The ancients often spoke of life's four great joys: a wedding night in the bridal chamber, earning a name on the honor roll, rain after a long drought, and meeting an old friend in a foreign land.
He Ao's current physical condition was somewhat like rain after a long drought.
Regit's body, tempered over decades, had reached the absolute limits of what a human physique could achieve in both resilience and strength.
A Physical Fitness of 30 already put him among the strongest Rank F transcendents. To rival transcendents with mortal strength—that was the path Regit had walked for decades.
But he had been stuck at that limit for many years. At Regit's former peak, his Physical Fitness might even have reached 40 or 50, infinitely close to Rank E.
But close was all it had been. He had never broken through that limit, and as his body gradually aged, he could feel himself drifting ever farther from the possibility of breaking it.
Regit was a martial arts genius. He had waited for his first opportunity and found that Body Tempering Art, but he never received a second opportunity. Thus, he spent his entire life circling beneath that limit.
Talent was important. Hard work was important. Sometimes, luck was important too.
He Ao guided the energy into his body. Before it could travel very far, it was completely consumed. This was not because the pathways in Regit's body were blocked and needed energy to clear them, but because every inch of Regit's muscles was hungrily absorbing the incoming energy.
Rain after a long drought.
Those muscles were like parched earth, constantly absorbing the "sweet dew" falling from the sky.
They had been dry for far, far too long.
He Ao could clearly sense that this body's ability to absorb energy