“Well, I guess this is it~” Elizabeth said after checking up on Viktoriya’s updated status. Upon walking out of the Formations, Elizabeth walked over to her party to ask what they intended to do now that the time limit had come up.
“So… you guys want to go back to the dojo? Or is anyone planning on staying here to get some more cultivation done?” Even if everyone decided they would stay back and continue training in their new “sacred grounds,” Elizabeth still had to return to Earth to trade in the Spirit Veins that were of no use to her for actually useful treasures.
“I don’t really have anything I need to do on Earth, so I’ll pass for now.” Sun was the first to request staying back. “Same… I only wish to continue bettering myself to be of use to you,” Tristan added as he addressed Elizabeth.
“Honestly, even if I did want to go back to check in on Atid, he’s probably still out at sea since it takes three days to go from Miami to Sharktop Island. Right now, I’m busy as it is with learning about Formations and cultivating to catch up to you…” Jane took a roundabout approach to decline the teleport back to Earth.
“I’m too scared to even think about asking you to take me back… Your Djinn is a very strict teacher…” Liam took a step away from Yrre as he confessed. She had been whipping him into shape with a never-ending stream of cultivation and sparring sessions. Though he very much would have preferred training at his own leisure, he couldn’t knock Yrre’s teaching methods as he had already shown levels of improvement only previously seen on Elizabeth because of her “teachings.” Even now as he told Elizabeth that he would voluntarily stay back to suffer more of her teachings, Yrre was glaring at him with the intention of upping his training’s intensity.
Elizabeth sighed as it looked like she would be the only one to return. Rather pitifully, she said, “Well, I guess I’ll be the only one returning. Anyway, here’s some stuff you may want to know, and don’t worry, I’ll be back as soon as I trade in some treasures…” Upon tossing over a jade slip that she had inscribed with all the information she had gathered from the books she had read back at Tyre, Elizabeth waved them goodbye before promptly teleporting out of the Shadow Realm through her Gateway Magic.
…
Now appearing in her room within Atid’s Dojo, Elizabeth sighed as she summoned her phone from her spatial ring. Pulling up the contact information of her father, she dialed his number and upon establishing a connection, she said, “Ay pops, I know it's only been a couple days, but I have some treasures I’d like to trade-in.”
“Huh? Oh, it must be something you got from the Shadow Realm, as you call it… Well, what is it that you want to trade?”
“Mhmm… Well, I have a bunch of Spirit Veins I don’t really need and some low-level herbs and ores that I’d rather not use myself, so…” Unable to finish her sentence, Kurt loudly questioned through the phone, “You have what?! Spirit Veins?!”
“Yeah, I plan on donating a set of Lightning, Water, and Darkness Spirit Veins to you guys, while others could be used to get some Spirit Grade Treasures.”
Kurt grew silent for a long period of time before asking, “Just how many Spirit Veins are you trading in?”
“Mhmm… I guess it really depends on how many treasures I find worth trading for.”
As the line grew silent once more with Elizabeth dropping such a bombshell, Kurt suddenly changed the topic and said, “Anyway, since you just got back I need to schedule a meeting with you to discuss the prospect of teaching Mage Cultivation as soon as possible.”
“Ok? Well, I only came back to trade in my treasures and turn in another jade slip. I plan to stay in the Shadow Realm for a while, so when is the soonest that we can meet?”
Kurt suggested, “I’m in Tokyo right now, but you can take one of the company’s jets to get here in around fourteen hours.”
“Ahh, that’s so slow! Can’t I just run the distance? I’d probably be faster and I could get in some training too…” To a normal person hearing such a claim might make them think they were listening to a delusional child. But in actuality, she wasn’t lying…
“Uh… I guess we can arrange for that. I’d just have to make a couple phone calls to disarm the territories you would be crossing through. But are you seriously considering running from Miami to Tokyo? Aren’t you still in the Mortal Realm? Or do you already have the means to fly?” Even to Kurt, who knew parts of how ridiculous Elizabeth was, physically speaking, her idea seemed a little too… extreme.
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“Nah, I only broke through to the King Stage like four days ago, remember? It’ll take a while to reach the Spirit Realm. Oh, and I’m not ‘considering’ running the distance, I’ll actually do it, if it saves time…”
“Alright, I guess. I’ll text you when the preparations are complete. Just remember to stick to long stretches of isolated space, and when you have to pass through cities or populated regions try to stay out of plain sight… It's already becoming normal to see practitioners running amok with supernatural strength and speed. But it's still rather, uh… ‘rare,’ to see people like you running at supersonic speeds.”
“Fine, I can just use Spatial Shift to warp the space around me to conceal myself, anyway. It might not fool Warrior Stage Practitioners or above, but regular people shouldn’t be able to spot me…”
“Don’t forget about the wind pressure you generate from running that fast…”
“Alright, dad… bye…” With that seemingly parental reminder, Kurt hung up the phone. Elizabeth’s eyes squinted as she pulled her phone from her ear to face her. Her expression darkened as she clicked on a button to leave the phone on idle mode. ‘What the fuck?’ She thought.
As she waited for her father’s text to come, Elizabeth did the only thing she felt was right. Assuming that the text would come quickly, as her father was “well-connected” on the global scale, she summoned a glass of Iced Tea and turned on the TV. She knew she had already entered the stage where cultivation would require a lengthy period of time to see any meaningful results. So, she treated herself to a break.
“…In other news, the creation of the Steadheart Sect in Shanghai China has already finished the construction process of its outer region. The Steadheart Sect’s astounding display yesterday brought about a lot of traffic to its doors after a Mr. Zhao Yong was filmed slaying the monstrous Tiger that made its way into the city and rampaged for over half an hour. In the interview he gave with CCTV, Mr. Zhao Yong promoted the Sect, inspiring hundreds of passionate men and women arriving at the Sect Grounds by 7:00 AM this morning!”
With the TV cutting to Zhao Yong’s interview from yesterday, an old Chinese man could be seen speaking, but his voice was dubbed over in English. The translated dub said, “While it is a great shame what happened earlier here today, I must take this opportunity to warn the public. This incident as tragic as it was will start to become an everyday occurrence if the standard of our defense doesn’t rise! As you can see, the Tiger that attacked was no regular Tiger. It was a behemoth, several times larger, faster, and stronger than a normal Tiger.”
“Yes, it is with great apprehension that I dare make this claim. But along with us humans evolving from the Celestial Phenomenon, other animals probably evolved as well. As we’ve grown more powerful, so too have these Monstrous Beasts. Thus, even if it is a most inopportune time, I would like to encourage the public to consider entering a school of cultivation. I happen to be a ranked elder of the recently formed Steadheart Sect, and there I will start teaching the skills others can use to defend themselves against these kinds of calamities…”
Elizabeth changed the channel and surprisingly, another international story was being played. This time from Portugal, another interview was being translated from Portuguese to English, “Like the other events across the world, here in Lisbon, we too have suffered attacks from these Monstrous Beasts. First, it was in Shanghai, then in Morocco, and now, over five hours later, a hundred more Monster attacks have been reported. As a representative of the Cerulean Guild, I too would have to point the public in immediately picking up cultivation if only to better their chances of surviving these attacks. At this rate, even before the dimensional rifts stabilize and alien life invades, we’ll be in a crisis with just the evolved life here on Earth!”
‘Mhmm… Now we have Sects and Guilds popping up on Earth?’ Elizabeth's train of thought was disturbed as a vibration from her phone led her to turn off the TV. Her father had just cleared her for take-off, so the human bullet that was Elizabeth rose up to begin her journey to the distant land of Japan.
Having read her father’s text she would head west, through the width of Florida, the Mexican Gulf, Mexico itself, and finally most of the pacific ocean before reaching Japan. Thus, when her glass of tea was empty once more, Elizabeth climbed up to the Dojo’s roof from the side of her window after activating her Spatial Shift ability to conceal her form, It was only after she slowly built up speed that she entered several hundred kilometers per hour speeds.
As the environment flickered past her, she did as she had during her journey from Tyre to the Base Camp in the Shadow Realm, and resumed her cultivation of the Spatial-Temporal Change Mystic Art. Alas, after learning that her “flight path” would be around 14,000 kilometers in total, as she would take the path with the least amount of land to cross, Elizabeth could only sacrifice part of her cultivation in favor of drawing out her Megadia Blood Armament and focusing on pure speed.
She sacrificed just under 10% of her Inner Strength energy reserves to activate the 25% increase to her speed her Megadia would grant her, and after implementing her Time Blade Basics to quadruple her movement speed, she peaked at around Mach 5 when moving as fast as she possibly could; disregarding her Chaos Seals. With such ungodly speed, the ocean was literally parted as she stomped on the water’s surface to keep up around 90% of her speed. As was the case, what would have been a 14-hour trip was reduced to only taking about 3 hours.