Mystical Journey

Putting the book on the table, Garen continued to flip through the pages .

The yellow surface of the paper was slightly rough and crisp . The corner of the paper broke off after Garen lightly touched it . It was like an extremely thin template .

"Be careful, these books are very old, at least hundreds of years old," Felicity said quietly .

"Okay . "

Garen softened his movements even more .

After flipping to the fifth page, it was still the table of contents . Garen ignored it and kept on flipping .

‘Hereby I thank my friend, Lady Liana . If it weren’t for her careful correction and sponsorship, this book might not have been published…’ After this, the words became blurry like they had been soaked in water .

Garen frowned and continued flipping . To his surprise, the actual content of the book was crooked black letters that looked like toads . Garen could recognize individual ones, but when jumbled together, they became garbled and meaningless .

"Could it be… are these special codes? I need to decode it to read the actual content?" Garen said with a frown . He flipped a couple more pages again, but they were are all the same .

"I think so . When writing down important information, a lot of people design their own codes . " Felicity nodded and looked through the book alongside Garen .

"Then what do we do?" Garen stopped at a random page . From top to bottom, there was not a single paragraph he could understand . All he could try to comprehend were some drawn engineering designs .

"One of my friends’ grandpa used to use this one method of encryption . I still remember it, so let me try to decode it . " Felicity excitedly grabbed the book, took out a pen and started to work her way through the book .

The girl pushed Garen away and even stole his seat .

Standing at the back, however, allowed Garen to see Felicity’s perky butt . One of her legs was sexily bent on top of the chair, lifting up her tight black skirt . If he crouched a bit more, he would be able to see what was underneath that skirt of hers .

"I am relaxed and happy," Garen softly whispered to himself . With a grin on his face, he walked back a few more steps and enjoyed Felicity’s beautiful pose .

After about ten minutes .

"Garen, come here, I know what this book is about now!" the girl suddenly shouted .

Garen walked over in a hurry and sniffed her refreshing natural scent . He subconsciously inhaled deeply . However, seeing Felicity’s serious face, he organized his thoughts and looked at the table .

On top of the desk was a piece of paper . It contained a small paragraph decoded from the book .

"I have a general idea of what this book is about," Felicity said with a bit of excitement .

She flipped to the table of contents and pointed at the page .

"There are three parts in the book: nightmare, the color white, ceremony . These three parts are in correspondence to the three strange events the author encountered . It tells the boring and difficult journey he went through to try and find answers, as well as the clues he picked up in the end . Basically, this book is a travel journal . A journal detailing the journey of a man who was seeking the truth behind fables!"

"Travel journal? Does it really have records of the strange events the author encountered?" Garen asked suspiciously .

"It doesn’t really clarify what exactly was going on . However, the author has recorded that he wasn’t sure since when but he began to repeatedly have the same nightmare . To reach the roots of why he was having it and to ease the pain, he went on a journey to figure out why it was occurring . If it really was just about a nightmare, then it couldn’t be categorized as a strange event . But, at the end of the book, the author seems to have learned something . The way he wrote became a little unclear, it was as if he was tabooing something . "

"Tabooing something?" Garen squinted his eyes . "Can we find some information on the author?"

"No . From what I’ve noticed, after the author arrived at this one place and came out of it, there was a huge change in the book’s content and it became ambiguous," Felicity explained .

"What is that place?"

"Rochwell Empire Library . "

Garen frowned, picked up the book, and flipped through it .

"Look at the back cover, there is something!" Felicity yelled anxiously .

Garen flipped to the last page in a hurry . Immediately, a white piece of paper that was tucked between the cracks of the back cover fell out . If it wasn’t for the cover being cracked after such a long time, a knife would have been needed to pry open the cover to get that piece of paper .

Felicity quickly picked it up and unfolded it .

On it was written only a single line: Navici Tsunami Mountain No . 174, under the third tree and six meters deep . I left the stuff there . – Charlie

"It’s a note! Nobody has found it before us, or else this piece of paper wouldn’t still be tucked in the book cover . " Felicity was thrilled . "Let’s go check it out! Maybe we can get our hands on something cool!"

"Navici… Where is this?" Garen had never heard of this place before .

"It’s at the Jade Mountain Province, on the border of the Confederation . The province’s capital is Navici . The Jade Mountain is a very poor province . It has awful soil and there is a lack of natural resources . Other than an overabundance of sunlight, there isn’t a lot of advantages to that area . Their grapes and honeydew melon are quite nice though . " Felicity became even more eager . "What do you think? Want to go? Let’s go together!"

"Jade Mountain Province is too far from here…" Garen was speechless . "If we take the train, it’ll take us a week . Going there and back will take us half a month . "

"What are you afraid of? We have plenty of time . " Felicity waved her hand, indicating that she did not mind .

Garen thought about it for a second . "How about this, let’s decide after a while . I have to go back to school soon and the timing just doesn’t work out . I also have a lot of errands to take care of . Felicity, don’t you have some stuff going on at home too? How can you squeeze out the time to travel?"

"It’s not that bad . " Felicity then remembered something, and her thrilled look faded a little . "You’re right . I do have some stuff to take care of . It might take us a whole month to go there and back . Okay… then let’s make plans for our next break . "

"Sure . " Garen nodded without hesitation .

The two of them studied the content of the book for a bit longer . Both were rather excited . Only when the clock on the wall announced the time with its loud bangs, did the two of them unwillingly stop .

"It’s almost noon, I have to go get some lunch . There’s some stuff I need to do in the afternoon . " Garen stood up and softly sighed .

"Something to do? What do you have to do? It’s our break, yet you’re so busy all the time . Aren’t you tired?" Felicity finally took her leg off the chair . It was numb from keeping the same pose for so long, and she stumbled, falling backward .

Without knowing it, her small butt was aimed straight at Garen’s lower body .

At that moment, both of them froze .

Felicity’s cheeks slowly turned red as she felt a warm object slowly rising behind her . It suddenly jumped and stabbed her at a sensitive spot .

She screamed and jumped away as if she had been electrocuted . "You wanna die?" She turned around and cupped her butt with her hands . She stared down at Garen .

"I-" Garen shrugged . "You were the one that hit me . I can’t control something like that…" he responded in a low voice .

"Go to hell!" Felicity kicked Garen’s lower leg and left angry and red-faced .

Garen helplessly looked at the white and grey footprint on his leg . This kick didn’t even make him itch . To a regular person however, it would definitely be a kick hard enough to bruise their bones . She was wearing a pointy leather shoe after all .

"Whatever . I have to go the old man’s place in the afternoon . Ah, Ying Er is the only one nice to me . Even when she fights me, she doesn’t hit hard . "

He dusted off the dirt off his pants and walked out of the library . There was no sight of Felicity . After taking out his card to sign out for leaving, he hailed down a horse carriage and went home .

Sitting in the carriage, Garen closed his eyes and rested his mind while checking the status of his attributes . This was something he did regularly everyday .

Strength 2 . 22 . Agility 1 . 10 . Physique 1 . 87 . Intelligence 1 . 50 . Potential 258% . White Cloud Secret Arts: Great Achievement (Stage 4) . Explosive Fist Arts: Intermediate . White Cloud Combat Arts: Intermediate .

"Strength went up a little bit . I’m not sure what to do with the potential I’ve been collecting though…" Garen thought about it with a frown .

"Before I kept on improving my Strength and as a result my Explosive Fist Arts became intermediate level . After acquiring strong defense and solo combat skills, I should be undefeatable in the short term . But if I run into a speedy opponent, then I’m in trouble . With my physique and my grasp on combat, I am considered to be an advanced martial artist . Compared to second senior brother and elder senior sister though, I am still lacking behind by a lot despite my advantage over normal people . I am not sure which attribute I should try to improve next . "

He glanced over the Agility attribute . The number 1 . 10 hadn’t changed since the beginning .

"I remember the elder senior sister telling me a few days ago that real masters cannot have any visible flaws . Even if they have them, they need to learn how to compensate for that weakness . My speed right now should be my most obvious flaw . It seems like I’ll need to greatly improve my agility as well . "

After analyzing, he finally focused his view on the Agility attribute .

After a few seconds, the number jumped from 1 . 10 to 1 . 20 .

Another second passed, the Strength attribute hopped as well, from 2 . 22 to 2 . 42 .

Garen was somewhat shocked . He looked at his Potential Meter . He had used up all of the potential he’d saved up over the last few weeks . There was 158% left .

"Why does improving my agility causs my strength to go up?" He was speechless . "Could it be . . " He suddenly thought of a possibility . "Even if I want to keep my strength unchanging and only try to increase my speed, the explosive force that results from it will definitely increase as well . This means speed plus strength creates the real explosive force and damage! I think this is the true trick behind these attributes . With a high strength attribute, I can add a little speed to exponentially increase my explosive force and damage . "

He noticed that after the agility attribute went up, another symbol appeared . Looking carefully, the meaning of the symbol naturally flew into his mind .

"The difference between strength and agility is too big, therefore the two of them affect each other . " Garen looked at the other attributes . "If that’s the case, then should I try to even out all my attributes? I shouldn’t be too extreme with one attribute because it will drag down my other attributes too . "

With the little of potential left, Garen didn’t use it up . The potential in the Black Jade Disk had been dying down and the potential inside was less than he anticipated . Because of that, it took longer to absorb the potential and after another time, two at best, there would be nothing left to absorb .

Sitting on the carriage, he slowly took out the Black Jade Disk form his pants’ pocket . This piece of antique that looked like a tough medal was emitting potential that was as thin as a strand of hair .

Garen brushed his fingers over this long rectangular small medal and felt the uneven and bumpy words and carvings .

"After I absorb all of it, I can sell it through a company or through the Golden Hoop . It’ll probably fetch me a lot of money and I’ll be able to use it to find more Antiques of Tragedy . " Garen moved around to feel the effects of the change in his attributes . "I guess I won’t go to the old man’s today, but try out my new physique at the dojo . If I don’t familiarize myself, I might screw up in my next combat . I haven’t been that dedicated to going regularly . When I see Master this afternoon, he will lecture me for sure…"

Garen smiled helplessly .