“Strength-wise I think you could contend with even talented Core Bearing Stage Cultivators evenly in your base form. But if you went all out, if you used your Nine Chaos Seals on top of your new Wolf God form… Perhaps even Nascent Cultivators would have to tread carefully,” Yrre said as she put away her new blade into her new spatial ring; even her attire was new.
Elizabeth nodded as she mimicked her teacher and followed her out of the Challenge Chamber. Like Yrre, Elizabeth’s clothes had undergone an evolution. With her Saint Rank Forging prowess, she had spent days in the Practice Room improving her equipment.
[Innate Skills:
*New) Name: Forging Affinity
Tier: Good
Understanding: Profound Truth (Branding)
Skills:
Forging Level 37 (255,000,000/276,440,000)
Rank: Saint
Primary Effect: High-Peak Grade Spirit Armaments and ammunition forged by the user turn out 100% more powerful.
Branding Profound Truth Effect: Tier 1 Forging Enhancements can now be branded to any Armament or piece of ammunition forged by the user. The number of Tier 1 Forging Enhancements that can be branded depend on this Skill’s Proficiency, the user’s Understanding of Forging, and the size of the object being enhanced.
Status
Name: Elizabeth's Profound Spirit Armor Set
Spirit Grade: A-Ranked Core Armament (At The Threshold To S-Ranked Nascent Grade)
Defense: +1,000,000 (350,000 Chest, 300,000 Waist, 175,000 Arms, 175,000 Legs)
Base Effects:
Temporal Attunement (Core Bonus): Temporarily increases the user's Affinity for Time to the next highest Tier so long as they are at or below Good Tier.
Temporal Resonance (Core Bonus): Boosts the user's Spirit Grade Temporal Skills by 100% in potency.
Tier 1 Enhancement of Divination: Nullifies the cost of any Temporal-type Divination Skills at or below the Spirit Grade of SSS.
Description: Having undergone a double evolution with a Foundation Grade Reforging Crystal and another Core Grade Reforging Crystal, this fiery armor-set-dress combo is now tens of thousands of times more powerful than before.
Name: Supplementary Profound Grandmist Spirit Armor Set
Spirit Grade: A-Ranked Core Armament (At The Threshold To S-Ranked Nascent Grade)
Defense: +4,000,000 (1,000,000 Chest, 1,000,000 Waist, 1,000,000 Arms, 1,000,000 Legs)
Base Effects:
Spatial Barrier (Core Bonus): Reduces incoming damage of any type at the Spirit Grade of A or below, by the Core Bearing Stage Cultivators or below, by 50%. The effect diminishes exponentially for damage dealt by entities at increasingly higher Stages.
Spatial Resonance (Core Bonus): Boosts the user's Spirit Grade Spatial Skills by 100% in potency.
Tier 1 Enhancement of Chaotic Endowment: Linked to the Chaos Seals of Augmentation, upon their activation, the defense bonus granted by the armor set increases according to the bonus of the Chaos Seal activated.
Description: Having undergone a double evolution with a Foundation Grade Reforging Crystal and another Core Grade Reforging Crystal, this armor set has been revamped with Melded Spirit Steel and a Pseudo Spirit Core to become unrecognizable from its original state.
Name: Core Spatial Ring
Grade: A-Ranked Core Artifact
Description: Forged from Spirit Steel, this Spatial Ring Artifact boasts an unusually high capacity after being endowed with a Tier 1 Enhancement of Volume.
Current Effect: Has a max capacity of 10 cubic kilometers.]
Elizabeth had already done everything there was to do in the Sky Seizing Castle. All the Substations had been completed to Highest Core; or Beyond Core in the case of the Trial of Requiem. All her Skills had been cultivated past the point that she considered “good enough;” that is to say, beyond what was expected of Cultivators over a Stage ahead of her. Even her equipment and weapons had been upgraded after she exchanged some of her Tickets for resources in the Exchange Hub.
Unfortunately, the price of upgrading her Blood Armaments took a heavy toll on the Tickets she had earned, as their second and third evolutions required materials that could only be purchased for dozens of White Tickets. Yet after all her training, she still had several leftover Tickets.
However, instead of spending her remaining Tickets in the Meditation Room, Elizabeth decided that it was finally time for her to ascend up the spiraling staircase of the round room. Reaching the third floor of the Sky Seizing Castle would give her access to more advanced facilities and though she wouldn’t have a single appropriately-marked Ticket, from the information Scion and Yrre gave her, she expected an improvement to the rate of distorted time she could make use of in the Meditation Chamber.
With Yrre following, Elizabeth took her first step up the spiralling staircase and smirked as she was confronted with the same heavy Water Qi that was found at the top of the Waterfall of Insight in the Water Substation Trial. She used her Profound Truth of Flow to effortlessly make the Water Qi part for her and stepped onto the next step.
“Hmm?” Elizabeth’s eyes widened as she continued step by step up the spiraling staircase.
Each subsequent step had the Energies of the Substation Trials she had visited in the order that she had completed them. Moreover, they were all at the level where either a Profound Truth proficiency in Understanding or a complete Rudimentary Understanding powered by Core Qi was required to pass by them; at least for the first couple dozen steps.
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After all twenty-four of Elizabeth’s Profound Truths were tested individually, her Understanding of Chaos was tested at Trash Tier before combinations of Energies began to pressure her as they did in the Trial of Requiem. Of course, compared to the difficulty of reaching the top of the Stairway of Chaos, the spiraling stairway in the round room was child’s play; Elizabeth could have easily completed it before reaching the Core Formation Stage.
With just her Understanding of the various Energies that descended upon her and her Soul Force supplying the finesse required to progress unhindered, she hardly broke pace while rising to the top of the spiraling stairway.
[Congratulations, Honorary Disciple
Updated Performance:
Foundation Stage Energy Cultivation: Exalt Foundation Collapse (Highest Achievement)
Foundation Stage Body Cultivation: Minor Grandmist Constitution (Highest Achievement)
Foundation Trial of the Elemental Energies (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Lightning, Ice, Light, Dark, Wood, Metal): 1?? (Highest Core)
Foundation Trial of the Origin Energies (Yin, Yang, Space, Time, Life, Death, Chaos): 1?? (Highest Core)
Foundation Trial of the Fusion Energies (Spacetime, Blazebreeze): 1?? (Highest Core)
Foundation Trial of the Secondary Occupational Energies (Forging, Cooking, Acupoint): 1?? (Highest Core)
Foundation Trial of the Weapon Energies (Gun, Blade): 1?? (Highest Core)
Foundation Trial of Requiem: 1?? (Beyond Core)
Current Energy Cultivation: 2% Pseudo Spirit Core (Beginner Core)
Current Body Cultivation: Perfect Foundation Minor Grandmist Constitution (Highest Foundation)
Talent: God/********
Time Remaining: 74D 13H 15M 33S → 0
Rewards: 1 Sanguine Moon Gold Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon Cyan Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon White Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon Black Ticket
Quests:
Chain Side Quest 1.2: Spirit Legacy Inheritor (Complete)
Degree of Completion: Perfect
Spirit Grade Difficulty: D
Objective) Reach the Sky Seizing Castle’s third floor. (✔)
Optional Objective) Pass a substation legacy trial. (✔)
Hidden Objective) Transcend the limit of a Substation Trial by earning a rating of Highest Core. (✔)
Hidden Objective) Transcend the limit of ALL Substation Trial by earning a rating of at least Highest Core in all Substation Trials. (✔)
Hidden Objective) Transcend Requiem by earning a rating of Beyond Core. (✔)
Afterword: Somewhere amidst the stars, a certain Castle Lord is gazing happily at your borderline impossible achievements. Continue with these kinds of results and you may one day find yourself advancing from Honorary Disciple to Personal Disciple.
Reward: Bare Grandmist Tools of Cooking, Acupoint, and Forging
Bonus: 1 Sanguine Moon Gold Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon Cyan Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon White Ticket, 1 Sanguine Moon Black Ticket]
“Yes…” Elizabeth caught herself before the streak of drooling trailing the side of her mouth could make it to her chin.
She didn’t care about the considerable amount of time and Tickets spent on creating her new Secondary Occupational Tools. The experience to her Forging Skill which she gained from creating them, and the fact that they could be traded for treasures, or passed down some other time, more than canceled out any misgivings that she might have had for having to switch tools so quickly. But the fact of the matter was that she would undoubtedly switch the moment she got to inscribing enchantments and Tier 1 Enhancements on the new Grandmist Tools.
As for the Sanguine Moon Tickets, Elizabeth had no words. She didn’t even have the wherewithal to care about the Castle’s interior changing once more, as she left the round room and headed for the Meditation Chamber.
She didn’t even think about spending any of her remaining Tickets in the Exchange Hub. After all, what use was there in spending any Cyan Tickets when she had the Cyan Badge? What use was there in spending any Gold Tickets when the Substations in the second floor so graciously gifted her dozens of new Skills; never mind the fact that she had three top-tier Divine Cultivation Methods. What use was there in spending any Black Tickets when she could just forge her own High and eventually Peak Tier Spirit Grade Armaments?
Perhaps there was a case for the White Tickets that could be traded for resources. But no resource could hold a candle to the benefits of the Meditation Room when it came down to purely increasing her Cultivation Base; which was precisely the only thing Elizabeth was interested in at the moment. She didn’t lack the methods, nor the Understanding, nor the Skills, nor equipment for the depth of her Cultivation Base; only the time and resources required to increase it quickly.
She passed by the Exchange Hub anyway, just to make sure she wasn’t missing on any potential diamonds in the rough and as expected, everything she could have possessed even a sliver of interest for was beyond her current financial situation.
She addressed Yrre, saying, “After this last session in the Meditation Chamber, we’re going back to Endrin.”
“I’m sure everyone will be very… surprised to see how much you’ve improved in the short month you were away,” Yrre said, a bit worried after hearing that they would return as soon as she finished cultivating.
‘Hopefully, by being around, it won’t take much to consolidate her Cultivation Base,’ she sighed, thinking, ‘For the sake of everything around her, she better understand her own strength…’
Both of them understood that after Elizabeth came out of this last meditation session, she wouldn’t have anywhere as perfect as the Chaos Substation Trial to help consolidate her ever-extreme power. It might not be a problem if her Cultivation Base increased marginally after breaking through, but with the amount of Tickets Elizabeth still had in her possession and the Skills for cultivation that she had built up, she was bound to continue making insane progress.
Core Qi created from relatively average Cultivators was already an extremely potent form of Energy; potent enough to do massive amounts of destruction with just a couple wisps of its matter. Simply speculating what would happen should Elizabeth lack control with her impossibly dense Core Qi, formed from fused Exalted Spiritual Pillars, left Yrre anxious.