Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 142 A True Test Of Strength!

"1 Point! Next Phase, Begin!" Immediately after the voice faded, two more shadows congealed before Elizabeth. Alas, the unimpressed la.s.s didn't even have the patience to wait for the two shadows to form as she shattered them in their incomplete state within a second.

"Perfect! Doubled Score! 5 Points! Next Phase Begin!" Again, more shadows began forming, this time four shadows in total. Yet, Elizabeth barely had to exert herself to destroy every single shadow before they completely took form.

"Perfect! Doubled Score..." The same message was repeated two more times with Elizabeth essentially breezing through the fight — it if could even be called that — before a different message was echoed in the vast void of the Testing Formation.

"Perfect! Doubled Score! 40 Points! Break!!! Time Remaining: 59, 58, 57..." Presumably, the next Stage would correspond to the Soldier Stage with much stronger opponents. Alas, Elizabeth didn't even execute a martial skill, let alone use her weapons. So, after the next Stage began, Elizabeth similarly dominated the enhanced shadows without breaking a sweat.

The Warrior Stage was similarly dominated, but Elizabeth soon realized that the higher the Stages progressed and the stronger the shadows became, the faster they would congeal and take form. Thus, in the third Phase of the Warrior Stage, as she was taking on four Mid Phase Warrior Stage Shadows at once, Elizabeth began using her Inferioria Blade and the Blade Art: Basics Skill to retain the ability to effortlessly earn perfect scores.

It was beyond overkill to take out her close combat weapon against Warrior Stage shadows, but since the effect of her Blade Art increased her speed by 50%, it was the only way to earn the highest score possible. To the gamer hiding within Elizabeth's changing personality, it didn't take much more than the sight of a score to rile her up and become the dominant contributor in her decision making, Thus, the Phases and Stages of the Testing Formation were cleared even faster than before.

Alas, even with her Blade Art, she was bound to start running into trouble as the shadows that sp.a.w.ned from the formation were ever increasing in strength and number. Sadly, she only managed the streak of perfection until the King Stage Second Phase and that was even after her Blade Art leveled up three times over, increasing her Speed Buff by an additional 37.5%. Still eliminating the second King Stage Early Phase shadow immediately after it formed, Elizabeth sighed as she knew things would only become harder from there on.

"2.5 Million Points! Next Phase, Begin!" When the third phase of the King Stage sp.a.w.ned four Mid Phase King Stage shadows, Elizabeth only managed to a.s.sa.s.sinate one before the other three had completely formed, thus showing the absurd speed with which the shadows now developed. She still found killing the three other shadows to be beyond easy with her Speed Stat rivaling Late Phase Saints una.s.sisted.

Materializing her Dawnbringer Pistol on her left hand as she heard, "5 Million Points! Next Phase, Begin!" Elizabeth managed to just barely a.s.sa.s.sinate one Late Phase King with her blade as another King Stage Shadow had its head explode from a bullet wound. Even with [Fast] casted on her person, she barely managed these two instakills and as the skill costed an exorbitant amount of energy to maintain, Elizabeth resigned to cancel the spell to conserve her strength for more difficult Phases. The remaining six Shadows tried to work together to tie her down, but through the sheer prowess of her speed and strength, they were cut down or shot to pieces.

In the Testing Formation, because everything was but a simulation through the soul, Elizabeth went gung-ho, not sparing a moment of consideration for rationing her ammo as she virtually had an infinite supply. Of course, be that as it may, she still needed to materialize and quickly reload her pistols as they had a finite clip. But because of this small cheat, the last King Stage Phase was completed without a hitch. It may have taken a couple hundred bullets and the nerve to hold out against sixteen Peak Phase King Stage Shadows as they all materialized nigh-instantaneously after the start of the Phase was announced, but at least Elizabeth had finished up to this point without sustaining a single injury.

"50 Million Points! Break!!! Time Remaining: 119, 118, 117..." Pleasantly surprised to see her time to rest increase by double this time around, Elizabeth sat down and gathered what little extra Inner Strength she could through a light meditation. When she heard the next announcement, a dark light of madness flutter in her eyes as she resolved to use her Chaos Seals if things got "too bad." Naturally, she had been using the power of her Third Chaos Seal since she began having trouble in the King Stage. So, the resolution was made with regards to her Seals of Physical Augmentation…

"Final Stage, Saint Stage, Begin!" Before Elizabeth could even react, a Saint Stage appeared fully formed and already sprinting in her direction. Of course, after it formed, with Timeworn Eyes and her Base Stat in the 570s, the single Beginner Stage Saint Stage Shadow's movement could easily be followed. Well, not just followed, it was easily bested as Elizabeth only had to focus on one Shadow.

Taking less than five seconds to cut the first Saint Stage Shadow, Elizabeth took a gamble and attempted to use her [Talent Stealing Blood Seal] before the Shadow's body vaporized to ash. Although successful, for some reason, the energy granted to her from using her Seal was far from what a Saint Stage being, even at the Beginner Phase, should have possessed. Still, even if she only took a measly 1% that still equated to close to a hundred thousand units of Inner Strength.

Thus, when she heard the booming sound of the Testing Formation's announcer say, "1 Billion Points! Next Phase, Begin!" A confident feeling couldn't help but form as Elizabeth became extremely reckless with her rationing of energy. Throwing most of her cards into the open, Elizabeth spared nothing as she cast [Fast] on herself as well as [Spatial Contraction] to bring her speed to an even higher peak. With all this energy being used, even if Elizabeth's various Affinities and proficiency in the spells mitigated part of the cost, she would still run out of energy within the minute.

Essentially erasing the meaning of distance with her over-the-top use of Spatial Contraction, Elizabeth managed to wear down the two Early Phase Saint Stage Shadows as her Strength was no longer able to deal serious injury at every strike of her blade or shot of her gun. Not wasting their fading energy sources after killing them, she used her [Talent Stealing Blood Seal] to abate the rate of energy use; if only to the point where she could continue to the next Phase.

"5 Billion Points! Next Phase, Begin!" Squinting her eyes, Elizabeth sighed as she realized she couldn't afford to exchange her Inferiora Blade for her Chaosbright Pistol. She could just barely keep pace with the speed of the four Mid Phase Saint Stage Shadows that had sp.a.w.ned, thus the moment she opted for a battle of attrition by slowly wearing the Shadows down with gunfire was the moment she would be utterly overwhelmed with regards to speed and probably end the simulation.

Without her Blade Art's boost to her speed, she would be more of a sitting duck than she was at the moment, so, with as much care as she could spare in this ridiculously fast-paced battle, Elizabeth did her best to target her damage on one Shadow at a time. The result almost brought her to the point of exhaustion as minutes went by before the first Shadow died and revitalized her almost non-existent supply of energy. Fortunately, with one less Shadow to deal with, while it wasn't exactly open season, Elizabeth had a much easier time killing the three other Shadows in an increasingly quick pace.

Additionally, while it wasn't as ridiculous as that time Elizabeth trained her Blade Art with Yrre for the first time, fighting with these capable opponents, Elizabeth's speed in training her Blade Art increased at a frightening pace. Reaching Level 60 during her previous battle with the two Early Phase Saint Stage Shadows and now standing at Level 64.

Alas, even with the increasing boosts to her Speed and Strength, Elizabeth had no confidence in being able to deal with 8 Late Phase Saints at once. Even with her energy at full capacity, it was virtually impossible for her to skip 2 Stages and 9 Phases of cultivation with her "standard" abilities, so it was time to get serious…

"Seriously Sketchy" as P remarked upon reading Elizabeth's dubious ideas. Still, enjoying the psychotic tendencies her chosen made and not seeing a problem with experimenting with the insane so long as she was in a Testing Formation, P did as she had thus far and left Elizabeth to her own devices. At first, she was worried about Elizabeth, or then Adrian's, resolution to see through to living her life as a cultivator, but by now she couldn't be more thankful to see Elizabeth slowly make all the "right" decisions she had thus far into her career as a cultivator.

Thus, Elizabeth decided to go all out if only this once… She activated the Fifth Chaos Seal to instantly double her abilities, physically speaking of course, and by the time she finished listening to the message, "25 Billion Points! Next Phase, Begin!" A small blue flame meekly danced on the surface of her left palm. At last, the dangerous Cold Flame saw the light of day as Elizabeth wanted to see what exactly made gaining this ability a Transcendental Accomplishment.

Too scared to manifest the ability in the real world with all the horrifying premonitions she felt whenever she gave rise to the thought. Standing near the peak of strength possible for a Warrior Stage Mage, she materialized a small wisp of Cold Flames which she could still control and after using a speed comparable to someone at the weakest level of the Spirit Realm, the small blue light descended onto the body of an unsuspecting Late Phase Saint Stage Shadow.