Aren was considering changing his last name, his current last name is giving him bad memories. And if some people learned about it, he would be dead before he knew it. His last name, Hoa, was pretty well known for the wearers being killed. And that stigma is something he liked to avoid, not even knowing why they were massacred.

Of course he's still hidden in the sewer system, he's been nice and relaxed while training constantly. He's gone to the guild for some chores to do, for some cash. It was but some chores, so he didn't get much, less than that kryl from before. But he still needs to keep up apearences, bothersome as it is.

But there's one that was atractive to him, a construction job. It had good pay, but bad hours. Labor intensive work wasn't popular, the people that do stuff like that are usually weak. But labor intensive = exercise + money. Two birds with one stone, but he needs to do 50 chores and have been in the guild for a month before he can take the job.

It was a shame, but he didn't need work. He needed to build up a pill storage, then he was going to do a mukbang of pills and food constantly for a few days with exercise in between. You must be wondering, why do that? A human body has a natural limit you can't overcome normally, like the 100% that Aren was chasing after for a while, that's the natural limit. It wasn't a smart choice for someone as poor as him to do that, because the closer to the human limit the more you need to train, you do have more muscles.

The optimal poor level is around 80-ish percent, where the amount of training needed to progress is lowest to how much you can train. Pills let you do this fun trick called 'Fuck humanity!', becoming something better. going past the limit of humanity, but you're still human. No matter how much you don't want to be one, it's a pain, and I mean a pain to change your race.

Aren knew all of this, his backround is pretty profound, but not that profound. That girl has a way better backround though, its not even comparable. Aren just had incompareable ambition, and a weirdly unshakeable confidence in his talent. He felt like he had a real world experience that showed of that talent in full, but he forgot what he did.

All this didn't matter to Aren, he just wanted incompareable power. He had no clue about higher realms, but if he knew about them he would ascend into a higher one. When everything was perfect, like in the set-up. Going beyond 200% is straight up impossible, while surviving to tell the tale. The human body collapses after going beyond it, and you don't really need to be scared about going further than you should, your body screems at you not to go any further when you reach the real limit.

You also know of your achievement of going beyond the natural limit, with the prize of constant pain and a feeling of something being wrong. So most people don't go beyond it or stop at 120% with the feeling of getting stabbed. Aren would go as far as he could, and this 'going beyond the limit' stuff was an excuse to understand how the hell he was supposed to get qi. He was still salty, he felt it wasn't his first time getting beaten down by qi. This was a life long vendetta now, he won't stop until he's done.

Though there wasn't much known about going beyond the natural limit, it is known that before you become a cultivator or martial artist, you need to break it before you become one if you want to do the same again. Aren started doing some calculas 'Right now I'm at about 95%, making it 5% in three weeks. That's unbelieveable for the basic technique, and above average with one of the best techniques. It would take 3 pills to get this 5% in my estimates, the next 5% should take a lot more. At least 5 pills at minimum if I get lucky with pill quality and also have a perfect absorption, right now I have 18 pills. If I take my current absorbtion rate and the quality of the pill I had, 14 pills tops.' Aren frowned at the thought of how many pills he would need to break the natural limit 'Around 50 pills.' Since he needs that many that means at least 50 weeks of working as an examinator 'If you include the 'diaria + river pee pills, with an equation of 1 pill for every 5 pills. 60 weeks, more than a year.'

Aren felt his blood pressure rising, but he calmed himself down 'Those pills are a syrl each, so 100 kryl. I can do other missions to build up a bit of wealth, I currently have 57 kryl. I'll start to muse about it later.' Oh, the woos of the poor.

and so, time marched on, and a month passed. Xu Su was taking in pill after pill, getting rid of impurities and becoming one with the pills. She was building up a pill resistance, if she didn't taking pills far above her body would be a pain. These pills were all brought out by her father's sponsorship, he wished the best for his daughter, so he would definently buy those cheap pills for her. He actually already had a few hundred thousand body refinement pills in his warehouse filled with spacial rings from low ranking cultivators as a tribute, he was prestigious and giving him a body refinement pill to give him face was totally worth it.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

I won't go into the details right now, Aren would have a heart attack. Speaking of him, he had delegated most of the work to the full-time workers. He had gotten the job of examinator easily, you don't know the prestige of someone close to the natural limit. He had made the progress of 3%, the last two percent would come about in 1 and 1/2 months. He made a speech at the start "Hello everybody! enjoying your stay at our luxury room? I don't care actually, some of you should be doing this for the second time. But still, there are two tests everyone! Hit the button as hard as you can, and run fast enough for our standards. Those are basically the tests, I didn't care to learn the names. Go ask the staff about what you should do when we get to the test ground, now follow me."

He did the usual rutine, he walked them over and showed them the two test they have to take, plus his very punctual names he didn't need to explain shit. then he got a chair and table, he had a nice meal. Nice and nutritious, he was quite not poor off after a few missions to take care of spirit herbs from some alchemist. No clue how he got the job, he just went to the interview for blending in, but he got the job. Also the food he was eating was extremely cheap, so tastes like shit but pretty good for the body. At least it wasn't rotten, he was saving money for the pills.

He acted like it was of great taste, he had a reputation to uphold. Like I said previously, a near limit semi-artist, although not as prestigious as a real martial artist. Is far beyond the average, someone with around 150% is as prestigious as a high body refinement stage. But prestigiousness doesn't mean strength, at most it says potential strength.

After his meal he started to read the memorized book of qi once more in his mind, some idiot challenged him. But Aren as the saint he was, only made him cough up a bunch of blood. He used his cover-up dual swordmanship, you may be wondering, why dual? Because it looks cool, in reality he just uses one saying that the other party isn't worthy of his dualswordmanship. But he is practicing, and at that day he will bring fear into the hearts of many.

After becoming famous with a cool technique the quality of people he needs to kill will increase, and the loot will have higher quality too. So dualswordmanship it is, with punching bitches on the side. He had also taken tribute from the robbers calling it a protection fee, they had increased in number. The original robbers had become fit and healthy, something about that guy I cremated having a bunch of food on him or something?

They made a gang and started to participate in gang wars, and Aren incouraged it. Of course, in exchange for his protection he was entitled half of the loot. It was worth only a few kryl so Aren used the excuse of investment and threw them the problem of looting a bunch of trash shit that was almost worthless that added up to a few kryl in value. it would take him a few weeks to do that, he could easily get a few kryl a week with him constantly doing chores.

And 2 days of taking care of some herbs for that alchemist was the same, he could even train while he had nothing to do. So generous, he made sure not to fuck up his job, the pay was good. Really good actually, So good that he took this week's tribute and the pill from this week's work as an examinator and calmly walked towards the herb garden he worked at.

The servants knew him so they let him in without problems, after walking around for a bit. The house was quite large, not that it really mattered. In the herb garden Aren worked, the alchemist he worked for was waiting there with someone unfamiliar. Aren didn't care to talk though, he had a job to do. And training, so formalities weren't on the forfront of his mind.

Who cares? I'm just some hired hand to take care of some herbs, nothing at the level of talking to that alchemist old guy. Like, sure. If he initiated the conversation then of course Aren would talk, but otherwise. Not happening, ever. Unless he becomes a good cultivator genius, which will take a few decades with what he's doing.

But to his annoyance, he was stopped before he could leave "Ai Ren, come over here. This old alchemist wants to talk to you." The alchemist said Ai Ren instead of Aren, but it was close enough. Aren turned around and cupped his hands "Yes, great alchemist?" The old guy said "This is my new disciple, I want you to help him with anything he asks of you. Also, with no relations to this topic, one of my plots hasn't been used for a while. Would you like to try using it?"

What he was saying was 'If you help my disciple I'll let you plant some of your own herbs in a plot of land that I haven't used for a while.', at first he would refuse with 'Sorry great alchemist, I am but a mortal, how could I help you disciple.', meaning 'It would be too troublesome.'. But with how nice and generous Aren was, he changed his thoughts after hearing use and plot "How could I refuse the great alchemist's gift? And helping your disciple would be the greatest honor in my life."

The old guy smiled "Good, I hope my disciple does well. Though he is a bit unruly, he's a god sport." meaning 'If my disciple fails then your rights to the plot is gone.' Aren laughed "Me too great alchemist, it would be my greatest pleasure if your disciple becomes a great alchemist" meaning 'I will do my best, make sure for an extra pay if I do better than what you suspect.'

"Good," The old man said "Disciple, guide him to the plot of land." the disciple cupped his "Yes master!"