Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 25 Feeling Slighted

Status

Name: Sun

Level: ~5

Rank: Legendary Pseudo Mortal

Affection Rating: Forever Loyal

Unlocked Details...

*New) s.e.x: Male

*New) Strength 45

*New) Endurance 49

*New) Speed 45

*New) Defense 45

*New) Intelligence 10

*New) Luck 8

*New) Inner Strength: Null]

'F-forever loyal? Wh-why?' Elizabeth scrambled to piece together why Sun would suddenly become so "loyal," but she couldn't think of why that would be the case. He mentioned something about essence… but she had no clue what he was talking about. She figured maybe the Affection functions she just unlocked might help her better understand his mindset, so she took a more detailed looked at his "Forever Loyal" rating.

[Status

Name: Sun

Affection Rating: Forever Loyal

Description: In response to the unbearable "sacrifice" you made for Sun, his loyalty is now completely secured. Without hesitation, Sun would die for you...]

'Sacrifice?' Elizabeth thought, guessing that he had somehow misunderstood something which led up to this moment. She though for another moment before deciding to ask him about it. She already had his loyalty, so her previous concerns over how Sun would to take in the existence of her Accupoint Skill was all but void.

"Sun… What are you talking about?"

"What am I talking about? Uh..." He deliberately bit his tongue earlier to save her from having to relive "that" humiliation. Now that she was asking directly, he could only think to respond without any fluff added on to his words.

Sun said "Y-you know, Prime Essence Exchange? It's what you did to save me, right?" Sun's voice quieted down in the face of these embarra.s.sing words, directly opposing his usually serious att.i.tude.

"No? What is this Prime Essence Exchange you're talking about?" Nowhere in her memories was there a talk about Prime Essence Exchange. Consequently, her interest in the topic exploded as it meant there was something related to either cultivation or medicine that she didn't know about. Given that Sun was nowhere near the peak of the Mortal Realm, it was inconceivable for his to know something about either of these two topics when she had both the [Introduction To The Path Of Medicine] and two Top-tier Mortal Grade Meditation Manuals.

"Y-you didn't use Prime Essence Exchange!? How could that be? Not only am I healed, but you made a breakthrough!" Disbelief and Incredulity were the only things that could describe Sun's current facial expressions.

Elizabeth came of as surprisingly coy as she asked "Mhmm… you answer my question first..."

"..." Sun held his tongue for a long while as he just stared at Elizabeth, before his face became red and he said "Prime Essence Exchange is a an autological term. I-its when two people exchange their prime essence..."

"Ok, But what exactly is a "prime essence?" And why would you think that exchanging it would result in your healing and my breakthrough?"

"Uh… So… Prime Essences are uh… unique to "men" and "women."" Sun's voice emphasized certain words so as to not be any more direct…

"They're known as "yin" and "yang" and are exchanged through very close "interpersonal relations.h.i.+ps." Anyways, the point is, you can only exchange your essence once before it becomes "tainted" and its beneficial value depreciates almost entirely… I thought that you had done the ritual to take my "yang," while sacrificing your "yin" to heal me..."

"Mhmm..." Elizabeth didn't really get it, but knowing that later down the road this would probably be useful knowledge, she took mental notes of these bizarre concepts. After Sun finished his exceedingly vague explanation of Prime Essence Exchange, Elizabeth completed her part of the deal and brought out her set of acupuncture needles.

She confirmed that Sun's rating of Forever Loyal didn't change after she told him of his misunderstanding, and showed him her skill. Since she had already healed the most fragile part of his body, his organs, she chose to focus on rearranging the shattered fragment of his various broken bones.

In the time it took for Sun to go from twitching in a semiconscious state to fully awakening, Elizabeth had managed to recover about 300 points to her Inner Strength. Thus, she could continue healing him at least for a little while longer.

As Sun watched in marvel as his body magically seemed to fix itself, his bones moving around and realigning themself in the correct place without causing him pain, his eviscerated and wasted muscle fibers repairing themselves in real time, and his bruised and burnt skin flaking off as if it were just a sunburn, his eyes grew wide with even more disbelief than when Elizabeth told him he had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

"What?! Y-you! Is this Martial Acupoint? The legendary forgotten skill of divine healing?"

"Uh… no?" It wasn't fueled by Martial Qi and never would. Thus it couldn't be called Martial Acupoint neither now, nor in the future. However, considering that magic would be as foreign a concept to Sun as Prime Essence Exchange was to Elizabeth, she couldn't just go off and tell him it was "Magical" Accupoint. So, instead Elizabeth just dumbed her skill down to, "It's just Acupoint… I don't have any Martial Qi."

"True… But that doesn't change the fact that you know a divine healing technique! But… don't worry, I won't tell anyone your secret… I don't know what compelled you to expose such insane power before me, but I'll hold it against my principles to safeguard your secret till the day of my death!"

[Alert!

Sun's Affection Rating Status has changed!

Current Affection Rating: (Redoubled) Forever Loyal]

"..." Elizabeth just shook off the ridiculous ball of loyalty that was Sun, and continued treated his lesser egregious injuries. For the next three or so hours, Elizabeth changed the layout of her acupoint needles dozens of times to better heal different areas along Sun's body, yet for none of those instances, after having his body pierced hundreds of times, did Sun complain or fidget in discomfort from any form of pain.

As she was finis.h.i.+ng up her work and Sun was just about back to normal, she asked him "Say Sun… why aren't you cultivating Inner Strength?" This was a question that plagued her since even before she got around to treating him, as it was pretty ridiculous for him to have grown so strong without gathering fuel the empowered body he had cultivated. His lack of Inner Strength though odd, was also a very good in the sense that it allowed Elizabeth to heal him with much less problems, as she didn't have to circ.u.mvent around guarded areas of his body, or synchronize her Inner Strength with his before getting around to treating him.

Sun, who's face had been getting increasingly happy with the rate of his recovery and the magical nature of Elizabeth's healing powers, grew silent and a bit distant as he sunk into his thoughts. He recalled some unpleasant memories which he'd rather have buried in the recess of his heart, but given that it was Elizabeth who asked, in mere moments he had gathered enough momentum to brace himself for recounting a bit of his past and open up to Elizabeth.

"I… I come from a pretty well known martial family based on the Mediterranean. At least the was the case before they betrayed me… My biological family has its roots grounded on strictly following tradition and as second born to the family… Even though I was guaranteed to become a great martial artist in the future because of my potential, because of certain schemes and machinations of my elder sister I fell victim to said traditions… I lost my place in my family, and after they robbed me of my everything, I was cast away to the dirt as their "mercy." Atid picked me up when I was ten and for the past seven years I've been by his side..."

"Oh?" Elizabeth checked Sun's Energy Source — we'll refer to it by it's medical term, Dantian — and sure enough, there was ma.s.s of mangled s.p.a.ce camouflage as nothing just behind his navel. She hadn't thought to check this area as he had never shown any signs of using it, and considering his other more apparent and life threatening injuries, the priorities were already set in stone.

Now that she checked his Dantian more thoroughly, a complicated look surfaced on her face. If she didn't know better, Sun had been tortured ruthlessly by his arch nemesis for his Dantian to be in such a desiccated state. Hearing that it was his own family that left him this way caused a hint of malice to manifest beneath her apathetic core. Sun was someone that had saved her and was proven by the affection functions to be Eternally Sworn to her. He counted as someone she genuinely cared for, so, after finding out how he'd been previously slighted, she couldn't help but feel like it was also herself that had been mistreated; mistreated being an extreme under-exaggeration in this context.