Jane Taylor was brought back by Nathaniel Reed from outside. All along, because her aptitude was extremely poor, she was not well regarded in the The Reed Family. But now, it seemed that Jane Taylor was somewhat unusual.

Nathaniel Reed glanced indifferently at John Reed and did not answer.

The next day, John Reed continued his extreme training.

On the third day...

On the fourth day...

Very soon, ten days passed. This time, Jane Taylor really slept for a long time—ten whole days went by, and she still hadn’t woken up.

Jane Taylor’s disappearance for ten consecutive days did not attract any attention from the The Reed Family. Instead, it was John Reed’s exhausting extreme training that left everyone puzzled—why was he doing this?

Time flowed like water, and in the blink of an eye, a month had passed. Jane Taylor was still in a deep sleep.

John Reed trained to his limits every day, ending up as tired as a dead dog, but there was no sign at all of breaking through the limits of his physical body...

Breaking through the body’s limits was indeed not an easy thing. If not for John Reed’s astonishing willpower, anyone else would have found it nearly impossible to persist after pushing themselves to the limit for a whole month.

The days went by as usual: training, eating, sleeping... repeating every day.

This day was a little special. After the meal, Nathaniel Reed gave John Reed a medicine box, inside which was a stalk of Essence-Gathering Grass over 100 years old.

Essence-Gathering Grass is a grade-one spiritual herb; for however many years it has grown, it can increase the body’s strength by that many jin.

A 100-year-old stalk can increase strength by 100 jin; a 1000-year-old one can increase it by 1000 jin.

For martial artists at the Body Tempering stage, Essence-Gathering Grass is extremely valuable—a spiritual herb with a high price.

However, John Reed’s body had already reached its limit. No matter what spiritual herbs he took, it would not help; his strength could not increase any further, unless he broke through the body’s limits—only then could he continue to improve.

Nathaniel Reed gave him a stalk of Essence-Gathering Grass, not to increase his strength, but to nourish his body.

Training the body to its limits every day, even if all the food eaten was highly nourishing, it was still hard to fully replenish the loss of vital energy. After a month of training, only spiritual herbs could restore his vitality.

Breaking through the body’s limits—not to mention how difficult it was—just the physical requirements alone, needing large amounts of nourishing food every day and a stalk of spiritual herb every month, was not something ordinary people could afford.

Time flew by, day after day, month after month.

As time went on, Jane Taylor’s disappearance also attracted the attention of some people in the The Reed Family, but after asking Nathaniel Reed and learning that she had fallen into a deep sleep, no one paid further attention.

Instead, John Reed’s months of extreme training made everyone in the The Reed Family pay even more attention to him.

Six months—half a year—there was not a single day when John Reed didn’t train himself to the point of exhaustion, draining all his strength and potential, as tired as a dead dog. Yet, there was still no sign of breaking through the body’s limits.

Now, aside from greatly improved endurance, his strength had not increased at all.

The difficulty of breaking through the body’s limits was beyond John Reed’s imagination. Even with his firm heart and determination, he began to wonder: was this a dead end? Was it even possible?

However, every time he thought of Howard Newman, or his mother, John Reed’s unsettled heart would always calm down.

As time went on, some people began to notice signs from John Reed’s extreme training.

For a full six months, John Reed’s strength, even to the naked eye, seemed unchanged. Many speculated that John Reed was stuck at the peak of the Body Tempering stage, and for some unknown reason, had not advanced to the Qi Realm.

Of course, this was only speculation and hard to confirm. The truth would be revealed in this year’s strength test.

If things were normal, John Reed should have entered the Qi Realm, with strength of at least five thousand jin—possibly much more. Even if he had surpassed ten thousand jin, with John Reed’s potential, no one would find it too surprising.

But if John Reed’s strength was stuck at three thousand jin, then it could be confirmed that he was stuck at the peak of the Body Tempering stage and had not entered the Qi Realm.

Generally speaking, every cultivator has a bottleneck—some high, some low. The low ones might be at the Body Tempering limit, unable to enter the Qi Realm no matter how hard they train, but that’s only for those with poor aptitude.

With John Reed’s monstrous talent, no one believed he would be stuck even at the Qi Realm’s limit, let alone at the Body Tempering limit.

Time flew by, and soon, another three months or so had passed—it was now December.

The The Reed Family’s annual strength test was about to take place, and this year’s event was more attractive than ever.

Because this year, the The Reed Family’s monstrous genius, John Reed, would enter the Qi Realm. Everyone wanted to know just how much his strength would soar after entering the Qi Realm.

On December 10th, two days before the test, Jane Taylor woke up.

She had slept for more than half a year—nine whole months.

When she woke up, her entire mental state was vastly different from before.

During the nine months she spent asleep, Jane Taylor’s height had increased by nearly twenty centimeters. She could no longer be described as short; in fact, compared to other eleven-year-old girls, she now looked very tall—like a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old.