Mystical Journey

"This feeling... It’s amazing..." He closed his eyes, as if he was completely immersed in this indescribable realm.

Whoosh!!

With him as the center point, a gust started to wildly whirl in all directions surrounding him, knocking even the doctors and nurses in the ambulance he to their feets.

Almost at the exact same moment, in the ambulance carrying Dahm, a strong figure silently sat up on the stretcher, ripping out all the needles stuck to his arms.

"This feeling.... Feels way stronger than before..." Dahm’s eyes were glowing with indescribable joy, although his body was covered with ripped muscles, there was still a hint of femininity radiating from him. Raising his arm, he unconsciously remembered his memories of the state he was in during Illusory Spinning White Jade.

"Level 3... Hahahaha... This is level 3! Amazing... Stop the car!"

The doctors and nurses around him were completely stunned as if they were a bunch of small animals standing in front of a ferocious beast.

******

Feeling the two auras slowly building up from afar, his face unconsciously showed a hint of surprise and astonishment.

"Interesting... How interesting..."

Who would have thought that Hochman and Dahm, in this time’s training, would be able to conquer the fear of death and successfully enter the third level of the Illusory Spinning White Jade, which was the turning point.

The Two-Faced Waterbird Fist was only a secret skill adapted from a normal martial art move, infused with the Aura and Qi from the Soul seed.

What surprised Garen the most was that Hochman and Dahm, when entering into Level 3, managed to trigger his Qi from the Soul Seed and Aura hidden in their bodies, using it as a core, forming their own type of Aura-esque creation.

This creation was not as strong as Auras, formless, as if it was purely a boost in the mental state, but still somehow managing to trigger the movement of Qi.

"Not everything will always conform to your own plans, huh?" Garen was standing on the sloped fields outside the abandoned garden, looking at the directions the ambulance left in. That was where the two’s aura was starting to form.

He could feel how the two’s auras were different from each other.

Hochman’s felt like a ferocious lion, with a cold surface restricting the wildness within, ready to burst against any opponent who tries to go against them, ripping them to shreds. It had a forceful nature to it.

Dahm’s was much more suppressed, his aura was like a slithering cobra slithering in the depths of the river, almost similar to a silent, hidden, and venomous needle, ready to poison and kill the enemy at any time.

To Garen, the most interesting thing about this was, the two’s aura seemed to have a sort of natural attraction to each other, through mutual interaction and clashing, allowing them to stand against each other, yet, at the same time, conform with each other..

The two portions of aura originally from Garen was used to trigger the formation of two completely new and distinct auras. This kind of new creation definitely opens up the possibilities of even further fusions.

"Two seeds that were produced individually, yet still able to fuse together... How exciting... When we mix the two together, I wonder what’s going to happen?" Garen grinned as he looked over to the direction of the two auras.

With the support of his primer, the two were starting to make their way towards becoming a Grandmaster of Combat. This had already far exceeded his own expectations.

"Unfortunately, this immense strength lacked a good enough foundation... How unfortunate..." Garen sighed, if the two had more time, energy, and willpower to properly and conventionally train the Two-Faced Waterbird Fist, the results would be even better. However, regrettably, they did not have the opportunity. They were using Garen’s strength as their foundation, so from the start, their strength were destined to be limited by that.

"Let me see if you guys can escape this fate..."

After gazing at the direction of their auras for a brief moment, he turned and walked off the field.

The two primers independently absorbed the two’s Qi and Life Force, maturing into unique and polar opposite seeds. For some reason, Hochman and Dahm’s seeds have a sense of hostility towards each other, they both feel that if they manage to absorb the other’s seeds, they will be able to achieve an unimaginable strength.

This was a natural attraction by the seed, it was intuition.

Maybe they did not know it, but Garen was very clear, as their abilities become stronger, this kind of attraction would increase, If one of the two manages to absorb the other, they will come full circle and attain an almost unrivalled level of perfection. Even Garen didn’t know what that level was, or how strong it would be.

He was only the one who planted the seed, under different conditions, the seeds managed to mature and bear two different and unique fruits, that was outside of his control. This was only his 1st experiment.

He just wanted to see how high can two of the most masculine and elite people can eventually achieve. What kind of result will they bring...

Now, the seed has sprouted, there is no longer a need for his guidance.

******

South Africa

On an empty loess plain.

With wilted bushes scattered scarcely all over, a few zebra were slowly galloping on the plains.

On the ground, right next to a bush,the rays from the twilight sun revealed a man, covered in dirt.

He was lying flat on the ground, one leg covered with blood splatters. From afar, there was the sound of a whimpering wild dog, it sounded almost as if it was a crying child.

"Whew..." The man took a deep breath. He turned to his side looking at the other body at a bush some distance away.

"Bane, you okay?" He licked his cracked lips, but even his saliva was dried up, he had no way of wetting his lips.

"Still alive..." A feeble came from afar. "No more sleeping! We need to leave this place! I had enough of this!"

"Agreed." Using his arms to support his body, he stood up as he surveyed his surroundings. "Hurry up and come over! We need to leave!"

He saw a few zebras speedily galloping away in the distance.

"My leg is broken." Bane shouted. "Call someone for help! Kenna! Use your satellite phone!"

The man tried to reach for his backpack behind him, but then started swearing like a sailor.

"The phone’s gone, so is the bloody backpack!"

"F*cking Levi!!" Bane cursed out loud.

The two moved towards each other.

Although one of Kenna’s legs could no longer mover, he still limped his way over. The other guy was in an even worse condition, 3 of his limbs have been rendered useless.

"We need to think of something... Levi surely already sent his men to look for us! This is my business, I didn’t want to get you wrapped up in it." Kenna muttered. Sitting down on the ground, he tried helping the other guy up.

"I also didn’t want this, but since I’ve got dragged into this predicament I don’t really have a choice. Let’s try to solve the issue at hand for now, our blood would attract the attention of the African Wild Dogs, they are one of the most dangerous predators in Africa! They will eat us alive!"

The wild dog packs will hunt down their prey and devour them in a frenzy. The prey would struggle, looking as their body gets ripped into shreds, not even leaving bones as the dogs feast on them.

"I’ve already spread news about the Stone Clock of Fortune, the men in black must be scrambling all over right now, there’s no way I’m going to let Levi get the Stone Clock of Fortune all to himself." Kenna let out a short cackle.

"He won’t let you off easy, back at the where we found the relic you almost got buried alive. He even has his tens of minions ready to strike at any moment." Bane frowned, this middle-aged man in a white cowboy head was slowly applying some medicine onto his leg.

"Before I came out, I already heard the news, Europe’s Titian, Asia’s Rasta, I even went to the pub that the mercenaries frequent to gather some intel, hehehe..."

"You talking about the NIghthawks? If they’re gonna take action, this is gonna be fun, hahaha... cough cough!!" Bane laughed a bit, but due to the dryness in his throat he ended up coughing.

"What I’d do just to see Levi’s expression when he hears about this, hahahaha..." Kenna laughed out loud.

Howl!!

The laughter suddenly stopped.

"I think we need to focus on this task at hand for now..."

******

"Garen Thomas, your parcel."

At the post office, a black courier handed a palm-sized box to Garen.

In a crowd of students, Garen took the box and proceeded to check it. The courier then took a picture of it, before he left.

Tearing of the receipt on the box, Garen opened the box, taking out a smaller box made of a black-colored metal.

Opening it, in the middle of the black packing foam, lies a small white fragment of something, with somewhat visible signs of wear and tear on it.

This piece looks like it’s been made quite some time ago, it was broke into a triangular shape, and was only the size of half of his palm.

Taking it out, Garen walked towards the bench at the side of the field and sat down. He took a closer look at the fragment.

"This looks like the fragment of some porcelain chinaware."

Inside the box was also a folded note, he took it out and opened it.

‘Commander, I’m sorry, this is all we could afford to get from the auction, there were too many competing bidders from other antique collectors organisations, please check to see if it is up to your standards.’

It was the handwriting of the baldy.

Garen smiled as he continued on observing the fragment.

He knew this was the fragment of the Stone Clock of Fortune or something that the baldy said he found.

Closing his eyes and closely feeling the fragment, it contained a small hint of an unknown aura.

"There seems to be some effect?" He let go of all his self-control and unleashed his senses.

Whoosh... The shape of the fragment instantly got imprinted in his senses. Even without using his sight, he managed to reverse engineer the fragment from scratch in his mind.

Bzzt!

In an instant, something similar to a white spark flashed on the fragment. Garen’s eyes sparkled.

"There is! Maybe because this fragment was so small, there isn’t much potential aura left in it... Using this as a basis for hypothesis, the real Stone Clock of Fortune, although wouldn’t contain a lot, it would definitely still have potential value."

Taking out his phone, he hastily sent a text to baldy.

Almost immediately, he got a reply.

"Understood. Then, please wait for our good news, sir." Baldy obviously understood what he meant.