[Innate Skills:
Death Affinity
*New) Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Rudimentary 100%
Skills:
Name: Death Art: Life Reversal
Level 35
Experience: 3,750,000/3,782,348
Spirit Grade: C
Range: 50 meters omnidirectional about the user.
Primary Effect: Corrodes all Energies to Death within range, so long as the user’s Understanding of Death outranks the level of energies within the Skill’s effective range.
Secondary Effect: Life Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 35% faster.
Tertiary Effect: Elemental Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 70% faster.
Ultimate Effect: Origin Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 35% faster. Stacks for Light and Fusion energies made up with Light Energies as a component.
Quests:
Hidden Quest: Origin Law Novice (Complete)
Spirit Grade Difficulty: C
Degree of Completion: TRANSCENDENTAL
Objective: Reach an Understanding of Rudimentary 100% with any Origin Energy.
Afterword: Unbelievable. It took you less than a half a day to raise your Understanding of Death from the level of an average Saint Stage Practitioner to that of a Core Formation Stage Cultivator. Granted, you had the help of a literal incarnation of Death and a Cultivation Method provided by the Sky Seizing Castle’s Lord, but it’s still a record-breaking achievement.
**********: You know what? I don’t even care if you don’t strive to reach Transcendental achievements with Time anymore. In fact, it would be more impressive if you didn’t make use of your intended path and championed the Cataclysm without a single Time-related Transcendental achievement. Not to mention, it would humor me to no end.
Reward: Reaper Supreme’s Note on Death
Bonus: Ancient Godslayer Fiend Essence]
“Hey Lisa,” Elizabeth’s smug smile threatened to split her face, “have I got a surprise for you.”
“Tsk,” The Ancient Godslayer Fiend Incarnation clicked her tongue through Elizabeth’s body as a medium.
“Bother me some other time, shitty host,” she grumbled. “Can’t you see I’m still in the middle of increasing our Cultivation Base?”
“And here I thought you would be happy to learn that I was awarded some Ancient Godslayer Fiend Essence,” Elizabeth spoke with mock-sadness as she wiped a nonexistent tear from her face within her Soul Land.
“Yeah? So what? You want a cookie or something?” Lisa retorted, despite the light of greed consuming her eyes for a split second.
“Oh?” That reaction startled Elizabeth out of her act as she asked with genuine curiosity, “You don’t care for the Essence? Wouldn't taking that kind of tonic recover the lost Essense you used to help me attain twenty Divine Meridians and a hundred-eight Heavenly Acupoints? Since it came as a bonus reward from a Hidden Quest completed at the highest degree of difficulty, the Essence should be quality stuff.”
“Could it be that you are asking me if I want to waste the precious Essence of my kind on something as trivial as recovering personal lost Essence?” Lisa asked with a coldness usually only reserved for the most egregious acts.
“Since your shitty understanding of us Ancient Godslayer Fiends doesn’t measure up, as expected, I’ll just have to enlighten you,” she continued.
“Personal Essence can be restored with just a bit of Death Qi. Absorbing Death Energies with your Godslayer Mark can increase the purity of the Fiendish blood in your body; obviously, it can also restore it."
Her eyes narrowed dangerously as she intoned, "In fact, if you’d been paying just a little more attention, you would have noticed that my Essence has already been completely restored and even improved over the ten hours we’ve been Cultivating in this Death Substation Trial.”
“All of that is nice to know, but that still leaves us with the Ancient Godslayer Fiend Essence,” Elizabeth said.
“Hmph, just save it for now,” Lisa grumpily barked. “No matter how strong or weak the Essence turns out to be, it would be best reserved for when you reach the Core Bearing Stage or beyond.”
The conversation promptly ended with Lisa continuing the cultivation of Elizabeth’s body while Elizabeth worked to increase her Understanding of Death even further. Having just crossed the 100th iteration of the pocket dimension, Lisa and Elizabeth now faced the most challenging environment to convert.
Unfortunately, the reward for making it that far did not include a new Skill. Until this point, Elizabeth had collected all three parts of the Foundation Section for the All Death Revolution’s Cultivation Method.
She picked up the first part while challenging the 25th iteration of the pocket dimensions, the pocket dimension that formed an empty plain. She picked up the second part while challenging the 40th iteration which transformed the empty plains into a thriving forest. While the last part came at the 75th iteration, where the forest became an oasis.
After conquering the final twenty-five iterations, where the oasis transformed into a volcano, Elizabeth reached what appeared to be a sea of Light and Life Energies. There, she found the entire Core Section of the All Death Revolution’s Cultivation method. However, with the Reaper Supreme’s Note of Death acquired at the same time, it all but trivialized that reward.
In ten hours, her Understanding of Death had skyrocketed from its position as one of the three least understood Energies to her most understood energy. It would only continue to increase for the fourteen hours that remained.
…
On Earth, less than a week after Jhan orchestrated his two attacks on Atid and Jane, word of Jhan’s actions reached Kurt. Though he initially planned on leaving the matter for his children’s friends to take deal with, after digging up some of Jhan’s history, Kurt decided it was best if he just got rid of the man as soon as possible.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Jhan Lamya,” Kurt read from Jade Slip, “sixty-two-years old, with a background of unorthodox origin. Over four decades, this man has engaged in all manner of sin, using every means available to him to raise his cultivation and gain power. Under the cover of mercenary, he’s been reported to have killed anywhere between fifty-thousand and a hundred-fifty-thousand. He’s created several slave camps and entered a few dozen human trafficking rings. Even the factions he’s built over the years have only been fronts for the harvest of human furnaces…”
Kurt continued, “He’s already gone after Ellie repeatedly, he’s had a past of enslaving Jane, he’s taken a loss after coming in contact with Liam, and now, he’s become affiliated with a Sect run by the Skullflesh Faction."
A cyan-hued light sharp enough to cut steel crossed his eyes as he concluded, "I don't know what you're planning, Jhan, but looking into my son's background is that last mistake I'll allow you to make.”
With a snort, he discarded the Jade Slip in his hand and started planning the measures he would take to rid himself of Jhan’s dangerous presence.
…
“Hmm,” Elizabeth groaned as she sat in confusion.
She grumbled internally, ‘Where’s the next pocket dimension? I still have like an hour left and didn’t even get to test my Profound Tr—’
Her thoughts froze as a prompt answered her question like clockwork.
[Foundation Trial of Death
Performance: 1?? (Highest Core)
Rewards: 3 Twinkling Comet Gold Ticket, 50 Twinkling Comet Yellow Tickets, 1 Twinkling Comet Black Ticket, 75 Twinkling Comet Grey Tickets
Time Remaining: 10D 20H 7M 45S
Status
Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia
Bloodline: Ancient Godslayer Fiend 0.0787%
Level: 32 (32/33)
Rank: Transcendent Core Foundation
Sex: Female
Strength: 3,350
Endurance: 3,350
Speed: 3,350
Defense: 3,350
Intelligence: 4,050
Luck: 10
True Qi: 47
Innate Skills:
Death Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Entropy)
Skills:
Name: Death Art: Life Reversal
Level 58
Experience: 11,175,000/11,496,348
Spirit Grade: A
Range: 120 meters omnidirectional about the user.
Primary Effect: Corrodes all Energies to Death within range, so long as the user’s Understanding of Death outranks the level of energies within the Skill’s effective range.
Secondary Effect: Life Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 58% faster.
Tertiary Effect: Elemental Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 116% faster.
Ultimate Effect: Origin Energies corrode to Death through this Skill 58% faster. Stacks for Light and Fusion Energies made up with Light Energies as a component.]
“I guess understanding a Profound Truth allowed me to reach the end of the Death Substation Trial,” Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders.
She collected her rewards from the table in the center of the round room and gazed approvingly at the closed door to the Death Substation Trial for a moment before leaving for the Exchange Hub.
As she made her way over, she called out to Lisa, “You’re going to be fine until this trip ends, right?”
“Hmph,” Lisa snorted, evidently there was nothing Elizabeth could do to not elicit such a response.
“You have a month and a half,” Lisa coldly said.
“Hmm,” Elizabeth paused if only for a moment before she said, “Not sure that will be long enough to make the most out of this trip, but if worse comes to worst, I can always supply you with Death Energies from the Meditation Chamber.”
“Whatever,” Lisa said before shutting off their connection.
Elizabeth reached the Exchange Hub with seventy-five Yellow Tickets in hand and immediately traded them for a special ticket marked with the Chinese character for "water."
[Status
Name: Twinkling Comet Water Ticket
Divine Grade: S
Description: A neutral blue-colored note used in the Sky Seizing Castle to retry the second-floor Foundation Trial of Water.]
Elizabeth looked at the ticket and felt a twitch along her forehead.
She thought, ‘S Grade at the Divine level… This is ridiculous.’
She shook away the headache that was forming and left for the Water Substation. As a ‘mere’ Foundation Transcendent Stage Cultivator, it was terribly dangerous for her to even attempt looking into the inscriptions that made up the ticket.
Before a minute passed since she completed the Death Substation, Elizabeth was back at the base of the Profound River. She was a whole hundred kilometers away from Waterfall of Insight, but even if her cultivation with water in the Meditation Chamber was excluded, she had already reached the 100% Rudimentary Understanding required to skip across the length of the river without obstruction.
Unsurprisingly, her Understanding of Water, though not at the level of a Profound Truth, had risen considerably since she cultivated for a whole 24 hours with the Sacred Water Scripture. Rising up to Level 32, only 3 Spiritual Pillars away from Level 33 as all her other Stats had already crossed that threshold, Elizabeth’s speed with the Seamless Water Steps outclassed most Foundation Collapse Stage Cultivators.
She took about 15 seconds to cross the hundred-kilometer-long river to match what took her nearly a whole day, nearly 48 hours ago. Now, there were 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 45 odd seconds for her to pick up where she left off.
To start, Elizabeth finished engraving the contents of the fourth Water Tablet Shard of Harmony into her memories, learning yet another Skill in the process.
[Skills:
Name: Water Art: Tyrannical Deflection
Level 1
Experience: 1,075,000/1,097,448
Spirit Grade: F
Energy Cost: 0.15 True Qi
Description: An All-rounder Offensive and Defensive Water-type Skill created to learn the Concept of Flow through one of its practical uses. Dampens the damage done by enemies stronger than the user while being able to directly reflect the attacks of those with about the same strength as the user or lower.
Primary Effect: Attacks that are successfully deflected may be reduced by up to 50% of their potential power. However, when the user’s Defense or Understanding is outclassed by their opponent by a factor of five or greater, each additional factor after five exponentially decreases the effect of this Skill.
Secondary Effect: Against opponents 50% more powerful than the user or below, deflection can be used offensively to reflect a portion of the damage done. The less powerful the opponent is compared to the user, the more potential damage there is to reflect.]
‘This is getting ridiculous,’ Elizabeth shook her head.
She thought, ‘Am I getting some sort of special treatment as an Honorary Disciple of the Castle Lord? I can’t imagine these Trials would be so conveniently designed for me to easily pass, otherwise.’
Since she began the Sky Seizing Castle's Second Floor Substation Trials, both the Water and Death Substations had done nothing but guide her in the most overt ways.
To cross the Profound River, she was given a Water-type Movement Skill. To convert pocket dimensions of Life, she had been given a Domain-type Death Skill. Now, to scale a waterfall, a predominantly Defensive-type Water Skill had been handed over on a silver platter and it was conveniently complemented by the Movement Skill she had already learned.
She shrugged her shoulders, ‘Then again, I’ve always had a hard time understanding my talent. Maybe I’m just unreasonably good at this? Persephone already confirmed I was on track to surpassing Gods, so maybe it's not outrageous to think that the Castle Lord couldn't have anticipated my kind of performance.’
She walked over to the Waterfall of Insight with a distinctly calm demeanor and literally tested the waters. Seeing the water effortlessly part for her, she smirked and began slowly flying up the waterfall.