'It's really harder not to wake up early at this point.'
The following day, Leo woke up at 6 AM sharp. After spending over two decades in his other lifetimes, his biological clock had not only become extremely accurate, but it was starting to be a bit malleable.
In fact, with Internal Energy running through his body, Leo no longer needed an alarm clock. Aside from the many beneficial attributes and conveniences that came with being a Martial Artist, one could easily tell time!
That was especially the case when one reached the Peak Stage. The minor cycle that could be achieved automatically even in sleep gave an accurate depiction of time.
With the correct number of cycles, a Peak Martial Artist could set things up so the end of the cycle would be their internal alarm clock!
'Time to climb up a few steps in advance.'
The first thing that Leo decided to do was to digest the few things that he kept aside last night.
"Dark, you will be my alert. Meow if someone comes!"
Ruffling up the white cat who had similarly woken up early, Leo decided to put his trust in it!
"Meow!"
One of the things that Leo had noticed during his last time on Earth was that voices or sounds from outside could be transmitted to the Reading Space.
It just had to be originating from the place where he entered the Reading Space. It would be faint, but it was still audible.
Considering that his mother might pop up in the room to check up on him, Leo had to take the extra measure so he could go back in time.
Of course, just grabbing what he needed and doing what he planned in his room seemed more sensible, but holding a red pill ball in a cross-legged position was likely to look worse than just not being there.
'My situation and growth look pretty suspicious already, no need to make things worse.'
Among the three types of pills that Leo had taken back, two were ones that proved useless for making progress at the Peak Stage. The sole reason why Leo exchanged for them was so they could replenish his Internal Energy if he did run out.
On the other hand, the Crimson Cloud Pill was an advanced variation of the Scarlet Cloud Pill. It still added about a Year's worth of Internal Energy, but it was more effective for higher-stage Martial Artists!
Since he had just come back as a fresh Peak Stage Martial Artist, this was perfect for Leo to keep up progress while he still worked out how to effectively use the Frozen Plum Core.
____________________
Personal Statistics:
---------------------
- Internal Energy: 1,002/1,002 (Scarlet Sky)
- True Sword Breath: 600/600
- Physique: 6.3
- Mind: 2.74
- Sword Breath: 601
____________________
It took a total of six hours to refine both pills, but in the end, Leo's gains were almost as much as 3 Years of Internal Energy!
'Now time to check on our little experiment.'
After leaving the Reading Space and stretching out for a few minutes, Leo skipped his Sword Breathing routine in favor of checking out whether his Martial Arts path had been cut off or not!
Making sure that there was no one in the kitchen, Leo slowly opened the deep freezer and took out the Frozen Plum Core that he had sneaked there.
Surrounding something with 'energy' was doable in the scientific sense, but it wasn't easy nor cheap to prove in comparison to deep freezing the thing! Cold Energy was the way to go!
It might not be the Northern Ice Islands, but the deep freezer made sure to keep everything under zero degrees Celsius.
'If this doesn't work, I might have to go with a more risky option…'
Silently going back to his room, Leo went back to the same position as his Internal Energy started to scan the chilled Frozen Plum Core.
'This!'
From just one initial scan, Leo directly went ahead and started refining whatever energy was generated and accumulated within the Core overnight, things were starting to look optimistic!
'This is around 12 days' worth!'
Such a small amount of pure energy only took a minute to absorb, but Leo was delighted. Jumping from 0.07 points to 0.4 in less time was definitely an improvement, the deep freezer wasn't even at the lowest temperature setting!
'Still, this wouldn't do…'
An improvement did prove that Leo was on the right path. However, the limits of a commercial-grade freezer were already obvious without the need for further testing. If Leo wanted to take big strides…
'I guess it's time to spend some of that gold.'
He needed to buy an industrial-grade freezer as well as a generator that could sustain it!
Despite smelting the gold coins that he obtained from the Sword Continent, Leo had refrained from selling them due to their lack of authentication. Now, however, that was no longer a problem!
'This is probably the most realistic ability of them all.'
Among the many powers and techniques that a Peak Martial Artist could use, the most useful one in a normal world setting was the Skin Altering Technique.
After all, to this moment, Leo was still yet to witness something that required him to use the extreme strength that he obtained from Martial Arts, not even his Sword Breath.
On the other hand, the Skin Altering Technique was not only useful for disguise but it could also be used to hide Leo's abnormal growth.
Considering that Leo had to meet potentially dangerous people in a few days, he had been already hoping to arrive in a world that had something similar and the Skin Altering Technique was basically the best version that he could wish for!
'Let's hit the black market.'
Though it was just a jewelry shop that was located in a shady alley and dealt in shady stuff, Leo felt that it had more of an impact to name it that way in his mind.
'It's no Shadow Star, but I will manage.'
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