Mystical Journey

Garen got the black lion to fly towards the foot of the mountain in the Kingdom directly, while the group on wolf-back were following slowly behind him.

The herd of giant wolves were one of the several monster tribes that Demon Phoenix and the others had taken over during the sealing period, their leader was a huge wolf with golden fur, it had fought the Crescent Marks for thousands of years, and was considered an old enemy.

Sitting on the black lion’s back, Garen looked down.

There were some normal people and members of the procession looking up from below, their expressions full of awe and surprise. Others didn’t notice him at all, their heads lowered as they did their own thing.

The farmers were still working their crops in the field, the medicine-gatherers carried their baskets on their backs as they wove through the rocks at the bottoms and sides of the mountains, while occasionally there were several flying creatures carrying riders as they crossed underneath him, some flying towards the outskirts of the Kingdom, others flying from outside towards the Kingdom.

When they were several hundred meters from the Kingdom, at the foot of the mountain on the road going around the mountain, there was already a large crowd of figures dressed in black, looking towards Garen’s direction from afar. The surroundings had also been cleared out temporarily, and those who wanted to go up the mountain had their path temporarily blocked. There were already some people gathering outside the team cordoning off the area, as though there out of curiosity.

Out of the black-robed people waiting at the foot of the mountain, two of them were leading the group, and most of the rest were young people, there were a few guards in black armor around them as well, their faces unclear under the helmet.

As soon as they saw the huge black lion’s body falling slowly, the leaders of these people instantly raised their hands. With a whoosh, they released a white carpet that shot out flying. It landed precisely underneath the black lion’s paws.

The white carpet, up to a hundred meters long, was unnaturally eye-catching in mid-air, as was the huge attention-catching black lion. More and more people began watching out of curiosity, and some of the people flying in mid-air also stayed behind to see what the commotion was.

"It’s been a long time, Elder Blizzard." Garen instantly recognized the two people in the lead, one was Blizzard, and the other Wukang. It was just that Wukang wore a face veil, blocking half of his face, and the part of his face hidden under the veil looked rather green in the nose and swollen in the face.

"Palace Master, you have finally returned." Blizzard greeted him, laughing heartily.

Bam!

The black lion landed heavily on the white carpet.

His black-clothed disciples all bent their backs in a bow, yelling in unison,

"Welcome back, Palace Master!"

Their voices were deafening, their aura powerful.

More than a hundred people yelling at once, greeting someone in a line, such a scene instantly created whispers among the onlookers. In just that short while, there were already several hundred people gathered and blocking the road up the mountain, many of them were merchant groups entering and leaving the Kingdom to do their peddling and delivering their wares, there were also noble processions coming and going, as well as members from the other powers, but the majority of them were still normal civilians.

Most of them were farmers going to the Kingdom market to sell ingredients, meat and vegetables in the morning, as well as bull carts sending daily necessities.

There were four entrances into the Kingdom, and this was only one of them, but there was a surprising amount of traffic here, it had been less than ten minutes, but there were already several hundred people stuck here, and there seemed to be more traffic coming from behind.

Compared to the hundred thousand people coming and leaving every day, a congregation of a hundred like this was like a small wave in the ocean.

After receiving Garen, the black-robed people hurriedly led the wolf steeds onto the road, and all the passersby opened a path of their own accord, there were two civilians who rushed up to try and lodge their complaints, but they were blocked by the black-armored guards outside.

The appearance and leaving of this group was only a small ripple in the huge crowd of the Kingdom.

Among the crowd, the scouts from each of the three other giants powers also quickly spread the news of Garen’s return back to the other higher-ups in the Kingdom.

There were more and more people gathered in the Kingdom, the changes in the outside world once causing a large influx of regular civilians into the area of Ultimate Protection.

Blizzard and Wukang accompanied Garen back to the Palace District, and then they bid him farewell, leaving to handle other matters, while Lala, who had already been waiting at the palace doors, was in charge of receiving him and other trivial matters.

Ivycius, who had been sealed away with his training, also came out to greet him, followed by the whole host of the Palace’s higher-ups and Elders, the Elders Angel, Skyharp, and Spellmaster were all there, followed by many of the Palace’s core researchers. The three Master-level disciples Garen had recruited were there too, as well as a young man in white lined next to them, the four of them were followed by the Four Directions Sky Warriors and the black-armored guards, and then there were the many other researchers and disciples, as well as the teams from the Technique Hall.

It was a huge procession of several hundred people, surrounding Garen as he returned to the Palace District’s Black Swamp Grand Hall.

Sitting in the Black Swamp Grand Hall’s main throne, Garen glanced at the two rows of elders on either side of him.

The two rows of elders were all there, sitting at his two sides, their own disciples and students standing behind them, the seats after that were the four core disciples, the Four Directions Sky Warriors, and there were no more seats after that, just the next-rate disciples standing in two lines. All this was according to rank, and not carelessly ordered.

All of them wore pitch-black clothes, but their insignias were different, they all had silver Nine-Headed Dragon badges, those who could come to the Grand Hall were at least Five Dragon Heads and above. The elders each had Eight Dragon Heads, but only Garen himself was at the Nine Dragon Heads level.

Garen sat in the top seat, Demon Phoenix and his three subordinates standing behind him. This was the arrangement he had settled himself, Demon Phoenix and the others had basically been utterly psychologically traumatized by his defeating them, so out of everyone in the whole Palace, only he could make them submit, so they became something of an independent third faction. Other than the two powers led by Ivycius and Blizzard respectively, now he had a more convenient third party for balance.

"When I was at Daniela, did anything strange and serious happen in the Palace?" Garen glanced at the whole area, he was now Form Five, and didn’t have the huge presence he did before, now he seemed like a completely normal person, peaceful and calm, so that no one could tell that he had a high position and tremendous power.

The Seven Night Tower Elders exchanged hidden glances, and didn’t say anything. During this time, they had begun to enjoy the benefits, with the power of the Black Swamp Palace’s ever-increasing power, if they wanted anything, they just needed to say the word, and countless powers would stretch out and help them find it, it was that much more convenient than when they had to look for it themselves. Although they had to fulfill their duties while they enjoyed the benefits, those duties only included easily showing off a bit when needed to scare off outsiders, the time and energy needed were basically negligible.

Especially Angel of the Night, she was basically indulging in hedonism every night, having purchased a large mansion with a garden in the Kingdom, she kept more than ten beautiful men dogs and pretty boy slaves by the dozens, mixing together with the other women of higher society and messing around all day, lost in their pleasures and rampaging in their nights.

Blizzard, on the other hand, would run off to Grand Duke Benoc’s side every so often to exchange experiences with the expert fighters there, recently that side had also recruited several powerful totem users, add that to the peak-level totem users Benoc already had, and that meant Blizzard managed to find some rare opponents, so now he rarely stayed at the Black Swamp Palace.

As for Spellmaster Anjiad, he was obsessed with discussing things with the Technique Hall’s technical members and forgers, he had an unnatural interest in creature modification, before this he didn’t have the time and energy, but after joining the Black Swamp Palace, he wasn’t lacking in anything, and instead he had plenty of time to research his interest and hobbies. He had even chosen some disciples from among the many researchers who had similar passions in modification to become his assistants.

Ivycius was still fusing his totem, so he meditated slightly with his eyes closed as he sat on his seat, still holding that long white sword to his chest, but his aura was slowly approaching that feeling of Form Five fusion power. Garen could tell with a glance, as long as he could go past this fusion doorstep, the White Rose Sword Sage would be able to enter Form Five.

It was just that totem users took different amounts of time to overcome this doorstep, and there were several reasons Garen himself could overcome it so easily.

One was that the Nine-Headed Dragon didn’t have much potential, so it was much easier to level up and fuse.

Secondly, his own condition had coincidentally improved by one level, achieving something similar to Phiros. He called it the Dragon Mirror level, taken half from the Nine-Headed Dragon and half from a clear mirror.

After levelling up, the Flash Screen became rather less useful, in his battle with the Cthulhu King, he had activated the Flash Screen, but it only lasted an instant, and then it was destroyed by the violent red light, if he had not pulled it back so quickly, the Heirloom would probably have been utterly destroyed by now.

Although the thing looked like it had no upper limit, but it was still only at the Form Five middle level, back when he had first gotten it he had thought it was very suitable for self-defense during the fusion period, but now that that was over, it was no longer very useful.

"The other three sides of the Parliament had all made drastic moves, should we the Black Swamp Palace also...?" Skyharp glanced at the rest, but since nobody spoke, she began first.

"Drastic moves?" Garen laughed, now that he had achieved Form Five, he was already standing at the peak of the whole East Continent. He was no longer that concerned with the actions of the other three giants. "Forget about them, we do what we need to. How many people are there in the Palace now?"

"Other than the guards and miscellaneous workers, there are 2315 people in total in the Black Swamp Palace, these are the newest surveyed numbers. Of these, about 2000 of them are scholars. Most of them were recruited in extra batches after you left, Palace Master, and also, the most recent researcher rankings are..." Lala stood behind Garen, reporting softly.

Garen nodded slowly as he listened, and had more or less gotten a new understanding of the happenings within the Palace since he had left.

The governance plans in the Kingdom had seen many successes and achievements, developing the agriculture and production industries, encouraging birth rates, treating the people well, increasing trade and diplomacy. The whole Kingdom had also spawned many hunting teams, setting out to hunt edible Aberrated creatures for meat, while others were studying ways to tame the Aberrated creatures as livestock. Without the destruction brought on by wars and monsters, the development of the Kingdom seemed to be heading up and up.

A few days ago, the First Princess had gathered some strong totem users from among the civilians and the refugee nobles, creating an organization called the Pearl Party. The party’s mission was to create a truly borderless world where men and women were equal. It was very successful in attracting many female totem users and forgers.

And the Fourth Prince decisively reacted by starting the National Development Society, taking on the responsibility to develop Kovitan and make it prosper, pulling in many wandering totem users.

The two sides fought like fire and oil, each starting their own activities to duke it out. Stuff like hunting strong Aberrated monsters, gathering precious plants and minerals, organizing mock battles and other such activities.

The third party, the Alliance of the many Guilds kept swaying between the two sides, earning benefits from both the monarchs-in-waiting who wanted to control Kovitan’s true inheritance rights.

While they were wreaking havoc over there with their battles, the Black Swamp Palace’s side only made one small move in the very beginning when they went out to catch the Poison Hag, and after that they made no more drastic moves, either resting and conserving their energy, or training their researchers and disciples. The maintenance of the entire Black Swamp Palace depended on the profits from the auction business and the many shops, their main commodity for sale being the results of the Technique Hall’s creations and the things their scholars brought back from their outside excursions and trainings.

"By that you mean, that the system I wanted has been successfully created?" Garen asked in a deep voice.

"That is right." The person-in-charge of the Technique Hall, Master Calingan, replied, "I named it the Nine Snakes System, and completed the Palace Master’s previous requests with extreme precision, after testing it many times, it has no problem whatsoever, and is now under partial trial."

"Nine Snakes? Not bad. We here at the Palace encourage our researchers and disciples to go out and gain experiences, and also we can accept hiring requests from outside powers, if the Palace’s Elders have any troublesome needs, they can also set up a quest on the system, providing their own rewards. This platform system can be used as an optimal tool for communicate and distribute resources." Gare nodded.

After more and less understanding their recent developments, Garen’s gaze moved to the scholars and disciples.

"The top three of the previous ranking competition, show yourselves."