Chapter 841: Fog 1

Potential points could rapidly reduce the time needed, as long as he had a strong enough spirit, he could improve in the shortest time with no side effects. Some weaker, lower level techniques could even be forcefully upgraded using potential points.

Garen's eyes flashed slightly, as though he was holding the staff and examining it carefully, but in truth, he was feeling the constant flow of that refreshing air into his body.

Only when he caressed the gem on the staff slightly would that refreshing air appear, this is how it was different from the Antique of Tragedy from before.

Looking at his attribute pane, he saw that after such a long time, the potential power pane finally began to move slowly.

'Nonosiva Lin - Strength 3.1, Agility 3.0, Vitality 4.7, Intelligence 2.1, Potential 10%. Soul limit 40.'

Just a few seconds of caressing gave him 10% potential value. Although it was not fast, it was still better than nothing. He had used up a lot of potential value and potential points when he was drifting in the Mother Stream, if he could have kept some of it, he would not have been so lost in this world for so long.

Carefully examining his skill pane, Garen chose the skills that could be upgraded with potential points. Unsurprisingly, the low-level Willpower training method, Crouching Eagle Talon, just happened to be forcefully upgradable using the potential points.

"Is it equal to a middle-level secret technique, huh? Two points to increase one level. Looks like it's not too low-level once it's related to supernatural powers."

Garen calculated how many potential points he needed, and came up with a comparison.

In the Secret Technique World, low-level secret techniques needed 1 point to upgrade by one level, middle-level ones needed 2, and high-level ones needed 5. High-level ones also needed to fulfill certain special secret technique training requirements. The Crouching Eagle Talon needed two points to level up once, so it seemed to belong to the same level as middle-level secret techniques.

Finding the hope to leveling up quickly, Garen began to investigate the staff in his hand meticulously, trying to find the source of the emission of potential power.

When he just grabbed the gem, there was no power coming out. But he just had to caress the gem lightly, and a few refreshing wisps would appear. It would not work if he rubbed it too hard either, so it looked like he needed to use the right amount of force to touch and caress it, so that the potential power would reach its maximum value.

He stopped caressing it and found a small knife instead, trying to scratch the red gem on the tip of the staff lightly.

Amidst the scratching sounds, he actually managed to scratch off tiny bits of powder. He did not know what the gem was made of, it was not very hard, and seemed instead like a normal piece of concrete.

After he scratched off a bit of the surface, Garen used his finger to lightly rub the place that was shaved off.

Psst...

A large gust of potential energy surged into his body abruptly, as endless as a river And strangely, this surge was slowly weakening as time passed by.

"I knew it! This thing has a self-regenerating ingredient." Garen noticed that the surface of the crystal had somehow become smooth again, the scratches he had made with the knife disappearing in a flash.

His potential value shot up from 20% to 83%, and then it started to slow down.

102%... 111%... 137%... 144%... 150%... Finally, it stopped at 153%.

"Why has it stopped?"

Garen used the knife to scratch the crystal again, and then touched the place that was shaved with his finger. However, there was no longer a huge surge like before, the speed of increase just sped up ever so slightly.

After that, he constantly tried many other ways, shaving off a lot more powder from the crystal gem. These powders would naturally evaporate and disappear into the air, while the gem on the tip of the staff no longer exploded with power like the first time. Every time he scratched it, the flow would only grow slightly bigger, and then it would not really move anymore.

His initial hypothesis was that the gem on the Staff of Ultimate Yin was probably a treasure that could generate potential power on its own. This treasure would gather some potential power inside it, but it could not store much, and the power would also be slowly released and wasted. That was why there would be a small surge like before.

Garen quickly found details about the Staff of Ultimate Yin from the Internet.

He discovered that the staff had always represented life, reproduction and activeness, it was the symbol of the Mother Planet Federation's Tree Root Elder. No one knew how many there were, but they were extremely rare and valuable.

Within two hours, Garen had finally collected 200% in potential value, meaning he had two potential points.

Without hesitation, he poured the potential points into the Crouching Eagle Talon.

The moment the potential points took effect, his arms made a cracking sound, as though there was a rope or something tying Garen's arms up tightly. Round and round, they seemed to suffocate him.

"It's so tight..."

Garen raised his arms, feeling like back then when he cultivated his Golden Statue Technique. His arms were very tight.

"Too bad I'm not in the same universe so I can't cultivate the Golden Statue Technique, but I can make up for it by training the basics of the Crouching Eagle Talon." Garen could feel his Willpower increasing again slowly. Under the effect of the potential points, it was moving towards Level Three. Relaxing in his heart, Garen began to wonder how he could strengthen this training method.

Based on his martial arts that had once reached the top and approached Army Level, and his experience with secret techniques, it was very easy for him to patch up a low-level training method like this, and reach the point where his body and Willpower were in sync.

Soon enough Garen modeled an easier path in his heart, taking apart everything he could use from the Divine Statue Technique that was once his strongest, and melding it with the Crouching Eagle Talon. Without changing the part of the Crouching Eagle Talon that cultivated the Willpower, he made up for its shortcomings in upgrading his arms instead.

Secret techniques trained the general qualities, such as the resilience of the body cells, wheres Willpower was a deep-level living force generated from the cells, the two of them should work together pretty well.

Garen checked a lot of information, and it was because the strength of the body had an effect on Willpower, so that there even used to be a school of pilots who trained their bodies to the extreme. Eventually, however, it was lost because it could not spread far enough.

"Since I've found a direction, I can try to merge it for a bit."

With the effect of the potential points, Garen was no longer worried about his improvement speed, but rather about the direction he should advance in. His own level was enough to reach a very high level, but if he did not grasp the direction right, he might restrict his own development, or end up in a dead-end, delaying himself.

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

Blackboard Region, Blackboard Academy

Under the quiet tree, Vera slowly walked up to the boys' dormitory building.

It had been a few days since Nonosiva left, and his student card was getting slightly magnetized, so the school issued him a new one. Instructor Hamm noticed that Nono and Vera were close, so he passed it to her to pass to him.

Along with that girl from before, Vera kept sticking to Nonosiva like glue recently. She used to be just a very normal pretty girl in the class who just happened to be slightly more innocent-looking, but after approaching Nono, even if he was not very close to her, she had still earned the respect of many of her classmates. Some students from the other classes even treat her as though she was Nono's girlfriend.

Vera particularly enjoyed the feeling of kowtowing and envy from among girls, she believed that she was naturally meant to enjoy life.

Holding the student card, Vera openly walked into the dorm building. Some of the students who were familiar with her greeted her with smiles.

Vera walked to Nono's dorm door, and hesitated for a while, before lightly inserting the student card into the scanning machine at the door.

Boop-boop.

The scanner lock made a few sounds, and then there was the smack of the door opening automatically.

"I'll leave after I put this student card down, when Nono comes back, he'll renew the information and change out the old ones," she thought, walking inside and placing the student card on the table in the room.

She turned around and was about to leave, but there was an unbearable itch in her heart, and she just could not take that step.

"Nono's not here anyway, so I might as well see what secrets he's hiding... How could he get those princes from the Blue Narcissus to place so much emphasis on him..."

Vera's heart was slowly starting to burn.

Closing the door lightly, she looked around her, and then drew the blinds.

First, she looked in the bedside drawers, after flipping through them, she found just plain clean underwear, socks, and the like. There was nothing really else.

Then came the desk, she opened each of the drawers that were lined up. The first held study notes and materials, the second electronic components, chargers, and so on. As for the third drawer, Vera yanked it hard, but somehow could not open it.

"Could it be the secret in this drawer?" Her heart burned, and she looked around the room, but she could not find a key. Finally, she tried waving the student card at the lock.

Boop-boop... smack!

It was unlocked.

Vera was instantly overjoyed, and she pulled open the drawer quickly.

Inside, there was a thick stack of white documents.

"What's this!?" She picked them up and flipped through them casually. "Contract for high-energy fuel powder...? Signed by...Nonosiva... Vivienne... Celine..."

Hiss... Suddenly she took a sharp intake of breath. On the document, she saw a large string of numbers spelling out a gargantuan sum.

That was almost a million Universal Units! And that was just for one month!

"The document says that all the contractees will earn according to these percentages... Nono himself will get this much! That's... that's practically free money!" Vera was in complete shock, feeling as though her eyes were sparkling with gold.

She took out all the documents quickly, and found large stacks of cash at the very bottom. The pale green notes were all the largest denominator, a thousand units, and such a thick pile would probably mean several hundred thousand units.

"So much money...!" Although Vera's family was very rich, they were also rather strict with how much pocket money they gave their kids. The children would not get more than ten thousand a month, and her family was only average compared to others in the school. Outside, she might be considered a princess or a rich young miss, but here, she was completely unassuming.

Under these circumstances, the power relations and money struggles between girls became the way to measure the standard worth of the pretty girls.

Vera often found herself with less than enough money every month, after going to so many of those high-end consumer places, she always ended up with nothing. But compared to some other girls, some of them may not even be able to buy a bag.

She had secretly looked for ways to earn money everywhere, but unfortunately, she did not meet with much luck. Several times, she had to resist the urge to find a sugar daddy. She held back in the end, though, because she believed that with her conditions, she would surely be able to find a rich and powerful guy someday.