If Garen's Combat System came from League of Legends, then his experience system had most likely been copied straight from some MMORPG:
The experience required to level up increased exponentially with each level, eventually reaching the point where players would be exhausted to death from grinding monsters.
Yet Crocodile, one of the Shichibukai, had filled Garen's experience bar from level nine to level ten all by himself through sheer strength.
The system's notification sounded right on schedule:
You have reached level 10 and obtained a random level-up reward: Spirit Turtle Stance: "After activation, every third basic attack restores 2.5% of your maximum HP and grants a temporary shield that absorbs a certain amount of damage for 5 seconds."
This skill came from Udyr, the Spirit Walker hero in the game. He could wield the special powers of four primal animal spirits and gain different effects.
The Spirit Turtle Stance Garen had obtained was the Spirit Turtle, representing resilience and recovery, and it provided the hero with a guarantee of vitality.
Aside from being slightly different from its in-game effect, Garen's version of Spirit Turtle Stance only took effect during those five seconds.
However, considering that this skill's cooldown was only six seconds long, Garen could practically remain under the Spirit Turtle's protection throughout an entire battle. Its HP recovery could even surpass Garen's own Passive Skill.
In other words:
If Garen fought Crocodile again now, Crocodile would find that not only had his opponent caught up to him in raw strength, but he also possessed the ability to outlast him through sheer stand-and-fight healing.
Unfortunately, Crocodile would never get to enjoy such treatment.
Garen cast a somewhat emotional glance at Crocodile's corpse on the ground, then spent two seconds wiping the dead warlord's final appearance from his mind.