Bang!
Garen moved forward towards the gate which was obstructing him. Setting his sight on it, the gate froze and cracked before shattering into pieces under the extreme change in temperature. The gate opened.
With Garen as the center point, all living creatures within his surroundings were frozen.
He went through a gloriously decorated tunnel which was at least ten meters wide. It was solemnly silent, frozen corpses and masked men were all over the place. Passing through the tunnel, he entered through the already opened, enormously huge, white stone door. Inside, were rows and rows of bookshelves which had lost its' own protection measures.
On top of the white, stone shelves were books and books of documenting all sorts of Secret Technique Skills.
"Who knew, with the advancement in technology today, the original published books are still being preserved with this method."
Garen lamented.
The area was empty and nobody responded to his words. Even if there were any lucky survivors around, they would have already been frozen into ice by his strong chill.
Concerned that it would damage the ancient books and records, Garen withdrew his Cold Region. Only then did he step forward to check out the books.
The entire library's exhibition hall was white in color, only just slightly dimmer than white snow. The round-arched ceiling was a white crystal screen, shimmering lightly with a soft glow. There was also a flow of exquisite yes complex ancient-like carving designs, giving off a classic, decorous vibe.
Garen walked into the middle of the room. Stone bookshelves as tall the Blue as a human being were on both sides; each walkway interval was an opened, gigantic book displayed on a stand for browsing purposes.
Garen casually flipped through the book and soon realized that most of its' contents were just a record of the library database's history and some memoirs of historical figures.
Glancing briefly around the room, he soon found the place where Blue Frost Sect's secret technique skills exercises were hidden.
"Among the middle-class sects, they are indeed the one with the most exercises kept!"
Garen exclaimed in awe as he saw the full shelf of Frost Secret Technique skills.
He started browsing the books and memorized its contents.
He was, however, disappointed. The contents were slightly low-ranked, and most of it similar to Scarlet Snow Technique, perhaps weaker still. Its conception and vision were not up to par as Scarlet Snow Technique meaning they were all just average-leveled techniques.
Garen browsed through everything swiftly. There were thirty-two books of secret technique exercises, but sadly, they were not techniques of killing moves but merely simple, specialization techniques.
Among all the books, seventeen of them had contents overlapping with Scarlet Snow Technique; besides developing different thinking perspectives, they were not much of use. Out of the remaining fifteen books, six of them preached about practice from scratch which had a strong value of exclusivity that was incompatible as it may cause harm to one's blood vessels due to the heavy load.
Only nine books were left, and three of those were specially designed for females to practice, so those were out of the picture as well.
The last six books were the only secret techniques that were able to overlay on his Scarlet Snow Technique.
"The two, main things for restricted power increase are Intelligence Computing Power and Bottleneck Technique. If one's computing talent is good enough, his techniques will rise along with his advance. However, it would be prohibitively difficult to affect one's computing power with the increase of his techniques as this would require a long period of improvements and accumulation. Even though both elements simultaneously complement one another, but to drive one's computing power using techniques would be something incredibly challenging…"
Garen shook his head slightly, "Luckily I have enough potential points currently. If I am able to overlay a few of the frost techniques, something good might turn up unexpectedly."
This was the advantage of potential points, being able to overlay with different techniques with the possibility to break through the specialization exercises. This was a form of fusion, a type of simulation. Different exercises have different strengthening standards and thinking perspectives, therefore producing a variety of outcomes.
He used to use this way back in Secret Technique World to achieve his goals.
He took down the six books swiftly, and scanned through its contents and registered them into his Energy Machine Imprint.
With a rub, he destroyed the books one by one the moment he finished going through it. As the books disintegrated into shreds of papers, he ignited a sparkle of fire with his scimitar and set the papers on fire, burning them into ashes.
"I have to use my potential points wisely. My current Hellfrost Peacock Technique can probably replace my potential points to devour my accumulation ability. In this case, even though it's not as efficient as potential points, I'd be able to save up a vast amount of expenditure by just spending my potential points on overlaying my techniques and strengthening them!" Garen calculated mentally.
He recalled the Hellfrost Peahen from the Ancient Endor myths, the one that consumed all things and turned them into a universe of Cold Radiation, the one who practically had regeneration ability and physique of an immortal. It was evident that his Hellfrost Peacock Technique was simulating such ability currently.
Consume all things, and convert them into pure Cold Energy.
An idea flickered in his mind and Garen eagerly grabbed onto one of the books of secret techniques. The threads, no longer in blue color but was translucent, gushed out from his palms. It wrapped the book and swallowed it.
Instantaneously, Garen felt a faint trace of light yellow energy ball within his body. The energy ball was converted into pure Cold Energy which then entered his Scarlet Snow Technique's Resonance Crystal, becoming one of the aids of his accumulation ability.
"Sure enough…"
Potential points and Hellfrost Peacock Technique, they were an incredible match!
As it turned out, the Hellfrost Peacock Technique did not mainly practice combat power. It was to reform the person who practiced it to get accustomed to the Hellfrost Peacock's young body, allowing him to swallow all things to use as the energy source to strengthen him. This was an absolutely unreasonable transformation.
"Even heat, the opposing energy, can be converted into Cold Energy! This is ridiculous!" Garen shook his head, speechless. This was like turning flames into ice cubes. But then he thought about the advanced technology which was well equipped with plenty of refrigeration equipment, it was not that difficult to accept the theory after all.
He recalled the six books attentively. They were all at least first-class graded secret techniques. Though they were slightly weaker than Scarlet Snow Technique and still feeble when combined with computing power, they were still good enough to be an inherited training method to be handed down.
Garen did not choose to practice all of the techniques as some were totally out of his style. He just chose a few that were able to help him strengthen his techniques and the others were stored away for backup.
"Get ready to retreat."
All of a sudden, a calm voice rang in Garen's ears. It was Carthage.
"Everybody, you have ten minutes to retreat. Those who violate, you will have to fend for yourself," Carthage commanded.
With a wave of his hand, Garen kept the whole lot of frost secret manuals and started to go through the other bookshelves swiftly to find other secret manuals.
Battle skills, exercises on other secret techniques, other types of supports, various records of true experiences and many, many more.
The entire library's knowledge was consumed by him within seconds.
Looking up, Garen held onto his scimitar at the handle.
"Resonance."
Amid the violent shakes, gigantic Void Shadows of black wolves started appearing beside him, each of them roaring high up into the sky.
Thump! Thump thump thump thump thump!!!
The wolves' shadows crashed towards the ceiling, one following the other, to break a distinct, big hole through the eminently strong defense. The sun's rays poured into the dust-filled room.
As stones from the crushed ceiling fell, Garen flew up and out through the hole.
The black wolves behind him leaped. Garen caught the girl at her waist from the wolf's back, before the wolves turned into Void Shadows and entered his Space Ring.
The air current reverberated around Garen's ears as he flew higher and higher into the sky. Looking back, he saw fire burning in several areas in the white crescent-shaped city which was Blue Frost Sect's headquarters. The bright, red flames illuminated the city a reddish color, while clear, black smokes from the flames rolled up into the sky like columns of pillars.
Taking a deep breath, Garen could smell an obvious trace of sulfur. Who knew what could be burning…
Boom!
Something exploded down below. Yellow flames blasted high up into the air, the raging flames soon set the surrounding buildings on fire.
Figures clad in red were flying into a black whirlpool, which was gradually opening in the sky.
Carthage was standing high up in the sky, enjoying the birds' eye view like he was God himself.
Four Blood Robes darted into the air and promptly disappeared leaving no trace.
Garen flew high up into the sky and stopped just right behind Carthage. He bowed his head in respect.
He could not clearly estimate the true abilities of this man whom he first thought was just a General under the White King. He did not expect the man to be incredibly strong, which he found extremely horrifying.
Garen thought that he had clearly seen Carthage's true abilities, but as Carthage revealed his strong powers bit by bit, he was again confused.
"Take the blood bead I gave you as soon as possible. Sacrificing over a hundred thousand people for their blood, and all we got was just this tiny thing in return." Carthage turned around slightly to look at Garen.
Garen was stunned. Hundred thousands of people! To get something through sacrificing over hundred thousands of people for their blood clearly showed that there was nothing legitimate about this so-called essence.
"What's the use of the blood bead?" He asked after a moment of silence.
"You'll find out after taking it…" Carthage smiled mysteriously. "But of course, you can choose to not take it too."
A trace of threat was slowly emitting from his body.
Garen lowered his head. He knew he had no choice but to take the bead.
"I understand."
He took out the black-red bead, took a good look at it, before popping it into his mouth and swallowed it in a gulp.
Entering his mouth, the bead melted into a trance of warm flow that seeped into his vessels directly from his mouth instead of his stomach. The warm trace of flow soon spread all over his body.
Seeing that Garen ate the blood flesh essence and had a new sense of temperament, then only did Carthage smiled with satisfaction.
"Let's go."
At that moment, everyone had already entered the black whirlpool and it was starting to shrink.
Black smoke appeared around Carthage and encircled Garen together with him. In a whoosh, both of them entered the whirlpool and immediately after, the passageway behind them closed entirely.
Without a word, Garen had his arms around Blue Pole Star's sister and was using his energy field to protect the ordinary girl. At the same time, he followed closely behind Carthage.
Just as how it was described by Carthage, the bead released a tremendous amount of blood flesh essence. The essence was indeed magical as it actually managed to strengthen his physique gradually, but also slowly covered every inch of his body with a layer of light red tint.
"Is it possible that this is something used to control a powerhouse?"
Garen was trying to summon his Scarlet Snow Technique to eliminate the red essence but it was pointless as his Scarlet Snow Technique power was nowhere near as strong as this bead.
However, he soon found out that the red tint had no side effects as his Hellfrost Peacock Technique was still functioning as per normal, converting the red bead's energy into a vast amount of Cold Energy to replenish his Scarlet Snow Technique.
The black ball of Energy Seed which was originally used to absorb the Plasma Bomb was already accumulating at a rapid speed, but now with the red bead's essence, it was even faster!
Garen stared wide-eyed at the vast amount of Cold Energy swirling through the air, gushing into his Scarlet Snow Technique's Resonance Crystal.