the instant before it touched Garen’s skin, as though it completely shredded the air.

Without being able to react, Garen hurled the shield backwards. Blind from behind, his body used the change in momentum from the hurl to move forward.

With a thump, the shield missed any solid objects but got lodged in a wall. As usual, the shield sunk deep, sparking into embers of gold.

The shadow reacted by avoiding it in the last moment, as though it had a premonition. Garen’s speed was slightly faster than it, but before Garen had even begun hurling it, it already moved to avoid the strike, as though it could predict Garen’s attacks ahead of time.