Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 134 Free Time

Difficulty: S/SSS

Objective) Follow through with the stranger's request and heal her friend.

Description: As a Side Quest given by non-G.o.ds of the Cataclysm, the rewards and punishments for taking on this quest are entirely dependant on your interaction with the "Quest Giver." Only the Degree of Completion and Bonus Rewards will be handled by reward functions; the only rewards possible being a change to Chosen Standing...

Deadline: None]

"Mhmm… You want to pay me with a favor? Well, if patient has entered the Spirit Realm, even I can't do much..." With eyes hiding the cunning of a seasoned negotiator, Elizabeth sought to make the most out of the situation. Since she was the one being pursued, her worth had already been roughly calculated. Although she would much rather be left to her own devices as she had earned a bunch of resources that could already be put to use, it would never hurt to earn even more resources; especially if they came from someone much more prestigious and powerful than herself.

"Lucky him… He's only in the Saint Stage; Peak Phase to be exact. Now… will that be a problem?" Sensing nothing wrong with Elizabeth's words, the woman responded candidly.

Slowly drawing a smiling arc of antic.i.p.ation on her face, Elizabeth said, "I can't guarantee anything until I see him, but making an arrangement will now be worthwhile. However, before I agree to see and potentially treat him, you and I must confirm a couple things!"

Sighing in expectation of Elizabeth's demands, the woman asked, "What do you want to know?"

"First, you have to agree to bring your friend over to me to conduct the treatment in my place of choosing. Additionally, outside of the favor you'll owe me, I'll be taking the patient's current Qi reserves as a form of immediate payment." Counting her cards, Elizabeth had a plan to ensure she received both immediate and long term gain from this exchange; if the woman before her agreed to it of course.

Taking a defensive tone the woman asked, "You… want his current Qi reserves? What does that mean, exactly?" To someone unaware of the Path of Demon, asking for someone's Qi reserves wouldn't make much sense. The only thing similar to what Elizabeth was proposing that made its way into the woman's mind were unorthodox devil techniques used to steal cultivation. But that would entirely defeat the purpose of asking Elizabeth to treat her friend.

"It means that you won't be surprised to see me empty the patient's energy reserves. Obviously, I'm not asking to damage or reduce his own cultivation base."

"I suppose it's fine if it's only emptying his reserves. Though, if you do anything to harm him, I won't hesitate to attack you..." There wasn't a clear killing intent direct at Elizabeth, but the woman's words were enough to understand she wasn't playing around.

Not minding the gaze of general negativity the woman sent her way, Elizabeth asked, "So… do you agree to my terms?"

After staying silent for well over ten seconds, the woman finally said, "Where and when do we do this..." She was partially impressed to find Elizabeth barely react to her subtle threats, but for her ill friend, the slight inconveniences Elizabeth proposed could be ignored.

Donning another smile, Elizabeth said, "After the Cooking Event, meet me outside of the tournament arena."

With that said, the woman began walking away as she said, "Alrighty then, Ms. U~ The name's June." Very awkwardly, she left her introduction for the very end and left with not another word…

Shrugging her shoulders, Elizabeth turned around and continued her walk around the Tournament Square. Everywhere she walked, there would be bystanders reacting to her very presence. If they didn't immediately start talking about her performance, then they moved out of her way as peasants would when confronting a n.o.ble of the mortal world. Subject to everything from harmless gossip to aggressive cat-calling, Elizabeth was annoyed to say the least, but since she could just ignore the world with the just the slightest exertion of intent, she never did anything aside from scoff or sigh.

Taking that restrained att.i.tude to be a sign of weakness, the farther along her exploration of the Tournament Square Elizabeth reached, the more vocal and audacious the bystanders became. Eventually, it got to the point where full-on verbal bullying surrounded her from several directions at once. Of course, with Elizabeth's intent on ignoring her surroundings as she searched for the best place to settle down, the crowd slowly continued their pestering att.i.tudes and eventually, one of the less intelligent bullies either forgot about her speed or had not attended or heard of what she had done in the last Event as he actually tried to touch her.

"Missey, why are you so distant? Why don't you come and share a drink with us..." At that moment, the hand that attempted to stop Elizabeth by grasping her free shoulder — the one without the Clearlight Sparrow perched upon — pa.s.sed through an afterimage as Elizabeth activated a weak Spatial Contraction. Turning around to confront the pest that crossed her bottom line, Elizabeth flicked her index finger coated in Death Magic along one of the man's chest acupoints.

Ignoring the sounds that pleaded for death as the man fell back on his own accord, suffering a pain every bit as horrible as swimming through an oil-filled h.e.l.lscape, Elizabeth said, "This is a warning. f.u.c.k off, or suffer a worse pain..." The utter lack of emotion on her face combined with that monotone speech gave everyone watching, chills down their spines as the true nature of her Elizabeth's demonic side reared its ugly head. The mental image of a crimson-eyed demon mercilessly instilling so much pain — presumably through an adverse medical application — without so much as a wince in empathy, led many to immediately back off and avoid Elizabeth.

However, a very "special" group of pract.i.tioners, couldn't seem to understand the threat laced within Elizabeth's words as they drew their weapons, with their leader barking, "b.i.t.c.h! Don't you know it's forbidden to attack in the Tournament Square?! Only during the Martial Event are the restrictions temporarily raised! Hmph! Since you started it, no one will say anything if we..."

Before he could even get his words across, he had already gone pale from the savage manner in which Elizabeth dispatched the various armed companions that had prepared to fight on his side. Paradoxically, it looked like Elizabeth simply walked through the street, yet at the same time, the slow and calm walking was faster than most King Stage Martial Pract.i.tioners. She only threw "weak" punches, yet every time her fist connected with a person, their bodies would give out and collapse like ragdolls.

Within three seconds, eight of the man's companions had fallen over in defeat and the only two parties still in the fight were Elizabeth and the group's leader; who by now, was shaking in premonition for his inevitable demise. Fortunately, Elizabeth still had the benevolent heart to keep someone awake and able to take after the hostiles that rose against her. Of course, this was only the case because of the environmental context as Elizabeth wouldn't hesitate to ma.s.sacre everyone that drew their arms against her if she wasn't in the middle of a stronghold with countless Martial Pract.i.tioners that could easily best her.

Since she couldn't annihilate the source of her grievances as she had in the Northern Forest, she did the next best thing and sent a message. Making her stance even clearer, Elizabeth said, "This is your second and last warning… Stop bothering me, or I'll start dealing real damage." With that said, the tense atmosphere near-instantly cleared up as Elizabeth resumed her journey to find a nice place to settle down.

Five minutes later and happy as can be, Elizabeth found just what she was looking for. Without a flock of pests around her after the clear warnings, she made it to a relatively quiet Lounge located about a couple blocks to the left of the Tournament Arena. Upon entering the Lounge, Elizabeth first visited the Lounge Keeper and bought herself an hours worth of time within an isolated room. Before entering her room to pa.s.s the time with an extra bit of practice and training, Elizabeth made her way over to the coffee and tea cafe that was established within the Lounge and bought herself another Iced Green Tea. She was of the mindset that if most of the day would be allocated to light work, she may as well be as gluttonous and self-indulgent as she wished she could be.

Upon exchanging a couple low-level monster cores for her tea and room, Elizabeth set down the Clearlight Sparrow by her side as she decided how she would spend her free hour. To begin, she navigated the rewards yet to be unclaimed and selected to learn Fire Enchantments as the reward for completing Enchanter Rank Milestone #1 Hidden Quest. Then, for the next forty-five minutes, Elizabeth practiced inscribing various Fire Enchantments on both the pieces of iron she still had leftover from the Forging Event and on other pieces of spiritual metal she exchanged for after leaving from the Medicine Event.

Periodically, she would feed the Clearlight Sparrow more fire-type herbs and materials and the glutinous little bird would greedily eat without so much as a sign of slowing down. After the forty-five minutes, Elizabeth stopped after acknowledging that her skill was more than good enough to perfectly enchant practically any Fire-type Enchantment; of Mortal Grade, of course.

At first, it seemed like an impossibility, but after P brought up the fact that she had been practicing her Enchantment proficiency until know with Origin-type energies like s.p.a.ce, Time, and s.p.a.cetime, it only made sense for her skills with Elemental Enchantments to come naturally.

Checking her Enchantment Skill, Elizabeth rose an eyebrow as she found the skill had reached Level 15 after inscribing what had to be only four or five dozen Fire-type Enchantments. But, since there were still over a dozen minutes before she needed to leave to attend the Enchantment Event, Elizabeth picked the Clearlight Sparrow and had it perch in between her legs as she cultivated an additional 4% of her hidden potential by cutting loose on her energy restrictions. After bringing both her total hidden potential cultivation up to 10% and the Clearlight Sparrow's Bloodline just before a special bloodline threshold, Elizabeth stopped her training and left the private lounge room.

Throwing away her empty plastic cup of tea away in the trash, Elizabeth left the lounge with very high hopes for her chances in becoming the Enchantment Event's Champion, as virtually all her principles had ascended well beyond the limits of Basic-tier. While not exactly half a step close to the "legendary" Novice-tier, Elizabeth felt she was about halfway through; just like her Enchantment Level.

She walked all the way over to the arena's waiting area for compet.i.tors and stood withdrawn from the rest of the compet.i.tors as her violent outburst from an hour prior had set her standing clear to almost everyone. Though, as time pa.s.sed and some of the more bold compet.i.tors began to speak about her without receiving any reactions, several others followed suit. Understanding Elizabeth's threshold for patience to be physical contact, everyone calmed down and either quietly talked the time away or stood in similar reticence as they waited for the announcement to enter the compet.i.tor arena.