Chapter 459: Development 1

Deep in the Black Swamp Palace after it was renamed, on a newly created training arena.

The family's Guard Captains, Maxilan and Edney stood at the sides, and there were eight newly-recruited disciples standing in the middle. They all wore identical extravagant black fighting clothes, so be it the men or women, they all looked extremely handsome and sharp.

Garen stood in front of them, his hands behind his back, his gaze almost solid as it swept across the many disciples.

He said nothing at all, and had been standing like that for a long time already, his gaze just kept staring at these newly-recruited disciples.

Rather than calling them his disciples, they were more like the experimental subjects he had chosen for his invented exercises. He needed practical applications to test whether or not the Black Water True Technique could truly allow normal people to overcome their limits, and different people had different bodies, so naturally the effects of their training would be different as well. This was also in preparation for that thing that might happen in the future.

The three average Masters stood at the very front, and made no sound whatsoever, in complete contrast to the impatience on some of the others' faces. To be able to train themselves until the Master-level among the normal humans, they would naturally have exceptional patience.

The sunlight of dawn fell lightly on everyone there, reflecting a black-ish silk light.

Garen finally spoke.

"Other than myself, nobody has ever learned my own Black Water True Technique, so even I don't know what will happen when I teach it you all." He told them frankly that this was an experiment.

"There's still time now if you want to turn back."

The three masters, two men and one woman, were the three Garen favored the most, while the disciples behind them were a level behind, who didn't get such a high ranking, they were just particularly suited to the Black Water True Technique.

As for these second-level disciples, there were more women than men, three to two.

Upon hearing Garen's words, nobody reacted much, since they had defeated the odds to get here, of course they would have made all the mental preparations.

"Great, now I'll teach you the first level. After you've achieved that, then come to me for the second level." Garen didn't say any more, and passed down the first level of the Black Water True Technique secret technique directly.

After structuring the Black Water True Technique, there were four levels among the normal people, and then was the critical point, once they broke through that, it would be a new world for them, enabling them to activate totem power.

Garen explained each of the thousand words regarding the first level, word by word.

And then came the time to answer everyone's questions.

The time ticked by.

The three Masters didn't have many questions, they had long since obtained utter control over their own bodies, even though the first level of the Black Water True Technique didn't suit them particularly well, they still understood it in no time.

He glanced at the three Masters, satisfied.

"From today onwards, there will be an internal competition every week, and the top three would get certain rewards, these three would be the Black Swamp Palace's strongest disciples, if you can maintain your position consistently, your reward will be steadily increased. There will be unexpected surprises in store."

Garen said with a smile.

After the large-scale recruitment drive just yesterday, the influx of people into the Black Swamp Palace was extraordinary.

The small families and merchants who wanted to kiss up to him provided vast supplies and riches, just the money from the external self-sponsored disciples had reached a terrifying figure of several tens of thousands of golden rumbs, and this wasn't a one-time-only profit either, but their annual study fees. There were other expenses too, like accommodation fees and such.

These disciples stayed inside the Palace District, and every day these eight disciples would set up a platform, waiting for Garen to teach them the Black Water True Technique.

This was Garen especially letting his disciples form their own forces, each of them would create their own groups of interest, and as it went down, those would band into more groups. This way, the influence of the Black Swamp Palace would achieve extreme heights.

As for whether or not the spies from the other forces would learn his technique, Garen was not worried in the slightest.

Because the Black Water True Technique had a special characteristic, which was that he had invented it completely based on his own body, and it was the secret technique exercise that suited him best, so nobody could beat him at it.

The Form Five fighters from the other powers all had special techniques that suited them, it just wasn't convenient for them to spread it.

The only key difference between the Black Water True Technique and their secret techniques was that little bit of crucial technique required to transcend limits

This method was so that they could only transcend under Garen's own hand, and it was only theoretical too, without any practical precedent.

With his micro-control ability as the King of the Century, he needed to touch that most crucial point, and this was basically unreplicable. Because there wasn't another King of the Century here in this world.

Of course, maybe many, many years from now, someone would be able to discover the mysteries of it, but understanding its mysteries did not equal to being able to practice it. Because that was a hand technique from another world, and wasn't something that could be overcome with just imagination, it still required some immersion in another world's Secret Technique system as well as their style and influence.

In order to prevent the secret exercises leaking out, Garen had used all sorts of methods.

Other than this crucial hand he kept to himself, he also embedded all sorts of smokescreens and obstructions into the exercises. By putting in some useless hand techniques and training steps, he made it seem like a half-lie, half-truth.

And the Black Water True Technique was divided into two versions, one simple version that was only one of the moves from his Northern Capturing Hand plus a little bit of content from the Myriad Water Jasper Technique, this simple version couldn't activate totem power, and its function was to allow the learner to be more suited to the Black Swamp Armor, so they can get used to the Green Vine Sphere's power.

Garen divided his Ten Thousand Mammoths Battle Skills into individual moves, and each move was made into a simplified version as well, merged with the Myriad Water Jasper Technique, to form the four Palace Districts, North, South, East and West.

The four Districts trained in different types of the Ten Thousand Mammoths Battle Skills, and once one had learned them all, the result would be a totem user's version, the Four Directions Battle Skills.

East King Hand, West Phoenix Fist, Southern Double Fist, Northern Capturing Hand.

Garen himself was quite curious, he didn't know how strong these simplified versions of his own martial arts essence would be once they were totemized.

He called the simplified versions the Four Direction Ten Thousand Mammoths, and he had listed out a Four Directions Sky Warrior for each district, in a throwback to his title from the Secret Technique World.

The Four Directions Sky Warriors had the same status as core disciples, or even higher, as they had to right to mobilize a certain proportion of the Black Swamp Palace's external powers, which basically meant he had gathered the influence of the external self-sponsored disciples and divided it among the four of them.

This was a very formidable power, because as more people swore allegiance to the Black Swamp Palace, the more totem users and forgers they had. After the collapse of the war, many totem users and forgers ran back to the Kingdom, and practically all the large powers were madly absorbing manpower right now.

The position of the Four Directions Sky Warriors came from battle, the four districts fought their own internal competitions, and the strongest one had the right to become a Sky Warrior, which would earn them Garen's personal bestowal of the Black Swamp Palace's four strongest suits of Black Swamp Armor.

That was the elite armor belonging to the four strongest guards.

This was the external side.

As for the core disciples, it would depend on what level they could reach.

If they were suitable, Garen would personally choose a totem from the Royal Treasury and bestow it upon them.

There were many totems in the Royal Treasury, even the rare and precious ones numbered up to at least several hundred. As for the regular totems, now that Garen had more and more forgers under his own wing, it wouldn't be too hard just to create them himself.

They could also choose the totems they liked, or ask the Black Swamp Palace's forgers to customize one for them.

After teaching the first level of the Black Water True Technique, Garen discussed the family's situation with Maxilan and Edney for a bit, and at the same time he advised them on some of their Black Water True Technique before he left the plaza, heading for the Palace District's Technique Hall.

On the way, he saw that many of the destroyed areas within the entire Palace District had been fixed, and in some of the places the forgers were concentrated on setting up Alarm Tactic Formations, while several teams of patrolling Black Swamp Guards occasionally wove their way through the surroundings, their footsteps resonating in unison.

When he walked past the Garden District, from a distance, Garen saw Kid talking to a little girl.

The little girl was trying hard to practice the West Phoenix Fist's basic moves, her black hair tied into a short ponytail, her little face full of determination as she ignored Kid's jokes and laughter beside her.

Kid was sprawled on a swing, and would occasionally say something, as though teasing the little girl.

Garen was just slightly surprised that he had accepted such a young self-sponsored student, and then he walked away directly.

That girl was no more than ten years old, give or take, but she seemed surprisingly determined. Perhaps she was a promising talent, but right now Garen had more than his fair share of promising talents, so he wasn't too bothered.

Nobody could fight him for genius disciples with a talent for secret techniques in this world.

Going past the Garden District, he went past a few areas of the Plaza District, which had the sounds of training coming from them.

Soon enough, he went into a small garden forest, and a white palace hall deep inside appeared in front of him instantly.

The palace hall was triangular in shape, like a pyramid, and had small round entrances on all four sides. The whole palace was divided into three floors, the lowest floor being the largest, a full fifty or sixty meters wide.

There were Silver Palace Guards and Black Swamp Guards standing guard at the entrances. Upon seeing Garen approaching, the guards all lowered their heads and bowed.

A young pretty girl walked out quickly from the small palace hall, it was Lala.

Her long red-brown hair was tied into a stupa-like shape at the side of her head, and she wore a black dress, a dark-red waist belt tied around her waist, the black-red colors creating a sharp contrast with her clear white skin.

"Palace Master." Lala had also changed the way she addressed him, lowering her head slightly at Garen.

"How's the situation?" Garen walked into the small palace hall, and asked casually.

"We've already recruited eighteen forgers, each of them at least Form Two. There are also two Form Three ones, they were professors from the destroyed Calm Bay City." Lala replied, following behind him.

Inside, the first floor was completely empty, all the forgers were doing their research on the upper floors, and they all lived nearby as well.

The construction here wasn't completely done yet, and some materials had yet to arrive either.

"Are there no Spiritualized Masters here?" Garen asked mildly, sweeping his gaze over the people leaving and entering the first floor's main corridor.

A forger was only a Master after achieving Spiritualization, it was much harder for them to level up as opposed to totem users, and most of their time was spent on their research.

"We did invite some, but putting aside the other two, there was one Master who had agreed at first, but some reason changed tack again." Lala was frowning slightly too.

Without a Master-level forger in charge, it would be very hard to customize and create high-level totems, and they wouldn't be able to create many excellent totems either. It was very detrimental to the development of the Black Swamp Palace as a whole.

"Changed tack?" Garen narrowed his eyes. "Investigate the reason, if there was some interference, finish them off."

"I suspect it's..."

"Don't need to tell me the reason, my Black Swamp Palace does not fear any power." Garen interrupted her. "Since they have intercepted, they should be ready to face our wrath. If you don't have enough manpower you can mobilize twenty Black Swamp Guards, if that's still enough then go apply from the Silver Palace, he won't refuse you."

"If a high-level totem user appears..."

"It just so happens that the Elder Angel is still missing some medicines and main ingredients, if they make a move just once, they'll reap plenty of rewards." Garen replied, walking to the door to a sealed room on the left.

"While I'm not around, you settle any problems on your own, if there's a problem you can't settle, then go ask the elders, if even the elders can't handle it, then only do you come to me."

"Understood." Lala replied crisply now, after following Garen for so long, she had long since gotten used to handling all sorts of matters."

Bam.

Garen pushed open the door and entered the sealed room.

The sealed room was utterly pitch black from top to bottom, there was a simple drawing of huge salamander dragon head carved into the center of the floor, its two blood-red eyes narrow, long and vicious, and they just happened to be the only source of light in this sealed room.

Garen closed the door, walked to the area in front of the dragon eyes, and sat down cross-legged.

In the darkness, soon enough, the three scarlet dots on his brow lit up slowly, emitting the same bloody red glow.

*****************

The Kingdom's Cloud Light District

Hathaway stood in her own garden, pruning flower branches, ever since she came back from the hospital last time, the conference was held, and Garen became one of the four main heads, the whole long line of changes catching her off guard.

And her position now had also become somewhat in the air.

Recently the Black Fire Palace was renamed into the Black Swamp Palace, and recruited six peak-level elders at once, causing its power to skyrocket. It had become a power that the entire Kingdom feared terribly.

The other powers were feeling threatened as well, so they hurriedly looked for strong fighters to join them. As a result, the situation in the Kingdom now was that everyone was peacefully developing on their own.

The First Princess and the Fourth Prince were both developing themselves hastily, faced with the terrifying prospect of Garen and six elite fighters at the same level as him, they were all feeling that sense of danger.

It was just that all these were quite distant from Hathaway.

At first she had hoped that Garen would be able to make a name for himself, develop and strengthen the family, and now that he had reached this target, as a member of the Trejons family, even if only a side branch, she could still feel the attitudes of those around her changing. Everything seemed to be changing for the better.

Picking up the watering can, she sprayed the clean water onto the pruned bushes lightly.

The early morning sunlight scattered onto the flower bushes, causing the drops of water to reflect the crystal clear sunlight.

"Little Sofie~~ Are you home?" Sylvia started yelling again.

In the end she hadn't left after all, and her family didn't leave either, choosing instead to stay, mostly because of Garen's influence from back then.

"Sylvia, are you done with today's work as well?" Hathaway turned around to see Sylvia attempting to ambush her. The voice had seemed so distant just now, but she had suddenly run up so close to her in such a short time.