Mere moments after Elizabeth suffered from the thought-induced minor heart attack, she found herself being dragged to a coffee shop.
"I know you Brits love your tea and whatnot, but coffee's where it's at here in the States," the still-unknown woman said.
Elizabeth could only keep her silence. She took a careful look at the woman from head to toe as she considered what to do.
The woman was about the same height as Elizabeth. However, just about everything else was different. Her eyes were blue, her hair blond, and unlike Elizabeth, who just looked mature, she actually carried herself like an adult.
Instinctively, she wanted to say something just to prevent the misunderstanding from furthering. However, the fact that she disagreed wholeheartedly with the woman caused her to hesitate long enough to see their party enter the coffee shop.
Before Elizabeth knew it, the woman began ordering her... drink.
"Yeah, can I get uh, Venti Salted Caramel Frappuccino, no classic or base sweetener, soy to the second line, one scoop vanilla bean, one pump skinny mocha, 1 scoop of ice, regular and chocolate sprinkles, blended on speed level 3, three times, please?"
Astonishingly, the barista didn't even bat an eye as she wrote down the instructions as if it were a normal matter.
The barista asked "Name?"
"Jane."
"And you?" The barista addressed Elizabeth.
Alas, she was still distracted, debating what was more ridiculous: Jane's horrifically unhealthy and specific order, or the barista's nonchalance in response.
"Miss?" The barista called to Elizabeth again.
"Oh, um... Just a small Iced Green Tea for me. And split the bill, I'll pay for mine," Elizabeth said.
When Elizabeth paid for her tea and received a receipt stating that she ordered a "Tall Green Iced Tea," she paused.
Elizabeth muttered, "What the fuck is a "Tall" drink?"
She was about to ask the barista, when Jane happily answered, "Its part of the naming convention of this establishment. The 'Tall' that you ordered is the equivalent to a small drink, while the 'Venti' that I ordered is the equivalent to a large drink."
Elizabeth remained quiet until they got their drinks and Jane picked out a booth for them to sit in.
After taking a sip of her tea, Elizabeth said, "I'm sorry for fooling you for this long, but I'm not this Sophie person you keep referring to."
Impulsively, she thought it was the best course of action to not delay the reveal for any longer than she needed and just confessed before Jane could get a word in.
"Oh?" Jane blinked before digging out her phone and searching for a picture of Sophie.
She put the picture on the phone next to Elizabeth's real-life face and furrowed her brows.
"You two look so close, but your hair and eye colors are a bit different," Jane darkly said.
"Still," Jane eyed Elizabeth cautiously, flaring a bit of the Energy she had cultivated and causing the air around her to chill before concluding, "What a coincidence for you to look like her."
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Extending a hand to shake, Jane asked, "You can never have too many friends in the Martial Society, so what Faction are you from? I'm from Atid's Dojo."
With a look of confusion, Elizabeth admitted, "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"You... don't?" Jane withdrew her hand.
She considered, 'She doesn't know about the Martial Society? But her Inner Energy is too concentrated to be natural, unless... Unless she's...'
Jane donned the most serious look Elizabeth had seen thus far as she asked, "Have you never trained in Martial Arts?"
"Uh, no," Elizabeth said.
'Holy fucking shit!' Jane thought. Her mind in a state of disarray as she kept her steely expression when facing Elizabeth.
'Could she be a Naturally Awakened? Without training in Martial Arts, she's almost a Beginner Phase Mortal Stage Practitioner,' she thought.
"However, I have recently gotten interested in trying to learn one," Elizabeth continued.
As Jane's mind further crumbled, Elizabeth relished in her good luck. Not only had she gained clothes and a Grimoire on Forging from this excursion, but she might also be looking into joining the same place that housed a Martial Soldier.
"You wouldn't happen to know of any good ones nearby, would you?" Elizabeth asked.
Jane nearly choked on her coffee at Elizabeth's question. 'To think I'd be worrying about convincing her to join us.'
"Well, as I mentioned earlier, I'm part of Atid's Dojo," she said, taking a card from her pocket and handing it over to Elizabeth.
"Hmm, Atid, huh? So like, the dojo teaches Thai Boxing?" Elizabeth inferred.
"Not quite," Jane said, "We teach Muay Thai which is different."
"Cool," Elizabeth finished her drink and sat up. "I might start attending as soon as tomorrow."
Doing her best to mimic a proper farewell, she extended her hand as Jane had earlier done to her and said, "See you there tomorrow?"
"Only if you come," Jane took her hand.
...
On her way back home, Elizabeth had a minor epiphany as she reviewed her conversation with Jane internally.
'Jane sure was serious when she asked me if I'd practiced Martial Arts before. Her random use of Energy was also a bit weird.'
'Ah! She must have been probing my cultivation,' she deduced.
With the idea in her head, she used her own Inner Strength to probe some of the pedestrians walking beside her and more or less understood Jane's reaction.
Whereas her personal Inner Strength Reserves glowed like a light bulb in the dead of the night, the average person didn't so much as produce an ember's worth of brightness. Some people didn't even show signs of Inner Strength manifesting in their bodies.
Elizabeth trusted her probes despite the crude method behind them. She inferred the technique by applying what she knew about the properties of Inner Strength and Cultivator Anatomy from integrating the Introduction To The Path Of Medicine, with the basics of Energy Manipulation from her Temporal Meditation Cultivation Method.
So long as she didn't attempt to probe someone with a higher Cultivation Base than her, the crude probing method should be accurate.
'If my guess is right and Practitioners on Earth cultivate with Martial Arts, I must have looked like some sort of super-talented genius to her to have developed my reserves without Martial Arts training,' Elizabeth mused before continuing he walk home with other things in mind.
When Elizabeth made it back to her home, she was happy to see that all her new clothes were already waiting for her on the other side of the gates. She did a bit of organizing and even changed out of the Beginner Armor Set she had been wearing for the day's expedition.
'With everything that needed taking cared of done and over with, I should probably dedicate some time to building up my Inner Strength reserves,' Elizabeth thought.
With an air of apprehension, she added, 'Starting tomorrow, I'll probably do more than enough physical training...'
Elizabeth made her self a meal in the kitchen before she went to her bathroom. She took care of any other bodily need she might have pending and stripped naked before taking a meditative posture in her bathtub and eventually entering a meditation session. She hadn't forgotten the lesson she had learned earlier in the day.
For nearly half a day Elizabeth stayed locked in her meditation. She had to admit that the process of cultivation and meditation did fill in the void that only a game could have in the past. Unfortunately, she eventually had to come out of meditation as her tired body could not tolerate the exhaustion that had built up over the day.
Theoretically, at a high enough Level, Elizabeth should be able to substitute meditation for sleep. A high enough Cultivation Base could autonomously sustain a body perpetually; not requiring food or water. But, Elizabeth was still not even a Level 1 Practitioner. Her need for sleep could not be delayed for long.
Fortunately, Adrian had conveniently cultivated resistance to driving himself to exhaustion before calling it a day. Thus, as Elizabeth meditation came to a close, despite her desire to sleep, she managed to clean herself of all the black impurities that had been extracted over the past twelve hours.
In her semi-conscious state, she put on the clothes she had brought into the bathroom with her and fell asleep the moment her frame hit the bed.