Ackster continued tapping his toes with Nold's sadistic tools. But eventually, the reverberating pain of four pulverized toes cascading through his body and nervous system and assaulting the pain receptors in his brain became too much. He had hoped that as he did more toes simultaneously, he wouldn't feel the pain from each broken toe as intensely as before.
He was wrong.
If one broken toe was like one monster tentacle grabbing hold of his toe and crushing it to overwhelm his brain, four broken toes meant four tentacles, each competing to see which could make Ackster feel the most pain.
But Ackster had a feeling that it would take more than that for his Pain Tolerance to go beyond A-rank. He had glossed over it before since he was surprised to have gotten Guardian.
But an A-rank Pain Tolerance already was proof of how painful it was to practice Nold's Secret Technique. But the gap, the wall, between A and S was far wider than even that between G and A. It would take a stupid amount of pain, perseverance, and endurance to get there, that, or enough pain to make someone go insane.
But even if Ackster was desperate enough to look for something like that, which he wasn't just yet since there was a limit to how useful Pain Tolerance was, he didn't even know where to find it. There were several things that put The Hero through unimaginable pain in the original story. But those things were either limited to The Hero, necessary for The Hero's development, or unavailable at this moment.
For now, Ackster decided to start bringing his other skills and his stats up to a similar level as his Pain Tolerance. It would also be great if he could finally get that self-recovery skill, which, in his opinion, was long overdue.
Strong Body had helped him get a bunch of skills on the first try. He couldn't understand why healing skills were so difficult when he got stuff like Keen Senses, Poison Resistance, and Sprint almost on the first try.
However, as he thought about it while escaping reality and the pain it bore, Ackster came up with a theory.
All the other skills he had gotten relatively easily were admittedly pretty low-level. But, most importantly, they were things he could achieve without Strong Body or the skills themselves. He could train his eyesight and his other senses, even if it would only be a minuscule difference. But, regardless of how much or how little, if he did seeing and listening exercises, he would get better at discerning what he saw and heard.
He could train poison and venom resistance and the like by ingesting and injecting minimal doses of whatever poison or venom he wanted to build a resistance toward. His body would only create antibodies toward the specific poison, but it would still work, and he could build on that resistance to create an immunity so that regardless of how much poison he ate, he would still be fine, even if he didn't have the skill. Of course, on Millmeria, doing that would get him the Poison Resistance skill, which would shore up his overall poison resistance and so on.
And by training his running, improving his sprinting posture, and strengthening his endurance, stamina, and legs, he could become better at sprinting. He didn't need Sprint to become better at running.
However, there was no way to do the same with his self-recovery. He could eat healthier to promote his body's natural metabolism and the rebuilding of damaged tissue, but that would also reach a limit. And his body's natural recovery would still be the same, just affected by external factors.
On Earth, it would be completely hopeless to try and improve the rate at which his body recovered, no matter what he ate or how much he slept.
But he wasn't on Earth anymore. Ackster had transmigrated to Millmeria, where he had access to skills like Strong Body, Limit Breaker, and Monster Muncher. Those and his other skills were proof that he could do it, even without spending lavish amounts of money on potions and healers.
So, to promote his body's recovery rate improving, Ackster continued with his daily life in the ant nest. Now that the ant queen had gotten her fill, he had Nolded his toes to the point where three on his left foot and two on his right were done or about to experience their first rebirth.
He considered continuing with that since he was eager to see what would happen once he finished. But the pain was too much. And when he thought about how many bones there were in the human body, Ackster decided that, while finishing quickly was good, it wouldn't be good to rush it.
Thankfully, destroying his bones wasn't the only way Ackster could train.
Part of the deal he made with the ant queen was that he could use the ant general as a sparring partner. So, he left his room and saw the general as soon as he left it. The general still seemed to have something against him, but Ackster didn't mind.
He was a little curious about whether or not the general could talk, but he was sure it could understand him, at least.
"Spar?"
And it seemed more than happy to accept Ackster's request.
Ackster felt the ant's eyes brighten with a malicious gleam, but it was too late to back down, so he followed the ant over to a corner of the mostly barren stone hall. Aside from the queen, Ackster, the general, and a bunch of lieutenant ants, there wasn't much else. Bare, stone walls barely lit by the star-like stones in the ceiling.
Oh, and there was also a bunch of worker and soldier ants ready for consumption lined up along one side of the hall. Ackster was getting hungry so he gave them a long glance before facing the ant general.
The pain in his toes made it hard to walk and would make it even harder to fight. But maybe fighting would distract him from the pain. Ackster was doubtful, but he held onto hope as he raised his fists.