Luminarist

Luminarists, who used white silver to forge their totems, were professional experts with extraordinary abilities. They were the specialised members who could create totems, and was considered a rare talent. The Totem World revolved around the Luminarist, who hid in the fringes of society and held true power and influence. They are more powerful than the Commoners, as they refer to the non-Luminarist, which makes them stronger than the Martial Artists of the Secret Techniques World.

## Overview

It was only after Garen read some of these things that he began to understand the true mysteries behind the existence of the Luminarists. This was a very powerful group of people. They relied on a basic, inherent talent in quality appraisals, to achieve the level where they could sense and control silver.

At one point, some of the geniuses among them suddenly discovered that they could use silver to create a resonance of mysterious power, and so the Luminarists were born.

They used silver to form many different Totems, and then used unique structures and principles to eventually light those Totems, activating them. These then became their helpers or subordinates. But these Totems themselves didn’t have much intelligence, so they were only equal to a Luminarist’s second body.

A Totem is like I got a new organ, an arm, for a **Luminarist**. It’s very lifelike and convenient. I can choose to control it, or give it a simple order for it to complete on its own. What a miraculous feeling.

#### Nobles Vs Commoners

Although the numbers of a noble totem users weren’t little, they were considered the minority. A noble, would be totally different from the merchants as most of the totem evolving techniques were in the hands of the aristocrats. The was a huge difference between a typical totem users and a noble totem user. A typical totem users might spend a few decades to become form 2 totem users, which was considered very strong. On the other hand, the nobles had the opportunity to attain the third form. Furthermore, both parties had different amount of resources, as the nobles would have more Tactics compared to the typical totem users in terms of support and attacks. The typical totem users and noble totem users had a different starting point from the very beginning.

## Totem Light

Was a thin, transparent, pale blue membrane between the **Luminarist** and world. That is **Totem Light**. After a Totem forms, this is the protective force field it reflects on its master. It covers the master’s whole body, and has no weak spot. It was like a malleable layer of water, and extremely fascinating. Its protective power it’s usually twice as strong as that of the Totem itself, or more.

A **Luminarist** has many Totems, and each Totem would bestow a protective force field on its master. The forces stack up, and are definitely stronger than the power of an individual totem. Besides, the defensive power of **Totem Light** usually stronger than the totem itself. This is why, battles between **Luminarists** are usually fought by the Totems, and you usually don’t attack the master first.

With a Core Totem, you can have an automatically-reacting **Totem Light** that can follow you everywhere in life. The benefits of that was clear. Totem Light that activated of its own accord was enough to match any dangers a Luminarist might face. Without having to release their Totem, they could automatically activate T**otem Light** to protect themselves at any time and place. This was also the reason **Lumimarists** could stand high above the rest, and disregard even the strongest normal person. Because no matter how strong a regular person could get, they wouldn’t be able to break that **Totem Light** that looked so thin. That’s because attacks without silver would not be able to break the core **Totem Light**. This was a difference in quality, one that couldn’t be overcome by quantity.

It was important to note that the Totem Light was connected to one’s consciousness. When the outside world contained substances that could potentially harm one’s body, it would automatically filter out the harmful substance. The same principle was used against its enemies, because once it noticed an enemy that harboured hostility towards itself, the Totem Light would produce defensive measures.

This acted as an exterior skin-like layer that would sense whether the substances from the outside world would harm its main body. It was immediate and connected to one’s consciousness, and possessed an independent judgement system.

During the stages where the Forgers and Luminarists were first forging their Totems, it would first find a way to move the core inside. This was the foundation of building Primitive Totems. Once the Core Totems were formed, it would then enable the core component ability.

## Specialisations

In essence, Luminarists are a complex topic and covers a lot of research and application. But human intelligence and energy is limited, so we have each specialize on our own fields. Luminarists have three core roles, **Luminarists**, **Forgers** and **Totem Users**.

* **Luminarists:** Luminarists fill the traditional role; where they forge and use their own Totems. They use a combination of *Tactics* and Totems in combat.
* **Forgers:** Forgers specializes in forging totems, selling Totems that are not activated to Totem users to earn massive profits.
* **Totem Users:** Totem Users specialize in combat using Totems.Totem Users are ranked based on the evolution form of their Totem.

Totem users only needed to learn an entrance level precision blueprint, but when it came to technique and skill, they are so much more powerful than luminarists and forgers. Their types are highly skilled in the area of totem control and totem manipulation. Totem users, forgers and luminarists; truth be told, have different preferences. Luminarists are to be considered moderate among them, and when it comes to strengths, totem users are skilled in technique while forgers have strengths in the area of forging and maintenance.

Totem user’s precision blueprint required of a lower standard, but the price to pay was that its activation tactics were extremely difficult. Activation tactics included a lot of mathematical and physical knowledge; if it were not for Garen’s prior experiences, he wouldn’t have been able to grasp it so quickly.

Precision blueprints leaned towards the main attack’s stability and precision, while activation tactic focuses on the basis of instantaneous force and physical principles. The first focuses on accumulation, while the latter on adaptability. This also signifies the different development lines luminarists and Totem users have.

Luminarists get stronger as time accumulated increases; the more knowledge they have, the more they can accumulate their wealth and ascend themselves. On the other hand, totem users rely on adaptability and instantaneous force. They start off strong, but as development progresses, are substantially weaker to that of a luminarist.

Still have no idea when it comes to forgers, but they should be leaning towards the direction of luminarists. From their name, it can be assumed that they completely given up going in the direction of battle, focusing instead on scientific research, specifically totem forging.

Forgers are Luminarists that specialize in researching Totems, but the Forgers of the Obscuro Society direction is more towards researching Living Totems. **Biological engineering**, **material and energy science**, **advanced mathematics**, are the three main themes in the study of Totems in general and especially useful in the development of Silver Totems and the Derivators.

Silver Totems and the research regarding the Derivator, all of it is very complicated, and dabbles in content from many fields. Biological engineering is just one of them, after that you still need to learn about material and energy science, as well as advanced mathematics. Of course, you just need to understand it, it’s enough for you just to be able to tell what’s good and what’s not.

Of course, these three subjects are actually umbrella terms, if you want to be more specific, there are even more branches of study. The Obscuro’s way is to evolve creatures, it’s different from the others Luminarist**/**the Royal Alliance’s way of tools. Obscuro seeks to use Totem techniques to finally increase the level of their own lives, that’s why they developed creature totems.

The Royal Alliance, on the other hand, uses White Silver Totems. In other words, they develop the Primitive Totems to a certain peak, and their final path is to use the peak-level Primitive Totem to boost the original Totem User in return. Both paths seem clearer now. They just use the same power differently.

* **Biological engineering:** Beginner. (By understanding this, you have understood the principles of a creature’s internal and external structures; one of the compulsory studies in totem research.)

## Factions

* Obscuro Society for Phantom Light.
* Terraflor Society for Seraphim Light.
* Royal Alliance of Luminarists (RAL).

## Conditions

Garen found out that you had to fulfill three conditions to become a Luminarist.

1. **Appraisal, a Basic Talent**: This was the basic or basics. Without this, it was impossible to enter this circle. You woudn’t even be able to see through a Shielding Light that someone cast casually.
2. **Intricate Blueprints**: The creation of a Totem required an extremely intricate silver blueprint, and it had to be three-dimensional rather than flat. The level of accuracy needed was extremely high. Someone without this talent couldn’t become a Luminarist either. This was the basic method and road to transforming knowledge into power. This area of knowledge needed a steady hand and a calm mind. They had to focus intently, and their emotions must not be disturbed. This was also why most Luminarists were quiet by nature, because this was the basic requirement for making intricate blueprints.
3. **Basic Tactics**: The Luminarist was the base, designing the Totem, creating the Totem, and helping the Totem to fight or work. These were all a series of tactic, and in actuality a Totem can be broken down into countless basic tactics. Analyse, forge, and assimilate are the steps to follow to make a Totem. Tactics can also be used to fight, sight sharing, etc...

These three points were the key to becoming a Luminarist. And when it came to basic tactics, there was actually a lot of basic knowledge to learn. Each and every different Luminarist had their own accumulation of knowledge. The further they went with their knowledge, the stronger the Totems they created.

In truth, Totems were like the physical embodiment of their knowledge. As everyone’s understanding was different, the Totems would turn out different even if they used the same basic Tactics.

## Tools of a Luminarist

### The Two Most Important Tools

"These are the two things Luminarists must have, one to research, another to reproduce."

#### Unit factory

The whole table had one very delicate-looking apparatus made with a transparent metal with silver sheen. Within the area of a palm, there were hundreds on faint silver components turning with gears. The details on the instrument was so precise, it exuded a sense of purity and cold steel. The whole apparatus was like a detailed toy, it kept dropping a small aqueous silver ball, from left to right, top to bottom, until it dropped into a silvery container. On the apparatus that’s at least five meters long, there were thousands of components as big as a fingernail functioning as they’re meant to.

Totem creatures were created from unit tactics. When a Luminarist studied and learned a creature’s active unit, he will be able to use unit factories to clone them, slowly building it up to a higher level of structure and ultimately, become a totem. Basically, it’s a tool to duplicate unit tactics to be formed into tissues, organs, systems and totems.

"This is a whole series of tools. Before unit factories can reproduce active units, where do they come from? That’s where the Luminarists have to search for themselves. Search?" Garen was confused. Isn’t it a standard blueprint that everyone can use? Like your White Bear, won’t I be able to build it if I want to?

"There’s also that. Learning a standard model and produce based on that, that’s the easiest way." Emin nodded, "Pretty observant, not bad. This is also why different Luminarists have different paths. The stronger and richer their inheritance, the stronger their totem will be. Hence, all Luminarists will be extra cautious about their own knowledge, because it literally represents their power."

#### Microscope

"This is a microscope, it can show you enlarged images of objects. It can enlarge images up to 800 times their original size. It’s one of the medium-range ones on the market. Beside that are petri dish, forceps, magnifying glass, microdissection needle, tripod, asbestos net, bunsen burner, tube holder, blade tweezers, slides, coverslips…" Emin introduced the whole set to Garen.

## Tactics

A Tactic was like an ancient spell, with a faint mystical sense. Tactics are the basics of any Luminarists and the foundation of all Luminarists’ abilities. This you need to remember. He dipped his finger into his glass without manners and started drawing on the table. A circular-shape appeared on the table with several sections. You should know that the Science Pictorial have found out a long time ago, that organisms were made up of microscopic cells. Emin retracted his index finger, Cells make up tissues, which make up organs, which make up systems, and those make up a whole organism. You should know this, right?

Of course. This is the basics of Biology, we have learned about it." Garen nodded. Our tactics is basically the same as that. It’s just like a cell of an organism. They form the tissues, the organs, the systems, and become our own totem at the end. This is what you’ll go through in the future." Emin answered simply. "Tactics are also units. Professionally, we call them unit tactics. They are what we base our totem creatures on. Every Luminarist would create their own totem this way, no exceptions.

Teacher, there are countless cells in an organism, if we have to create the same structures in a totem, don’t we have to build an insane amount of tactics? Garen frowned. This is the core of what we learn. First, you will learn about the structure of a single tactic, an active unit. It is what forms everything else. Emin said seriously. "You will use active units in the future to build your own tissues, organs, systems, and finally a real living totem. This is what you have to do.

That’s… a huge project…" Even if he reached the top of Martial Arts in his past life, this was still shocking to him. There are trillions of cells in an organism’s body, if he construct it one by one, it’s impossible to construct a totem even until the end of his life. What’s wrong? Disheartened?" Emin smiled. "Aren’t you a genius? You aren’t beaten with this little setback, are you?

So many Luminarists have successfully constructed their own totem, that means there’ll be some sort of pattern to it!" Garen answered with confidence. Not bad. Emin nodded with approval. "Let’s finish up our breakfast. I only told you what direction to take, you’ll need to learn to use the tools of the trade.

### Transcendent Glyphs

Transcendent Glyphs were the figures written in the air using their natural ability. These are the figures that appear when an unlimited performs Tactics, these glyphs are what these Tactics are made of and the reason why they are activated.

### The Basic Luminarist Tactics

* **Analyse:** He pointed out his index finger, and slowly started sketching mid air. His fingertip drew lines of silver-white light in the air, forming silver-white threads. As the threads slowly faded and disappeared, but before the vanished completely, all the silver-white threads Emin drew each formed a tiny figure 6. All the 6’s quickly and randomly matched up, forming many inconsistent figures that looked like badges. Just like a oval insect’s egg being wrapped up in many large circles. It’s used especially for analyzing any creature’s internal make-up. It can **trigger** the **analyzing ability** in your brain, in order to quickly **analyze** any creature. We call it the **analysis tactic**.

* **Forge:** He opened the cover, revealing blocks after blocks of pure silver bricks. All square and proper, they looked unexpectedly clean and brand new. Emin picked up a silver brick, and drew in the air again with his other hand. Soon enough, he had carved out another figure. This time, it was an extremely complex figure, lined up like rows of mathematical formulae, or like a passage of unknown words. As Emin wrote his figures, the silver block in his other hand also began to slowly melt, turning to liquid like mercury and floating over his palm. It merged into a silver ball."This is the second basic tactic: **forging**. Right now, I’m forging different units for the three systems at the same time, so it’s a little more complicated. Actually, all these figures are used to move the silver, and use them to replicate the principles and scenes in my head. That’s why we also call this tactic: **replicate**. Anyway, it’s up to you what you want to call it." The round silver ball in Emin’s hand dissolved quickly, revealing three small balls inside. The three small balls formed a triangle and spun rapidly, as though forming a whole. Emin pointed at the three silver balls and said, "These three things are the basic units for the three systems that I forged. Don’t be fooled by appearances, the structure inside is actually very complicated, and completely different.

* **Assimilate:** What I’m going to do now is put these units into the unit factory, and then perform large scale replicating. Then I’ll assemble them to make a model of the three large systems. The assembly also requires a third basic tactic: **assimilation**.

"Three steps in total: analyse, forge, and assimilate. You use these three tactics to control and lead, is that right? Teacher. That is true, it looks simple on the surface. What you need to do is replicate a creature using silver. These three tactics are the most basic of the basic, and all totems come from them. No matter how complicated the totem, it must go through these three steps." Emin put down the silver balls in his hand. "Of course, after all that is done, there’s still the final step."

"After completing the three steps, the silver totem formed is just a model made out of silver. But creatures themselves require food as an energy source to support their movements. What about totems? If they want to move, they naturally require energy. And this is the last step that needs our help."

"**The last step** is to provide the **energy**. We also call it **activation**. **This is the basis for all Luminarists**. In the past, it was also called **lighting**. Lighting the lamps to illuminate, that is how the term **Luminarists** first originated,"

"How do you light it, then? That is our most pivotal talent." Emin pointed at his head. "Here. Anyone who can be a Luminarist, has a special appraisal quality. Our power is shapeless and immaterial, and it can’t influence anything other than silver. But it has the mystical effect of giving silver life. No wonder Luminarists use silver as their materials…" Garen instantly understood. It’s actually very easy to activate something, but according to the difference in our appraisal, the strength of the totems activated will also differ."

## Totem Power

One had to realize that one would spend their totem power whenever they activated their Totem, be it a Core Totem or a support totem. The more Totems one activated, the more Totem Power was spent. A typical form one Totem User could engage in a high level battle without breaking a sweat.

However, a form two user could only engage in a high level battle for about half a day and a form three totem user would have spent even more totem power. The typical form three totem users wouldn’t activate their totem casually and would only use them when necessary. Furthermore, a lot of totem users would rely on their low grade support totem as an energy source to reduce their expenditure of totem power. This was also the reason why the totem markets kept existing.

As for the strong spiritualized totem similar to that of Beckstone’s spiritualized totem Sunflower, he would feel exhausted if he were to release a small amount of power even with the support of the Heirlooms. Regardless of whether if it’s related to his physical strength, this also proved that a spiritualized totem required a lot of energy.

Garen wanted to find a solution towards the Crystal Derivator’s flaws, as he cherished this item a lot. This was because the empowered totems which were controlled by the Crystal Derivator did not require an ounce of Totem Power. The totem itself would eat and rest to recover, which was one of its major advantage.

Naturally, it had its own disadvantages as well. While the empowered totem did not require any totem power, it required a huge amount of food which was rather troublesome. He would need to spend a huge amount of meat daily to feed the large amount of Deep Swarm Crocs and Parasitic Beetles. If their food source were to be interrupted, they would be weak and might even die. On the other hand, the Primitive Totem was very convenient as it didn’t require rest nor food and it could be carried with him anywhere.

## Ranks

Luminarists/Totem Users are ranked based on the Evolution Form of their Totem.

* **First Form:** In this the Totem is a normal creature and a little stronger than a living one. A typical form 1 totem users could be separated into two types:
	+ **The first one** was a normal totem user. This type of totem users knew nothing and could only rely their totems and some basic Tactics to battle. Their strengths were heavily determined by their strength of totem and their battle strategy.
	+ **The second type** were the specially gifted totem users. They seem to have some of the abilities of their totem, or other unique abilities. These types of gifted totem users were very valuable and their strengths were beyond this world. They are those who are in the **Prodigy-level.**
* **Second Form:** In this the Totem obtain special abilities and it would essentially be a killing machine.
* **Third Form:** In this case the Totem is like a creatures of legend; each extremely tough.
* **Fourth Form:** Some secretive big organization even has a this unique form.
* **Fifth Form:** Also known as Form 4 Aberration. These powerful Aberration Totems were far superior to most Totems, as they were aberration types that were specially forged and nurtured for strong individuals. An example of this would be the Grand Duke’s Platinum Dragonhawk, the most suitable Core Totem for a Grand Duke. The Form 4 Aberration Totem, which was also designated as Form 5, was also officially acknowledged as the strongest level that had ever existed in the whole world.

There are even some that could mutate based on the user’s talents to form the ultimate talent creature.

#### Variant

For the Obscuro Society, although Totems can be classified into animals, plants, and elementals, They were in fact of a unified division. Such was the internal levels of the Obscuro Society.

The Obscuro Society categorizes all the Totems under them into six levels.

* **First Form**
* **Second Form**
* **Third Form**
* **Spiritualization**
* **Fourth Form**
* **Fifth Form**

Only the strongest two marshals have achieved the fifth form. Their exact strength was an unknown, but definitely not something an average person can match. In fact, this path was the path of the elemental totems and spiritualization was the beginning of elementalization. All elemental Totems were at least at the third form of spiritualization.

According to Reylan’s judgment, spiritualization is obtained naturally through the evolution process. If they had poor innate talent or bad cultivating resources, the evolved totem will not have spiritualization. This is the difference between the quality of Evolution. Even the same type of Totem will have differing strength with different cultivations.

### Prodigy-level

The difference between prodigies and the other people is very simple. The biggest difference is, it’s very hard for you to beat them. If you say of a normal Luminarist talent is at a human level, then they’re all inhuman. Their talents are extremely over-powered. Prodigy totem users evolve extremely quickly. They have different factions supporting them, it would be hard for them not to evolve quickly. Their rate of growth is far beyond normal people.

Consist in 3 categories: **Ability Sharing**, **Totem Fusion**, and **Ability Strengthening**.

* **Ability Sharing:** They Share the innate gifts of their Totems. Is the one everyone knows about. If someone can have a Form 3 Totem, or even the very peak, a Form 4 Aberration. When that happens, the totem user is the strongest, while the totem is just a tool to provide power. Totem users at the level are humanoid monsters. Their defense would be impenetrable, even stronger than totems. And they had the power of totems too, which would basically make them moving fortresses. In truth, ability sharing can be divided into types. Some are suitable for wolves, others suitable for leopard, and yet others bears. If they used another type, it wouldn’t have that effect.
* **Totem Fusion:** A few types of totems fused together have a certain chance of becoming a new totem, this is yet another ridiculously over-powered ability. Many of the new mutated totems were created when these guys messed around like that, such as the White Dragonhawk.
* **Ability Strengthening:** Strengthening types, strengthening speed, power, defense, vitality. They’re slightly weaker than the previous two.

### Top Level Primitive Totem User

"Top level Primitive Totem Users have encountered a weird phenomenon. The Totem Light brought by their totems would bring changes to their own bodies, making it stronger and healthier, as well as extending their life. There were even totem users that merged themselves with their totems, becoming a collective body. This was the highest power imaginable achieved, which was also signified the birth of empowerment."

"Elemental Totems, Plant Totems, Animal Totems. In actuality, these 3 types of totems would definitely reach that stage. The main body and the totem will merge to become one, transforming into an inhuman being that exhibits the terror of a totem. This is Obscuro Society’s main goal. Brother, if you want to walk this path, the requirements are of high difficulty. When it comes to technical abilities, even I myself would not be able to help. This type of technical ability requires too much, even if I were to research for more than ten years, it would not guarantee any success." Reylan rejected Garen’s train of thought, "Obscuro society had researched for so many years, and only reaped a small area of technical success. Let’s not even consider the possibility if I were to do this alone.

### Form Four

At the pinnacle of Form 4, to the Totem Users, as they face experts of similar level, their totems actually possess a fatal weakness. The defense of a Totem is almost half as weak as its original body. Once the opponent caught the weakness and launched strong attacks, losing was a very real possibility. Hence, the Totem Users of this level rarely bring their totems into a war, but instead relied on their body.

Form 4 was already the pinnacle of a regular Totem User; they had completely discovered the Totem’s abilities and potential, so there will be no openings during its usage. Uniform in movement, and extremely powerful. Every Form 4 has completely unleashed their core totem’s power to the maximum, and should not be taken lightly.

### Form Five

These Form Five elite fighters all shared a secret, which was that they all had their own Secret Technique. If he hadn't learned this secret from Ivycius, Garen would still be clueless about this.

They used Secret Techniques to assimilate the totems into their bodies, merging the two into one, achieving an extreme and terrifying evolution effect. Lower-level totem users think they themselves were stronger than totems, and that was why they didn't release their totems, but the truth was that they had assimilated their totems totally.

They no longer had totems to release. The Solidifying Totems on the rack had heating forces, cooling forces, material forces, and other complicated forces that he didn't know.

If the other Form Five totem users could only start training their secret techniques after they achieved the highest form of merging, then Garen was approaching the peak of this step by using his level as the strongest secret technique practitioner, the King of the Century.

He just had to achieve Form Five, and then he could instantly reach the very peak of the Form Fives. This was the base he had forged himself from the previous world. It was a spiritual level and height.

Usually Form Five required a period of adaptation after the user merged with the totem. This was because a person’s will couldn’t control the totem’s massive power. This adaptation period was a time to get used to it. Usually, this would require years. The stronger the totem, the more years needed to get used to it and adapt.

Only after experiencing this adaptation period, could someone truly be considered a Form Five elite fighter. Even the Form Five fighter that spent the shortest amount of time in this adaptation period used a full twenty years. The longer ones could take up to a century.

This was also the main reason most Form Five users didn’t usually walk the grid, they were too busy adapting, so they sent their clones out, and let their wills continuously adapt to the totem.

Even for those powerful fighters who had experienced the adaptation period, if they wanted to use their totem bodies to learn the secret techniques that had been discovered in the ruins, that would also be an extremely long process. A decade or two would pass like nothing. Each time they tried to train, during the time it took for them to close and open their eyes again, even their grandchildren’s grandchildren might have been born.

And they could only start from the beginning after achieving Form Five, by channeling their immense blood qi through their bodies, which made it far harder than using just a normal person’s body. This was Garen’s biggest advantage, in that he could easily learn this sort of secret technique.

#### Final Stage

After his contest with Ivycius, Garen realized that there were many fourth form totem users with martial arts in this world, but only a few could enter the fifth form. Martial arts was only one of the criterias to enter fifth form, but it wasn't the full requirement. To reach fifth form, he initially had no clue as well, but after fusing with the first head of the Nine-Headed Hydra, he finally had some rough idea.

Fifth form was combining the totem and totem user into one. The ultimate totem would be absorbed by the totem user using martial arts to completely fuse both of them, reaching the goal of the evolution of life. In simple terms, totem users and luminarists were both ways to fuse external forces into the body to achieve evolution.

The trained totem would grow, step by step, to drive the evolution of the body, before finally arriving at a strange new level. This path was far deeper than mere martial arts development. It has even suppressed the path of science. In other words, the development of totem was a science. There are many types of martial arts and totems, and even more types of human bodies, each had differing talents.

Martial arts, the totem, and the body. These three must reach an unprecedented alignment to undergo the ultimate fusion. In other words, if the martial art wasn't suitable, fusion was out of the question. Similarly with an incompatible totem. If the body had some issues, then that would be even more unthinkable.

If there was an issue with any of the three, form 5 was out of the question. Garen could now understand better the thought process of the peak fourth form masters who were about to enter fifth form. The period before leveling up was the most important period. If it's long, it could take years, and the shortest would even be a few months. In this period of time, one had to meditate to continuously adjust the state of the heart, body and totem. Then, using the most suitable form of martial arts to fuse. He cannot be disrupted nor severely injured.

Any problems out of the three would result in wasted efforts. Once one was disrupted and then resumed, it would take multitudes more effort and time. A compatible totem, suitable martial arts and fitting state of the body. None of the three could be lacking. Even if the martial arts was given, it wouldn't create a scene among fourth and fifth form elites. Only a compatible martial art would suffice.

Ivycius took more than a hundred years before he completely understood the relationship between the three. It wasn't until his battle with Garen that he was enlightened. Only after that could he develop the perfect sword skills that he was lacking, fulfilling the condition of the most compatible martial art. It might partly be because of his perfectionist behavior, or his deformed feelings towards his totem, but to be able to make him stay at this level for more than a hundred years naturally wasn't a joke.

From the beginning of time, fourth form totem users have had various unique abilities. There were techniques to lengthen the lifespan of men. However, the main reason so many fourth form totem users have perished throughout history was due to the inability to regulate their body to perfect compatibility, failing to reach the level of the three becoming one. This level required large amounts of time. Most of them tried to quiet down and regulate the body, but countless have died in the process. Only a handful have successfully broken through.

Too many people were stuck at this level. It wasn't the lack of martial arts and totems, but the process of regulating their body. It was, in fact, a state of the mind and cannot be forced using resources. Breakthrough also could not be achieved by talent alone. It needed experience, perception and seizing of the opportunity when it came by.

Improving the state of mind was the biggest stumbling block to entering fifth form. Both Garen and Ivycius had entered this final stage. As the Nine-Headed Hydra and White Rose were the totems most suited for them respectively, they've passed this test. Garen had mastered many different martial arts. After some mild tweaking, he combined the essence of his martial arts into one, inventing the Black Water True Technique that suited him the most.

Fortunately, his martial arts was on the level of the King of the Century. It naturally gave him a huge advantage in regulating his body. His control and regulation of his body far surpassed other totem users. Hence, Garen had in fact already fulfilled the two hardest items - body regulation and the most suitable martial arts.

Unfortunately, as God Cloud has said, his biggest limitation was his totem. The Nine-Headed Hydra did not have sufficient potential. After all, it wasn't from a perfect genetic bloodline. It was evolved from the imperfect gene of the Dual-Headed Salamander. Its congenital deficiency became a key restriction for him to progress. God Cloud was not just saying it for fun.

He calculated that after completely fusing with the Nine-Headed Hydra, he should be able to barely reach lower fifth form. However to progress further would be incredibly difficult. Even with his strong batting ability, the furthest he could go was being able to compare with a peak fifth form. However in the eyes of the old men who had secluded themselves from the world, to enter fifth form was already the pinnacle of achievement. It was sufficient to bear the top missions of the Three Departments.

## Links and References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Chapter 229
2. ↑ Chapter 233
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 3.8 Chapter 237
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Chapter 255
5. ↑ Chapter 271
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Chapter 256
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 Chapter 326
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 Chapter 378
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 9.6 Chapter 261
10. ↑ Chapter 268
11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Chapter 295
12. ↑ Chapter 247
13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 13.3 13.4 13.5 13.6 13.7 13.8 13.9 Chapter 251
14. ↑ Chapter 293
15. ↑ Chapter 299
16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 16.5 16.6 16.7 16.8 Chapter 254
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 Chapter 363
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Chapter 257
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Chapter 269
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 20.4 20.5 20.6 20.7 Chapter 297
21. ↑ Chapter 311
22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 Chapter 330
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Chapter 327
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Chapter 463
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 Chapter 438
26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 26.3 26.4 26.5 26.6 Chapter 447
27. ↑ 27.00 27.01 27.02 27.03 27.04 27.05 27.06 27.07 27.08 27.09 27.10 27.11 27.12 Chapter 457