Tral sat in the back seat of a new humvee casually asking his friend "Soo Darick you think about getting serious yet ooor you want to get chained up and get lit on fire again by a bunch of savage punks?"
Darick just looks back at his friend with a pissed off look on his face before looking back at the road to keep on driving in silence for a bit.
Eventually after listening to Tral slowly pop his bubble gum for several minutes Darick relented "Ok you're right, does that make you happy? I'm not strong enough even though that's all I'm good at ok! What the fuck do want from me like turn me into some kind of horrible monster like you?"
"Ouch dude, I'm only mostly a horrible monster you know but no Darick you're already a horrible monster. Remember how Arc would do all those awful experiments on you all the time? Well I fucking understand some of what he was doing after that crash course in alchemical reactions and oh boy are you hard to kill.. like at first he was fooling around but after a while he was straight up trying to make you at least sick through brutally lethal concoctions." Tral claimed entirely serious before going on while Darick just started swearing at Arc.
"I was only testing one of the stronger muscle shredding potions on you but I can make that much stronger in quantities that you would have to bathe in. The only reasons people don't use these potions is one it's a deadly poison that rips the muscles apart to achieve it's goal and two the ingredients are crazy rare as well as a real pain to grow but I can by pass that to make it super concentrated while you don't seem to be able to die with the only issue being that it will likely hurt soOoOo freaking much." Tral explains in as much detail as he thinks Darick can handle.
Darick stops the vehicle and thinks it over for a bit before replying "So if I do this then we can find Prudence, kick his ass, save lil Gè and you can get real cultivating techniques so we stop getting our butts handed to us by every enhanced jerk we come across?.... Fine then potion me into the ground and don't you hold back because I don't want to be a human pinball anymore."
With that settle Tral creates what he called a containment unit while laughing maniacally much to Darick's growing regret. After chaining his friend into place inside the container it starts to fill with this burning hot concoction that begins to seep into his flesh and bones causing him to start screaming with agony almost immediately instantly reaffirming Tral's decision to make the container sound proof.
Meanwhile Tral sits down cross-legged to begin the first steps of the cultivation journey he learned from his previous nights prey. He starts with breathing exercises to pull the energy in the surrounding air into his body through his meridians and into his dantian.
It is a slow process but eventually it starts to fill like small dew drops that start to form a cloud but even after spending the whole night trying it barely amounts to anything more then a hardly noticable mist.
Such a subpart technique could never reach very far down the way of the cultivator even if he spent decades practicing so he eventually gave up to check on Darick who was still spasming in pain from the treatment yet seemed to be doing a lot better then before.
His muscles were tight and bulging against the chain which were barely holding him in place. His expression was fierce as he battled through the massive amounts of pain that tortured every part of his body to no end.
The results of this method would seem like cheating but anyone else would have died within moments of interacting with this toxic substance so it could only be fair that it would come with vast improvements to his physical attitude going so far as to make him grow in size by several inches.
Eventually the chains could no longer contain his bulk despite his best efforts to keep in place as they broke into pieces around him although he didn't really need them anymore since he had start to get used to the pain.
Tral made a few adjustments to try and improve the strength a little bit the sun would be up soon and he needed to get into the humvee to rest.
Even Darick eventually numbed out to the pain and passed out for several hours of probably the worst sleep he had ever experienced.
Upon waking up he realized that he barely felt any pain at all anymore so he moved to the edge of the unit to try and get Tral's attention by knocking on it only to have his hand go right through the well tempered glass with ease spilling the contents across the grass.
Once outside he felt a lot lighter despite his increased size but soon found out that he had definitely gained weight as his feet sunk an inch into the wet soil as he walked over to the vehicle.
Worried that he might accidentally rip open the door due to his new strength he went about practicing to control it on to metal from the containment unit which he easily bent out of shape with just his fingers.
It took him a few hours of practice but he still felt a little iffy about trying to drive like this so he resorted to yelling at the vehicle to wake his friend up.
Eventually the back door opened up from the inside to let him in although the suspension didn't appreciate his weight at all forcing him to sit across the back seat to distribute his weight better.
"I think I know where Prudence is going to be due to his lackeys memories soOo how'd you feel about testing that new strength on someone who can let you express yourself a little?" Came Tral's voice over a speaker as he was dressed up in heavy grade mercenary battle armor.