Garen/Abilities

## General Abilities

* Language Proficiency (From his accumulation of knowledge and intelligence stat)
* Iron Will (As a Transmigrator who became the strongest being of multiple worlds)
* Total Control of the body, blood flow etc... (As a Martial Master)
* Top Biologist and Biochemist (As a Totem Master and Energy Machinist)
	+ High research attainments in hallucinogenic drugs and neuroscience
* Programming Skills (From the Vampire World)
* Aristocrat Demeanour (Since his third life in the Totem World)
* Good Swimmer ("He once stayed under the sea for a few decades back in the Totem World. Naturally, he would have high affinity with water.")

## Combat Abilities

* **Divine Fighter :** As a Martial Master who honed his skills through centuries, in different worlds and eras.
* **Soul Protection :** After crafting the Nine Headed Hydra Totem and fusing with it, Garen kept the Will of the Ancient Nine-Headed Dragon through the rest of his journey. It protected his Soul and Soul Seeds numerous time afterwards.
* **Void Confinement Essence :** It's when Garen became the Crystal King and spent hundred years without being able to move his body that he understood the concept of Confinement which allowed him to breakthrough Regent Level. This Essence allowed him to possess members of his Scarlet Snow Sect and to summon illusions that could deceive even top Regent Levels like the White King. These powerful but strange powers made Garen earn two other nicknames besides Crystal King, which are King of Scarlet Snow and King of Lies.

## Special Ability

Garen's special ability allows him to use Potential Points gained using various methods to boost his attributes.

He realized, this special ability takes root in the world view and the limitless knowledge he had access to from Earth. His subconscious used these knowledge to create a reflection of his special ability in a way that’s most suitable for him, by becoming a game-esque status bar.Garen’s special ability could boost up his learning speed significantly. He tried studying history the last time he applied potential points to Intelligence, and he could easily memorize everything he saw. As long as his Intelligence was high enough, and there were no external restrictions to it, he could learn the subject at an incredible speed.

His special ability could only help him quickly learn the basics after the requirements were met, which was still extremely helpful when he used it on Secret Martial Arts. No matter how weak a Secret Martial Art was, it would still be much stronger than any regular martial art. He could easily finish the Level One Mastery of any of the Secret Martial Arts, and those skills would definitely be useful to him.

### Side Effect

Any discipline will need focus to allow oneself to achieve better results. Stronger secret martial arts would mean one would need to spend more time in maintaining their training, otherwise it would be like rowing a boat against the current, the boat would reverse even if one doesn’t move. The adaptability of human body would make any fighter forget their training.

Garen, however, is different. His special ability has completely eliminated his body’s ability to forget, solidifying his physical attributes. In other words, he would not have bad days, but he would also not be able to perform beyond his standard. That’s because his progression and regression of power all depend on his physical attributes. With sloth and self-indulgence, the body will naturally think it doesn’t need to maintain the physical conditions anymore, and will slowly decrease nutritional supply and finally degenerate,

With high pressure, the body will keep requiring more power to adapt to the situation and solve the threat from the outside world.

This is **Darwin’s Theory of Evolution\***, it is a natural instinct of every living being.

Garen have always known that. Hence, his special ability is his biggest secret, no one else other than him knew about it. Ever since his attributes grew stronger, he can no longer improve his physique with just training, it’s as if he was in a perfectly stable condition.

For every gain, there will be a loss. He knew that. His special ability disabled his ability to forget, making him stronger, but at the same time losing his adapting mechanism.

**\*It’s actually Classical Conditioning by Pavlov. Author has not done his research.**

### Effect on Martial Arts

Garen learns that he can merge Secret Martial Arts with each other after he reaches the maximum level of the Mammoth Secret Technique and begins to learn Lower Secret Martial Arts. This creates a variant of the original that possesses the attributes of the Lower Secret Martial Arts that are compatible with each other creating a much more powerful Secret Martial Arts.

Garen finally understood that the merging of secret techniques was connected to his technique’s level. This was the case for his Mammoth Secret Technique, as it acted as a foundation which most of his techniques were merged with and became an enhancement, as it had the highest level.

This meant that whichever technique had the higher level would become the foundation for the other techniques. Perhaps the grade of the techniques would affect it but it was not important.

#### Conflict between Merged

After merging 3 Secret Martial Arts Garen experienced a conflict between them. "Quantity of similar Secret Techniques have exceeded by three; conflicts among the training regimes. Do you want Ember Claw to cover the Firestream Fist and a part of the Red Jade Palm?"

A conflict among the training regimes?

Garen was stunned. Naturally, it was possible that there would be conflicts in training regimes among the secret techniques. "Cover."

As he just made his decision, the Dark Crimson Technique immediately disappeared in the skill pane and what was left was the higher tier second rated secret technique Ember Claw. All of the sudden, the bunch of enhancement effect was simplified in the skill pane.

### Effect on Totems

Garen discovers that unlike other Luminarist he can use his Potential Points to evolve his Totems, which means he doesn't have to spend time, resources and money on evolution. But like everyone else he cannot escape the fact that totems tend to have a less than 100% chance of evolving, which means that it takes several attempts to evolve them.

Thanks to Garen's possession of Silver Totems he discovers in more detail how his Potential Points make the Totems evolve. Garen began to understand. The Grey-feathered Hawk could only evolve to Form 3. As a creature whose original form was merely a wild animal, it wasn't one of those primitive totems that had been studied for a long time, and had extremely high evolution levels. Its evolution was more towards using the potential points to awaken its genetic potential, to find the strongest part of its genes and then strengthen and replicate it. In the end, it would be the strongest of its genes. This definition of strongest was evidently influenced by the direction the potential points took it in.

It might be a state that existed in the past, or a state it could evolve into in the future, anything was possible.

As I thought, when I evolve a core totem with Potential Points, there’s an accumulative mechanism to it. Looks like if I try to evolve it without the critical core, the potential points I pile on won’t disappear totally. Instead, they would be stored in the totem, becoming an accumulative power. This is just like before, potential points that didn’t successfully upgrade something would return to me naturally. Looks like the potential points I put on those failed evolutions didn’t disappear, nor were they wasted, they merely gathered inside the totem, and were used to accumulate power.

"Then why are there these probabilities?" He frowned again. "Or are these gene fragments different? Is it a problem with the activation probabilities? Is it a random chance of activation every time, or will it only activate and evolve after accumulating to a certain level?" He suddenly remembered the biological engineering he just studied. Putting it together with the basic genetic knowledge he had from Earth, he suddenly made a bold conjecture.

Could it be that each activation attempt is activating a gene fragment, and failure to activate means it would go to waste? Successful activation means successful evolution? That so-called probability, is perhaps decided by the total number and quality of the gene fragments. Failed activation would remove these gene fragments. In that case, how are the standards for success and failure decided?"

Garen fell into deep thought. The activation mechanism for these Potential Points seemed to be all murky, as though there were some complicated calculations and rhythms to it. "It’d be all clear if I explained it like this. Activation and evolution were always meant to choose the best direction from all the countless genes. And in order to evolve these certain genes, we would certainly need a certain amount of activation energy. These two aspects decide how the potential points evolve the totem."

"**Firstly**, there are the potential points needed to perform the lowest level of evolution. Just like how so many points were stuffed into the Black-Striped White Tiger before it finally started the first activation. The Potential Points before that weren’t evolving, they were accumulating the energy required for the first evolution. I will probably need some techniques to figure out if it’s evolving or accumulating."

"**Secondly**, there are the probabilities. After achieving the required number of potential points, it will start attempting evolution. If successful, the points will be utterly used up. If unsuccessful, some of the points will be returned, just like with the Black-Striped White Tiger. In that case, the Primitive Totems and Silver Totems should be using different evolution mechanisms." Garen was beginning to understand.

He had only evolved Silver Totems before this, never attempting it on a primitive totem, which was why he had absolutely no idea what the situation was. Now, it’s finally as clear as day what was going on.

Silver Totems are living organisms, which means their bodies naturally accumulate a certain amount of energy. Not only that, an increase of energy happens whenever food is consumed. This was the reason why evolution through Potential Points only needed one step – activation.

When it came to Primitive Totems, it was completely different. They do not need to consume food, which also means that they are unable to accumulate energy. Everything is provided by the totem user. Which is also why evolution then takes two steps – accumulation and activation.

### Origin

The root of his talent was located on his head, a special ability that only a small handful amount of people have. According to his own estimation, it would be rare to find a single digit amount of people among the billions on Earth who had similar abilities. According to his speculation, this special ability was formed based on his spiritual structure, body structure, the arrangement of the nerves etc. No one would have the same special abilities, just like how there wouldn’t be two exact copies of a single leaf in nature. There would be a great difference for every small deviation.

He believes it is achieved from external powers, it's origin could be the God of Potions.

#### Garen's Memoirs of the Origin

The attribute and skill panes at the bottom of his field of vision had both started shimmering slightly. It was like countless ripples on the water surface. At night, he sat cross-legged in his hotel room. On the surface, there weren’t any changes in his body, but his spirit kept trying to catch that little flash of inspiration in his heart. It was just like a piece of paper flashing through his mind. He could see the words and pictures, but he just couldn’t recall them. Garen tried his best to catch those traces, or rather, those memories. As he kept concentrating, the ripples in his attribute pane kept getting larger and larger. Until finally. Boom!!!

There was an ear-splitting noise, and Garen’s mind was a complete muddle as he descended into oblivion. After some time, a series of mystifying images appeared in his heart. In the middle of the endless starry sky. A red shard sliced past the galaxies at high speed, eventually being pulled in by the Earth’s gravity and crashing into a certain place on Earth. As the shard burst past the atmosphere, most of it was oxidized, and at the same time it turned into countless tinier pieces, scattering like rain across Earth’s sky.

The rain-like shards entered many living beings without a sound or trace, invisible to the eye. Most of these living beings self-combusted, and were burnt to ashes. A few of them survived, but were greatly weakened. After contracting all sorts of diseases, they died an early death. And then there were the ones amongst ten millions, those who were hit but continued with life as usual. The shards had no effect on these people. Garen quickly noticed his past incarnation. He had also been one of those hit, and was one of the lucky few who were unscathed. At the time, he was a mere teenager.

In the blink of an eye, many years passed. He grew up, started working, all the way until he died of electrocution. Just as he was electrocuted into a pile of charcoal, a translucent figure slowly rose from his body. It was about to be torn into shreds by the unseen rays radiating through the air, when suddenly the figure glowed with a faint red light from deep within. This light was the unique life of every individual, that little bit of sizable energy born from their bodies, memories, and souls.

It wrapped the figure’s head, blinking continuously, until the head slowly merged with the red light. Finally, both vanished without a trace, while the remaining body that was left behind was directly torn to pieces by the rays. Strangely, Garen also saw the other people who had lived after being struck by the red shard at the same time. Those people either died of illnesses, or ended their lives peacefully. Some of them were also killed. But of all those who died, only three managed to awaken that dot of red light that lay dormant within them. The rest were torn to smithereens.

He was one of these three with the blinking lights. Although the other two managed to awaken the red light, the places they merged with the red light were different. And in the final process of merging, the red light had gradually faded, meaning the merging had failed. Therefore, of all the countless Earth humans who had been awoken by the red shards, he was the only one who successfully merged with it, and he had merged his head as well. The red shard was like a stimulant to the DNA of the soul. Some of the creatures succeeded and lived, while others failed and died.

The ones who lived were one in hundreds of millions. And of those who lived, there was another tiny, miniscule chance that they could successfully awaken the red shard. Of the ones who were activated, they still needed to merge with red light. And the parts that merged were all different. After Garen absorbed the red light, the soul in his head that was wrapped up in the red light floated slowly through the universe. It sporadically blinked into different unknown universes, before finally being swept up in a space tornado and ended up swept onto this planet. It was then that it was incorporated into a young man named Garen.

As he wandered through the starry sky, Garen gradually began to understand what this sort of red shard was for. It was a natural mutagen for soul, and only worked on souls. The activated souls would present all sorts of different effects, some useful and others useless. Some were very powerful, while others were extremely weak. And the difference in the part that was merged also manifested in different results. He was very lucky to have merged his head, and even more fortunately, he was able to find a planet with sentient life and a proper body before his consciousness was ultimately destroyed after aimlessly wandering the starry sky. The starry universe was limitless. If he wandered for too long under those circumstances, even the strongest would end up grounded into nothing.

If it weren’t for this round of quiet reflection, and his natural-born power having merged with his head, he truly wouldn’t have been able to see so many of these memories. He didn’t know how it was like for the other creatures awoken by the red shards, but it certainly wasn’t like his situation. After all, every creature’s experiences, lives, and memories were distinct. These differences decided that the red light they had nurtured would also be different, and the special powers developed as a result of the final merging would also be certainly different. And his special powers, were this body’s attribution abilities. Perhaps his ability to transmigrate was part of that as well. Sitting cross-legged on his bed, Garen slowly opened his eyes. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his brow.

"So this was the truth of my beginnings…" He had always wondered where his special powers came from, even though there wasn’t any doubt deep within his memories. But he had never really seen the whole process. He wasn’t sure what that shard was, but after it activated the red light, it burned itself out completely. That must mean it was some sort of medicine. He was lucky to have that light merged with his head, so he could retain all of his memories. He was lucky to have found a planet with humans and successfully merged before his consciousness disappeared completely.

"This was basically the lucky result of countless coincidences." Garen completely understood the source for his natural-born powers. To put it bluntly, his body on Earth had nurtured a mutated soul. After the body hosting it perished, this one-of-a-kind soul transmigrated through space and time, and was lucky enough to meet a new sentient planet before dying, finding a new merger, and took over someone else’s body. It was a miraculous process. Without the physical body on Earth, without these memories and experiences from before he was even born, without these countless coincidences, there wouldn’t have been someone as naturally talented as Garen. And this most basic idea lifted the heavy concerns from Garen’s heart.

This was different from hereditary powers, his were natural powers born from the mutation of his soul. The source was the very quality of his soul, that had changed after being awoken back then. A hereditary power came from the blood and genes. These were two fundamentally different things. One was the body, the other was the soul. The blood was gone once you change a body, but it wasn’t the same for the soul. A power that followed the soul was purely nurture, not nature. So the hereditary powers could be inherited, but the powers of the soul could not…

## Links and References

1. ↑ Chapter 998
2. ↑ Chapter 4
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Chapter 172
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 98
5. ↑ Chapter 104
6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 Chapter 170
7. ↑ Chapter 262
8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 300
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 9.5 Chapter 327
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 Chapter 328
11. ↑ Chapter 155
12. ↑ 12.00 12.01 12.02 12.03 12.04 12.05 12.06 12.07 12.08 12.09 12.10 12.11 Chapter 210