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Ren basically had the Health Potions mastered.

He could now create small, medium, and large Health Potions even with barely acceptable equipment so long as he had the ingredients on hand.

The size of a health potion indicates the gravity of injuries and hurt it could restore. Small refers to minor injuries like cuts, bruises, lacerations, etc. Medium health potions treat deeper injuries, and large health potions cure serious to grievous injuries.

However, one must know that health potions cannot and never be able to guarantee survival by simply consuming some.

Sure, health potions are pretty cost effective and could be a live-saving consumable, but it’s cannot guarantee everything.

Since potions are consumables, they needed to be digested for their effects to take place. And there is a limit to how much a person’s body could handle all at once.

Health potions, regardless of the size, could only be safely consumed five times a day. Actually, three times is already pushing it. People are adviced to not go beyond three times, but in desperate times, the real limits is five times a day. Anymore and the health potion will turn into poison for the consumer, and that’s the last thing they’d want to happen.

As such, most people, especially dungeon explorers, bring no more than five health potions in their expeditions provided that it’ll only last for a day. Some might even just stick to three just in case.

After essentially mastering health potions, the next thing Raymond taught Ren was the Energy Potions.

Energy potions, when consumed, restore and increases the energy production of the consumer by 10% to 30%, depending on the size; small, medium, and large.

The ’energy’ here refers to Intent (mental energy), Life Force (physical energy), and Motion (kinetic energy): the three key energy used to produce chakra. And Energy Potions only increases the speed of the production of these energies, it does not increase the volume.

Like the health potion, energy potions are easy to make. The materials needed are common and pretty cheap, too. Anybody who could master the brewing process for health potions shouldn’t face any difficulties with the energy potion either. So, it would only make sense that Ren would also grasp this pretty fast.

Also, energy potions had the same limited dosage as health potions. No more than three on a regular day, five if things are dire, any more and the same potion will be the cause of their death...most likely.

Aside from teaching him potions, Raymond also taught unique recipes to Ren on the side.

There’s the Monster Repellant Powder — a simple yet essential and flexible consumable that most dungeon explorers has on their utility belt when they’re going out on a journey.

It does exactly as its name suggests, it repels monsters nearby, allowing the person or a group to ’claim’ an area where they could rest for a while.

The powder is used to scatter around a perimeter of an area where the temporary camp will be built. It emits a scent, and sometimes an aura, that would deter monsters from intruding the camp. It’ll make them think that the area was the lair of some strong and territorial monster instead.

It’s flexibility comes with the way its ingredients could be switched. The ’medium’ that causes the repelling effect could come from basically anything available; scales, fur, powdered bones, feces...even the twigs, soil, dried leaves, spores, or common things within the local environment could be used as a medium to create the repelling effect.

The best part is that this thing could be made on the go. The only tool it requires were mortar and pestle, or anything that could ground up ingredients together in a powder. So long as the general recipe was followed, which was easy by the way, anybody could make the Monster Repellant Powder.

Because of this, the Monster Repellant Powder usually tends to be cheap. It only ever gets expensive when the ’medium’ used as a repellant comes from a high-level monster, like an Elite, Lord, or a Boss, or monsters that only appears on higher stages of the dungeons.

Aside from this, Ren also learned how to make other pastes and ointments. Things that weren’t necessarily expensive or difficult to make, but still valuable in some ways.

Through this, Ren realized that there were so much more to this world that was not shown in the story.

Well, that’s already a given since the story closely follows the perspective of the Hero and his journey, but Ren was still surprised by the little things that were left out.

To be fair, these really weren’t a big deal. But you see, the Hero eventually becomes an expert in potion making as such that it should’ve made sense for these little things to, at least, make an appearance, especially at the early half of the story.

But no, Ren didn’t know any of this. It wasn’t until now that he realized that these things also existed. 𝗳𝚛𝚎𝚎𝘄𝕖𝕓𝕟𝕠𝚟𝚎𝕝.𝗰𝕠𝐦

Anyway...

While Ren continues on his lessons with Raymond, he still worked hard everyday to push himself to the brink of exhaustion to keep the speed of his practice.

Each morning of his every day was spent with him on the training hall, working diligently on his martial arts. He threw punches, elbows, knees, kicks, etc. using the techniques he upgraded. He honed his skills thoroughly even though he already mastered them to perfection.

He never slacked off and never complained either. As exhausting as it was, Ren liked the feeling of his chakra flowing throughout his body. It takes time and effort to get it flowing, but when it does, it feels glorious for some reason.

Ren trains until his whole body was smoking hot. No, really. He doesn’t stop until his body was literally emitting wisps of smoke due to how high his body temperature becomes.

In that state, his blood flow was at its peak, his mind was burdened but sharp, and every moment he does had purpose and weight behind it. His chakra flow billows within him, his chakra seed hungrily drinks the energies he converted and then pushes more chakra into his flesh, clearing the impurities in them and refining his muscles to an absurd degree.

It’s been a little bit more than a month since he broke through to the Muscle Forging Stage, and he was now close to entering the mid-stage. The flesh on his limbs were first to be cleared of impurities, and he’s refining them even more to finish them thoroughly.

Ren was obviously aiming for another perfect breakthrough. He always will be since he doesn’t want his Limitless Martial Physique to go away.

After his hard work during the day, Ren rests for a bit, eats lunch, and then either goes to the Apothecary Hall or the clan’s martial hall to do some learning.

If he’s in the Apothecary Hall, his focus will be on learning medicine and potion making with Raymond. However, this doesn’t happen everydays, so on days that he wasn’t summoned to the Apothecary Hall, Ren goes to the martial hall to do some reading and research.

In the martial hall, he basically goes straight to the 5th floor and does his research there.

He had read everything on the floors below and also up to the 6th floor. He never went beyond this level, partly because he felt like he’s not ready for what he’s about to see there just yet, and mostly because he didn’t want to encounter more disappointment upon seeing the miserable accumulation of the clan even after the span of thousands of years of history.

Although there’s nothing much to see on the 5th floor either, Ren chose to move here for his studies because he found a rather nice spot. There’s a balcony outside where he gets to enjoy a nice view of the clan compound. He was high enough to see a lot. The afternoon breeze also felt nice, and he really like the vibe here, so he moved here from the 3rd floor.

By now, the librarians and the guardians of the hall already knew him. They don’t ask to see the clan leader’s badge on him anymore. Ren was practically here everyday that they’ge gotten used to his presence.

As for the research he does here, it mostly focuses on the path he’d take on the future.

His recent fight with an ’Elite Slime’, although on virtual, gave him some lessons to consider.

He hasn’t gone deep and demanding for his martial arts since he’s not yet at a level where he needs to consider it yet, but eventually, he’s going to have to deal with the problem of elemental attributes.

Remember when it’s stated that practicing certain types of martial arts could sometimes force the practitioner to develop a bias? Well, elemental attributes are also included in those.

Fire, water, ice, wind, lightning, earth, wood, metal...even rather things like mist, illusions, dark, light, etc. Sometimes more than one element at the same time, sometimes a mixture of two elements; a person’s chakra has an innate affinity. And usually, when a pracitioner practiced a certain type of martial arts heavily biased to a certain element, their chakra affinity tends to react to that.