As for resonance degrees, or several years of painful endurance, he did not truly believe that he would be held back for so long without breaking through.
Since he had the Nameless Training Method, his own side-project– the Hellfrost Peacock Technique, and even the help of his potential points, he did not believe he would be stuck there.
Van Doe looked at Garen, and seemed to have noticed how he did not appear to believe it.
“But that’s fine, Level Four Willpower is enough for you to get some things done already. You can accept missions only elite students can take, to earn credits and Quest Points. Those can be used to exchange for skills or ingredients you require.”
“I understand.”
“Good.” Van Doe took a small white item from his drawer, and tossed it casually. It fell right in front of Garen, who caught it precisely.
“That’s your Elite ID Tag, make sure you don’t lose it. The competition between elite students is a lot crueler than you imagine. There is no name on the tag, so if it was taken away, you would lose your status as an elite. If you don’t get it back within a month, you will be chased out of the Inner Courtyard.”
“Chased out of the Inner Courtyard…” Garen had not known about that rule.
“You know the three most important professors of the Inner Courtyard, they’re the principal and vice principals. They don’t have many students, but all their students are very powerful, even the weakest is at Half-Moon Level. Don’t provoke them. Other than that there are students of the Inherited Level instructors and professors, Red Whale and Rain Veil. Just make sure you don’t get on their bad side. The others are fine, you can treat them however you like. Of course, on the condition that you can beat them.” Van Doe picked up his pipe and took a sharp puff of it. “The rules of the Inner Courtyard state that you can hurt each other during battles normally, but you can’t kill anyone.”
“I understand.”
Garen replied respectfully.
“Well, now you’ve understood the gist of it. Every five days, I’ll have a lecture about the Crouched Eagle Talon, and your senior brothers and sister will rush back for it too. When they come back, you can meet them. For now, leave,” Van Doe chased him away.
“Yes.”
Garen lowered his head and retreated out of the room.
The huge space inside the Inner Courtyard was just like the real world.
There was a bright and dazzling sun in the sky, as well as orderly streets and rows of properly-arranged buildings of different heights. He could vaguely see the yellow and white lines marking the grey roads between the buildings.
The flow of traffic and pedestrians moved at different speeds down the roads.
Compared to outside, however, it was much quieter in here.
Coming out from Professor Van Doe’s house, Garen lifted his hand and glanced at his wristwatch. He had received some messages just now, but he had temporarily turned it to Silent, so he had just felt a slight vibration.
The Caller ID on the watch indicated that it was Celine.
“How’s it? How does it feel to enter the Inner Courtyard?”
“I don’t feel anything in particular. This place is very large, it looks just like another separate reality. The surroundings they created here are very realistic,” said Garen as he casually walked towards one of the streets.
After walking for some time, he found a spot, and sat down on a long bench. The bench was at the crossroads, so it was close to the point of highest traffic.
Garen talked to Celine disinterestedly while he observed the passersby here nonchalantly.
“As expected of the Inner Courtyard, any random stranger just walking around here has Level Two Willpower at the very least. On average, most of the people here are at Level Three,” sighed Garen, his eyes fixed on the people walking past him.
“Of course, the monsters in the Inner Courtyard are all the elites of the elites, carefully chosen every year. Even the two of us did not make it in the beginning,” Celine chuckled. “At first I was making preparations too, to get into the Inner Courtyard beforehand, but I never thought you would be so far ahead of me. As expected of someone with military credit, I’m starting to wonder if I should go and get some for myself.”
“Go ahead, your powers are pretty much there. Just go and patrol somewhere, catch some terrorists a few times, and it won’t be hard for you to create some military credit,” said Garen approvingly. “Now that the White Light has declared war, many terrorists in the area are just raring to go. It’s the best chance for you guys to make a name for yourselves.”
“True. I feel like I’m going to breakthrough my level soon. It should be this month or next, then I’ll be in Level Three too,” said Celine very frankly.
“Congratulations.” Garen felt speechless. If he did not have the help of the secret techniques and potential points, there was no way he could have reached Level Three so quickly. Celine truly was a real peak-level prodigy, she was already on the verge of Level Three just like that.
“After a while, we plan to work together to buy some Lamda Alloy, you interested?”
“Lamda Alloy?” Garen knew about that, it was a main material used in creating high-level Mechs, its specs were very good in all aspects. It was one of the best materials to make close-range Mechs.
“Yeah, we gotta start prepping now, right? The most basic materials for making Mechs, engine skills, quantum brain skills, and kinetic frames, those are the four most important foundations. These things are definitely resources required for battle strategies, don’t even think about finding them lying about the market. Even on the black market, you could only buy a bit of these for a ridiculous price. At the most, they can only be used for repairs. If you really wanted to get some, you needed to barter through your connections. If you’re interested, you can start buying with us as well, I’ll put your name in, it’s on me.”
“Is that okay?” Garen knew that the inner circles of Celine’s main family branch had some of the quota on these precious skills and materials. If he added his name to Celine’s, that meant he was taking away her already-limited Mech quota.
“It’s fine, it’s all thanks to you that my ranking could rise, you’re my teacher, y’know!” Celine chortled. This girl, she looked pretty good, and had a good body too, but that laugh… was even manlier than a man’s, completely carefree and with none of a girl’s self-awareness.
“Well, okay then.” Garen felt slightly guilty. The last time they intercepted the White Light’s Shining Mech, Red-White, Celine had not gotten any benefits from it at all. She had taken such a huge risk for nothing, and now he had to rely on her again.
But right now he really did not have channels to buy rare materials, perhaps he should look around the Blue Narcissus’ place, apparently they had channels especially for this. Only he did not know if he could buy such high-grade stuff.
Actually, Garen did not harbor many hopes, If it was that easy to obtain, Celine would not try so hard to find any channel. After all, it was a simple matter to get a member of Blue Narcissus to buy something for her.
“Okay, then you send someone over. I’ll get someone from this side to meet you,” Celine said shortly.
“I’ll send Kendall over to discuss with your man, as for the general details…” Garen’s voice stopped suddenly, his gaze sweeping over a slightly familiar figure, and his eyes abruptly narrowing.
That was a woman’s figure, long and slender, with some very long legs by proportion. She wore black leather clothes, her long golden hair let loose over her shoulder. She had curves in all the right places, and gave off an intensely sexy, well-trained aura.
This woman walked out from a convenience store on the street, holding a plastic bag in her hand, with some vegetables and fruits in it. Yawning, she walked towards a large black bike by the roadside.
“…I’ll call you back later, something urgent’s come up,” said Garen to his watch, and then he cut the connection. Standing up, he strode straight towards the woman.
But his gaze was trained on a small alley beside the woman, as though he was a passerby who wanted to walk into the alley.
The woman turned around, glanced at him, and yawned again. Her eyes were the perfect peach-blossom almond-shape, her pupils were scarlet red and very beautiful.
“It’s her!”
Garen had already remembered, this woman was that person dressed in black who had suddenly barged into his hospital room, back when he had first come to this world and was grievously injured. Her eyes, and her basically unchanged body proportions, all immediately reminded him of the situation back there.
This was the woman who nearly ruined this body’s eyes, and even worse, she nearly destroyed one of his Soul Seeds when he just arrived in this world.
Back then Garen had already decided that he would definitely find her again, and repay her properly for what she had done. However, he had never found her again, until he just stumbled into her in the Inner Courtyard.
The blonde-haired, red-eyed woman looked to be no older than twenty. Right now, she had none of the sharp edge she had back then, she just looked like a regular beauty who was extremely mentally tired.
She gave Garen a strange look, and put the bag into the bike’s carrier at the back. Lifting one of her long legs, she got onto the heavy-duty bike.
With a ‘vroom’, the engine kicked into gear. The bike moved slowly, and was getting ready to take off.
Just then, Garen reached less than a meter away from her, and reached out his hand abruptly.
Psst!!
His hand, arched like a claw, seemed to tear through the wind, making a hissing sound as it grabbed for the woman’s weakest area, her neck. With this claw, Garen had used 30% of his power. If a regular person was grabbed by him like that, they would surely be unable to resist. All the power in their bodies would be jolted away, and they would be helpless. If they tried to resist him face-on, with Garen’s vitality and strength, even regular weapons would not be able to block this move of his. As long as they were not peak-level weapons, stuff like blades would just be broken in half.
This grab was evidently completely out of the woman’s expectations, both her hands were on the motorcycle handlebars, and it was too late for her to react when she saw his claw coming.
“You!!”
Her pupils dilated abruptly.
Boom!!
A transparent jolt exploded around her.
The huge force sent both the woman and Garen flying. The heavy-duty bike was sent flying diagonally, and crashed hard into a wall, making a dull thud.
The woman was evidently fine, and she began to run as soon as she got up. In her hand, she held a small item like a white jade, and it was still dimming slightly. Evidently, it was the source of that explosion just now.
Turning around and glancing at Garen, she saw that he was getting up from the ground, completely unharmed. The woman’s heart grew colder.
“He’s fine!? He took a hit from my Heavenly Water Blast and he’s completely fine! You gotta be kidding me…”
She said nothing else, but ran even faster.
Garen shook his head, the impact just now was equivalent to a small hand grenade. But with his terrifying Vitality stat, that was nearly at five points, and the Hellfrost Peacock Technique’s automatic Frost Protection, not a hair on his head was harmed.
Still, he could not block the force of the impact, and was sent flying.
Looking up, he saw that the woman had run quite a distance. He snorted coldly, and began to give chase.
“Trying to run, are you!”
Within a few seconds, Garen was already no more than several meters behind the woman. He reached out his large hand, and grabbed at her abruptly.
Psst!
A white laser shot past Garen’s claw. It landed on the wall but did not leave any mark except for a wisp of black smoke.
“Stop!”
A young man in a black suit rushed over, and he was somehow running at the same speed as Garen. Facing Garen, he smashed his forearm at Garen’s head. Strangely, his forearm had bolts of blue lightning coming from it, giving Garen a sense of immense threat.