Chapter 33: Source Ki Limitations

After leaving the Cherry Inn, Kai and Eric headed back to the Candy Complex. Along the way, they had a small talk about the past.

Returning to the Candy Complex, Kai went directly to his old room.

Opening the door, he felt a wave of nostalgia. After all, this place held many sad and joyful memories since his arrival in the Ancient World.

Sitting on his old bed, Kai opened his storage bag and took out the pill jar containing the Vitality Pills.

It had been well over ten hours since he last took one. Kai took out a Vitality Pill and tossed the last remaining pill jar back into the storage bag.

As soon as the Vitality Pill reached his stomach, his Source Ki became active and began madly devouring the Ki released by the pill.

As Kai was enjoying the sensation of his Ki reserves increasing rapidly, something unexpected happened.

Halfway through absorbing the Ki from the Vitality Pill, his Source Ki suddenly slowed down and showed signs of stopping.

"No, no, don't stop now."

Feeling his Source Ki gradually halt its absorption, Kai started to panic.

If it stopped now, the leftover Ki would simply disperse from his body, and half of the Vitality Pill's power would go to waste.

Kai tried to guide the remaining Ki from the pill toward his Source Ki, but it was no longer willing to absorb any more.

Kai spent the next ten minutes trying different ways to get his Source Ki to absorb more Ki. However, no matter what he did, the Source Ki didn't budge an inch.

Feeling helpless, Kai took out the book [Safe Way of Taking Pills: A Guide to Becoming Stronger the Easy Way] and started flipping through it in search of a solution.

After twisting and turning through the pages, Kai found nothing useful.

Still without a solution, Kai put away [Safe Way of Taking Pills: A Guide to Becoming Stronger the Easy Way] and took out [Secrets of Source Ki: Great Gift of His Majesty], hoping it would contain something helpful.

After going through [Secrets of Source Ki: Great Gift of His Majesty] for a while, Kai finally found something useful:

[Since Source Ki has a limit to how much Ki it can assimilate in a day, some of you might be wondering — what if I take a powerful pill like the Tiger Blood Pill and my Source Ki doesn't assimilate all the Ki? Wouldn't that be a huge waste of money?

To tackle this problem, I ran a few experiments and discovered a method that can partially bypass the assimilation limit of Source Ki and allow it to continue absorbing more Ki.

As for the method — it's quite simple. If your Source Ki ever becomes unwilling to devour more Ki, start training like crazy.

It can be anything — sprinting, push-ups, squats, horse stance — anything that puts your body under physical stress.]

Reading the page containing the useful information, Kai's eyes lit up and he hurriedly got down from his bed to start doing pushups on the ground.

After only ten pushups, his arms gave out and his heart rate sped up significantly. He rested for a short while before starting again.

After doing the twelfth pushup, Kai felt his Source Ki once again begin actively moving toward the Ki released from the Vitality Pill.

Feeling this, Kai grew excited and continued. However, after just fifty pushups, his arms started to feel sore.

Since his arms were sore, Kai switched to doing squats. Unfortunately, he could only manage ten squats before collapsing to the ground.

"Are my legs really this weak?" Kai wondered to himself as he felt his legs give out far too quickly.

Kai tried to get up, but his body didn't cooperate, so he remained lying on the ground. After five minutes, he finally stood up and noticed that his Source Ki had stopped devouring Ki again.

Those fifty pushups and ten squats had only forced his Source Ki to assimilate half a unit of Ki.

"At this rate, I'll never be able to fully digest the Vitality Pill."

Pondering over it for a moment, Kai put on his shoes and left the Candy Complex.

As he stepped out, he saw Oliver returning from buying healing potions and other necessary supplies.

"Where are you headed?" Oliver casually asked, seeing Kai leave the Candy Complex in a hurry.

"I took a Vitality Pill, but my Source Ki has reached its limit and I couldn't fully digest it, so I'm going for a run."

Without stopping, Kai briefly explained to Oliver why he was heading out.

After running at a slow pace for a few minutes, Kai felt his Source Ki move again and begin devouring the Ki released by the Vitality Pill.

Realizing that, Kai continued. After running for two hours, his Source Ki had only managed to assimilate 17 units of Ki.

"If I continue like this, I'll fully digest the Vitality Pill by 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning."

While resting by the roadside, Kai did some calculations and found that his Source Ki was assimilating around 8 units of Ki every hour.

As of now, 74 units of Ki had already been processed—57 were devoured automatically by his Source Ki, 0.5 during the pushups, and 16.5 during the two hours of running. Only 26 units of Ki remained.

After resting for a while, Kai once again started running at a slow pace. After every fifteen minutes, he would take a short break and then continue.

Before long, three more hours went by. In that time, Kai was able to force his Source Ki to assimilate 18 more units of Ki.

"This is taking longer than I anticipated."

Looking at the empty roads with no sign of life, Kai was trying hard to catch his breath. As his body calmed down a little, he took a bottle of water from his storage bag and started drinking.

Since Kai spent most of his time inside the Alchemy room, he had developed a habit of always keeping water bottles and some snacks in his storage bag.

After resting for a few minutes, Kai decided to head back to the Candy Complex. At the moment, he was near Blue Wing Town's Gate No. 2, which was about an hour's walk from the Candy Complex.

On his way back, he didn't run—he just walked slowly.

After 50 minutes of walking, Kai returned to the Candy Complex.

He dragged his tired body back to his room and slowly drifted off into sleep.