Working too hard, consider doping.

With the cruel mid-day sun beating onto his back, Ren laid face down on a small ledge that jutted out of the cliff face, as he had been doing so for the past thirty minutes. He was in complete agony, all of his muscles screamed in pain and his hands were covered in nasty blister's, most of which had ruptured. This was just the start of Ren's ailments, he was dehydrated to the point of dizziness, hungry to the point that it was unbearable and his clothes were soaked in sweat to boot.

Pressured by both the Suffer-Ring and the time limit, Ren had pushed his body to the absolute max for the past four hours and was now suffering the consequences. The fact that it was now mid-day served as a harsh reminder that he had at most six more hours before time was up and he would have to start over.

It wasn't like Ren hadn't made any progress, within these four hours he had managed to climb half a kilometre, the problem was he had to scale around three more. By now, Ren had come to the realisation that this wasn't a matter of physical endurance, Roxy must have had a plan in mind when she gave him this seemingly impossible task but Ren had no clue what she wanted.

"Why is she such a b-"

Ren managed to stop himself from cursing out loud. Even though Roxy was nowhere in sight, Ren couldn't help but feel that if he finished that sentence, it wouldn't end well for him.

Ren stopping himself from using the colourful language he had picked up from Roxy didn't mean he was any less frustrated though. Ren could only blame his miserable situation on Roxy's pettiness, thinking she was still getting back at him for his unauthorised removal of the Suffer-Ring.

However, Ren knew that no amount of misplaced anger would get him to the top of the cliff by nightfall so with his pain beginning to recede, he slowly sat up and propped himself against the cliff face with his leg's dangling of the edge.

From a young age, Ren was taught the most efficient manner to deal with problems, the first step of which was keeping a cool head no matter what. The harsh sun and his frustration made this more of a challenge then it should have been but after taking a few deep breaths and slapping himself on the cheek he managed to settle down.

The second step of overcoming problems was to analyse the issue itself, splitting it into its easier to solve roots. Sometimes the answer was within the problem and if not, he would at least get a better grasp on his situation.

For Ren the problem was his time constraint, he had around six hours to climb the rest of the way and there was no getting around that. Since he couldn't change the time frame, he should look at the roots of the problem, why was he low on time in the first place and what could he do to speed up?

When he thought about it like this, things became much clearer. He was low on time mainly due to stamina and a lack of sufficient physical ability, there was also his hunger and dehydration which would only slow him down. Ren glanced at his hands which were full of wounds from four hours of wear and tear.

Some of these issues were harder to solve than the others, namely his stamina and physical prowess. This had complicated the matter and prevented him from realising that he could take care of half his problems with the basic survival skills he had learnt in the Linheart mansion.

He looked around and spotted a few small beetles and a scorpion lurking within the fissures of the cliff, he unsheathed Nightfall, using its blade to fish out the critters and roasting them till they were nice and crispy with a small golden flame that shot out of his fingers.

CRUNCH.

Ren tossed them into his mouth tossed them into his mouth without much thought, one might say that eating insects didn't bug him. It was nothing new to Ren, at the ripe age of four, his father had left him to survive in the forests for a whole month with nothing but a dagger, at the time Ren had been too weak to hunt more nutritious prey but he had learned a few useful tricks because of that.

Ren placed his palm on the ground and started lightly drumming with his fingers, by doing this he was imitating the vibrations made by rain fall. Ren didn't have to wait long before a few gullible worms popped out of the ground to greet the rain but where instead greeted with the inside of Ren's mouth.

GULP.

These things were best swallowed whole since they didn't taste great. Ren's hunger was still there but it was somewhat alleviated now, allowing him to focus on other things.

Ren couldn't speed up the process it took to heal his hands but he could at least bandage them, he took of his shirt, which was frankly unnecessary in this heat and tore it into strips much like he had done with the sheets when practicing with the fire attribute this morning.

After he had tied the makeshift bandages around his hand and stopped the bleeding he moved onto dehydration. Ren took out a small canteen he had brought along with him, it had long since been emptied but do you know what wasn't empty… his bladder.

After five disturbing minutes had past, Ren' thirst had been quenched and he was now comfortable enough to tackle his trickier issues, stamina and physical ability.

Due to him taking a break, Ren's stamina had recovered somewhat but he was still exhausted and he what little stamina he had recovered would be gone in a flash if he were to start climbing as is.

His physical ability was something that improved over time, time he didn't have. Ren couldn't see any immediate fixes to his problem's so he decided to move onto step three of his problem fixing process, what you have available to you.

Ren had already established that Roxy wouldn't give him an impossible task, Ren knew that this was a form of training for him, it couldn't be physical training since Roxy could just increase the pressure of the Suffer-Ring without asking him to climb a massive cliff. The fact that she tripled the pressure of the ring, making an already impossible fear worse, confirmed that this wasn't a purely physical matter.

There was a solution here and Roxy thought he had the tools to find it. Since entering her tutelage his master had taught him in three areas, Cultivation, the way of the sword and magic.

Instantly Ren could eliminate swordsmanship and cultivation, both played no part in climbing a cliff. Magic was the most promising but Ren struggled to come up with a reason why that was so.

When it came to magic Ren only knew the elements of shadow and fire, he couldn't even begin to think of a way to apply them in this situation. Ren sighed, it seemed that the answer wasn't as clear as he would have hoped.

He pondered on this for a long time, magic allowed for the most possibilities so it had to contain the answer he was searching for… right?

Ren thought long and hard before eventually giving up, he just couldn't see it. Ren was leaning towards the fact that he was overthinking it and this was just Roxy torturing him for the heck of it.

"Wait, overthinking it… I'm a fucking genius"

Ren yelled suddenly, it was like lightning had struck and he had a eureka moment, he was indeed overthinking it. By thinking magic was the solution, Ren was going a step too far, what was the lifeblood of magic no, breakers in general… Aether. A mysterious energy that resided in all things not demonic, it may be mysterious but that didn't change the fact that at the end of the day, it was still energy.

If Ren could find some way to harness it, then maybe he could use it to aid his ascent of the cliff. Ren's mind drifted to his still inflamed muscles, would it be possible to infuse them with raw Aether? Would that even accomplish anything? It was definitely worth a try.

Ren closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, entering a state of immense concentration. He focused on the small Aether pool in the centre of his chest and used his mental strength to create a small thread of Aether that flowed out of the pool and into his right arm's bicep.

The muscle began to heat up, filling his arm with a comfortable sensation that washed away all of the fatigue and numbness that it had accumulated during the climb.

Ren was overjoyed, he was definitely on the right track here. Ren began to move his arm to test out the effects of his Aether-soaked muscles.

CRACK.

"FUCK."

Ren's arm shot out rapidly with unimaginable force, yanking his whole body forward and nearly of his small ledge. A searing pain from his shoulder made him curl up in a ball while he screamed in pain, his shoulder was very much dislocated.

Ren gritted his teeth and tried to keep calm, he grabbed his right arm with his left, using it to rotate his right arm and stretch it out. This wasn't his first time dislocating a joint and he was mimicking the actions that Carlo had used to fix him up back then.

POP.

Ren's shoulder made a satisfying noise as it popped back into place but the pain was definitely still there. Ren curled up into a ball and waited for the pain to fade back to tolerable levels before sitting back up. Now in a decent state of mind, he began to analyse what had went wrong.

It had definitely worked, the problem was it had worked to well, trying to move his arm a tiny bit had resulted in a dislocated shoulder. With Ren being in the Aether condensation stage, his Aether was extremely dense and clearly his body was too weak to handle such a dramatic enhancement.

Ren was about to try and think of ways to overcome this issue but a quick examination of his body revealed that although his bicep was still in pieces, those pieces were still saturated in Aether and it showed no signs of fading, Ren's face lit up despite the pain.

It seemed that his muscles were like sponges and Aether was the water, he wouldn't lose this water until he squeezed. The pain had been worth it after all, this discovery meant that he wouldn't have to waste his concentration, constantly supplying his muscles with Aether as he climbed, he could just fill them to the brim with the occasional top up when he ran empty.

With this matter solved before it even became a problem, Ren moved on to the bigger issue, the ridiculous and life-threatening strength increase that caused him to dislocate his shoulder just now.

Ren had already come to the conclusion that this was brought on by his Aether density surpassing the limits of what his body could handle, his plan was to decompress his Aether to safer levels until he found the sweet spot but this would take a lot of experimentation on his part. Ren sighed, this was going to hurt…. A lot.

***

Two broken toes and a fractured pinkie later, Ren wanted to slap himself for being so stupid. Originally, he thought he had been quite clever experimenting on his fingers and toes which were more disposable compared to the muscles on his arms and legs but when Ren went to meditate to recover his lost Aether, he realised that all that pain was unnecessary in the first place.

Aether was pretty much everywhere, especially in the air, it was this that allowed Breakers to cultivate via meditation in the first place. The Aether in the air was extremely thin already, so it would be much easier to use it then going through the arduous process of decompressing his own.

With his new and improved plan in mind, Ren closed his eyes and took deep breaths, entering a trance of absolute focus like when he meditated. Ren's vision was completely black but not for long, as his concentration deepened, beautiful golden threads started to slowly light up the darkness, they drifted around him like a spider web caught in a gentle breeze.

Ren focused on one of the threads nearby and it floated towards him, making contact with his index finger, soaking into the muscles below.

Ren felt his finger heat up comfortably, spreading its warmth to the reast of his hand. Ren opened his eyes and gritted his teeth, preparing to move his finger slightly.

"Three… Two… One… Now."

Ren counted down in his head… and nothing happened, his finger was still attached and in perfect condition.

"FUCK YES."

Ren yelled into the sky, slumping his back against the wall with a huge smile in full bloom. The vocabulary he had picked from Roxy made the moment feel that much sweeter.

***

A few hours later, night was fast approaching… but Ren was faster. The top of the cliff was now in sight and he was on the home stretch. Ren's body had long since turned completely numb but with the goal so close he pushed his Aether-doped body to the max.

Ren continued upwards with a blistering pace, putting all three of his functioning limbs to good use, while his injured arm dangled uselessly. Ren put his hand on the top of the cliff and pulled himself up with ease and a huge smile on his face.

"Oh, you're in still in one piece brat, that's… disappointing."

The huge smile on Ren's face now vanished, Roxy walked towards him casually with a brow raised in surprise.

"You… you wanted me to lose a limb."

Ren was flustered, he very nearly did lose a limb and that was something he never wanted to experience again. The fact that this was already a best-case scenario made him fear for his future… would he even live long enough to get his revenge.

"I didn't know that my disciple was a pussy. For someone as great as myself, reattaching a limb or two is no problem… I think."

Roxy had said that last part quietly but Ren refused to let it escape his ears, he was to stunned to even be angry. Ren was well aware of his master's pettiness and this was her way of getting back at him for taking off the Suffer-Ring… but surely this was too much.

"uhm master, you have reattached a limb before, right?"

Ren asked timidly, feeling pretty confident that he knew the answer already. Roxy pushed her chest forward and pointed at herself with a staggering confidence.

"You dare doubt me brat, so what if I never done something before, do you really think that would stop me from doing it perfectly."

"Yes, it wouldn't stop you from doing it but I dunno about perfect."

Ren thought inwardly because it was something that he wouldn't dare say out loud. Ren looked at his master's smug impression and felt he had learnt a crucial lesson, he was never gonna take that damn ring off again.

Roxy, who was unaware of the defamatory thoughts flying through Ren's head, suddenly paused and looked like she just remembered something.

"Oh, by the way brat, you should probably prepare yourself for what happens next."

"Why? What happens ne-"

Ren's voice cut out abruptly mid-sentence, not out of choice but because he was physically unable to. Ren's eyes filled with visible confusion and he went to look up at his master for an explanation… but he couldn't do that either.

Ren couldn't even blink, he was fully paralysed from head to toe. Ren, who was standing, could no longer balance himself and slowly leaned forwards, ultimately falling towards the ground.

THUD.

Ren's face hit the dirt and he felled waves of unbearable pain, sprung forth from every inch of his body, sending him to convulsions while he couldn't even scream.

Roxy walked closer until she was standing over Ren's twitching body, with a smirk on her face as foam began to pour out of his mouth.

"What did you expect brat, it's not like your muscles magically got stronger, you forced them too. When you overwork them… well, I guess you know what happens when you over work them now."

Roxy's words echoed in Ren's ears as he spasmed uncontrollably on the ground, despite the mind-numbing agony he was experiencing, there was still one thing on his mind and one thing only.

"I'm never taking that fucking ring off again."