Near the top of the Waterfall of Insight, Elizabeth’s eyes snapped open. She indulged in a momentary smirk of victory before falling all the way down to the bottom.
At the base of the waterfall, Elizabeth gently touched the surface of the waterfall and the entire ten-kilometer tall construct instantly stopped. With its surface now calm, Elizabeth could see her reflection in the water with mirror-like clarity.
She touched the waterfall again, and the water began flowing in reverse; defying gravity to erupt at the top like a geyser.
[Foundation Trial of Water
Performance: 1?? (Highest Core)
Rewards: 2 Twinkling Comet Gold Ticket, 10 Twinkling Comet Yellow Tickets, 1 Twinkling Comet Black Ticket, 10 Twinkling Comet Grey Tickets
Time Remaining: 13D 14H 5M 17S
Innate Skills:
Water Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Flow)
Skills:
Name: Water Art: Seamless Water Steps
Level 60
Experience: 12,000,000/12,139,448
Spirit Grade: A
Primary Effect: Increases Speed by 60%.
Secondary Effect: Resistance to all forms of friction increases by 80%
Tertiary Effect: Resistance to water increases by 160%
Quaternary Effect: Resistance to wind increases by 320%
Ultimate Effect: Resistance to all forms of pressure increases by 600%
Name: Water Art: Tyrannical Deflection
Level 51
Experience: 7,500,000/7,895,348
Spirit Grade: A
Primary Effect: Attacks that are successfully deflected may be reduced by up to 75% of their potential power.
Secondary Effect: Against opponents twice as powerful as the user or below, deflection can be used offensively to reflect a portion of the damage done.
Ultimate Effect: Instead of deflecting potential damage away from the user, momentum from attacks can be absorbed to augment the user’s counterattacks. Speed and Strength may rise by up to 100% for a fraction of a second depending on the amount of force absorbed.]
After thoroughly savoring in the complacent smile that had graced her face, Elizabeth thought, ‘Alright, I’ve completed the Water and Death Substations. Where should I go now?’
She looked at the Time and Space Substations that were right next to each other and continued her train of thought, ‘I really should increase my Understanding of Time and Space as soon as possible. That Fragmented Transcendent Time Affinity of my is going to waste…’
Then she turned to the Spacetime and Blazebreeze Substations, ‘But maybe I should first increase my Understanding of Fusion Energies. God only knows how overpowered I’d be after learning a Profound Truth of one of them.’
Her heart bled as she turned to the Elemental Energy Substations for Energies she had yet to even begin cultivating and thought, ‘I could also start training on the remaining Energies I’ve yet to start cultivating. Not only would I get a shit-load of new Innate Skills, but it may also broaden my horizons and make cultivating the Time and Chaos easier.’
Ashen-faced, Elizabeth turned for the last time to spot the Secondary Occupational Substations, ‘There also these… these fucking Secondary Occupations.’
“Hmm,” she groaned before quietly muttering, “I should save the Secondary Occupational Substations for last. I’ll earn as many Tickets from doing the other Substations and then figure out how to divide my time in the Meditation, Practice, and Challenge Chambers.”
Eventually, Elizabeth began walking towards another open door in the round room. Her destination was the Ice Substation Trail.
‘First, let’s clear Ice and Fire,’ she decided.
She continued, ‘With the Book of Ice and Fire they should be relatively easy to clear; especially after learning a Profound Truth of Water. Then I’ll clear all the other Elemental Energies. They should be simpler to improve on than Origin Energies, after all. Origin Energies after that, excluding Chaos, as that’s on a whole other level. Fusion Energies penultimately followed lastly by Chaos.’
…
It had been about a week since Tristan had carried out the mission to eradicate the Yinship Sect with Klaus Kinsterling. After getting his revenge, Tristan had returned to the Beach Resort in Japan and supervised the training of Elizabeth’s Mage Apprentices while cultivating his foundation and enchantment abilities.
Amidst his current cultivating session within the Supreme Duality Spirit Vein Arrays, Tristan had to stop abruptly as the calm he had enjoyed for the last couple of days was broken.
‘This energy signature… Is someone entering the Spirit Realm?’ he thought.
However, before he could even leave the room and take a look for the source of the energy spike, Tristan stopped again.
‘Another one?!’ He rose a brow in skepticism, ‘Are there two people breaking through at the same time?’
“Ha! Slow cow, you never stood a chance against me,” A childish male voice chirped.
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“Yeah… your body is like five times smaller than mine,” a timid female voice quietly retorted, “Obviously you’d form your Spirit Core faster.”
When he finally made it outside, Tristan watched with as much curiosity as the Mage Apprentices around him as Elizabeth’s two Tamed Beasts argued with each other.
Assuming he wasn’t using his Shapeshifting Skill, Knight looked to have grown to nearly four feet tall. His feathers looked even more like metal than before, giving a crisp reflection of sunlight which juxtaposed menacingly with its predominantly purple coloration. The gold markings now glowed dimly even without the direct input of his True Qi and two distinct markings ran down the length below his eyes.
As for Viktoriya, while her size did not change, the spotted grey pattern Elizabeth last saw end at the base of her ears now ran down half the length of her body.
“You know, we could always settle this the old fashioned way,” Knight intoned dangerously.
“You want to fight?” Viktoriya quietly, yet resolutely, asked.
Detecting the rising levels of True Qi in the immediate vicinity, Tristan strictly said, “If you’re going to fight, do it away from here. Any random rouge attack from either of you would probably kill Master’s Apprentices.”
“We know,” Knight and Viktoriya said at the same time.
They wordlessly flew several kilometers into the beach before engaging in an all-out brawl. The fight more so helped them consolidate their recently advanced Cultivation Bases and get used to their new abilities and True Qi, than it did involve mortal combat.
…
[Innate Skills:
Name: Fire Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Heat)
Name: Ice Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Density)
*New) Name: Wind Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Ephemerality)
*New) Name: Earth Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Stability)
*New) Name: Wood Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Growth)
*New) Name: Metal Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Richness)
*New) Name: Lightning Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Spark)
*New) Name: Light Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Weightlessness)
*New) Name: Dark Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Form)
*New) Name: Life Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Vitality)
Name: Yin Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Spirituality)
*New) Name: Yang Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Physicality)
Name: Space Affinity
Tier: Good
*New) Understanding: Profound Truth (Volume)]
Elizabeth was currently sitting in the round room, pondering how she had gotten this far.
She thought, ‘It's only been ten days and I’ve added thirteen Profound Truths to my arsenal of Understanding. Fire, Ice, Yin, and Space were all completed within a day each since I already had Cultivation Methods and Skills for them before entering their Substations. But as for the rest… It’s absurd just thinking about how much I’ve improved my rate of learning.’
She had experienced first hand how having amassed a wealth of knowledge on so many types of Energies made the process of learning a new one, or even improving upon ones already learned, easier.
Taking a cursory look at her Upper Dantian after learning all these Profound Truths and completing so many Substation Trials made it seem like she was completely different Cultivator than the one who entered the Sky Seizing Castle about two weeks ago.
Elizabeth’s Spiritual Sea of soul force grew by more than a factor of one hundred. Though its width from the shores of her Soul Land “merely” increased to a reach of several thousand meters, its depth was were most of its changes took place. Before, the Spiritual Sea would hardly cover her knees should an incarnation of herself try standing in it, but now…
‘Fuck…’ Elizabeth muttered to herself as she stood over her Spiritual Sea.
Even with the miniature sun that had spawned in her Upper Dantian after learning the Yang-type Profound Truth of Physicality, the sunlight it emanated could not pierce to the sea’s floor.
‘Forget Core Formation,’ Elizabeth struggled to contain her smug smile as she considered, ‘Core Refinement and even Core Bearing Stage Cultivators can’t so much as disturb my Spiritual Sea.”
‘If I used Soul Attacks myself,’ she chuckled, ‘I could probably threaten them instead.’
Over the course of the ten days she had learned her thirteen new Profound Truths, she had picked up an array of Cultivation Methods and Skills from the Substation Trials. She also improved the Skills she had known prior to reaching the Spirit Realm, but did not have the time to train them until then.
Journeying out of her Spiritual Sea and into the Soul Land itself, it was arguable that there were even more profound changes there. To start, there now existed seventy-odd phantom Spiritual Pillars holding up the Upper Dantian’s Pseudo-Heavens.
The “island” could better be described as a country as it had a surface area of hundreds of square kilometers. Its topography had also changed to an unrecognizable point after the influence of Elizabeth’s Profound Truths created mountains, rivers, forests, mountains, valleys, and tundras decorated the landscape.
Thanks to Elizabeth’s Understanding of Life, Death, Yin, and Yang, there even existed the most basic lifeforms; single-cell bacteria in some water-bound regions.
On the summit of the tallest mountain in her Soul Land, all the special Stargazer Lilies that held the embodiment of Elizabeth’s Understanding of various Laws formed a type of natural array that kept all the systems of her Soul Land functioning. All the special Stargazer Lilies holding Energies that Elizabeth had cultivated to the level of understanding a Profound Truth held energies with corporeal form.
Lisa sat perpetually within the Death-type Stargazer Lily, while Belle and Zhenlong remained in stasis within the Time and Wind-type Stargazer Lilies respectively. Unfortunately, the improvements to Elizabeth’s Upper Dantian did little to recover two of her incarnations.
Though, in Zhenlong’s case, after understanding the Wind Profound Truth of Ephemerality, Earth Profound Truth of Stability, and the Yin Profound Truth of Spirituality, a bit of his shattered Divinity was mended. The purity of her Primordial Ghost God Bloodline had even increased.
Now Elizabeth was only missing the completion of the Time Substation Trial before she moved on to completing the Substation Trials for Fusion Energies and Chaos.
Looking at Belle, she thought, ‘You aren’t nearly as damaged as Zhenlong, so it might just be possible to restore you soon.’
If the addition of a Profound Truth of Time didn’t resolve Belle’s unconsciousness, Elizabeth could only hope there might be suitable Soul-healing resources she could trade for in the Exchange Hub. She had gotten a taste of what her incarnations cultivating in her stead could do, and was eager for more.