4:00 am…

“Four A.M. … How many more days is this guy gonna sleep?” Ban wailed. He looked over and down at Jin’s face who was sleeping on a bench.

Jin was asleep for quite a long time ever since his last operation as Beelzebub and Prosecutor Sloth.

Ban, who has been protecting Jin during the time he was asleep, groaned loudly. “Awwww I didn’t get to eat yet… *Ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuumbles* Awwwwww… Please wake up Jin. T.T”

But while he was protecting Jin, Ban was also studying Jin’s body.

Jin’s body was a mystery to him. Jin was carrying ten people, fairly grown for their age, with little to no effort. Yet Jin didn’t use any qi to increase his strength. There were clear signs of muscles wearing down from over stress by his actions. But the muscles Jin had was like new.

Ban experimented with Jin’s body a bit by possessing it. He made sure to change Jin’s face using a realistic human like mask. For the first few days, Ban could not produce the same result as Jin even with the same body. “Mass of the muscles in a person is related to the strength of one’s person. Thus, there would be signs of firmed muscles somewhere inside his body…. But there isn’t a clear sign of strength of these anywhere in his body! What could be the answer to his strength? I wish I had his strength when I was his age… But how did he do it?”

Ban researched Jin’s body for a long time and concluded no real results. ‘Muscle is clearly a part of a Jin’s strength… The muscles are there but it is just not visible. The muscle fibers have both balance of endurance and strength. But when they contract, the muscles barely reveals signs of contraction. It is almost like...’

When Ban remembered the time when Jin was hit with the car, he had to test something out. Ban used Jin’s body to run to the middle of the street and purposely waited for a car. But things didn’t go as planned and cars kept avoiding him by just a millimeter or so every time.

Only when Ban deemed that it was necessary to go drastic with the experiment and called out the Assimilator to help him. So… with that, he was able to be hit with a car. But one wasn’t enough so he had to do a few more. So when the experiments was over, in which it was a few days ago, Ban came out wailing in pain and regret. ‘Ugh… It hurts so much… I’m hungry as hell now because of this. At least I found out a little bit more about Jin’s body…’

But it was also thanks to Ban’s experiment that Jin had to suffer a few more days in a coma like state. Ban had already used up a majority of his energy just to materialized and ward off enemies. But he also had to heal Jin’s injuries but they were going slowly because of the way Lucian made Jin’s qi planes and also due to the fact that Jin’s body was abused multiple time. By now, Ban was on the verge of falling into a deep sleep.

Unfortunately, Lucian woke up and he found out what Ban was doing and punished Ban for cruel and unusual experiments with watching over Jin till Jin wakes up fully. Lucian left the others without telling anything to them what he was planning to do.

Ban also had to cover Jin’s normal ever day life like hygiene and the everyday normal human needs. In addition to making things more believable, Ban went as far as to impersonate Jin as best as he could while doing innumerable good deeds in Jin’s stead. This also included helping Jin train while he was asleep and raise his levels to the next stages.

Sadly, Ban didn’t want too much attention so he wore poor people’s ripped clothings and smeared those clothes with feces.

This way, many people would avoid Jin. But that didn’t stop Ban from volunteering all the time and to show how well rounded he was as a worker in Jin’s stead. This was how Jin received the title, “Skillful Hobo”.

With Ban’s help, Jin ascended to the 49th stage. This was the bottle neck. He didn’t want to help Jin too much or it might have an adverse effect. Mainly because after the 49th stage, this is where the only one who can help with their cultivation is themselves.

In the path of ancient cultivation, it takes not only qi but large amounts of understanding of qi to go up a stage. The levels are the increments and the stages are parts of the 10 phases. Every 100 increments a cultivator passes means that they are qualified to go to the next stage. Every 10 stages that a cultivator passes means that they are about to enter another phase of understanding.

But Jin's case was slightly different. He was already a saint once and this is only known to those who know him. Thus it is just like refilling a once already expanded water balloon. The understanding of qi was already written in his bones and body. All he needed was large amount of qi to refill himself back up and get back into shape and size. But after the 50th stage, it is still all up to Jin to determine how to shape his cultivation base.

It could be said that the prior to the 50th stage, all a person would need to worry about is their health and their cultivation practice of absorbing qi. After the 50th stage, there are certain cultivation methods to shape the cultivation bases to fit a person's ideal. But this is talking about the ancient cultivation method. Nowadays, since the ancient cultivation methods were lost, there are only ten levels in each stages and 10 stages in 1 phase where it shifts a person directly to a saint. It still doesn't mean that it is easy to become a saint.

Regardless, the paths beyond the 50th stage stays true for both modern and ancient cultivation paths as they both extends endlessly as a myriad of choices and myriads of pinnacles. The only difference between ancient and modern as of now is that ancient cultivation methods is able to allow a person to hold more qi while modern cultivation methods gives a person a quicker path to ascend. One is much harder while the other is easier.

But since Lucian wanted Jin to follow the ancient cultivation path, Ban left cultivating alone for a while when he saw that everything is fine.

So he waited and waited. It was the first day of the month and Ban could feel that Jin was on the verge of waking up. But something was keeping Jin asleep.

‘Keeping him asleep?’ Ban frowned at the thought and looked at Jin’s face. ‘There is no way… I must be over thinking…’

A smile rose up from Jin’s lip. A rare expression that has ever appeared on his face. Especially when sleeping.

When Ban saw this, he felt at ease that Jin was dreaming a good dream.

*WOOOOSH* A sudden burst of qi came from the distance.

‘Ugh…. Not this again…’ Ban groaned. He quickly took off his costume and materialized in physical form again.

A saint from the false heaven came down with five tainted wings. “I’ve finally found you PARAGON! I’ll-”

Ban got up, walked over to a nearby stop sign, uprooted it, reinforced it with qi and swung the stop sign across the air without even aiming like a baseball bat.

“- Kill you and then I’ll st-” *SPLAT*

The saint from the false heavens with five tainted wings died a swift and disbelieving death. He didn’t even have time to relay where the paragon candidate was! He was too caught up in greed that he never even noticed Ban was guarding Jin.

When it was done, Ban jumps back into his panda suit and sat right back down in weariness. “Like swatting flies… There is no end to them and I’m almost out of qi…. Maybe I should call Ren. He’s better at fighting than I am… Well, when I’m in my suit that is... I swear, if a paragon comes, I might not be able to do anything… Well… it’s not like-”

Right next to Ban, Jin’s lips moved. “Good Morning Winter.”

*BOOOOOOM!*

A bright light filled with heavenly qi descended from the sky and enveloped the entire area.

Ban was sent flying a ten feet away by this heavenly energy.

“*Cough* *Cough* At least warn me when Jin would ascend to the 50th stage of the ancient cultivation path… Damned heavens… Never lets you know when someone makes a break through and when they do… it looks like this…” Ban cursed. “Oh…Heavenly qi... This is recognition that a person has passed the way of the ancient cultivator and proof that the person went beyond the 50th stage."

Jin woke up from the bench with a smile on his face. "Strange... I feel good right now... and... more at peace. Like everything belongs to me."

Ban could also see that Jin's qi planes was also back in its normal arrangements. 'Ah damn.... they fixed his qi planes... Oh well. He should be able to take care of some saints now... Heh... now that's a load off my back. It was so worth staying up. NOW I CAN SLEEP!'

"Uhh Ban? Why do I smell like... doodoo?" Jin grimaced as he smells himself wearing dirty clothes. "Where are my stuff?"

"Oops... I left them at that woman's place. I think her name was Mirana right? Well, she is holding your things for you. Now.... I can finally sleep. Hahahahahahahaha. da ja fa hi fau eh wet ip ouga hwueg." Ban spoke gibberish at the end because he was at his limit. He was awake for too long and didn't eat enough. His body quickly fades back into Jin's mind to rest.

Just when Ban thought he could rest, he found it odd that the seal on the other Jin was not shaking like before. 'Ren? Are you there? Did anything happen?'

'No. Shut up and go eat. Here, eat this. I got it for you.' Ren rudely tossed a sack of fruits to Ban.

'... Don't have to be so mean about it... Give me a.... Ooooooo these are my favorite! Thanks Ren!' Ban swiftly teleports away to enjoy his well deserved reward.

'Yeah... good work Ban. Good night as well.' Ren replied 'My turn to watch Jin now.'