After returning to his dorm, Garen pulled his curtains shut, locked the door and immediately took out the bottle that had been used to store the high energy fuel powder. This time, he had prepared a huge number of bottles to store them.
It was the same procedure as before.
He spread out a huge cloth and poured the stones onto it before he took off his shirt and sat on his knees in front of the stones.
This time, the amount and quality of the stones far exceed the previous ones.
After finishing his preparation, he closed his eyes as he slowly adjusted the Living Secret Technique's Seed inside of him, which was the Hellfrost Peacock Technique's core. In an instant, his body was covered in a mysterious blue layer, as a sense of coolness spread out his body. The temperature of the room started to drop slowly.
He reached out his hands and gently placed them in front of the stones.
Crack. Two of the stones that were lightly touched by him rolled down and turned into two piles of white dust before it reached the cloth.
Then, the pile of stones started to break down, disintegrate and turned into white dust that slipped through the gaps between the stones
The sound of the falling sand kept rustling inside the room.
Garen started to observe the overall changes in his body.
He felt that his body was like a deflated balloon that was being inflated without rest. Under his supervision, the series of blue frost lines quickly flowed into his palm. It was different from the last time where he did not require to use the frost blue lines in his body. The White Peacock Stone's essence would naturally be absorbed into his palms and it seemed to be much safer as well.
As huge amounts of frost stream entered into his body, they were absorbed by the blue lines in his body and kept flowing through the five elements of his body.
These icy blue lines had automatically formed a complex web inside his body. It didn't follow the path of the meridians, arteries nor the nervous system. In fact, it had formed its own route independent of the other two major systems. It seemed to have created a new biological system of its own with the seed of the living secret technique as its core.
As Garen observed the automatic circulatory system of the seed of the living secret technique, he finally understood the principles behind it.
As time passed, he noticed that the Hellfrost Peacock Technique in his attribute pane started to change.
'Secret technique -- Hellfrost Peacock Technique, Living Secret technique of unknown origin. Second grade Heart Reformation. The heart shall be reformed with the Hellfrost Peacock as the standard in order to improve the overall physical attributes of the body. Time required: Two months and six days.'
'Third grade's progress at 25%'
This was the previous data that Garen had seen. However, as the huge amount of frost streams entered his body, the third grade's progress bar started to turn muddy.
As the cold stream was absorbed into and started moving around his body, Garen could feel that the stream had entered into his heart, giving him a new strength. Countless frost lines gathered by his heart and with every frost line inserted into his heart, he gained a new momentum.
Bam!
A clear and crisp sound could be heard from the heart.
However, it was this sound that indicated that the third grade's progress of the Hellfrost Peacock Technique had increased.
'Third-grade progress is at 26%.'
"It increased!" Garen was slightly excited.
Immediately, the progression bar started to increase at an increasing pace.
27%... 28%... 29%... 31%...
The value kept increasing at a steady pace. As the huge amount of frost lines entered the heart, Garen could clearly feel that his heart was becoming stronger and stronger, to the point his chest was about to burst.
He stared at the progression bar as it reached 40%, 60%, 80% and finally 90%!
Suddenly Garen felt as if his heart had been torn apart as a muffled splash was heard.
He opened his eyes and looked down at his chest. It was glowing blue, so brightly so that the light penetrated through his ribs and muscles. It shone so brightly that it gave off a weird vibe in the dark room.
'Hellfrost Peacock Technique's Heart Transformation enhancement has ended, third grade's progression has reached 100%.'
The instant he saw this sentence, Garen felt an excruciating pain emitting from his chest. The pain was so excruciating that it was similar to someone twisting his heart or even scratching on it. The pain was transmitted to his brain, surpassing every pain that he'd ever felt in his entire existence.
However, since Garen was once the strongest being of the worlds he'd once lived in, he naturally wasn't afraid of such pain.
As the second grade's heart transformation was completed and reached the end of third grade, the pain was most likely due to the extremely shortened duration of the time-consuming process of reforming his body.
He endured the pain as he sat quietly in front of the stone while the stones slowly turned into a pile of white dust.
After some time, he regained consciousness. He was sweating profusely and felt extremely tired but his body was better than before.
"It finally ended…"
Garen loosened up the moment he saw his attribute pane.
"Finally there's a qualitative change."
At a glance, his body seemed to have changed completely and it was the first time that it had a qualitative change.
'Nonosiva. Lin -- Strength 1.7, Agility 1.5, Vitality 18, Intelligence 1.5. Potential 0%. Soul Limit 40'
'Potential Quality -- Void Hunter'
'Soul Seed -- Northern Trident Frost-Fire True Water technique, Holy Phoenix Demonic Book.'
'Secret Technique -- Hellfrost Peacock technique: Living Secret Technique of unknown origin. With the Hellfrost Peacock's bloodline as the standard to reform the heart to achieve an enhanced body. Time required: Completed.'
The third grade had completely reformed his stomach to match the peacock's swallowing ability. In combination with the stomach's ability to take up almost any sort of item and the heart's reformation, he had gained the ability to eat everything.
'Obtained a natural ability -- Devour (Hellfrost Peacock Technique has opened up the basic powerful ability of the Queen of Peacock)'
'Fourth grade progression at 11%.'
'(A total of five grades of foundations and three grades of derivative level) With every progression of a grade, the body will cleanse the blood to gradually acclimate towards the Hellfrost Peacock's constitution. It will eventually reach its highest form, and its limit is at Army Level.'
'Imprint of Steel: to enhance one's body to increase his strength and vitality.'
"There's an average increment in all attributes. Although it isn't much, Strength has increased considerably, Agility has increased by 0.3, Vitality by 1 point and Intelligence being the least, which is only about 0.1. However, the main dish of today's result is the natural ability…" Garen's vision was on the new icon at the back of the Secret Technique. It was an icon that represented his latest natural ability, Devour.
As his vision landed on it, information was immediately sent to his consciousness.
'Queen of Peacock's Devour -- A unique devour ability from the Hellfrost Peacock. One can devour most materials to improve one's physical characteristics. The impurities that were devoured can be stored, condensed and formed into a Distorted Seed that can infect other beings.'
"Distorted Seed? Infection?"
Not only did his physical characteristics improve upon achieving grade three, he also had obtained an additional Devour ability. It was obvious that this natural ability must have a unique effect.
He shifted his gaze to the Distorted seed.
'Distorted Seed: the Hellfrost Peacock is naturally able to release a very strong radiation from its body, which is able to distort the status of any living being near it, infecting them into a strange battle machine that has no consciousness. The Hellfrost Peacock Technique mimics this ability by emitting this radiation to distort the material into a Distorted Seed that can infiltrate into the enemy's heart without detection. It would then turn them into a powerful killing monster. The radiation would increase their attribute by roughly 1.5 times.'
Garen couldn't help but frown as he read the message.
"This ability will be very useful during a war but in this world where wars are between planets… I wouldn't be able to get close to the enemy with this ability."
He continued reading to find out more about the effects of the Distorted Seed.
'...In order for the Hellfrost Peacock to cleanse itself and its surroundings, it releases the radiation to pollute the surrounding environment. The Distorted Seed's presence will kill anything other than the Hellfrost Peacock. The slain beings will then explode, releasing a stench into the air and surroundings, giving off a strong radiation to the surroundings.'
"It's indeed useless…" Garen's frown deepened. "Let's look at the enhancement effect of Devour."
He reorganized the Living Secret technique's seed to extract the information of the Devour ability that had been previously locked. Suddenly Devour's information changed once more.
'Queen of Peacock's Devor-- There is nothing the Hellfrost Peacock is unable to digest. It is able to devour metal, alloy, woods, living beings, stones, and liquid. If your vitality is strong enough, you can even devour lava. All the energy obtained through digestion can be used to create the Distorted Seed and enhance one's body. The enhancement maximum effect is to increase the original attribute by five points. Once one had reached the advanced stage, one can even release the frost to freeze the enemy, giving birth to a new derivative ability called Freezing.'
Most of the information was useless to him.
"With me being in the interplanetary era, the Distorted Seed is rather ineffective. On the other hand, the ability to freeze my opponent by devouring items to reach the advanced stage is definitely useful."
Garen looked at the effect of Freezing and found out that it had a long range of at least a hundred meters. He could also apply it to weapons to shoot it out. When he applied it to the guns, he could deal damage and freeze his opponent at the same time.
With so much information at hand, Although the Secret Technique was still in its foundation phase, the potential that it revealed was considered good. It's just that it didn't suit the world he was currently in.
However, he had an endless supply of impure White Peacock Stones. With the next level up, he was confident that a stronger ability would appear, which made him very excited about what's to come.
"Next up is the most important part," Garen stood up and put on his shirt. His body was cold and was giving off a faint aroma. "Once I've reached the third grade, how much has it affect my Willpower? This is the main point…"