The petite lady and the black shirt guy were silent at the same time.
"Thank you Miss." Vicky said softly and lowered her head, silent again.
Garen said calmly.
"If it is possible, I hope that we could take along everything we need during the journey. The resources in Aisley City should be abundant. We will arrange our affairs later according to the threat of the situation.
"Alright." Angel nodded her head.
After dinner, some fed their horses while most returned to their carriages. 3 horse-drawn carriages were tied to a cluster of trees by the side of the road. It was covered with some branches and hay in an attempt to keep it hidden.
Garen returned to his carriage and took a glance at his potential points.
It was now at 248 points.
He looked out from the window and saw Reylan and Angel exchanging a few sentences here and there. He had no idea what they were talking about. Both of them sat near the fire; the atmosphere was strangely harmonious.
He retracted his gaze.
"Since I am unable to upgrade silver totems, let’s just upgrade another primitive totem."
He held out his forefinger. Behind him a blue light glimmered and a blue laser shot out. The blue laser landed on Garen’s fingertips, suddenly transforming into a neon butterfly.
The neon butterfly the size of a face basin lightly battered it’s wings, emitting a soft blue glow around it.
Garen let out a white gold aura, covering his surroundings to prevent anyone else from walking in on him without him knowing.
Then, his line of gaze fell unto the Totem column below his field of vision.
"Neon butterfly: First form totem, can be upgraded. Probability of successful evolution: 21%. Probability points needed for gene fragment activation: 500%. Non-chain activation.
Ability: Poison pollen attack (Dispersed in the form of poisonous pollen, only up to 3 times in a day. Effect: paralysis, death.
"This was the totem given to me by my teacher, which was also my first totem. Let’s see how my luck is. If my potential power is sufficient…"
Garen did not continue his thoughts, focusing instead on the icon.
After 3 seconds, "Buzz…"The icon blurred for a while and quickly became clear again. It failed.
The second time – the icon blurred and became clear again; it has failed yet again.
The third time – the icon blurred, this time it did not become clear right away, but stayed in that state for some time, and its whole body started to turn transparent quickly.
In less than 10 minutes, the entire neon butterfly the size of a face basin disappeared directly in front of Garen’s eyes. Only through the touch of his fingertips, Garen was clear that the neon butterfly was still at the same place it was before.
His face was filled with astonishment. "I remember when it came to neon butterflies, according the information teacher gave me, wasn’t the evolution supposed to turn it into a poisonous white butterfly instead of this?" Right before he left he had received some information from Emin; it was in relation to the neon butterfly. Amongst the info, there was a section that stated one of the evolution paths this butterfly could take: poisonous white butterfly.
But right now it was obvious his evolved butterfly was not a poisonous white butterfly, which was stated in the recorded data.
Garen looked carefully and could barely see the neon butterfly on his fingertips. There was only a small outline; if he were to use his 5 senses he wouldn’t be able to detect it at all.
He couldn’t help but looked towards the icon description under the totem pane.
"Color changing butterfly: Neon butterfly’s level two evolution, second form primitive totem. Can’t be upgraded, Ultimate totem.
Ability: Invisibility through discoloration (Senses and adapts to the subtle colors of the environment’s light rays, in purpose of achieving invisibility).
Reproducing offspring (The color changing moths reproduced can be used as a spying or investigative tool. Once every day.)
Poison pollen attack (Poisonous pollen can cause dizziness, hallucinations and paralysis. Effect upon contact.)
Garen wrinkled his brows.
Color changing butterfly’s abilities disappointed him a little.
When it came to sleuthing, he already had the beetle. In this very moment, hundreds of beetles are all around, ready to return with danger reports if it ever came to that. This ability was sort of redundant. However, the invisibility sounds good.
"Not all totem evolutions go according to our wishes."Garen shook his head. As he flung his fingers lightly, he thought he remembered something.
An idea came to him.
The color changing butterfly at the tip of his fingers flew up abruptly, its invisible abdomen laid a large amount of brown eggs; it fell unto the table.
These eggs were individually as large as the size of a fingernail, oval in shape.
Garen realized that the description on the color changing butterfly did not mention that there was limit on the number of offspring at all.
As he watched, the brown oval eggs began to rip apart; out of it wriggled transparent moths one by one.
He counted carefully, there were 25 moths.
These small moths soundlessly flew out from the window; under the control of Garen’s consciousness, they flew into the surrounding four directions.
As the days passed, Garen kept on increasing the number of moths; the numbers reached a hundred quickly.
The team has passed through a few empty villages, replenishing some of their basic resources. During this time, Garen’s moths slowly began to grow larger.
The only downside was, color changing butterfly’s offspring consumed silver pieces. It was a good thing Garen brought some silver pieces in preparation.
More than a hundred moths consumed 3 silver pieces in total.
But he had realized the advantage in having these moths.
There was no need for feeding, the only thing they fed on was the power of the totem light. Every time the color changing moths were let out, they could only be controlled up to 2 hours. A rest is needed after that.
These color changing moths were extremely covert. As they scattered around the surrounding areas, none of the monsters had ever managed to detect them.
Although finally, two of the parasitic beetles that were sleuthing from before disappeared. This cut off all contact with Garen’s deep swamp croc.
The group finally ceased their progress; Garen had given directions for them to stop. They will only move forward after he had investigated what had happened.
****************
At night, Garen stood at the edge of the carriage, looking into the faraway fortress of the hills above.
The fortress was built with stone bricks, a tall tower stood in the middle of it. There seemed to be minimal damage as the structures still looked as they should.
The fortress was accompanied with silence; no lights, no torches, nothing. Just pitch black.
Garen furrowed his brows.
"My sleuthing bugs disappeared in the area near this fortress." He turned back and looked at Reylan, who was traveling next to him, speaking in a low voice.
Three carriages circled around a bonfire, waves of faint heat emanated from that area.
Besides a man from the hunting group who was standing guard for Lala, the rest crowded near Garen.
"If my memory serves me right, this fortress may be dangerous. Although the areas nearby are paths we will have to go through. Both sides are terrain and lakes that are way more complicated and difficult to cross. If we were to make a detour, we would need at least 5 days to close in the great distance." Garen explained
"So we should try and see whether it is possible to go through here. If the monsters turn out to be too powerful, we will just leave immediately, correct?" Angel added on,
"Leila."
"Watch me, miss." A guy wearing a red cap nodded his head and lifted up his right arm. Immediately, a silver light shot out from the protective sleeve on his forearm.
The silver light landed on the ground in front and turned into a golden lioness right away.
Roarrrr…
The lioness growled and bent over to look at its owner. The tail was a living yellow snake. The head of the snake continuously hissed, coiling around and around while staring intently with its blood red eyes.
The guy with the red cap mounted the lioness and disappeared into the night, heading towards the direction of the fortress. Not a single sound was made.
Garen sensed the troops under his command: the deep swamp croc has already reached a number of 20, the beetles a number of 200. The dual headed salamander was just like a weapon generating war machine; it continuously produced a steady stream of deep swamp crocs, creating a massive army of second form totems. All she needed was time, and she’ll be able to produce large amounts of parasites.
Garen was confident; there was definitely not one third form totem in Obscuro Society that was as scary as this. Their evolutional direction only had a few definite types, which differed from his direction in relying on potential points for evolution; theirs was a controlled evolution with a clear direction.
Mostly importantly, till date, parasitic typed totems were unheard of. The most bizarre totem was the reproductive nest type totem, which was a specialty of the Obscuro society.
The legitimacy of this fact was confirmed by Rylan, who knew Obscuro Society best. Garen learned all this by prompting the answer out of her in an indirect way.
His evolution through potential points was seemingly different from Obscuro.
As he watched the guy in the red cap vanish into the darkness, he had an idea.
More than ten beetles followed Leila and crawled into the fortress.
The people from the hunting group knew that he was mysterious, and had at least 7 or 8 totems under his command. Private and secretive as he was, he always managed to do things none could imagine.
When they left Iron Tank City, everyone, including Angel, was rather anxious and insecure; it was the mysterious and unknown Garen that gave them the biggest sense of security and support. This was the reason why everyone unconsciously turned their eyes to Garen.
"Let’s wait a moment and see what happens. If Leila is able to return safely and verify the situation, I will give him a little reward." He smiled and said calmly.
He already had a vague idea in mind.
At this moment the number of deep swamp crocs produced by the dual headed salamander was way too many; it was an impossible feat to manage all of them in a way that maximized the purpose of creating parasitic beetles. Just feeding and planning alone took up too much effort.
But if he were to distribute it to other people and allow a portion of the beetles to follow the orders of others, this would strengthen the rest and allow them to invest their energy into feeding these beetles, ultimately reaching the larger goal in greater speed.
Using these beetles as rewards for the underlings, as long as they don’t backstab him, he’d be able to achieve the goal of upgrading his abilities safely. The beetles’ abilities will be used at a greater rate; the situation will not be out of grasp either.
All of a sudden Garen thought of something – What if Obscuro’s initial thoughts were similar to his? To issue the derivators out in order to increase their own power and overall strength, at the same time keeping the situation within the palm of their hands?
The excitement that bubbled up shortly before suppressed down again.
"It seems like I have to solve the derivator’s control issue..."