Mystical Journey

Garen was that independent kid who did not need tender loving care in the class, who also consistently churned out good grades. The most teachers did were just occasional glances, to make sure he was safe.

Sitting on the grassland, he watched the two lolitas greedily munching on the snacks, Garen reclined against the tree in boredom, completely disregarding his own white shirt and jeans’ cleanliness.

Suddenly, an ice cold cylindrical object lightly caressed his right arm.

"Hmm?" Garen glanced down, it was a small snake.

A black snake with a yellow plaid pattern, with a length of about a palm.

"Ahh!" suddenly, a primary school boy screamed. "A snake! Teacher, there’s a snake!"

That little boy cried out with his nose dripping, as he crawled and rolled away from his own tablecloth. The students around him also gradually drew away from the area.

Both of the more experienced teachers were shocked as well, and they immediately approached Garen carefully.

"It’s a Ghastly Snake! Oh God, how can there be such venomous snakes around?!" One teacher immediately identified this snake.

The Ghastly Snake was impeccably venomous; any adults who were bitten would die within 10 minutes from their heart numbing if no antivenom was administered on time, nevermind a grade schooler aged 7-8 years old. Once they were bitten, who knew what would happen.

A few teachers were unable to conceal their horrified emotions.

After a while, another Ghastly Snake showed up on a different branch, scaring the students into an even more chaotic state of panic.

There were two now, and soon, a third snake appeared as well. It was another kind of snake, which was also highly venomous.

Little Serin who was next to Garen had turned pale from fright, whereas Eeleen was less afraid and was staring at the venomous snake attentively.

Garen frowned, and he looked up at the tree he was leaning upon.

Among the branches tucked away in the dark, there was another Ghastly Snake, furthermore, this snake was much larger in terms of girth and close to the length of a forearm.

The triangular eyes of the snake gazed coldly at Garen. This snake which had the widest girth was not discovered by others aside from Garen, but it was just a matter of time.

At this point, multiple snakes had already surrounded the primary schoolers, gradually appearing and growing into tens of them.

Some teachers had begun calling the security squad and their faces had all paled, unsure of what to do. Now it wasn’t just the students who were in danger, even they themselves were in trouble.

Garen frowned and with a change of gaze, he glared at the largest venomous snake.

Unknowingly, a cold breath seeped towards the snake and touched its body.

Hiss.....

This venomous snake shuddered, and as though it met its nemesis, it turned around and fled immediately.

In that instant, all the venomous snakes surrounding them fled into the forest, as though they had never appeared.

"Aura?" Garen did not anticipate this, that with an intent, the Heart of Frost which had reached its peak long ago actually made a breakthrough to the second realm of Sethe; Yin Coldness’ Hand.

What surprised him the most was that his Standard 2 body could exude Aura already.

Aura was the combination of the mental and spiritual energy, and as he’d always had overbearing spirit but lacking mental energy, it resulted in an obnoxiously weak body which could not activate Aura.

With this breakthrough to level 2, he could finally directly activate his Aura. It was a pleasant surprise.

However... This congregation of snakes made him wary, as these snakes would not venture into human territory without reason.

He carefully looked around, but all the venomous snakes seemed to have fled along the largest snake.

They did not harm any of the kids, other than giving them a huge scare.

Suspicious, Garen began observing the kids and teachers carefully when he suddenly realized that there was a girl with platinum-colored hair staring in the direction where the snakes fled with a petrified expression. She stood close to Garen, completely stunned, while she wore a white skirt that was smudged with green juice from the grass.

This girl was different from the rest, she didn’t look only terrified of the venomous snakes, she even had some unknown complex mixed feelings.

The regular kids had relaxed as soon as they saw the snakes retreating. Aside from the few who cried from the shock; the rest had begun regulating their emotions. But this girl didn’t, she seemed to have felt even more frightened by their absence.

Garen made a mental note about this girl.

This picnic was abruptly ended, as the teachers were afraid of further incidents. They were sent back to their school as soon as possible.

Garen also had a strange wariness of this picnic... This world appeared to be more complicated than he thought.

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

The Northern area of the town.

In a large, white steeple church.

In the large well-lit church, devout couples could be seen praying in the pews.

Vagar, a pastor in a white robe, stood in front of the podium, murmuring to a pale, muscular young man.

"Your people have been a little too active."

"Only a small disciplining, it’s just a traitor."

The man snickered and laughed without a care.

He has a strong physique and he wore a shirt that bared his chest, showing off glistening chest muscles. A metal belt was looped around his waist while a diamond earring adorned one ear, and his white handsome face was mysterious and wickedly charming.

"The mayor sent his words that you should tone down, they have been dissatisfied with your recent actions." the pastor whispered, while he made some actions similar to a prayer.

"No worries, hasn’t the issue been resolved? This is just a small incident." The man bowed his head while the pastor drizzled holy water over him.

"I sure hope so." the pastor nodded.

After the man was drizzled with holy water, he drew a cross sign on his chest out of devotion, and then murmured a few sentences of prayers. He turned around and left the podium towards a pew for a seat.

Soon, someone sat next to him and spoke to him softly.

The man suddenly frowned.

"Those troublesome women..." he looked into the air, as though he was thinking.

After a while, he tapped the shoulder of the man next to him.

"Were there any outsiders coming in recently?"

"The foot traffic wasn’t high, but most of them were tourists."

"They only drove the snakes away?"

"Yes, it seemed like a threat, or showing some sort of attitude to others." The subordinate replied softly.

"Get someone to warn them. Following the agreement, the first to disobey the rules will be punished." The man said emotionlessly.

"Okay."

"I do not wish to see Grano’s peaceful reputation to be tarnished by them. After all, we do receive a sizable portion of tourism income every year." The man shook his head as he muttered.

"But Leader, these women have recently become more radical, what if...." The man’s subordinate asked reservedly.

"Then we catch a few of their men, and deal with them as usual." The man’s eyes narrowed coldly.

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

The class was rowdy; the grade schoolers ran about while chattering away, and the teacher was busy reading books on their own.

The evening light glowed through the windows, warming the room.

Garen’s table was surrounded by a few classmates. Each of them was concentrating on the Rubik’s cube in his hands. The three-by-three cube was played like a magic trick in his hands, and he managed to get all the sides to the same color in less than a minute. And then Garen would mess it up again to repeat the entire process.

The children would let out some surprised exclamations from time to time.

Most of the children in the class were from the town and they were not very well-dressed, with grey, red and black hues being the majority. There also weren’t many fancy accessories or good looking hairstyles, as they all dressed simply.

In their eyes, Garen’s tender white skin and shiny golden hair, such a doll-like boy was as eye-catching as a television star. It was rumored that he knew how to play the violin, and even how to use a computer to surf online. Such rumors were unintentionally spread from Serin, making Garen a legendary character in the class.

Even the few strongest and jumpiest boys in the class dared not offend him, even though he looked weak and soft. But for an unknown reason, he felt very strong.

"That girl over there, do you know her name? Garen glanced at the platinum-colored hair girl at the corner of the classroom while playing with the Rubik’s cube.

That girl was the one who had reacted strangely during the venomous snake incident. She was no beauty; she was scrawny and had an unhealthy skin tone, one that indicated a lack of exposure towards sunlight.

After a buffer period of several days, Garen suddenly recalled the event that day, so he asked away while there were many classmates around him.

"I think she’s called Syves." One child answered.

"She’s Syves Latin, I heard that her mother passed away a few days ago, I think she was drowned to death."

With this reply, the surrounding children quietened. They were not even ten-years-olds yet they were discussing mature topics, and it was even on matters such as death, which was rather frightening.

"It happened after our picnic?" A voice next to Garen cried out suddenly.

"Eh?" A flicker of suspicion crossed Garen’s mind.

"Let’s stop, she has it bad enough," Serin called out in dissatisfaction.

"Garen, don’t offend Syves, she’s weird." A cute girl who was near Garen spoke softly. In her eyes were unadulterated admiration, perhaps she didn’t know anything about restraint.

"Weird? How so?" Garen asked.

"She doesn’t like to play with everyone, plus, she talked back to the teacher. I heard that she was even kidnapped once, and is no longer a good girl." she murmured softly.

"Stop yapping." Serin stood up abruptly from the side and glared at the other girl.

The girl was frightened by the aura let off by Serin, and she bit her lip while glancing at Garen. She felt that she couldn’t afford to lose her reputation in front of the boy she adored, hence even though she was terrified, she let out a hmph and left.

The kids around them were also taken aback by this and dispersed.