Aren appeared infront of the robber leader, having a small smile on his face and a pill in his open hand "Hello~ I want to give you something to you~ Don't worry, it isn't poisonious~" He then forced robber leader man's mouth open forcefully, and popped the pill into his open maw. Robber baron coughed a bit and was fine after a bit, most of the problems came from the forced swallowing. Robber baron didn't feel any different and felt anger welling up inside of him, but he suppressed it, you don't mess with someone who could kill you easily.
Aren wanted to make sure the effects were correct "Exercise now!" Robber baron accepted his new perpose in life, and after an hour the pills effects should have disapeared the Robber baron had gotten more muscles than what Aren would get with the same amount of exercise. This meant that the pills weren't a fraudulant poison hidden in the form of refinement pills, it was sort of sad he had to give it to Robber baron. He also looked at Robber baron to tell him his new name "Your name is Robber baron, got that?" Robber baron instantly nodded.
Aren quickly walked back to his abode, at the same time Robber baron told all the other robbers to call him by his new name which he honestly liked a lot. After his next nap Aren consumed one of the pills, After an hour he had made 5% percent of progress to his limit if added on to the progress made before the nap he now had 86% done. He saw the value of refinement pills, he would need to find out how to get more.
Aren knew a bit about pills, mostly that they aren't all sunshine and rainbows. They aren't perfectly made, and even if they are, the medicinal effects can be detrimental if over used. Now if we look at this pill bottle's origin, its obvious that someone as weak as the man he fought couldn't get his hand on perfect pills. Luckily for him it wasn't that hard for the impurities to leave his body, all he had to do was wait. After all, impurities are discharged from the body through his human waste.
Although Aren didn't care to much for his mental well-being, his potential was very important to him. And an overload of impurities would damage his talent and future prospects, he would never take a risk like that unless his life is in danger or something worse would happen. He quickly hid his new pills, not believing in his self control for even a moment.
He still had energy left so he continued his training, when he was done he read through his new book. At the same time Xu Su was readying herself for refinement, she had a few artificial qi crystals with raw primal ice qi in them set around her. When she would start the qi crystals will shatter and all the qi inside them would be released into her body, She was obviously scared. But the motivation of not having nightmares made her move forward, she sat down in a lotus position.
She regulated her breath in a way that would attract the primal qi, she kept doing this for a bit, slowly fractures started appearing in the crystals. When the cold qi came into contact with her and tried to enter her breath, she let down her body's automatic defenses to qi and let the qi inside. She changed her breathing a bit, calling apon neutral qi to enter her body. When the qi came in contact with the primal qi, the neutral qi acted as a catalyst of sorts sending the primal qi into a frenzy. It went lose on everything close to it, with Xu Su softly leading it around her body while in agonizing pain.
After enduring the qi till it ran out Xu Su had again made more progress than Aren could make with an entire day of hard work, without his new pills. Speaking of him, Aren found out some cool properties of qi. Like you breathing can attract qi, 'can' because you need to do it in a certain way. The ways of breathing were seperated into soft and forceful, the soft ones lets you calmly breath in the qi within the air. While the forcefull ones forcefully attract qi out of the air, the qi rocks/stones, qi crystals, ect. Destroying them in the process, but that only happens with mortals if you use artificial crystals that are far less stable than natural ones.
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Since Aren was poor he didn't even think about using the forcefull method till he struck gold in one way or another, since his new manual used every element he went to one about all qi. Aren was enraptured in the topic of qi, but there was one problem. The poetry had reached another level entirely, and Aren was thinking he was actually getting used to it, laughable. He was but a frog in a well when it came to manual poetry, what he was dealing with was tame in comparison to the real shit.
The only thing he could understand was that you need to breathe to do it, that's all, litterally. But he had pride in his... uhhh. Nothing actually, he was just really angry that he understood jackshit. First he would multi-task, he memorized the first section and started to exercise. Here's where the multi-tasking came into play, Aren always thinks of other things while exercising due to it being a mindless task, so what if he thought about the manual poetry? Yes he started to think of poetry in the manuals as its own sort of poetry by now, he would shame its existence if he rose to the top.
But after that training session he understood nothing, if he could just use qi to cleanse his body right now he would be able to use a pill a day. Including that he would also have a more stable foundation for the future, that would be a dream come true. Now that he knew that he could start to use qi in the setup fase, he wasn't going to break through until he got the most out of it.
If he can't understand it for a long time then he'll make a better fucking refinement technique to catch up, any manual using qi has a cultivator rank, that alone would make his life easier. His future accomplishments are more important than his current difficulties, if he did it right he would at a minimum get another decade to his lifespan.
after a bit of rest and relieving himself he looked at his reflection in the poo water, he already looked like a olympic level body builder. He wondered what he could do for some cash, his answer? The mercanary guild, its members did pretty much anything for money, as long as it didn't go against the law. If you want to go against the law, like I don't know, assasinate someone. You should go to a big group of assasins, or a guild. Unlike the legal guilds, the underworld didn't get government monopolies so you can genuinely expect good service if you pay them well, and don't treat them like trash if you aren't a gigantic buyer or really strong.
If he became a mercanary he would pretty much be his world's equivilent of a free lancer, that did anything legal. He remembered his father joked about how he once saw a prostitution request bn the mission board, apparently it was taken up by one of the better looking female mercanaries. Those were the days, having a family...
Anyways, it was pretty easy to become a mercanary. Just show you have a certain level of power that ethletic mortals can pass even if they don't have a technique of focus, so it would be pretty easy for him. He had a good bit of cash, but it'll be suspicious for some really buff guy to appear and buy your stuff. But mostly it would make his status in society to increase, there were ranks for mercanaries but he wasn't planning to climb the corperate ladder for a while. Well, he may do it passively, just do it when the offer arrives. But he's sure he won't actively try to get a promotion.
He was sceming this up while he was exercising, it was kind of funny seeing a really bug guy training in a sewer absent-mindedly. There was one thing Aren was lucky about, the smell of his sweat overpowered the stench of the sewer. But just to be sure, before he went to the guild he went to a close by pond that no one passed by to clean himself.
When he entered the guild house, in a more open street. He calmly opened the doors, by calm I mean discretely. You don't try to be epic in the mercanary guild, there are quite a few wandering cultivators in it. Aren walked to the desk and waited for the receptionist there to talk, she was good looking like all receptionist in the guild "What do you need sir?" She looked good, and some pushover would go off blushing and stuff. But he wasn't a pushover, but also not an asshole "I'd like to take the test to become a mercanary, please give me the permission slip." He took out a rectangular tablet made of copper; a kryl.
The receptionist took out a piece of paper with stuff on it and gave it too Aren, after he gave the kryl to her. He left quickly, giving her some small talk as a courtesy. When he came back to his home, he looked at the location on the paper. Some training facility, like tommorow in the morning.