As Elizabeth moved to sprint pass the four figures that blocked her path, she darted to opposite side of the street so as to not crash into the four well dressed people. However, as if to mirror her image, two of the men in the opposing party split off to wall her in. They obviously wanted to confront her, which caused more confusion to develop after Elizabeth had passed off her initial judgment of these people.
She stopped running and cautiously approached the strangers, knowing fully well by how they moved that trying to run away now would be challenging if not impossible. When she was within five meters from the strangers, the remaining man and woman on the other side of the road had long since crossed over to meet with her.
Elizabeth had her doubts, but knowing this confrontation was inevitable by their blatant attempts to corner her, she said "What… what do you want?" Though she asked with a nervous tone, there was no fear present in her voice, as she could not detect any semblance of Inner Strength from the people before her.
One man, dressed in a pearly white tuxedo and suit combo, reached for the inside of his jacket's inner pocket and pulled out a white business card. Elizabeth could tell immediately from his looks that the man was asian, but couldn't tell from what part. He could have been from China, Japan, or Korea, that much might have been uncertain, but the sharp features of his face and the general build of his body was unquestionably handsome.
The man made a grunting noise and the two other suited up men took three paces back, as he personally extended the business card over to Elizabeth. Though his intentions were clearly for Elizabeth to the card, he never spoke a word, only patiently waiting for her to take the card on her own time. Elizabeth, never a master for these kinds of dealings, took more time the even the most noob-like individuals, but eventually she went over and took the business card from him.
She read the contents of the card and became even more confused. What she had just read was an advertisement for a kickboxing gym… She looked up from the reading the card to face the people that had approached her randomly and said "Um… I'm already part of a Muay Thai Dojo..." She had silently scoffed at Atid for making her promise to remember where she came from when negotiating the contract for her stay at the dojo. But never, did the thought of being approached cross her mind; especially not this soon.
The man in the white suit didn't look displeased by her rejection, if anything, he smiled. He said "Think first, this good opportunity. We guarantee personal training, start you on 10K monthly pay."
'Huh?' Elizabeth expected the conversation to be done and over with after rejecting the group. Now that a deal had been offered to her, it would mean she would have to continue wasting time with these people. As for the deal they proposed, maybe if she were someone else, she would have thought first before rejecting again, but this was the sociopathic antisocial sprite, Elizabeth Ultimatia.
Sure, the relationship with Atid, Sun, and Jane were but fleeting thoughts when considering this lateral move to another dojo. If she were just a sociopath she might have accepted the offered based solely on the guaranteed personal training. Alas, she was an antisocial sociopath… Now that she had built a relationship of disciple with Atid, Jane, and Sun, their value with regards to benefits was better in her opinion as she would not have to get used to new people again. Even better was the fact that they had met through fate, a term much better for her to attribute to "good." In comparison, how did these people meet her? Given their group status and the fact that they were "ready" for her, it was more than likely that if her life truly became a game, these would be the first "enemies" to cross her path.
'Ah… the old rival faction invitation cliche. Sucks for me that I'll have to play into it...' Elizabeth weighed her options for just another second before redoubling her intention to decline. She didn't particularly like these newcomers more than the people from her dojo, nor did their incentives provide enough bait for her to latch on to. More importantly, after recognizing a game-type trope being used in real life, the decision to follow through and choose as if it really were a game became all the more important. She wouldn't want to antagonize that incomprehensible figure P occasionally referred to, now would she?
Elizabeth shook her head, fully expecting a fight to ensue from the words that would come from her mouth, as she said "No thanks… I don't need pay or personal training. My… uh, friends are more important than this good deal." It was an obvious lie, but these people shouldn't be able to tell.
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The handsome and suited-up gentleman-looking fellow apparently had some reservation as to whether or not Elizabeth would betray her two day long relationship with Atid's dojo. But, for the most part he was happy to be rejected a second time. Alas, the expression on his face appeared to be the antithesis to his current thoughts of Elizabeth as he looked like he had been humiliated beyond reason.
His face changed from its handsome visage into that of a raging devil as he asked in a dark tone "You sure you want do this?" A spark of Inner Strength ignited his Martial Qi and its pressure started to descend upon Elizabeth.
For the first time thus far, Elizabeth finally felt inclined to concede and follow through with joining the now hostile party. She felt this way, because Martial Qi would not exist within a person until they were at least level 6. But more importantly, was the prompt she received the moment the hostile man's Qi registered in her brain.
[Danger!! Hostile Qi Detected
Updating Status
Status
Name: ???
Level: 10
Rank: Peak Martial Pawn]
'Fuck!' Just as Elizabeth was about to fall victim to the terrible pressure inflicted upon her and capitulate, another quest prompt caused her to bit down on her tongue.
[Choice Quest Detected
Choice Quest 1: Choice Of Character
Difficulty: D
Choice 1) Remain loyal to your fateful companions and follow through with your promise.
Choice 2) Capitulate and betray the expectation and relationships of the people you've met along your journey thus far.
Description: Character and morality are as important to oneself as strength. Currently, you are like a blank sheet, essentially possessing no recognizable personality or moral character. What you choose to stand for and the type of person you choose to become will lead you down wildly different roads along the path of cultivation and the journey to ascension! Choose now and hold true to your choice as an unstable sense of self will cripple your later accomplishments should you be wishy-washy.
Rewards:
Choice 1) Justice and God: A morally righteous and good-natured fragment *** ***** bud will be planted within your soul. The path of Evil and Devil will be forever severed from your options, but all orthodox and righteous techniques will be more easily learned and mastered.
Choice 1) If you survive… A Creed of Spacetime enchantments will be rewarded unto thee.
Choice 2) Evil and Devil: A morally sinister and ill-natured fragment *** ***** bud will be planted within your soul. The path of Justice and God will be forever severed from your options, but all unorthodox and malicious techniques will be more easily learned and mastered.
Choice 2) 1 Bad-tier Affinity Stone (of any type) will be rewarded unto thee.]
'These fucking gods are so unreasonable!' Elizabeth couldn't help but curse to herself as the choices were so obviously set up with the intention to make her seriously consider the options, yet the current situation would obviously not allowed for that to happen. If this was a game the obvious answer would be to go for Choice 1 as only hero's live to tell their tales. But, in reality she really wanted to live… Furthermore, the rewards for Choice 2 looked like they were about equally valuable to those of Choice 1.
Elizabeth was in a rush to consider her options and make the most logical choice, but as she stood static against the pressure of the businessman looking Martial Pawn before her, her unresponsive silence came off as yet another rejection. The man looked at Elizabeth with a light of approval shining behind his eyes, as his face further devolved into anger and he said "Heh, guess we not good enough for you! Che! No worries, we take you now, make you "think harder.""
The man suddenly had his legs flash with a wild, yet weak, flame like light as his figure disappeared from Elizabeth's line of sight. The next thing she knew, he was behind her and a breeze like wave of air hit right at the back of her neck; effectively spooking her into jumping to the side.
When Elizabeth turned to look at what happened, she was stunned out of her mind to see Sun, standing not a foot away from her previous position with his hand firmly grabbing that of the suited man.
From in front of her, three more Martial Qi signatures spiked to life as the woman and remaining two men also ignited their power with their Inner Strength. And just as quickly as these new lights of Martial Qi came to expose themselves before Elizabeth, more prompts from the status functions kept ringing in her head.
[Danger!! Hostile Qi Detected
Updating Status
Status
Name: ???
Level: 7
Rank: Early-Stage Martial Pawn]
[Danger!! Hostile Qi Detected
Updating Status
Status
Name: ???
Level: 8
Rank: Intermediate-Stage Martial Pawn]
[Danger!! Hostile Inner Strength Detected
Updating Status
Status
Name: ???
Level: 5
Rank: Peak Mortal]
"Shit!" Elizabeth couldn't help but curse out loud as reality proved to be more dangerous than her expectations for all these people. And to think that she had actually once wished for these individuals to be a gang so she could fight them? What a joke! It seemed to fate had planned for her to end up fighting them indeed, only she was utterly outclassed and outnumbered…