"..." In the VIP area, the atmosphere became so tense, it seemed possible to cut the air… To the various non-practitioners in the room, the change came without notice, thus, most of them were reasonably distraught. Just a few moments ago, the supervising judge of the Martial Event had relayed a very serious message. Too shaken to speak out his thoughts, he ominously sent a text message that stated, "Elizabeth Ultimatia has broken through to the Peak Phase of the King Stage..."
…
After breaking through, as Elizabeth entertained the thought of increasing her affinity with the rewards for completing her sixth Main Quest, she suddenly felt what had to be hundreds of Spirit Realm energy signatures probing her cultivation. "Mhmm… Troublesome..." She muttered under her breath after detecting a few annoying signatures that locked onto her, intent on monitoring her with or without her consent.
Putting aside any thoughts of claiming her rewards under the vigilance of the few bothersome Spirit Realm Elders, Elizabeth also resolved to limit the use of her Spatial Ring, lest she reveals its properties and earns unwarranted trouble.
Elizabeth snapped out of her thoughts just in time to hear that the person ranked below her was being challenged. She watched on in entertainment as the Saints ranked 77 and 76 settled their fight. At this point, more than 70 percent of the competition issued challenges to increase their ranking, so, when it was her turn to enter the arena again, it was time to change her tactics. After all, being nice would no longer work unless she wanted to crawl her way to first place.
Upon being called up to challenge the 73rd ranked Saint, Elizabeth loudly said, "Give up. If we fight I'm putting you to sleep for the next week." The clearly supercilious words didn't sit well with her opponent as a clamor of "OOHs," "OHs," and "WHATs" from the crowd intensified the burn that was felt from this slap to the face.
The supervising judge had already seen trash talk of this level and against those of rivaling factions, this was but child's play, but hearing it come from Elizabeth actually made him staggered for a moment. Still, it wasn't to the point where he couldn't function, so after signaling for both parties to do their martial salute, he called for the match to begin like any other.
Boom! Within a millisecond of the match officially starting, Elizabeth exploded with more speed than what she used to take down Tristan after galvanizing his Dantian and Soul for a second time. Slash! Slash! Slash! In the span of half a second, the previous tepid Elizabeth seemed to be possessed by demonic brilliance as she thoroughly disabled her opponent. With dozens of cuts opening up and spurting blood after she appeared behind him, and several acupoints activated, Elizabeth fulfilled her promise of putting her opponent out of commission for the next week; it would be even longer if he didn't get treatment from the best medical practitioners on Earth.
With only the voice of the judge attributing Elizabeth with the win after a team of medics rushed onto the arena and confirmed that Elizabeth's opponent was still alive, only silence followed as this even faster and stronger Elizabeth left the crowd dumbstruck as the remaining competitors still higher ranked than Elizabeth thought of how they should confront the demonic anomaly…
Turning her attention to Tristan, Elizabeth's eyes squinted. "Even if my intimidation tactics worked, I'll have to enter the arena every two or three fights, since my score from the Testing Formation has lost its use… Fortunately, he only needs his Dantian, meridians, and acupoints revitalized. I can do that in intervals, but first..." the Talent Stealing Blood Seal's Spell Circle mark appeared on Elizabeth's eyes as she prepared to brand Tristan. Without an affection rating that guaranteed trust, she refused to save what was once a hated foe without leaving a little something to gain leverage, even if it was for P's Side Quest.
Of course, P, off in her own personal dimension, was very satisfied with Elizabeth behaving this way. Gone was the oblivious idiot that treated cultivation as a child's game, and the farther Elizabeth strayed from her careless roots, the better chance she would have of winning the Cataclysm, which meant that P would win the Cataclysm by proxy!
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After branding Tristan with her [Talent Stealing Blood Seal], Elizabeth cringed as she turned to address Tristan's Dantian. Devoid of Inner Strength or Qi, Tristan's Dantian was in an even worse state than Sun's Dantian before he was treated. Looking more like a deflated, bullet, cut, and crack-ridden ball, than the perfect sphere characteristic of a healthy Dantian, Elizabeth knew it would take an extraordinary effort even from her to fix this mess.
Fortunately, now that Elizabeth was a Peak Phase King, the same rank as Tristan before he tried to kill himself, she could make use of her Mortal True Core to make the process less tedious. Galvanizing an incredibly dense Neutral Magic with said Mortal True Core, Elizabeth barely lost any Magic by using her Seamless Qi Connection and physically coming into contact with one needle at a time, as she focused on concentrated healing.
Slowly, the "wounds" on Tristan's Dantian began fading. In a method that looked counterintuitive, Elizabeth worked on treating the Dantian's least critical wounds first before slowly making her way up to the most egregious crippling wounds. Before she was called for her next fight against the 70th ranked Saint, she healed four of the smallest fissure wounds on Tristan's Dantian; less than 1% of the cumulative damage.
Making her way back over to the arena, Elizabeth issued the same ultimatum she gave her previous opponent and ultimately won via forfeit of the other party. She began to slowly alternate between healing Tristan and winning via forfeits as none of the Early and Mid Phase Saints dared mess with her after that last display of speed and strength.
She managed to completely close off all the fissure and crack wounds Tristan's Dantian sustained and even managed to close a couple tears and small bullet wounds over the course of an hour. By the time another person actually disregarded her threat and gambled the next couple weeks of his life away, over an hour and a half had passed and only the final top 40 Saint rankings had yet to be finalized.
After challenging the 39th ranked Saint, Elizabeth entered deadlocked battle after finally encountering the first Saint Stage practitioner she had met so far who had brought his Sword Art beyond the first level of Saints; SS rank. Guesstimating that his base stats increased by around 150, give or take, to Elizabeth it sounded like two armies were fighting from all the noise they made.
Alas, with her Mystic Blade Art being used so much and at the highest level she could at the moment, the insights into her [Wielder of Time] Skill came in like a tidal wave. Quite literally, every slash of the sword contained more Time Magic and the only reason Elizabeth didn't end the battle with the use of her Spells was to see how far she could improve her Skill.
Not surprisingly, after about a minute of edging her superiority through just the advancing [Wielder of Time] Skill, her opponent became flustered, believing he could no longer win via attrition. He could see his defense slowly becoming undone as Elizabeth seemed to get faster and stronger — an illusion of sorts, attributed to the ever-increasing amount of Time Magic in her sword — thus he resorted to using Enchantments.
'Mhmm… A Pressure-type Enchantment.' Sighing as she could only recognize the foundations of a Neutral Pressure Enchantment atop the sole Enchanted Talisman her opponent materialized of his Storage Enchantment, Elizabeth became sad as the match would have to end here. She could always improve her Skill later, but the Saint Division only came once a year. Moreover, at the rate she was progressing she'd probably be well into the Spirit Realm when the next Tournament took place; if it even took place, with the coming of the Cataclysm.
Unfortunately for her opponent, because he pulled out his talisman so close to her, his fate was sealed the moment she became serious. Thinking that because their speeds were comparable, he had a good chance at tagging Elizabeth with his Enchantment, Elizabeth's opponent ended up like the last person that defended their position from her. His body, unprepared for the intervention of Grandmist Pressure, staggered if only for the slightest moment. That slight moment gave "Base" Elizabeth — Elizabeth, without any active skills in use — the ability to end him. But, to flaunt an air of ruthlessness, all three of her movement/agility-based Spells came to life showing both the crowd and her fellow competitors that the limits of her strength had yet to be revealed.
'Mhmm...' Elizabeth nodded at the judge after receiving her win and pulling herself into the top 40. She walked over to Tristan's side and used some energy from a King Stage Monster Core to return her energy reserves to max capacity before she resumed treating his slightly-less crippled Dantian. Sadly, her intimidation tactics failed this time as she had to fight the very next time she was called up to the arena…
"Rightfully" annoyed, Elizabeth's schadenfreudian smile descended as she went full throttle right after the match began. Crunch!!! Shing!!! Using practically all her skills, Elizabeth didn't even give her opponent the chance to take the pills that had appeared in his hands as her almost 1,500 units of Speed were assisted by Space and Time to end the battle before it began.