Chapter 3

Ever since beating up those third-rate villains I've challenged others around my level in strength to temper my skills. I can confidently say now that with my increase of skill and power, no one under Nascent Profound can lay a hand on me. Only people around their early to mid-twenties are in nascent profound in this city and don't give a shit about beating someone close to a decade younger. It would embarrass them or something.

However, recently I've hit a bottleneck. My control over energy is at the peak possible and to enter the next realm in my personal cultivation technique, I have to sit and wait for my internal energy to recover from the past 16 years of age that this body went through and then let my recovered energy unlock the potential of my body. Well, there's nothing I can do about it so I'm just going to upkeep the training of my body. My body right now is at the peak of what is naturally possible for humanity at a staggering battle power of 5 so my full battle power is 105 when I control my internal energy.

I was practicing a new technique called Touki when a thought came to me. I want to recover my inner energy right? So why don't I use the energy from the sun to speed up the process? From then on I began to use the Hamon Breathing Technique in everyday life as well as learning to use Touki. Touki is a technique where I cover my body in my internal energy or the energy of the surrounding to increase my strength, defense, and speed. Touki can be used in different intensities with the highest being a 100% boost. The Hamon Breathing Technique is, of course, a breathing technique that takes in the Ki of the sun that has dispersed in the atmosphere. Using Hamon allows practitioners to extend youth and lifespan, heal, and increase power. There are many other applications as well but those are the main ones.

I was lying down in a hammock one day, resting after a long day of work when an absolutely foul smell hit my nostrils. My eyes snapped open and I searched for the source of that smell. I realized it was coming from me and looked down all along my body. I was covered from head to toe in a thick layer of black goo. Impurities. I leaped off the hammock and rushed toward the local stream. When I got there I began to fervently scrub off the impurities. It took me around 40 minutes of scrubbing to take them all off and an additional 15 minutes to get rid of the lingering smell. It was especially a nightmare to get them out of my hair.

After doing so I began inspecting the changes in my body. My previously tanned skin was now a pale white and my musculature disappeared to reveal a lanky and borderline anorexic body. I'm not going to lie, these changes were pretty disappointing. The only changes that were good were that I became a lot taller and much, much more handsome… Somehow? My face still looked like my face just, better. Before my face was pretty average and since I'm in a cultivation world where everyone is a supermodel at the bare minimum, I was pretty unremarkable.

I began doing tests to make sure everything is alright and discover that my body's strength is the exact same despite my muscle being shrunken. I sigh in contentment. While the loss of muscle mass and definition was disappointing the impurities signify that I've entered the next realm, the Potential Unleashed realm. My internal energy, vitality, and body have now recovered back to the time I was a newborn and the potential of my body has been unearthed. The usual max power for a human body that has had its potential unleashed is 500 battle power. Some especially talented humans could maybe be 25% - 50% stronger. Sadly it does not seem like I'm one of them.

After dumping my ruined clothes, I rush back to my personal dorm. Usually, I would go to the public shared bedrooms like everyone else but with my increase in strength, comes an increase in status, and an idiot that tried to suck up to me give me the keys and ownership of this private dorm.

"Heh, sucker," I muttered to myself softly. I walked in and got some work clothes to cover up my stark naked body. My break is probably long over so I should get back to work, hopefully, no one has noticed my absence. I walk out and run right into the one guy I didn't want to see, my supervisor. He notices me and walked up with a livid expression and a throbbing vein on his forehead.

"Where have you been!? Young Master Yuanba's new pet shat all over his room, destroyed it, his belongings, and killed all of his other pets! I called all menial servants to take care of it and the only one who didn't show was you! I had to shovel shit myself because of you! If you want to keep your job this better be the last time this happens!" He hissed out with gritted teeth. I nod fervently while sweating buckets. This guy was at half-step True Profound level so the pressure was real. He stormed away, leaving me in the hallway.

I sighed and headed to the menial servant taskboard outside of the public servant dormitories.

…

Since I unlocked the potential of my body, my previous Saitama Training Method is now ineffective so I moved on to the more advanced Turtle Hermit School training method. I specifically picked different tasks from the taskboard that coincide with the training method so I don't get fired. The first task is to deliver packages to hermits that live several miles apart up on mountains before breakfast. The second is to hoe massive fields of farmland with my bare hands. The third is to help construction workers build new houses and infrastructure for the city expansion. The fourth is to swim past profound shark-infested waters carrying a package for a client on the other side of the lake. The fifth is to dodge the stings of profound bees. Of course, I have breaks in between the morning and afternoon, but I still have to do all of that and without using my energy as well. The things I do for strength.

…

"Skip one two three four, skip one two three four, skip one two three-," I was skipping along the trail to the first mountain for the delivery when I sensed a couple of Ki signatures up ahead and off to the side on the right. I was immediately suspicious about what they could be doing there so I stopped skipping and readied my energy. I was proven right when a few figures jumped from the brush and landed on the road. They were all incredibly bulky, covered in scars, and had eyes that were full of maliciousness. They unsheathed and equipped several types of weapons. My eyes rolled at the cliche.

"Well, well, well boys. Who do we have here? A little bi-," Before he could utter another cliche line I took the initiative and rushed forward, pushing my Touki to the max. The bandit leader was obviously not used to or ready for my abrupt attack and was barely able to block that attack with his saber. My fist cracked the blade a little. I backed away slightly and aimed a kick at his crotch as I was backing away. It landed and sent the leader away, squealing. The other two bandits flanked me while I was dealing with the leader. One sent the tip of his spear flying toward my head, gushing with profound energy. The other slashed at my midsection with a sword harnessing the wind. I flipped forward and rolled away, dodging the attacks.

"Slippery bastard!" The bald one on the right said. The leader was staggering to his feet when I ran forward and dropkicked him back to the ground. I snatched away his cracked saber and started hacking at his face. I was only able to get a few hacks in before I was forced to duck under an angry sword swing. The swing was overextended. I used this to my advantage and cut his arm off at the shoulder. As the bald one writhed in agony, I used this opportunity to grab his sword and stab him in the throat. At this point, the other bandit started fleeing in terror.

I know better than to let him go, chances are he has some seniors that are far stronger than I can handle, so I focused my Touki in the arm and sword and throw with all my strength, aiming at his dome. The throw strikes true and now his brains paint the trail. I retrieve all the spoils from the bodies as well as their weapons and continue on my way. Since coming to this world I've been in a number of life and death battles though they were too unimportant to mention. Since these were the first guys that were over the Elementary Profound Realm, I decided to mention them on my travels.

I've learned quite a bit from those battles such as to never show mercy to enemies or let them go. Doing that might be merciful to them but cruel to yourself. You will not believe how much time it took to shed the morality of my old world and acclimate to this new one or how many people I would spare only for them to come back with a bunch of stronger guys.

…

The beginning of Canon came and went. I stuck around to watch the wedding before fucking off out of boredom. Xiao Che has now turned into Yun Che and is going off on an adventure to collect a harem and do some other shit. Whatever he does is none of my business. I was still training, as usual, killin' a few bozos here and there, just living life when I saw a strange sight. I was just hoeing some of Farmer Shu's land when off in the distance, on the edge of the Xia clans property, I saw a man walking past slowly. He was wearing a black coat with reds clouds on it and a straw hat.

"An Akatsuki… Wtf?" I muttered under my breath in amazement.