With her Acupoint Skill entering the rank of Grandmaster the moment she continued healing Tristan, Elizabeth's heal prowess entered a mythical level by Earth's standards. Although she had yet to create the Soulstichting Acupoint Needles that would bring her manipulation of the soul to its highest — regardless of her Acupoint Skill — with just her regular acupoint needles or even her fingers, it was still possible for her to slowly nurture the souls of any sentient life form.
It was an ability that could not have come at a better time as Tristan's soul was damaged about as much as his Dantian; perhaps even more so, considering the battle of souls that killed off the previous Tristan. So, with Elizabeth's acupoint skill at its all-time high, three minutes after coming out of the stupor absorbing the [Acupoint: Spirits, The Soul, and Qi] technique put her in, she finished restoring Tristan's Dantian. Now looking like the Dantian of a Peak Phase King and not that of someone who had been crippled and tortured for weeks, Elizabeth rearranged the needles in Tristan's body to form a different body-encompassing formation and passed a couple pulses of Neutral Magic to revitalize his broken and battered energy pathway circulatory system.
It was only after Tristan's body was perfectly healthy that Elizabeth turned to address the barely functioning soul within his head. She hesitated only for a moment in ponderance of what she was about to do, before shaking her head and plunging her needles deep into his brain. With her Magic augmenting both her strength and her needles' penetrative properties, she pierced his defenseless skull as if it were paper.
Being cautious, since this was, after all, her first time messing around with someone's brain and soul, Elizabeth used the most basic soul probing method she knew of to insert a mere five acupoint needles. She knew before probing him that his soul ought to be damaged, but only after checking it thoroughly was she able to see the extent of the self-harm he had inflicted.
In a metaphysical space similar to the Dantian below a cultivator's navel there sat a meek and weak small gaseous ball. Just seeing it caused Elizabeth to shake her head at the trouble it would take to fix, as compared to the average person's soul which should be the size of a golf ball, Tristan's soul was half the size of a penny. Moreover, scars and leaks were sprung all around the soul in quantities much higher than his Dantian. Of the two, the soul was naturally much more complex, especially in the early stages of cultivation, thus the degree of difficulty of this second operation could be imagined.
"Mhmm..." Without much of a choice, Elizabeth picked up and inserted a couple dozen more needles into Tristan's unconscious body and after the preparations were all set up, a horrific amount of experience for her Acupoint Skill began accruing. Successfully operating on a soul at the Mortal Realm was insanely rare. Even rarer was the fact that Elizabeth wasn't even at the peak of the Mortal Realm…
Slowly, Elizabeth reconstructed the soul scars and leaks. Twisting, molding, stretching, and refining his soul became her only focus as any mistake could cost Tristan's life. Thus, she lost track of time with only the sight of the small soul healing filled her senses. Eventually, she finished returning the soul to a damage-free state. But because it was still had the diameter of half a penny, she could not stop there.
At this point, Elizabeth was close to blacking out from all the work she had done for today. Alas, she wasn't used to the limits of her body, as she had yet to properly consolidate her cultivation base. Having broken through two whole Stages of cultivation within a day, even with her Seamless Qi Connection and Perfect Chaos Foundation she couldn't ignore the period of consolidation all practitioners needed to get used to their newfound strength. Thus, even though she was inching closer and closer to the point where she would lose consciousness, she didn't notice…
Performing intricate soul manipulation techniques in her currently fatigued state was extremely dangerous not only for Tristan but for her as well, since she needed to use her own soul and soul energies to manipulate her patient. Blacking out in the middle of an operation could prove lethal, but Elizabeth, probably the greatest medic on Earth, ironically couldn't tell…
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Sighing, Elizabeth had bags under her eyes. She looked at Tristan's perfectly reformed body and soul and began seeing double. As she rubbed her forehead, she received a prompt from her quest functions before finally collapsing.
[Side Quest 9: Save Tristan!!! (Complete)
Degree of Completion: Mythical
Difficulty: SSS+
Objective) Stop Tristan from committing suicide. (✔)
Optional Objective 1) Prevent his Dantian from exploding. (✔)
Optional Objective 2) Restore his Dantian and heal him completely. (✔)
Hidden Objective) Restore Tristan's Soul to perfect health. (✔)
Description: After the day you've had, you've healed this guy with Spirit Realm methods as a King Stage practitioner. That's pretty insane if you ask me~
Reward:
Choice of: 500g of Core Soul-Sapphires, Core Soul-Rubies, or Core Soul-Emeralds
Bonus: Partial Divine Transmission: Soul Method Basics]
…
"Mhmm..." Elizabeth suddenly found herself in a very odd place. A moment ago, she was treating Tristan and digesting the contents of her quest functions and now she was standing by a cliff, overlooking an endless sea of clouds. In the distance, she could see floating masses of land which could have been the size of countries or even continents, but she couldn't say for certain as the distance to those floating miniature worlds was too far for her to gauge accurately.
Caught in a stupor from the beautiful sight, Elizabeth was suddenly startled as she heard a familiar voice address her from behind. "This is our first time meeting and you're wasting time gawking at my personal world?"
Goosebumps littered Elizabeth's skin as she turned around. Five or so meters away from her, a black-haired woman stood staring down at her. Standing at exactly 1.82 meters tall — 6 feet tall — with piercingly dark blue eyes, the woman had to lower her head to make eye contact with Elizabeth as she was only 1.67 meters tall — 5'6". Much like the silk dress foundation that made up Elizabeth's main armor set, this woman was garbed in black robes with silver streaks, looking eerily similar to what one would expect of an "Anti-Elizabeth."
Looking over at the woman, Elizabeth could feel her heart rate increase as she asked, "You are my sponsor, P?" Just the thought of confronting a real god made the nervousness she had lost from her first couple days after the transformation, return.
"Call me Persephone. And yes, I am your sponsor~" Persephone then snapped her fingers and like magic, two chairs and a table materialized in the area between her and Elizabeth. She gestured for Elizabeth to take a seat and after they both sat down Persephone said, "Now, I know you have a lot of questions you want to ask me, but we don't have time to waste as I've taken the liberty to issue your bonus rewards after you lost consciousness. You see, right now, everything you're seeing is possible because I've activated your soul's potential for Astral Projection. In just a couple moments you will wake up in your real body as there are a ton of 'powerful' people who care about your well being that are working to wake you up from your collapse."
Without another word, Persephone snapped her fingers once more and a grimoire appeared on her hand. However, this wasn't a physical book; it wasn't even a Magical or Spiritual Book. Instead, it was a metaphysical book that could instantaneously merge with Elizabeth's memories and grant her a wealth of knowledge that came from Persephone's own understanding of the Soul.
Upon tossing the metaphysical book at Elizabeth, Persephone waved her hands and what looked to be a soul materialized atop the table. The moment, Elizabeth came into contact with the book, her eyes dulled over as the information it carried overloaded her brain. At the same moment, the soul Persephone had conjured started moving erratically, like an animation caught in a glitch.
Changing shapes and colors so quickly even normal people would probably feel uncomfortable watching, Elizabeth's dulled over eyes moved as if she was in REM sleep as she traced the erratic soul. At the moment, she was expediting the process of integrating the knowledge Persephone had blessed her with, through the illusory soul before her.
A couple minutes later, the shapeshifting soul that sat atop the table between Elizabeth and Persephone abruptly stopped as a light of reason returned to Elizabeth's eyes. The first thing Elizabeth heard upon leaving the state of digesting the information with the metaphysical book was Persephone saying, "Good, we have a couple seconds before you are to wake up on Earth."
Persephone waved her hands once more and a holographic image of Tristan filled up Elizabeth's sight. With the image standing where the illusory soul previously stood, Persephone said, "Look, it may not make sense to you, but this guy is very important… He has..." Sadly, Elizabeth's Astral Projection vaporized before Persephone could get her message across.
Seeing Elizabeth's body vaporize before her, Persephone sighed. Talking to herself, she said, "Welp, at least we got through our first Divine Transmission. Hopefully, she'll complete the quests to unlock Universal DivineTransmission soon enough..."