Kill The Old Ones!

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”Don’t waste this chance! Your cousin worked really hard for this.”

”I can guarantee you that no other clans in Central City were as fortunate as we are. You’re not stupid; you’ve heard about the value of the Sky Archon Arts. Everybody out there is working hard to make sense of it all, trying to translate it to martial arts, but your cousin is way ahead of them. And he left this all here for us to use. Do your best to not waste his hard work.”

”The clan is lucky to have Ren. As someone who’s around the same age as him, I won’t ask you to keep up with him, but at the very least, don’t be a burden to the clan. Study well.”

”Look, the Pain Demon Art 2.0 is here! Weren’t you waiting for this? Go on, try it out and tell us what you think.”

”Was it also Ren who made the 1.0 version?”

”I’d say that he is. Stop speculating, though, and don’t bother him about it. Just thank him and practice well.”

”With all of this, the clan’s foundation just became way deeper. I feel like we’re an actual ancient martial arts clan now.”

”Ren’s a good child. The clan is lucky to have him.”

”Don’t go out telling people about this, you hear me? If I heard that you did, I’d beat you up until you cry.”

”Child, this is a clan secret now. You must remember, don’t boast about it outside. Just practice well and go on about your day.”

”Whatever you do, do not expose Ren. He helped us this much; the least thing we could do is to keep him from those who will harm him.”

”Don’t let Ren’s efforts go to waste.”

It’s been a week since Ren filled the martial hall with the things he brought back from the trial grounds, and since then, the clan has entered a practice frenzy.

By now, news of what he did has spread to everybody in the clan. Everyone had seen what he left in the martial hall, and the elders have yet to stop singing praises for him.

How can they not?

The rest of the world is still working hard to translate the sky archon arts to martial arts. While they are making progress, they are too slow. On the other hand, there’s them. Well...more like, there’s Ren.

Ren had gone way ahead and beyond what others had been trying to do. He was so far ahead that it’s not even funny.

While the rest of the world was still struggling to adjust to sky archon arts and was stumped because of their lack of wings, Ren had grounded the entire thing.

He already picked every single morsel of discipline he could squeeze out of the Sky Archon arts and made it useful for martial artists. The world was still catching up, but Ren already made it to the finish line.

The knowledge he left for the clan was all proven true and correct, and anybody with a well-functioning brain could tell that it couldn’t get any better than this.

Those who tried it witnessed a surprising increase in their strength and power regardless of their martial progress. Ren broke everything down into simple and easy-to-understand concepts that anybody could follow.

The clan isn’t stupid. After being ostracized and looked down upon for so long, they’ve known how harsh the world could be, especially for the weak and the ungifted.

Mikel didn’t even need to tell them that they must keep this a secret from everybody else; the adults understood right away and warned their children at the earliest chance possible.

By now, everybody knew of Ren’s feats. And the way they looked at him was nearly close to that of worship. They know that Ren was putting the clan into its rightful place, and they are in awe of his actions.

Because of this, they wanted to work hard too and will do their best to not hold him back. So long as Ren was alive, the clan would reach heights they’d never seen before—that was certain.

Ren was aware of what they’re thinking, and honestly, he felt a little embarrassed.

But he couldn’t just come out and say that he found their efforts lacking, which forced him to reveal his own, now, could he? That would ruin the good atmosphere in the clan.

So, he might as well shut up and let the misunderstanding spread like this.

It was sooner than he wanted, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Ren exposing his talents was bound to happen sooner or later anyway. Besides, isn’t this what he wanted to happen in the first place?

He just hoped that the clan wouldn’t grow arrogant too quickly because of this.

On another note...

Ren was basically flying through the dungeon stages.

Unlike in the past, where he would use all five of his daily quota to clear the same stage again and again before moving on to the next, Ren has been jumping from one stage to the next recently.

He only slowed down by the time he reached stage 46, where he returned to his usual clearing routine.

Stages 30 to 35 were for the blade-manded leopards. Stages 36 to 40 were for the Rainbow-Tailed Foxes. And Stages 41 to 45 were for the Mountain War Apes.

The tails of the Rainbow-Tailed Foxes could be any single color from the rainbow, and that indicates what kind of elemental power they can control. Mountain War Apes lived in steep mountains; they would pound their chests—which sounds like war drums—when provoked and possess incredible strength.

And then, stages 46 to 50 were the home to giant sand earthworms. It’s a desert biome, and the only oasis that could be found around was the one everybody spawns in—which also acts as their safe zone for this level.

The earthworms move under the sand; they won’t expose themselves unless they’re attacking a prey. The larger the earthworm was, the more noticeable their movements were.

Ren slowed down here because these stages posed a challenge to him. His chakra-sensing technique doesn’t do well underground. Even the sand was too dense for his chakra threads to fuse with and allow him to see what’s happening.

Because of this, he opted to stay here for longer because he wanted to figure out how to solve this problem.

The solution to this problem didn’t stump him for long, and it resulted in the improvement of the Chakra Sensing Technique.

Chakra Sensing Technique 2.0 has improved sensitivity and greater range. The details he could observe using this has improved by a lot, and it spreads faster now. More importantly, he could now use it to probe underground and through solid objects.

Ren could’ve moved on after this, but he decided not to.

Instead of blitzing through the dungeon stages again, he decided to take the Giant Earth Sandworms as his sparring partners/punching bags.

They could take a surprising amount of punishment, plus their bodies were a treasure trove. Their skin, teeth, and flesh fetch a good price on the market. It’s a pity that he can’t actually harvest them manually and has to rely on his luck for the drops.

Anyways, for a creature that moves an awful lot underground, Giant Sand Earthworm meat was quite tender. It’s comparable to fillet mignon, and when they drop meat, the minimum weight is 15 kilograms at once. If one got lucky, that could increase up to 50 kilograms at once.

Ren held to the meat drop. His appetite had grown a lot after all the improvement he made in the trial grounds. As for the rest of the drops, he sold them to gain more credits.

While this was happening, Ren had basically completed his tutelage under Raymond. The man had admitted that there’s nothing he could teach Ren at this point.

Ren had performed excellently, and Raymond could honestly say that he’ll never have a student that will surpass Ren’s aptitude for learning, ever.

At this point, Ren’s authority within the Apothecary Hall was comparable to Raymond. He actually takes on bulk orders now and delivers quality product every damn time.

This massively lightened up the clan’s burden. The apothecaries are finding themselves with more free time to practice since Ren began accepting orders too.

Of course, Ren wasn’t doing it all the time. His main priority was his martial practice. He’s just helping around whenever he can.

Besides, he knew that the clan was working hard to increase their strength recently, so to help them out, he started taking on orders to free up their time.

Ren himself won’t have another breakthrough so soon, after all. And even if he could, now is not the time.

While all of this was happening, Ren was paying attention to rumors going on. He was hearing a lot about the situation with the cult, but honestly? Ren wasn’t worried about them...at least, not yet.

The rumor he was chasing was a wild one; not many were talking about it, but Ren knew that if the timeline was still relatively intact, then it would happen soon.