The morning after Elizabeth and Yrre began their nightly training, just before Elizabeth left her room to meet up with the rest of the dojo members to have their final pre-competition meeting, she made one last breakthrough to truly bolster her chances of “doing well” in the competition. With stats more than surpassing what was required to reach the peak of the Warrior Stage, along with all her hidden potential already excavated, she saw no reason to not take a moment and massively boost her strength.
Sitting in the middle of her room in the usual cultivation pose, Elizabeth first sacrificed about a million units of Inner Strength to improve the size of the Magical Core situated within her Dantian. From the Mid-tier Magical Pseudo Core she achieved after reaching the peak of the Soldier Stage, with her Inner Strength feeding the core, she evolved it to reach the very top of Peak-tier. The previous egg-sized Core expanded to the size of a baseball before stabilizing.
Thereafter, Elizabeth drove almost all her remaining Inner Strength to bore and fuse into her bone marrow. Channeling along her Seamless Magic Connection, she shot past Level 16 through Level 18 in mere moments. She took a couple seconds to reach Level 19 and within the minute, her cultivation reached the peak of the Warrior Stage at Level 20. Elizabeth couldn’t see it, but within her bloodstream, as her cultivation rose with the purity of her marrow improving, the color of her blood deepened as well. Had her blood vessels not strengthened along with her blood, she's literally be glowing with vitality.
[Main Quest 4: Reach Level 20! (Complete)
Degree of Completion: Legendary
Difficulty: B
Objective One) Seamlessly Integrate Magic with all the bone marrow in your body and transform the quality of your blood thereafter. (✔)
Reward:
Choice of:
1) 1 Spirit Grade Reforging Crystal
2) 1 Good Tier Elemental Affinity Stone
3) 1 Mediocre Tier Affinity Stone
Bonus:
Choice of:
1) Extra Break Time (10 Days)
2) Peak-tier Mortal Pseudo Core equivalent worth of Fragmented Grandmist
Main Quest 5: Reach Level 25! (Incomplete)
Difficulty: A
Objective One) Seamlessly Integrate Magic with all your visceral organs.
Description: Now we’re talking! Hahahaha… Charge forth in this domineering manner and fuck your fellow chosen over! Stop their time and get as many advantages as you possibly can. If you’re fast enough, you might be able to extend this streak and thoroughly outclass them all!
Deadline: 36 Days (Locked via Break Time: 12D 21H 42M)
Status
Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia
Bloodline: Human 100%, God (Fallen) 100%, Ancient Godslayer Fiend 0.0026%
Level: 20 (21/24)
Rank: Peak Warrior Stage (100%) [Perfect Chaos Mage Warrior]
Sex: Female
Strength 202
Endurance 216
Speed 294
Defense 209
Intelligence 311
Luck: 10
Inner Strength ~2.7 Million]
Feeling her body settle after acquiring all that strength left Elizabeth filled with satisfaction. Last night’s training did wonders for her body, especially after absorbing the Spirit Realm Moose’s Magic Core. Moreover, as she trained and absorbed energy from the various Magic Magic cores, she was also boosted by the sealed Spirit Vein which constantly spilled small amounts of energy as it surpassed the rank of what her seal could perfectly constrain.
As Elizabeth passed Yrre a Storage Enchantment containing a King Stage Beast’s carcass, she said, “Every four hours feed the calf with this.”
Yrre took the Enchantment and returned a nod. Although she wasn’t a Beast Tamer, she understood that by constantly nurturing tamed beasts with the meat of higher ranked beasts, the lower ranked tamed beast could quickly improve their strength. She had seen Elizabeth feed the calf several times during the night, so knowing fully well how to go about conducting the process, she said, “Good luck! Cherish this day, as all cultivators treasure their first tournament.”
Elizabeth nodded back as she left the room and walked over to the Inn’s lounge. Once there, Elizabeth found her clique. As she greeted all her peers, she checked on their statuses and was both impressed and a bit envious. She hadn’t been the only one training like a mad lass these past couple days and though Sun and Jane had cases that she could understand, even the non-extreme Irene had her status overhauled to be completely unrecognizable from the purple-eyed girl that had yet to board the yacht.
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Sun, with his Pure Yang Qi Connection, transcended the physique of even Peak-phase Martial Kings, whilst Jane had comparable stats spiritually-speaking. Irene, though evidently much more balanced than the two practitioners of extreme paths, had her stats more aligned spiritually. Miraculously, she also broke through to reach the peak of the Warrior Stage and stood at the same level as Elizabeth. Of course, Elizabeth’s cultivated hidden potential and outrageously exaggerated stats put Irene’s to shame. But compared to the average Peak-Phase Warrior, it was an understatement to merely label her with the title “genius.”
Suddenly, Atid called for everyone’s attention. Once he succeeded in quieting down the room and gathering all eyes on his person, he said, “Everyone, for the past couple days I’ve been talking to the various heads around the village. I can’t go into detail about what was discussed, but suffice to say this will probably the most important Wushi Tournament ever. I can not stress enough how important it is for each and every one of you to do fight with the entirety of your strength...”
Atid materialized a stack of papers in his hand along with some pens and began handing out a pair of each to all the participating dojo members. When Elizabeth received her set of pen and paper, she read through its contents with confusion evident in her expression. She turned to Sun and asked, “Why do we have to fill these out?”
“Huh? Oh, that's to make sure all the events progress at a timely pace. You see, while most of us are only here for the combat, people like you who practice secondary occupations may also participate in events catered towards their profession. This might be a Martial Master Tournament in name, but the truth of the matter remains. The Martial Society at large highly prizes practitioners who can supply them with magical craftsmanship or other similar talents.” By the time Sun finished speaking, he had already finished filling out his form.
Whilst looking over his form, Sun concluded by saying, “Usually the point of these competitions is to compare the strength of the various factions within the Martial Society. But because of the recent change to the world at large, I have a feeling the situation is more complex than it seems...”
Elizabeth started filling out her form and as she came across the section asking for her to mark which parts of the competition she would like to participate, she thought to herself, ‘Strange... when we met a couple weeks ago, he regarded my Acupoint Skill to be a legendary technique. The basic techniques granted to me via the rewards of the quest functions were leagues greater than any preexisting skill I could come across on Earth. Yet seemingly… Its as if the Dimensional Upgrade altered the degree of ease with which one could practice...’
She could call it a fluke if she saw one or two relatively advanced artifacts or enchantments after coming back from the Sky Seizing Castle. But that wasn’t the case now, was it? Luca’s horrible Enchantments had magically ascended from “Threatening the barrier below Low-tier Mortal Grade” — the worst possible Grade a magically enhanced object could possess — to Spirit Grade. Then there were the alchemical Resting Pills and even a random street merchant sold her a decently refined Glass Box.
Elizabeth understood this was a misconception formed from experiencing such an abrupt change. Although she guessed the world of practitioners on Earth used the weeks she was gone to acclimate to the changes and begin using the spiritual objects of the new world, she couldn’t help but think it to be ridiculous for someone like Sun to go from raving fanboy to complete nonchalance; especially, since the time he used to acclimate passed while she was unconscious.
Sighing at the crazy world, Elizabeth finished filling out her form. She would probably have one of the most ridiculous, if not the most ridiculous, schedules out of all the participants of the tournament, given the sheer number of secondary occupations she practiced. Combat, Medicine, Cooking, Enchanting, Beast Taming, Forging… All of these were boxes on her form that she checked.
Elizabeth was told to keep her form as the group moved out of the Inn and began walking through the village to the Tournament Grounds. Along the way, Elizabeth saw hundreds of martial practitioners walking through the street all converging to the same entrance. As she walked at a relatively moderate pace — even when compared to people that hadn’t even begun cultivation — Elizabeth suddenly froze into place as her heart literally stopped.
DOOM!!! For just the slightest moment, Elizabeth felt the most ominous dooming sensation she had felt thus far into her life. As she stayed as still as possible, sweating like crazy with bloodshot eyes, Jane reached over to pat her on the should. She asked, “Elizabeth! What’s wr...”
However, before she finished speaking, she saw Elizabeth’s neck seem to snap. Elizabeth, having received that jolt of stimulation from Jane, felt her body go into overdrive so she snapped her head to stare into the direction from whence that horrible feeling approached. She fully withdrew her aura as stared wide-eyed at the street to her right and with her eyes still bloodshot, her appearance matched that of a bloodthirsty ghost.
Though invisible to the world around her, a staggering amount of energy concentrated around her legs, as she prepared to use [Spatial Contraction] to flee from whatever inspired such a grim feeling of despair. Yet, seconds passed and nothing out of the ordinary happened. Still staring at the empty space with looks befitting a monster, Elizabeth slowly began the process of calming down.