Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 172 A Quick Test Of The Party

Ding! With the high pitched noise of metal hitting the sparring ring's hard surface, Elizabeth's spar with Jane began with a bang. Clang! Clang! Clang! Immediately using her superior speed and strength to put Jane in a disadvantageous position, the only reason Elizabeth didn't win immediately was because she could only use "Time Powers;" as per the Side Quest's request. Not that she wished to win immediately, as part of the reason she issued Jane a challenge was to gauge her total strength.

With only her Time Blade Basics, Elizabeth was only marginally superior to Jane as she had much more potent Ice Qi abilities, with much more flexibility in how she could use her powers as well. Still, Elizabeth had her already maxed out Temporal Flux Skills along with the yet to be cultivated [Temporal Pulse] method she had learned from the Forsaken Baptism Continuum as trump cards she could pull out at any moment.

Wanting to make the most out of this event for both her and Jane, Elizabeth opted to put her [Fast] and [Slow] spells on the back burner as she wouldn't be able to increase their effects until she broke into the Spirit Realm and evolved the Spell Seeds into True Spells. In favor of those already "perfected" Spells, Elizabeth began practicing [Temporal Pulse] right then and there.

[Skills

Name: Time Art: Temporal Pulse

Level 1

Experience: 0/10

Grade: F

Time Energy Cost: 20 units of Time Type Magic per use.

Description: Expels a pulse wave of Time Energy that slows down everything it pa.s.ses through.

Current Effect: Pulse wave's thickness is 0.1 cm and has an effective range of 1 m. Those Level 5 or below are slowed down by 10% while in contact with the pulse wave.]

Naturally, as a new skill that she had just begun cultivating, Temporal Pulse was essentially worthless the first couple thousand times she used the skill. But, just like any other skill she had learned, with practice came proficiency. As her Temporal Pulse skill was being used so often, and with a user of such a high level, the skill naturally blazed a costly, yet completely satisfactory, hole in Elizabeth's energy reserves.

Within minutes, the pulses of Time Magic that hadn't even affected Jane began slowly affecting her as its skill level rose. With the effects increasing, Jane naturally had a hard time controlling the rhythm of the battle. Of course, as the skill improved, it also demanded more Time Magic from Elizabeth to work at max capacity. Thus, as the cost began approaching the tens of thousands of units of Time Magic units, she also had to slow down the rate with which she launched Pulse Waves.

Eventually, however, Elizabeth got to the point where her Pulse Waves were more than enough to leave Jane open for long enough that she would be able to incapacitate her. For the sake of improving both her and Jane's skills she went on for a couple minutes more than was required, but when her mind was decided on ending the spar it only took a single Pulse Wave activation to leave Jane with no choice but to admit defeat.

[Side Quest 3: VS Ice (Complete)

Difficulty: S

Degree of Completion: Excellent

Objective One) Defeat Jane. (✔)

Optional Objective 1) Win by using only Time powers. (✔)

Optional Objective 2) Defeat any other Martial Soldiers who are of Ice alignment. (✔)

Hidden Objective 1) Defeat any other Martial Warriors who are of Ice alignment. (✔)

Hidden Objective 2) Defeat any other Martial Kings who are of Ice alignment. (✔)

Hidden Objective 3) Defeat any other Martial Saints who are of Ice alignment. (✔)

Description: Wowzers~ bullying your senior after surpa.s.sing her cultivation rank? I'd expect nothing less from a demon like yourself…

Reward: Ice-type Energy-Technique Integration Cube

Bonus: 1 Pillar Of Ice Spirit True Qi]

'Yes...' Was all Elizabeth could think as she dematerialized her blade. Throughout the fight, she had only used Inferioria as she didn't think it to be necessary for its evolved state to make an appearance; especially when she hadn't a shred of confidence in herself to be able to hold her own with a saber.

She faced Jane and said, "Against other martial artists, I think you could defend yourself from Beginner and even Early Phase Saints. But against Wild Beasts, you should be close to invincible under the Mortal Realm; unless of course, you're caught off guard or something… Your swordsmans.h.i.+p seems to be lacking however… Maybe it's two to three phases below your true level? Perhaps after a night of training with either me or Yrre, you'll be up to par or even higher… As for your Ice and Yin abilities? Well, you have me beat, that's for sure, and I don't really have anything to add..." Without a break, Elizabeth unloaded her summary of Jane's abilities.

Nodding in understanding, Jane left the sparring ring to continue meditation until Elizabeth called for their group to leave. She knew from watching Elizabeth's battles just how much she had handicapped herself which left her with a renewed vigor for cultivation.

Happy to see Jane's disposition change positively, Elizabeth smiled as she looked at Sun; the message in her eyes being more than enough to get him to come over for his evaluation. She quickly talked to her G.o.dslayer Fiend Incarnation to check how much time she would have before the murderous urges returned and also how much longer she could delay before starting another ma.s.sacre. Recieving a satisfactory answer she left the next killing rampage for when she returned to the Shadow Realm. With her improving cultivation base, body, and soul, the time limit before she would feel the need to kill rose from mere hours to well over a day. Adding on any advancements to her Affinity for Death, the limit might extend once more.

Thus, with Sun and the rest of her party members, Elizabeth prioritized increasing her Death Thai Mystic Art. Fighting without the speed amplifying effects of her Blade Art made her slightly uncomfortable at first as she had been relying on that unG.o.dly speed to dominate her opponents. But with time and, more importantly, very good sparring partners in Sun and Tristan, she gradually built up her Death Thai skills into levels appropriate for her cultivation base.

With just a couple hours sunk into testing Sun, Liam, and Tristan, though her ability when unarmed wasn't to the level of her when she wielded a blade, there was enough progress made for the Mystic Art to grant her another skill after Battle Hysteria rose to Stage 1.

[Skills

Mystic Art: Death Thai

Level 80

Experience: 400,000/411,448

Grade: A

Current Effect: Unarmed combat at the King Stage yields a 230% buff to Strength and Defense. (Total Applied: 230%; Total Achieved: 730%)

Secondary Effect: Distills the essence of Death into one's body whilst utilizing Muay Thai.

Battle Hysteria

*New) Stage: 1

Current Effect: Death Magic and Body Integration become 10% faster. Threshold to surpa.s.s the body's limits is lowered by 5%. The more the Mystic Art is cultivated, the higher the Stage of this skill becomes, and the more Martial-Death abilities become available.

*New) Limbs Of Corruption

Stage: 0

Description: While under Battle Hysteria, the user may produce a Death Concentrate that covers their four limbs. The Death Concentrate though made up of Death Magic, taking the form of a blackish-green aura, becomes sticky and hard to remove after being applied to foreign objects.

Current Effect: Objects tainted with Death Concentrate will see their affected areas corrupt or decay at an exponential rate. As a baseline, the equivalent of 100,000 units of Inner Strength must be used up every minute to completely negate the Death Concentrate's properties of corruption and decay.]

Elizabeth smiled, evidently pleased by the results of her tests. As she had done for all those she tested, after testing Liam, the last person she sparred with, Elizabeth pa.s.sed her brother a snack from the reserves of her cooking. She also took one and within seconds, her near empty tank of energy was refilled as her taste buds delighted.

[Name: Magic-infused Bruschetta

Grade: Peak-tier Mortal Grade

Description: Crafted by the user, this is a magical appetizer imbued with Neutral Magic as well as various Cooking Principles which surpa.s.s Basic-tier. Portioned into four bite-size pieces, this special bruschetta is made with a special balsamic reduction.

Effects: For Level 30 or below: + 100 Strength + 100 Speed + 100 Endurance + 100 Defense + 100 Intelligence for 8 hours and + 37,000,000 Inner Strength recovered. Natural Regeneration factor also quintuples for Saints, s.e.xtuples for Kings, etc… until it increases to a factor of 10 for Mortal Stage pract.i.tioners and then to a factor of 20 for non-pract.i.tioners.]

It seemed like overkill to be using up a meal this amazing here and now, but when compared to the best dishes she had created, this was truly nothing but an appetizer… She had thousands of these bite-size pieces of delectable bread, tomato, cheese, and topping and though it took four pieces to see the full effect of the dish, since it was being used for the purpose of recovering energy, one bite was all she needed.

Now, with everyone's strength appraised, Elizabeth's eyes sharpened as she announced to those paying attention, "We'll leave in two hours. If you haven't already done so, please pack your bags and meet me in my room when the time comes." Then without another word, Elizabeth slumped down in her own corner and made use of time before she would return to the Shadow Realm to see what she could do with her improved Fire and Ice Affinities.

Without hesitation, she materialized a Fire-type King Stage Beast Core in her right hand and an Ice-type King Stage Beast Core in her left hand. As if antic.i.p.ating the chaos she would let loose upon it, her body slightly glowed skittishly even before she began absorbing energy. When she did start, however, it let off a mild red and blue hue as inscription-like writing began forming on Elizabeth's body.

[Spirit Mystic Art: Const.i.tution of Ice and Fire

Level 1

Experience: 0/1,053,948

Spirit Grade: F

Description: Works to create a body capable of hosting both Fire and Ice energies simultaneously.

Primary Effect: Increases the rate of your physical cultivation by 1.1 times

Secondary Effect: Increases the effects of her Blaze and Crystal Spirit Body Innate Skills by 5%

Absorption

*New) Stage: 0

Description: As Affinity with Fire and Ice increase through the cultivation of the main Mystic Art, your body's defense will naturally take in offending attacks that use either of the two elements.

Current Effect: Against attacks created with a Good-tier Affinity, 5% of the energy used in the attack will be absorbed and instantaneously converted into Magic that the user may use. To lower level affinities, the percent of energy absorbed doubles for every subsequent tier of affinity.]