Mystical Journey

He had to find something that could increase his attribute talent’s potential points, that was the only way to reduce the training time. It was just that Garen had no idea how to go about it at all, all these years, he had already learned about many sorts of ancient items, but he had not sensed a hint of potential power in any of them.

He had also tried secretly killing wild animals, like snakes or wolves, but to no effect. This made him reconsider his thoughts, he might have made a mistake in his conjectures about the source of potential points.

If the source of potential points was merely the mysterious power of Antiques of Tragedy, then in the subsequent Totem World, killing should not have been able to increase his potential points as well.

But in the Totem World, be it killing totem users or Aberrated creatures, each of them gave him a substantial amount of potential points, so that was strange.

The conclusion Garen came to, was that he should make more attempts based on soul power.

This is because the upper limit to his attribute-increasing power was the power of his soul, just as how the Evil Technique Soul Seed deep in his soul would increase the limits of his attributes slightly every year. Ever since he was born up until now, his limits had far surpassed his attribute limits from before, and was now at thirty points. It was terrifying to have an average upper limit of thirty points, but the modification power of the Soul was not limitless either, after he went from the twenty points to thirty, it had gone utterly quiet, that modification power and effect was still there, but it had stopped strengthening his soul and upper limit.

This meant that the power of the Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water Evil Technique could only modify this body to an excess limit of thirty points.

Since the thing increasing his attributes’ upper limits was the power of his soul, then in order to obtain attribute potential points so he can progress to the next level, he should probably need something related to the soul as well.

Thinking of the special tragedy effect of the Antiques of Tragedy, and then thinking of the unique qualities of totem users with their totem power, Garen vaguely felt that his general direction of study should have something to do with the soul.

But this world was still an unknown place to him even now, he had yet to see even a natural phenomenon that seemed to show unnatural power, much less something to do with the field of the soul, which was considered higher class even among the unnatural.

Waking up feeling refreshed, Garen sat up, and pulled away the covers. He picked up the cool drinking water by his bedside and gulped straight from it, drinking a cup of plain water in the morning helped to wash out the toxins in the body.

After getting out of bed, he walked up to the window, and pulled apart the pale yellow curtains with a whoosh.

"Hey!!" On the clean white streets below, a pretty girl riding a bicycle was waving at him. It was Raffaele!

She had changed into a white sleeveless T-shirt, and was wearing the same bleached jeans from yesterday, riding her bike as she smiled at Garen, waving. Her fair and supple skin reflected the glaring white light under the sun, add that to her similarly golden hair, and it seemed as though Raffaele’s whole person was glowing.

"Hurry up, Garen!" She seemed to be worried that everyone around them could not hear her, her voice unnaturally loud.

Garen walked out of his bedroom, feeling confused, and saw Jason was also walking out with his messy golden hair opposite him, evidently frustrated by Raffaele’s shocking actions as well.

"Is this why you asked me yesterday?" He glanced at his younger brother, feeling extremely emotional. "That girl has been waiting down there since half an hour ago..."

Garen was speechless.

As they ate their breakfast, their father gave Garen a big thumbs-up, his gaze encouraging, and he grinned happily, looking just like their little sister Vivien. As expected, their little sister had picked up this ugly habit from him.

Their mother Trish had even gotten up and was about to invite Raffaele into the house to have breakfast with them, but Garen rejected that hurriedly. He drank his milk, hastily polished off his fruit and vegetable salad, took two more slices of toast from the toaster, and rushed out of the door, just in time to see Raffaele smiling dazzlingly as she waited by the road on her bike, chatting with an aunty from the neighborhood.

"Kiddo, what’s your relationship with lil’ Garen? You sure came here early to wait for him."

"I... I’m his... you know..." Raffaele lowered her head shyly, a blush rising in her cheeks.

"What am I supposed to know? Wait, could you two be..." Aunty had a vivid imagination, and was instantly surprised.

"That’s right..."

"You’re so young, you have to take care of your body." Aunty was in disbelief, "Have you two really done that? That thing?"

Raffaele lowered her head in embarrassment.

Garen walked up to them speechlessly, if they spoke any more the misunderstanding would worsen, Raffaele clearly had an ulterior motive.

The neighborhood aunty greeted Garen smilingly, and left in a hurry, claiming that she did not want to get in their way.

"I’ll take you, hop on." Raffaele smiled at Garen cheerfully.

Garen looked left and right, usually he should be able to see Serin and Eeleen now, but neither of them was anywhere to be seen. He had no choice but to reconsider what that so-called oath did.

"Alright." Garen let out of a breath, and took the bicycle’s back seat.

"Hold my waist, be careful not to fall."

"It’s okay, you just go ahead, I’m stable here." Garen replied off-handedly.

"Alright then."

Raffaele did not say anything more, and stepped down hard on the pedal, making the bike shoot forward abruptly.

The entire way there, she pedaled with all her might, making the bike go faster and faster, faster and faster, if it was anyone else under these circumstances, they would have long since gone pale with fright.

Why isn’t Garen holding my waist?

Raffaele thought with her ulterior motive, and turned around to glance at Garen, but he had actually fallen asleep. No matter how the bike swayed, he just sat there, perfectly balanced and sound asleep.

"This guy..." Raffaele was helpless.

They went past the few streets in no time, and soon they had arrived at the school.

The bike stopped at the school gates with a screech, and Garen opened his eyes, waking up as if on cue.

The two of them dismounted separately.

"Oh yeah, Garen, do you remember our promise from yesterday?" Raffaele spoke suddenly.

"You mean the reward?" Garen raised his eyebrows.

"This is for you." Raffaele suddenly stuffed something small and round at him, it felt cool in his palm.

Garen raised his hand to look at it, it was an ancient black-silver badge, there was the image of a buck on it, and most of the carvings at the sides had been rubbed away, as though it had spent a lot of time in someone else’s hand.

"What is this?"

"My grandma gave it to me, it was passed down from before, don’t lose it, ‘kay?" Raffaele said with a smile, and then, surrounded by her many underlings, she pushed the bike away from where they stood.

Garen stood at the school gates, his expression slightly strange as he looked at the buck badge in his hand.

Some wisps of familiar aura darted into his arm from the badge. It was just a little, of something he used to be extremely familiar with.

"Potential points?!" Garen’s heart pounded heavily.

"No... This little bit of potential power can’t even form one potential point, it’s just a tiny bit of the energy left on it..." Garen glanced at his attribute pane, the pane for his potential points jumped a bit, and blurred ever so slightly from 0%, but that was all.

That little bit of energy from before could only make his potential point value blink slightly.

"This is... an Antique of Tragedy?" Garen picked up the buck badge.

Throughout class that morning, he constantly played with his buck badge, and noticed that when two of the girls saw the badge in his hand, their eyes sparkled somewhat.

These junior high students obviously seemed to know how to hide things better than elementary schoolers, but compared to an adult like Garen, they naturally could not hide anything.

"Or maybe this thing also has some special meaning?" He caressed the badge as he mused.

He noticed that Serin and Eeleen were sitting at the other far end of the classroom, but their gazes drifted over now and then, glancing at him, and then quickly moving away.

"Garen, could I ask you how to solve this?" During recess, the boy behind him patted Garen’s back, and passed him a little notebook with math questions.

Garen took it, explaining the question to the boy as he watched Serin’s and Eeleen’s movements.

The more he thought about it, the more he felt something off with that ancient oath, in his eyes, it was supposed to be just a minor conflict between girls, but he had not expected such a surprising outcome.

Just then Garem saw Raffaele standing at the classroom door, dressed up all pretty, smiling as she chatted with one of her besties, their voices extremely low, as though whispering.

Right now almost everyone knew that Raffaele and Garen had a relationship going on, even the male teacher who was packing his things and leaving the room gave Garen a mischievous look.

Raffaele chatted quietly with her bestie, in a voice only the two of them could hear, nobody knew what they were saying, but they laughed together happily.

They waited until all of the students had more or less left for lunch.

Raffaele pushed away her friend, and walked into the classroom alone, going up to Garen’s desk.

"Come, let’s have lunch together, I prepared some good food especially for you."

Garen glanced at Serin and Eeleen again, they were talking among themselves there, not meeting his gaze at all.

"Alright." He had already sensed something amiss, and decided to look into the mysteries here properly, plus the strange and ancient trend of having active girls and passive boys in this town, all of the things hidden here were piquing his interest.

The two of them got up and walked out of the classroom, Garen practically being pulled forward by Raffaele.

"That thing you just gave me was pretty good, I really like it."

"I just knew you would like it, I remember you used to really like antiques." Raffaele laughed as she replied, "Don’t think I was joking before, I really did pay attention to you since a long time ago, even my grandma has approved of our relationship."

"Hah? Your grandma?" Garen felt as though his reaction was slightly delayed, "Isn’t this development a little too fast?"

"Fast? How so? If you like ‘em, get ‘em! Do what you want to do! Whether it’s fast or slow, what’s the point of comparing yourself with others?" Raffaele replied with disdain, "That was the principle my grandma told me since I was young, if I find something good, I gotta act fast, if I’m slow there won’t be anything left."

"Your grandma sure is... bold... haha..." Garen did not know how to comment, wasn’t her grandma worried that her granddaughter would come out of it badly?