Aren opened up the page for the base full body technique, the base techniques didn't have any names ot the like. He found it quite boring, what kind of person wouldn't want to give a cool name to a martial art? And someone said "No names for these arts!" It was just a little hard to believe for him 'It must've been a compromise.' He consoled himself with.

the technique he was planning on learning was more 'profound', or it just had more poetry, hard to tell really. But what he could understand is 'use your entire body to continuously attack your enemy so that they can't fight back.' A sentiment he could agree with, a lot. He already started to have fantasies of beating people up and then only being able to defend, a beautiful sight to behold.

Filled with new found determination, he started practicing immediately. The stance was pretty casual, if someone looked him they would realize it was a fighting stance, but at a glance you wouldn't notice. Though it still took more than an hour to get it right, he felt ashamed of his slow speed. He consoled himself, by blaming his weak body that he could get rid of with body refinement.

After a day of training he could already feel that he had progressed, maybe this was what he was good at? Definitely not, he just worked without breaks. He just saw strength as more important than rest, subconsiously sacrificing rest for power. The mark of a true talent. Working hard is a talent, in martial arts at least.

While Aren rested, he felt restless. It was boring and he wanted to train more, and he was someone that followed his heart. So no rest/sleep for him, how good or bad it was. But doing the same thing constantly wasn't good for comprehension, and it was boring. He went to the body refinement section and started to learn some body refinement trivia, all very useful.

There was a basic intruction on how to refine your body, it had little poetry. It was mostly pictures, people really knew that having poetry in your manual is dumb. Aren's eyes teared up a bit, there was still hope for humanity.

There was a mortal setup technique, and a 'real' body refining technique. The mortal setup technique was as in the name a way to set up a mortal for body refinement, he didn't even look at the full one. There was a way of progression setup, being impatient could be a death sentance.

The new technique was an exercise regiment, a very intense one at that. The idea was 'If you still have the ability to speak coherent sentances you haven't trained hard enough.' Very intense as I said, Aren thought so too. But any pain is worth induring for power, without power you have nothing. With no power you can't protect your wealth, without power you have no home.

The exercise regiment had a bunch of exercises, pushups, lifting weights, and a lot more. After an hour Aren already felt like he was out of steam, but not entirely. And half an hour later he fell to the ground, panting. He got knocked out, he had a nice sleep.

When he woke up he was slightly confused on what happened, he felt refreshed. He stood up, his body felt stronger. He remembered he had fallen unconsious, that was unexpected. But not so bad, he hadn't had a good nights sleep for a while. He took some food to eat and started to look for trash, the biggest find was a knife. His luck was really looking up.

He looked through the book for a good dagger technique, they were all either assasination techniques or backup techniques. All things useless for his situation, he needed to show his strength and carve out a section of the city's underbelly for himself. Not hide in the shadows like someones pawn, he tossed the dagger related techniques in the gutter and trained once more.

When he collapsed onto the ground from the setup technique, he started to plan his rise to power. He needed to get strong enough first, then beat some other people up so they do all the work. Then he strengthens himself constantly, he then increases his illegal empire's size. Maybe do some alchemy for cash, arrays might work too. But the final goal was to get into a local sect, hopefully one of the top sects; the opulent glacier sect. But if he really need to he could go with the resident evil sect; the chaos born sect 'I won't ever join a demonic sect though, just no.'

He had heard of the demonic sects, he highly disliked their methods of cultivation. Sacrificing your life span? That's dumb! Sacrificing your potential? That's even more dumb! At least the evil sects use someone else's sacrifice! Increasing your own talent with a newborn soul? Evil, but not dumb as hell! As you can see, he is disgusted by their idiocy. And the fact that they may try to erase his consiousness, that's quite a big factor.

Back to the plan though, he was quite annoyed at one thing 'This is the goddamned capital! I won't be able to takeover even if I spent years on this shit! Why couldn't I just be some abused smuck in the boonies!? At least I'd be able to beat everyone up in a month!' A valid complaint, seeing that he'd need to fight the imperial family and many sects for control.

The solution to his dillema? Join a sect and take it over, then take the other sects over. But this is assuming that he could even enter one, and there's the problem of not having a grasp of the world of cultivators. He may accidentally destroy his future prospects, it was extremely stressful for him. It would be so much easier if he could just make his own little cultivation crew, then infect a sect with his plans.

But how would he ever do that?! Cultivation techniques don't come so easily, there's no 'base cultivation' book. Why would sects have so much power otherwise, obviously they make sure the techniques don't leak to the public.

He calmed down after a while, and went back to training. Trying not to think about these things, the stress to large for his developing mind. At least the setup technique was working, instead of a stick figure, he had finally put some meat on those bones. This was something he was very happy with it, he could really do some damage with his fists now. But only to mortals, martial artist aren't mortals if you're wondering.

He was getting pumped up, but when he thought of his ambitions he had a thought 'Maybe I should tone it down a little.' He was thinking about how to takeover an entire nation while not even having a roof over his head, maybe he should think of smaller goals for himself instead of expecting himself to reach the heavens. Like, uhh, he could go for finishing his setup period. He thought it was a resonable goal, so that was his new calling.

First he made a routine to follow, which was setup -> battle training -> foot work -> repeat. That was it, pretty basic, but homeless people can't be choosers. He rumaged through his stockpile, to see what he got.He got trash, as always. He put some leftovers in his mouth, and started his new training routine.

A week later he had already gotten enough muscle to be considered a skinnier than normal human, and due to most of his extra weight being muscle he was a bit stronger than the avarage mortal. He was progressing faster than his talent should allow, this was due to a phenomenon seen in the direct children of previous or current body refiners, growing stronger the higher the level of refinement of the parent.

He felt confindent enough to start increasing his territory, but one question remained in his mind 'Can I do a flip?' Although it wouldn't have any big use, flexing works well in showing your strength. But it didn't matter that much, what did matter was that he saw some robbers operating in his turf. He couldn't let that happen, he heroicly walked toward them. They were robbing a good looking teenage girl, I couldn't let that happen. He put up the persona of a cold hearted criminal, great for dealing with others in the underworld.

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"You-" I said, shocking the robbers and the girl. The girl now with a hopeful look now interupted me "Please save me!" I looked at the girl, annoyed "Shut up, I wasn't finished." I looked at both sides "Anyone else? No? good." I continued "You, get off my turf, or else." He flicked the knife he was hiding in his rag sleeve into his hand, he said two words extra "Choose wisely."

The leader robber said "Calm down, what's the problem?" He looked at his as if he was an idiot "You're operating on my turf," He said and put emphisis on what came after "Without my permission." The leader robber said coutiously "I'm sure we can come to an agreement, sir." He put his hand to his face and chuckeled "I hope so too." He admired my knife "I would rather not clean the blood off of my clothes, again." he made an annoyed face, 'at the thought of it'.

He gazed at the girl, more specifically her sword and scabbard. He walked closer to the robbers, making an obviously fake smile on purpose. He flicked his knife back into hiding, and made a 'evil' smile. Doing his best to make it look like he was focused on the robbers, he walked in a circle around them and in between the two sides "Now give me a reason not to make you drop to the floor, sleeping for the rest of time."

One of the robbers, one of the more robust, not that it makes much of a difference, ran at him. He made a small frown, and slapped the unarmed robber. While stunned the robber got a full-power jab to the face, dropping to the ground. He made a face full of contempt "I think you don't understand, so I'll tell you a little fact." He raised his voice in anger "The weak! Ser-" He turned around and rushed at the girl a few meters behind him, the girl who had fallen into his trap stood shocked, and took a full power punch to the gut.

The girl stumbled, not waiting for her to fall over. Aren gave the girl a full power jump-uppercut, while in the air he also kicked her in the gut. She fell to the ground, unconsious "-ve the strong." He made a mocking smile and looked back at the robbers "Do you understand now?" The leader nodded furiously. He looked around and made an anouncement "You're all my new minions, anyone got a problem with that?" The leader shook his head furiously again "No, no."

He nodded "Good." He looked at the knocked-out girl 'It would be dangerous if she told people about me, and she seems to come from a good family. Maybe a cultivation family, a martial family at the minimum. Her death would be troublesome, wait, I have an idea.' He looked back at the robbers "Does one of you have rope?" After one of them nodded a lot He said "Tie her up, then take her with you while you make a new camp here."

The old leader nervously said "W-we already made one." I said to that "Then take her there, I'll be coming with you." They didn't dare go against the mysterious guy that could easily beat one of their strongest fighters and the girl that they were having a lot of trouble with, that would be courting death.

Aren appeared at the rag-tag trash houses/tents with a motley crew of criminals, one carrying a well looking girl who had lost most of their stuff after the looting of Aren over their shoulder. Aren had new clothes on, nice light blue martial artist clothes stolen from the girl's bag. A smile hung on his face, he had lost the rags so early on, he thought it would at minimum take another month or two.

He didn't understand why, but his luck was looking up at a ridiculous pace. While his new loot came with the girl as a problem, she looked naive enough to trick. He had her setup in a tent, and he sat opposite of her. He took some time to make his degrading smile back to its ol' peak, ordered the new minions to leave and not to interfere.

He waited for the girl to wakeup, and chuckled a bit about how easy it was to beat her up. He was doing way better than he thought with his techniques, plus her being in shock made an easy k.o. He was quite amused, he wondered what else the girl had on her. He hadn't looked at it yet, he had it behind him. His new minions weren't trustworthy enough, it would take a while but a bit of acting should change that.

As the girl was starting to wake up, he sat in a relaxed way "Man, that took a while. I mean, you've been knocked out for so long, here of all places. Like how?" The girl was confused and had a hazy mind "W-where am I?" Aren made an annoyed face "You still don't know? Seriously?" He looked at her incredulously.

The girl, a child from a certain sect, felt ashamed for some reason. Why did she feel ashamed through the words of the person the knocked her unconsious? She didn't know, she was always told she was an emotional girl "I don't! Where am I?" Aren as a truthful individual said to the girl "You are inside of a place you know very well, your mind."

The girl didn't understand so Aren needed to simplify "Or, you could say you're dreaming." He made a self deprecating smile "All of this is just a figment of your imagination, except me. But you wouldn't understand even if I explained it, you don't understand the mind enough for that." The girl was shocked "We have like a minute ot two maybe? Great to fully meet with you kid."

The girl didn't have any real friends, so she wasn't used with such casual conversation "What? Who are you?!" She made large movements, making Aren happy he restrained her "Think of me as a hidden part of your mind, and no, I'm not your inner demon or whatever." The girl had fallen into confusion, Aren gave her a bit of time till she asked her question "How did I get knocked out, or was this entire day a dream?"

Aren laughed "You got drugged kid, when you wake up you will have had most of your stuff stolen. I took this form from the guy whose trying to wake you up." The girl was still confused "Wait, why haven't you appeared in my dreams before?" Aren laughed and then went back the self deprecating smile "The drugs weakened your conciousness enough for me to come out, so don't expect me to come out so easily in the future."

The girl was starting to feel scared, but didn't feel any real danger "Why are you talking to me?" Aren made a serious face, and changed his body language "Although I don't care much about you, I don't want to die. So I'm here to tell you, to stop slacking off on your martial arts, or cultivation. I'm not to sure which you do, I can't see to much through your consiousness."

The girl became annoyed "Everyone keeps telling 'Stop slacking off', or 'Training is important'. And now another part of me is against me too, I keep telling you 'I don't want to'. Why don't you listen!" Aren got genuinely angry at her and put her down "Yea, I'm sure you'll keep that mentality when you die. You're a weakling, getting killed isn't that big of a suprise for you if you walk around town. You want to know why we keep telling you to train?"

The girl, rilled yelled "Yes! No one tells me anything!" Aren told her what he believed "If you don't your destined to die a horrible death, that's it. That's a fact, the weak will always suffer great injustice. While the strong choose what justice even is, you'll just be some random kid that offended someone above you and died for your mistake. And no one will ever miss you, forgotten in just a few day, max." He looked offended, and he was "That clear things up?"

Before she could respond he said "Looks like our time is up." While standing up "Also, if you don't listen to my advice I'll make you have nightmares every night." He then punched her in the gut a few more times, and gave her another upercut. The girl faded to black again, and Aren was relieved that it worked so well. But no time to relax, just a little bit more and he's scotfree. He was so happy he got acting classes in his youth, I mean, he was so happy he took 'extra etiquette lessons' in his youth.

He bid goodbye to the minions, and brought her near to one of the main streets. A martial training hall was nearby that he planned to look at in the near future, he layed the girl face up. And slapped her on the face a few time, the back hand is unbeatable. And the girl's subconsious mind agreed with him, because she woke up "Are you okay junior?"

The girl getting used to waking up after getting knocked out quickly stood up "Who said I'm your junior?" Aren changing his personality said "Uhh, me? I thought you were younger than me, with you not having trained the body setup technique or having a refined body." It seemed that he had struck her sore spot "You better start calling me senior, I'm the child of one of the Opulant glacier sect's elders."

Aren started fawning over her "Great senior please turn a blind eye to this mere martial artists blunder, you must've entered the qi gathering realm already." Aren struck her sore spot on purpose this time, she'll feel ashamed and won't talk to me at all after this "Y-yes, I will forgive your blunder this one time." The girl was quite curious about the martial artist she saw before her "Tell me where I can find you in the future."

That's when he striked "Great senior, I can not give you that information. Not because I wish not to tell you, but I can not. I am but a mere wandering martial artist, I have no p.lace I call home. But you may be able to find me at the martial hall close by, I am thinking of looking around there." He used his expert butt-kissing powers to create a fake identity "Yes, that is enough. Goodbye" She then ran off.

Aren walked back to his abode and started to praise himself, while the girl met up with a black clothed cultivator "M'lady, I have finally found you. Where have you been? You know you're not allowed to leave the compound right?" The girl didn't have time to deal with her "Take me to my dad, I have come to a... revelation of sorts." The cultivator with black robes said "Yes my lady."