Limits

The time passed. My herbs grew, the pond was filled with clear water, and my skills advanced. My strength no longer increased. This meant, I was at my limit already. 'Now, I have to purify my blood, and try to break through the wall of the Inner Limit' I thought. When I was getting ready, I called out to Frosty "Frosty, can you help me out?". I waited for a while, but Frosty didn't appear.

I tried couple more times, and even explained, why I needed its help. Frosty on the other hand, refused to go out. 'Weird. I would understand, if Frosty refused to go out in Obsidian Mountains, but here?' I thought. This baffled me, but nothing I said, or did changed the final result. Frosty didn't want to appear. I decided to just do it by myself. I would have to take a smaller quantity, because Frosty's help was not available.

With my current strength, I would be able to take 35 milliliters of Zenith Blood Yarn Extract. This was the max I could take, without the help from Frosty. It was still a lot, and it would purify my blood greatly. Before I took it, I prepared first. I ate until I was full. I also rested properly, and made sure my body was in top condition.

When the time was right, I swallowed the Extract. It was very thick, but I managed to swallow the small quantity, no problem. I then sat down, and waited for the effects to kick in. I didn't have to wait long, before the blood in my body started boiling. The pain of the initial stage, was magnitude worse compared to the past. I gritted my teeth, and tried to bear it.

Seconds slowly turned into minutes, as I endured the pain. I was sweating buckets already. My right hand, fought against the heat of my blood. This produced a large cloud of mist, which surrounded me. I was barely holding on at this stage, then a new wave of pain arrived. This time, it wasn't my blood alone, it came from my bones too.

"ARRRRGGGHHHH!". I screamed loudly, but the pain was becoming intensified, the longer I endured. I was losing my consciousness, so I decided to go all in, and used my Aura. I hoped, that my Aura would somehow make me go through the process. I condensed it as much as I could, but to no avail. The pain didn't decrease, and the darkness started filling my eyes. 'Heh… Is that it? Is that all I have?' I thought, and my vision turned completely black.

I could faintly hear something, in the darkness. Something from my past, something I said myself. I also heard someone, someone who I knew in the past. From the voices, it seemed like a conversation.

"Why are you here?".

"Because I have a break?".

"No. I mean, what did you do, to be enslaved?".

"Nothing".

"Sorry, I shouldn't ask".

"I did nothing".

"What do you mean? Then are you a slave, because you were sold?".

"No".

"If you did nothing wrong, and you were not sold. Why are you a slave?".

"Because life is such".

Because life is such. Life. So obvious, yet so mysterious. We think, we have everything figured out. The more we live, the more experiences we can accumulate, and the further we can explore our lives. Yet, the more of our life passes, the greater the mystery becomes. 'Is it so hard, to explore our lives? Because life is such? Because we can never predict, what is going to happen? Or affect our lives fully? Because life, is out of our reach?'.

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.

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'No! Life is such, because we chose for it to be. I CHOSE NOT!'. I opened my eyes, and although the pain was still there, I didn't feel it as much, as I did before. I sat there, and resisted. I resisted the urge to give up, I resisted the urge to close my eyes. The life was mine, not because the life dictated it, but because I willed it.

The process soon finished, and I collapsed onto the ground exhausted. 'The process is complete… I feel tired' I thought, and fell asleep. When I finally managed to wake up, I felt very weak. I didn't know, for how long I was asleep, but I was very hungry. I ate the meat, that I prepared before. I was eating like a starving wolf. This reminded me of the old times, where I would wake up hungry every morning.

With my hunger satisfied, I checked my body around. At first, I didn't notice any differences, but then I looked at my right arm. "What the?..." I exclaimed. My right arm was now blue. Not only that, it also had scales. "What the hell is going on? Frosty! What did you do?". But Frosty didn't appear. I checked my right arm from all angles, and examined it more thoroughly.

The scales were real. I could feel their hardness and slickness. "With my arm like this, I already look less human. Why the hell did it change?" I asked myself out loud. I noticed something else as well. When I looked into the distance, the island that I could barely see before, appeared much more defined, as if it was closer to me. "Did the island move? What is going on here?" I asked myself.

But that was not the case. It was my eyes. My eyes became sharper. I could see distant objects, much better. I also discovered, that I could see more details up close. "Did my eyes evolved as well? What else is different then?" I asked myself again. I checked my strength, and I was a bit stronger than before. This could be explained with Blood Yarn Extract though. I checked my sense of hearing and smell too. They seemed to evolve as well. I could hear much better, and I could smell stuff, that was very far away.

"Does the Zenith Blood Yarn Extract, really have such effects?" I said out loud. I had no answer to that, but I knew one thing for certain. My blood became much purer, and my senses became more acute. My strength also increased. I still didn't break through the Inner Limits, it was just my blood purification. I tested everything, for the rest of the day. I tried running, lifting stuff and so on. Indeed everything improved, even my memory. I could remember even the smallest details of my past. My body became more resilient too. 'I guess, it's probably thanks to the Blood Yarn Extract. After all, the pain I felt later, was coming from my bones' I thought.

But the most amazing change, happened to my arm. My arm was very resilient now. When I tried cutting the scales, I found that, only when I used about 80% of my strength, I was able to do so. This alone was amazing, but this was not the only thing. The ice powers of my arm, were extraordinary now. I didn't know exactly why, but the strength of the ice power increased substantially. I assumed it was due to Frosty, but Frosty never came out, so I couldn't ask it. I also didn't know whether this was a permanent thing, or temporary.

'I have no idea, if Frosty is making my arm look like this, or will it look like this for the rest of my life' I thought. One way or another, I would look weird, to say the least. A human with a scaly blue arm… was not something people encountered everyday. There were some advantages. The ice power in my hand was at least four or five times greater, than in the past.

When I punched the ground, it immediately froze. I didn't even have to think about using the ice powers, for the ground to freeze. My arm, had a constant freezing effect. I found out the hard way, when I touched my right arm, with my left. It was only for a short time, but frost formed on my left hand, and I could see signs of freezing. 'I will have to watch out for this arm now. I can't simply touch anything, including myself with it. As long as my arm releases ice power, I need to beware' I thought, and returned to my skill training, as well as the herbs. I needed some time to adjust, before I would attempt to break through my Inner Limits.