Reappearance 1
Reappearance 1
This type of thing could be continuously reproduced but the production cost for it was excessively high so he could not afford to waste it. After so many years, he had only accumulated two boxes and he did not have enough materials for more because of the extremely high production costs. Hence, he had to put the project aside.
Moreover, it was different from the original Instantaneous Paper Box, this version of the paper box had a much lower endurance level. It only managed to critically damage a level five Energy Machinist. If it were the original version, it could have easily annihilated a peak level five Energy Machinist, even being able to critically damage someone in the resonance state and defend against inherited levels.
"How unfortunate…"
Lying on the back of the speeding Giant Blue Wolf, Garen lightly sighed.
As the two sped towards the Scarlet Snow Sect base, in the eyes of other mutated organisms, all they could see was a blue trail flashing in front of their eyes for a brief instant, none of them were alerted by their movements.
On his way back, Garen passed by a group of Scarlet Snow disciples who were headed out to do some groceries. These people were all praising the feats of March and his men who they just saw earlier.
"Senior Brother March is amazing, his thousand meter voice transmission has already far exceeded the capabilities of Great Senior Brother's hundred meter vision. Looks like as soon as Great Senior Brother reaches Three-Hearts, Senior Brother March will most likely take the first position."
"However, amongst the Two-Hearted Peak Masters, Great Senior Brother's foundation is still the best. No matter who challenges him, he would always come out with at most some minor injuries, unlike the others who always manage to get themselves heavily injured."
"If only one day we could have our glory days like them," the group of young low-level energy machinists continued their discussion, displaying a face of admiration.
They were all local talent who just got selected into the sect.
After repeated selections and countless tests, they finally managed to gain entrance into the Scarlet Snow Sect, one of the Big Three Sects in this continent. They must have had a sense of pride and accomplishment in their hearts. They were all only twelve or thirteen years old.
"Within the top ten ranked Peaked Masters, I heard that there were three of them who were not raised locally. One of them was Peak Master Angeal Tenor of the Chemical Snow Peak, the other is Peak Master Garen of the Black Wolf Peak, and lastly, Peak Master Yiling. I wonder how these two would compare against Great Senior Brother?"
"I have no idea about that situation, but I heard from one of the senior sisters that the Chemical Snow Peak Master is now ranked second. He has terrifying potential and has been in the sect for more than sixty years. He should've reached the first position ages ago, but due to some unknown reason none of the elders wanted to accept him."
"Other than them, all the remaining were talent taken in from central and they were at the very least at the level of Two-Hearted Disciples and many of them were even at Three-Hearts. They united together to form an organization called Star Plate, a direct opposition to our local organization Moonshine. As for Peak Master Garen, he was originally viewed as a genius with decent skill when he first got accepted. However, he took an unexpectedly long amount of time to reach level four. Although when compared to the average Two-Heart Disciple, he was still relatively faster, it was abnormal for a talented genius like him. Hence, he is ranked at the lower end of the top ten. I heard that the sect's opinions on him are very mixed as well. As for Peak Master Yiling's situation, it was very mysterious and there isn't much public information on her available out there."
One of the more well-informed young ladies spoke out in a feminine voice.
Whoosh!
In an instant, a blue trail flashed before their eyes and disappeared, leaving behind a trail of cold air.
"What was that?"
"Was there a breeze? How cold!"
The group of disciples seemed to not have noticed a thing, only the young lady felt that something had happened but she didn't dare to ascertain her guess.
Garen had started eavesdropping on their conversation from a long distance away. It was his first time hearing this sort of discussion. In the past, he never knew what his image was like in the eyes of the lower leveled members.
When he first entered the sect, they always had a serious view on things, after so many years, it seemed like nothing much had changed.
He himself was not clear what the speed of a top-level genius was like, but he felt that he would not be that much worse off. To be able to progress from level three to level four just within five years, it probably would not disappoint the expectations of most of the people in the sect.
"Now is not the time to be thinking about all of this, March is right ahead of us. Time to accelerate even more!"
Stilling his mind once more, Garen patted the Giant Blue Wolf. Immediately, the wolf's speed increased, going up by a large amount.
******
The base could vaguely be seen just a distance ahead.
March and his row of men were swiftly flying in the sky. On their respective flying platforms, they moved at a moderate speed.
"Senior Brother March, out of the thousands of Outer-Hearted disciples, soon you'll finally be officially in the first position. I should wish you an early congratulations."
Next to March stood a burly bald man who was also on a flying platform. He was continuously complimenting March without a shred of concealment.
"Seeing that Junior Brother had come over to meet me, I guess my application to Moonshine has been passed?" March remained calm, but he could not stop himself from revealing a small smile.
"That's only natural. Senior Brother is currently ranked third, out of the thousands of outer-hearted disciples you are still one of the strongest and entering Moonshine would not be any problem. Although I heard that out of the new members who just got accepted, some of them are quite strong."
The burly man said, "Star Plates strength is already strong enough. If it wasn't for the conflict with the people from Dragon Eye a few years ago that caused them to incur huge damages, we wouldn't even stand a chance today."
"What are the higher-up's opinion on this?" March had his mouth shut, directly asking him using voice transmission. He vaguely had an idea of what the higher-ups of Moonshine wanted to do.
The burly man glanced over at the people surrounding them, the group started to seal off their hearing with their Willpower and spread out away from their current location.
Once everyone else had left, he finally started to speak.
"After all, Star Plate is an organization made up of non-local Energy Machinists in the Northern Yu Province. They all have the desire to retake the failed Central Metropolis. The second elder is currently the leader, causing the Great Elder and the Third Elder to be dissatisfied. What we need to do is simple, we just need to remove all traces of the non-local disciples below."
"Hmm… Would doing this be a little too overboard?" March had a lot of guts but this idea still gave him a huge shock. This was a scheme of Inherited levels and if he was not cautious enough, it would no doubt cost him his life. If he participates in this plan and the sect found out about this, he would not be getting off easy with something as simple as being expelled from the sect.
"Don't worry, the people of Star Plate are all arrogant and prideful, they would look at our actions as a training for the lower-leveled disciples," the burly man laughed coldly. "They will not care about this, as long as it's within the rules. Even if we kill a few of them they would just see it as their disciples being too weak. If they can't even survive under the rules of survival of the strongest within the sect, they would no doubt be useless pieces of trash when they leave this place. They are too arrogant!"
It was blatantly obvious that the burly man had an extreme disliking of the people from Star Plate.
"They are arrogant!" March also couldn't hold back his anger. After he had reached this level, no one would ever say that he wasn't good enough.
In his current state, his future is limitless, he also had an extremely high position, leaving the lower levels. In his current ambitious state of mind, hearing that someone sees him as nothing but a training tool, anyone would be pissed if they were put in that position.
Not thinking that he is worse off than others, even if tests show that he had a limit, so what? Limits were meant to be broken, even if a lot of people had died in their attempts.
"Since you put it that way, I will accept this mission," March muttered softly while nodding his head.
"Currently there are only three non-local Peak Masters in the sect. Yiling, Angeal Tenor, and Garen who entered the sect a few years ago. You just focus on those three," the burly man explained.
"I have already taken note of Yiling and Joey early on. The two seemed to be hiding something. To be able to survive my numerous attacks, they must be hiding some sort of secret," March said gloomily.
"I'll let you settle the concrete details on how to settle this, I'm only the messenger. If this escalates too much, Moonshine will take responsibility for it. You don't have to worry about it," the burly man reassured him.
"Mmm, I understand," March's face reverted to his usual calm expression.
As the two of them were speaking via voice transmission in the sky, a blue flash zoomed through the mountain pass below, heading directly towards the base's main gates. Its speed was extremely fast, multiple times faster than the people moving about on their flying platforms above.
The people above had focussed their attention on the conversation between March and the burly man, so much so that the blue flash had gone by unnoticed.
******
At the main gates of the base on top of the mountains.
The white main gate of the base was crackling with a strong electric current. The blue electric current forming an electric gate that looked like a water screen, blocking off the entrance of all energy machinists who attempted to enter.
A group of newly accepted newbies headed towards the main gate, led by a group leader. The group leader held out a white name tag in his hands, projecting a white light onto the main gates.
"What you guys are looking at right now is the main gate for the Logistic Branch Base. This gate was created by using a million volts of high-voltage electric current. After expert tweaking, if any Energy Machinist who does not have our sect's crystal imprint approaches it, it will automatically attack the person. This is the high-security system that our sect uses."
The group leader was a gentle and polite man, he was wearing a white shirt, cheerfully introducing the place to the newbies.
He had the Two-Hearted Disciple symbol on his shoulder and in this base, there were numerous other Two-Hearted Disciples like him doing odd jobs all over the place to earn some resources. A lot of them accepted the various quests from the sect to earn more points to trade for more resources.
There were not a lot of Two-Hearted Disciples, but the number was not small either. They would be ranked automatically according to their level. Those who are above level four would automatically be ranked in the top thirty, while the remaining were all below level four. These level three Two-Hearted Disciples often had very slow growth rates, often requiring a few decades just to reach level four. However, they were the backbone of the Scarlet Snow Sect's strength. They were the true representation of the actual disciple situation in the Northern Yu Province. When compared to the geniuses who could level up within ten years, they certainly seem to be overshadowed, but it was solely their huge numbers that support the lower levels of the Scarlet Snow Sect.
Amongst those who were leading the newbies, holding the selection tests and joining the two major organizations Moonshine and Star Plate, a lot of them were just dispersed Energy Machinists. This group had the largest numbers, they would gather at the quests counter every day, taking up quests and racking up points. Once they had enough points, they would go back and start their training, rinse and repeat. This was the main lifestyle of the average energy machinist.
Whoosh!
A blue flash zoomed over, landing right in front of the electric gates, forming a blue silhouette. It was in the shape of a man riding on top of a huge blue wolf.
The giant wolf's fur was straight like quills, looking extremely sharp. Just looking at the appearance they knew that this was no ordinary character.
A man and a wolf appeared before the gate, attracting the attention of the group of newbies.
The group leader looked over at Garen and his pupils immediately contracted.
"If it isn't Peak Master Garen, Senior Brother Garen must've just returned from participating in the mothership's tests. You guys quiet down, don't bother him! This guy is one of the most talked about inherited level geniuses in the past few years. He is ranked in the top twenty amongst the Two-Hearted Peak Masters."
"Ranked top twenty?" A young and naive girl said arrogantly, "Why does that even matter? I will be able to reach that in no time!"
"Stop your nonsense!" The group leader glared at her. "Being ranked in the top twenty symbolizes that they are geniuses who have the potential to reach Inherited Level. They were elites who the Three-Hearted Elders personally came to greet when they first entered. They aren't people who you One-Hearted brats can be compared to! They are the cores that are being raised by the sect!"
Just as he finished, Garen leaped off his wolf and walked through the electric gates.