The next thirteen days indeed became a nightmare for them. They worked without stopping, day and night. During the day, if they were overly tired, they simply skipped classes, but no matter what happens, their leader would drag them to the same mountain and continue their exercise.

However, their training was not completely the same. They still sought after the same elusive rare ore that is supposed to be hidden in the mountain, but each day the weight of their metal jacket increases, and a different sigil was inscribed. By the end of their training, they had gone through all five elements of creation, and even tested sigils for the three elements of nature, Lightning, Frost, and Wind.

The original Five Element Body cultivation technique now needs to be renamed as Eight Element Body cultivation technique. If Kairos could get his hands on the four transcending pairs, the number of sigils will be future increased to sixteen, and the name will need to change once again.

The Entropy Runes not only preserve heat, but also works for all types of energy, making sure that the boys fully experience a lasting effect of being fried by lightning, bloated by water, or having their blood frozen.

But, now that they know that it helps them build up a powerful resistance, none of them mumbled complaints… at least not in front of Kairos.

Each time when the boys completed a run up the mountain, the girls had to reassure them that they had not yet opened their bundles. Only then, can they feel motivated to continue their training without giving up.

Of course, all the bundles had long been untied and the commemorative portraits within carefully inspected.

On their last day of training, Kairos came down the mountain with a bright gem and laughed, “This is the rare ore I was talking about.”

“It… really exists?”

“I didn’t expect to find it either,” he replied.

“I… I just thought that after so many days of hunting through the mountain without results, maybe there wasn’t such an ore.”

“On the other hand, considering that we only took two weeks to find one, perhaps it wasn’t that rare.”

The meaning of rare is subjective. In every mountain, there would be some resources that are scarce in the area. Kairos had heard of the mountain containing this rarely found bright gem in his hand, but he did not know that it is considered hardly valuable. Otherwise, none would be left in such an assessable site.

He threw the fist-sized ore into his Time-space ring, not knowing the real treasure, all along, was their mining picks.

“Boss, a… are our training over?”

“Looks like it was a success, I wasn’t sure at first,” their respectable leader exclaimed causing the other four to pale.

Kairos hurriedly said, “Don’t worry, it’s safe. I just needed to confirm my speculations… it’s too bad that I couldn’t create any transcendent elemental sigils…”

The others shuddered. However, their fourteen days of hard work had paid off substantially. The boys took off their shirts to check out the changes.

After much struggles and uncountable times where he wanted to give up, the one with the weakest physique, Jim, finally reached Earth Man physical rank. His thin body now looked healthier than before, with a strength that betrays his figure. Though he had narrowed the gap, he is still the weakest in the team. Alan and Edward remained a step ahead of him at Man Heaven rank. Their bodies were strapped with muscles made for speed and durability were almost glowing with a healthy radiance. Tommy is two steps ahead at Xuan Beast. He’s stout and robust figure has become even more powerfully built like a steel wall. Only Kairos remained at Huang grade Titan rank.

The girls couldn’t tear their eyes from them. The visual attack was too overwhelming. Leaf secretly wiped off her drool while Sasha and Luciette blushed terribly. On their side, Snow appeared to have short-circuited.

They had not been around the entire time during the two weeks of training. Once they made certain with their own eyes that it wasn’t too dangerous, they resumed their daily academy life and only visited once in a while.

The girls had been envious of their physical improvements, yet they looked wary and hesitant to ask for the training sigils. The muscles looked nice on boys, but it’d be a problem if their arms and legs were to become so ripped.

“I don’t want my chest to disappear…,” Leaf murmured.

“Me too. I’d love to send a guy flying wish a punch but… I don’t know if the trade-off is worth it,” Sasha sighed.

Still, they couldn’t help but ask Kairos about it. The boy, with a smile that could lure birds down from the tree, said in a honeyed voice, “Hold on, my experiments ain’t done yet, but once it is, I’ll teach you girls the method. Don’t worry. I’ll be able to set up a training manual that will improve the physical rank without changing your looks.”

The girls were enthralled but anxious at the same time. Experiments? Kairos meant that all the training so far had been his tests to ensure the sigils worked?

What if someone had fallen from the mountain?

They shuddered at his confidence, but his words also sparked excitement in their hearts they can’t deny. If they can have higher physical ranks, they can survive harder battles. As cultivators, which of them would not feel their hearts pound on hearing this?

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

Of course, the best part is the look on others face when they could beat up their foes with pure brute strength – all the while wearing beautiful robes. With two or three times the strength of their enemies, they wouldn’t even dirty the clothes they are wearing in a fight. Ohhh, just the imagination was enough to make them agree to the horrific training the boys had gone through.

When they nodded, Kairos had the purest smile they have ever seen on someone’s face, but somehow, they felt their blood chill.

The boys celebrated their growth but Kairos quickly cautioned them, “Not that I want to be a downer, but the hardest part of external cultivation is how your physical ranks will regress if you don’t keep up the training.”

The rest looked at him in shock.

Those who do not regularly train will start becoming weak, and this is a general knowledge that most knows. However, the boys had never heard that they need to keep up the training.

Kairos knowing how lacking they are in such commonplace understandings quickly tried to explain it, “No matter what it is, if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. It is the same for physical training.”

“But, Boss, Cultivation doesn’t regress that quickly right? I’ve never heard of anyone dropping ranks because they were lazy.”

“That’s because cultivation ranks are easy to maintain. Physical ranks, on the other hand, takes sweat and effort.”

A series of groaning erupted from the guys.

“What? You think things would be this easy, just a few days of hard work and a few pills will solve everything?”

“In that case, I rather focus on training my cultivation…,” one of them caved in immediately. The others laughed. Even without looking up, it’s obviously their little brother, Jim.

However, what he proposed was many cultivators’ choice. With limited time and resources, most people had to invest in what they could do well, and internal cultivation is comparatively less difficult than external arts.

“It depends on you if you wanna join the training or not,” Kairos said, and Jim immediately gave everyone a cheeky smile.

“But, we will leave you behind, good brother.”

Jim immediately crumbled causing everyone to laugh, “Nooooo, I’ll train with you guys!”

“The advantage of physical strength cannot be dismissed. It’s up to you how far you would want to go. I will only make sure there is no dead-end ahead of you.”

What he said to Jim is the hard truth. Internal cultivation grants a fighter power, speed, and strong defences, while physical training grants brute strength, resilience, stamina, and most importantly for them, an increase in life capacity.

If Jim chooses to only concentrate on training his Ki, he will lose out on quite a bit of advantage from the other side. Or perhaps, it is better to say that the Origin Cultivation Method that they are practising is meant for both external and internal martial arts from the beginning.

“Boss, however, we don’t have the time for training both internal and external arts,” someone pointed out immediately. Just two weeks of hard work took up all the time they had, and left them with hardly enough energy for class or to improve their cultivation ranks.

It is still within their ability if they simply tried to maintain the current physical ranks they gained, but once they become stronger, it will be harder and take up more time. In that case, wouldn’t it be better to drop physical training earlier?

“In that case, I will fully focus on physical training,” Tommy made his decision with a snap, and it set the others to thinking.

“Isn’t there a way to do this?”

“There must be one. Otherwise Kairos wouldn’t have suggested.”

“Clever,” their captain conceded with a nod, “I do have something on my hands to solve this, but the process is unpleasant, maybe even cruel. Each of you needs to think about it and decide for yourself. If you’re willing, come to me privately, and I’ll have something ready for you.”

The others grimaced involuntarily and saw their lives flash before their eyes when they imagined the inhuman training Kairos planned.

“Could it be possibly worse than what we had already done?”

They did not see the flash of a grin on Kairos’ face. One by one they turned to look at each other in silence, and without exception, they found there is an undeniable resoluteness in the others’ eyes.

“Boss, it’s okay. We will all go through with it!”

“Yes. So far, no matter what kind of terrible training you planned, it’d be worth it! We trust you.”

“One day, when everyone can be able to stand at the top, I don’t want to be the only one left behind.”

“I’ve survived even cultivation destruction. It can’t be worse… Wait, captain… why are you silent… can it be?”

“Holy shit, really? Can I still back out?”

“Damn! We were fooled… He isn’t a human. He’s a demon!”

Kairos shook his head with an innocent smile.

“Don’t worry, it’s only an hour of external training daily, and not only will you be able to maintain your current physical rank, but it will also help speed up your training.”

“Oh, only an hour? That’s okay then.”

“Noooo Alan, don’t trust him.”

“Somehow, I’ve become less excited about this…”

“Mother, I’m sorry, I’ve made bad friends.”

It’s better to strike when the iron is hot, and they started at once. To the surprise of everyone, the horrible training began with Kairos summoning a pill furnace. When they thought that he would be making them some supplementary pills, he said, “An hour a day, you’ll stay in this furnace.”

“WHAT?!!!”

They were not doubtful that a large person could fit into a small furnace as Kairos suggested. After all, they had frequently been sent into an even smaller crystal ball for training. But to stay in a furnace for training, surely he is jesting?

Kairos remained relentless, “I’ve prepared one for each of us and asked Aetnaeus to remodel the interior, as long as you feed it with spirit stones, it will power up and refine your body with one of the eight elements. You’ve already built up plenty of resistance thanks to the sigils of creation and nature. It will be a piece of cake.”

“We’ll die!”

“Don’t worry, at most you’ll only be half cooked. Haha…”

“No seriously boss, we wouldn’t be able to sustain in the middle of real flames, or lightning, or frost… or anything else for that matter.”

“Maybe not, for now. But Alan and Jim will be fine. Do you remember the Life Taker?”

“The poison that doubled our life capacity?”

“Yes! That herb increased the amount of life energy capacity within you. Our healing process is increased exponentially by how much life force we have. Doubling what we had means that small wounds like scratches will heal instantly.”

“You mean, even if we are burned in a fire, we can recover faster than we get injured?”

“Yes, or sitting in an acid pool. As long as we have built up enough resistance, it’d be fine. Wait… why are you guys turning white? You didn’t think that the water element is easier to train than fire, did you?”

“W…wha…what about the Earth Element?”

“We have an exclusive sand pool for our members that acts like a shredder. It’s only a little bit worse than the wind element’s hurricane,” then Kairos added in a soft voice, “But if you do account for vertigo you’ll feel… then maybe the two are actually equal?”

“Metal?”

“Shard storm. It’s like an actual shredder. But, you have already developed cut and blunt resistance thanks to the metal sigil, so you won’t actually be shredded.”

“W…wood?”

“Just parasitic vines that try to take over your body through your blood vessels. It’s also good for increasing your blood flow, I’ve tried it.”

“HELP! Someone call the dorm matron!”