Celine struggled for a while, but Garen's strength was much stronger than hers, so she failed to escape.
"Help! He's trying to…" Garen put his hand over her mouth and greatly muffled her voice, but he could still understand what she was trying to say.
Garen's head ached. People would consider him a pedophile if they saw what he was doing to this little girl and he did not know how his parents and sister would think of him.
"Let me go…!" Celine shouted.
"Stop saying random sh*t and I'll let you go." Garen felt his temples were throbbing.
"I won't say it anymore!" Celine nodded like a chicken pecking at its food.
Garen slowly released her after hearing her words.
Celine wiped the dust off her clothes and stepped back. "Pervert!"
Garen's expression changed again. "Well, I already gave you the chance…" He spoke in a gravelly tone and pounded his fists against each other several times.
"Fine, I'll stop." Celine finally had a serious look on her face. "You were planning to take Erudas in even if I didn't come, right?"
"You already knew?" Garen nodded. "He has talent and perseverance. Actually, if he's trying to learn from me, perseverance is much more important than just talent."
He stared at Celine. "I think you already knew a lot about me, but I still know nothing about you."
Celine hesitated for a second. "I'm the heir of the ancient Martial Arts, Neptune Fist, and I think you already know that I'm much older than my appearance. I used the Essence Locking Techniques to keep myself in a peak state. As an apology, I can give you the secret techniques if you want.
"Neptune Fist…" Garen scrunched his eyebrows. "I didn't know that there was still a heir of that sect."
"I'm the last one," Celine answered in a light tone. "By the way, I'm still a virgin."
Garen was speechless. "Well, I don't care about that! Please don't change topic or else I can't follow."
"Virgin Grandma, someone's coming," Erudas suddenly said.
Garen was surprised and had not noticed the footsteps until Erudas told him.
He turned around and stared at the young boy Erudas. "Your sensory perception is keen… I didn't notice at all…"
Garen thought for a second and glanced around. He noticed that Celine was getting nervous.
The footsteps were getting closer, he could hear people swearing, and the tension was building up.
"Follow me," Garen finally spoke. He turned around and walked toward the manor. Celine felt relieved, grabbed the boy, and followed behind Garen.
After resting in Su Lin's manor for three days, Garen felt much better and had recovered from the injury.
Angela asked for a courtyard close to the lake and moved in. Garen spent most of his time training the Mammoth Secret Technique and he wanted to make sure that his body was in the best condition. He also started preparing the equipment needed to learn the Firestream Fist.
Celine and Erudas stayed with Garen the whole time and did not go to any other places. They lived in a temporary tent beside the courtyard and the army brought them supplies every day.
Garen helped the boy recover by invigorating the blood circulation around his arms, but Garen did not mention anything about teaching him Martial Arts.
However, it seemed like the two did not care. They looked happy living in the tent provided by the army and probably had not had a good rest in a while.
It was afternoon, the setting sun decorated Lake Saima with rays of red sunlight, and the golden reflection on the surface of the lake was breathtaking.
Inside the rectangular yard beside the lake, Garen dangled from a black iron frame. Garen's hands and face turned purple due to the exertion.
He inhaled deeply and his stomach rose. The purple color disappeared slowly from his face and hands as he inhaled.
Hoo!
Garen exhaled all the air in his torso and started hitting his palms with his fingers. This repeated process was how he learned the Dark Iron Palm. In order to practice this low-rank Secret Technique, he had to hang from the frame.
The Dark Iron Palm was a low-rank Secret Technique and a lot of people tried to learn it. Martial Artists or people who were just interested in Martial Arts would try to learn it after obtaining the Secret Technique. No matter how weak a Secret Technique was, it would still be stronger than average Martial Arts.
Of the many people that practiced the Dark Iron Palm, the best of them had palms harder than iron and their palm skills could deal damage with their evil power. However, they were only slightly stronger than normal Martial Artists.
Low-rank Secret Techniques were created by Martial Artists that broke past their limitations. The Dark Iron Palm was a bit better than the Iron Body because it could convert the toxins and useless substances in the body into evil power.
By practicing the Dark Iron Palm, Garen could better maintain his health. Garen kept repeating the procedure and would hit his fingers against his palms every time he exhaled all the air from his abdomen.
His long purple hair blocked his view, so he decided to close his eyes and check the skill bar. After practicing the basic training method for a while, some changes finally occurred to the bar.
The row for the Dark Iron Palm started getting blurry.
"Finally…" Garen was excited. He started practicing this morning and finally made some progress by the afternoon.
The words behind the Dark Iron Palm changed quickly: "Dark Iron Palm: Beginner Level (Two levels in total)."
Garen felt something heavy and muddy inside his body that quickly travelled toward his hands. His body was relaxed but his hands became heavy.
He opened his eyes and looked at his palms. Garen's hands had already turned grey as if they were soaked in ink.
Garen looked at the attribute bar unintentionally and noticed that some of the attributes had changed as well.
209215
His Stamina increased from 2.09 to 2.15.
"Nice, I didn't expect the Dark Iron Palm to help increase my Stamina," Garen observed his hands carefully.
"I wonder how much damage it can do. Let me give it a try first." Garen looked around and found a small white tree at the corner of the yard.
Garen reached at his feet and untied the rope. He landed on the ground and walked toward the tree quickly.
He raised his palms and pressed them against the surface of the tree. Nothing spectacular happened, but there were two black handprints left on its surface after Garen lowered his hands.
Two black ants were climbing up the tree and they slowed down right after reaching the handprints. Their legs trembled, their bodies curled up, and then they fell from the tree after several seconds.
"That's the poison from the Dark Iron Palm?" Garen glanced around. "I need something more than the ants. Umm…"
Angela called the guards and asked them to find some cats or dogs. Then, Garen started forcing them to touch the handprints on the tree. The handprints disappeared after killing a dog.
Garen finally had a general understanding of the strength level of the poison from the Dark Iron Palm. "Way too weak. Killing some small animals is the best it can do. Maybe it'll work on a normal person, but all of the Grandmasters of Combat have high resistance and Dark Iron Palm will do no damage to them."
"Well, let me see what the Firestream Fist can do." He asked the guards to bring him the equipment for practicing the Firestream Fist.
It was a whole basin of black iron sand and the basin was placed above a large pot of burning charcoal. Garen stood in front of the basin and rolled up his sleeves.
"The Mammoth Secret Technique can be combined with the Iron Body, but I'm not sure if the Dark Iron Palm can be combined with the Firestream Fist. I hope I still have some Attribute Points left. If I do, I'll be able to level them up to the highest level!" Garen shook his head and stopped thinking. He quickly put his hands into the sizzling sand and then immediately took them out. Garen kept repeating this process.
He also used the special breathing and blood circulation methods from the Firestream Fist technique to ensure that the blood flow in his body was correct.
Garen's hands slowly turned reddish. Although he reached the master level of body hardening techniques, his hands were still burning after constantly contacting the heated sand. His skin had turned black due to the Dark Iron Palm and the resulting dark red color looked like rust.
The size of his hands doubled and dense maroon patterns slowly rose from the skin of his hands.
He could feel the heat from his hands and a chill rushed down to them from his brain. This chill started to slowly neutralize the heat from the iron sand.
Garen closed his eyes and stared at the skill bar. After a while, changes appeared to the row with the Firestream Fist.
The text became blurry: "Firestream Fist: Beginner Level (Four levels in total)."
Another change appeared on the skill bar after he reached the beginner level of the Firestream Fist. The Firestream Fist and Dark Iron Palm's text became blurry at the same time.
"I knew it! The Firestream Fist and Dark Iron Palm were all Secret Techniques that train people's hands. Learning them together will create a new combination, just like the time I trained the Iron Body and Boulder Martial Art!" Garen stared at the changes with excitement. This was the reason why he had decided to learn these two Secret Techniques first.
The Firestream Fist and Dark Iron Palm disappeared from the skill bar simultaneously and were replaced by a new skill.