Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 81 Can't I Just Have One Normal Day?

Not really sure if it was because of her advancement to Master Rank in the art of Acupoint, or because Carlos' wounds weren't as bad as she estimated, Elizabeth finished treating Carlos about 20 minutes after she received word of her breakthrough. She left him to rest in the room where his treatment took place as it would seem that Carlos would be out for a couple more hours. After leaving, the first thing Elizabeth wanted to do was to wash herself clean of the blood that had stained her.

Realizing that the day was almost over again, Elizabeth decided now would be as good a time as any to take her shower for the day, so, it was off to the bathhouse once more. It seemed surreal that the evening was now coming to a close as she had only gotten through about three and a half hours of training. But, after accounting for the time she spent cooking in preparation to refine Quartzite, the refinement process itself, the time that pa.s.sed due to Jhan's involvement, and her time treating Carlos… It ended up making sense for the day to be through with, after all these events.

However… as if fate itself deemed her day to not as ridiculous as it could be… Elizabeth was startled after receiving a sudden notification from her quest functions.

[ALERT!!! There has been a sudden development! Alexander Thaumiel, first seed in the current rankings of the Cataclysm, has broken through to the Spiritual Realm! Premature initiation of the Cataclysm's First Stage imminent!

Do you wish to take part in the First Stage, or will you renounce partic.i.p.ation via the reward from "A Legend In The Making?" Yes/No

NOTICE: With your current standing as 13th seed, you've proven yourself worthy of this information. The First Stage's setting is non-fatal and exclusively designed for each chosen. Opting out will not only depreciate your standing, but you'll also lose out on potentially game-changing resources and chances.

Time will stay static until you come to a decision or one minute pa.s.ses; Time remaining: 59 seconds, 58 sec...]

'P, you still there? I should probably accept, right? I mean it says it's non-fatal...'

'Do it! To be honest, the option for you to skip out on this First Stage is practically a scam. Sure, It would be safer, in general, to skip the First Stage as even if it is non-fatal, you can still bring about death through your own actions. But for people like you who've already completed missions, or quests as your "system" calls it, it shouldn't be a problem.'

Recalling P's rea.s.suring words from when Elizabeth asked if she was ready for the Shadow Realm, a look of uncertainty dawned on Elizabeth's face as she said, 'Mhmm… Your words just made me question whether this is a good idea after all. The last time you said it shouldn't be a problem I almost died...'

'...'

However, even though Elizabeth said all that, deep down in her subconscious, pressure had already sp.a.w.ned which inevitably drove her to accept in taking part in the First Stage of the Cataclysm. She already knew that all the G.o.ds' chosen each began their journey in conquest and power at the same moment, so knowing that in the same time she barely reached Level 10 — technically speaking, as she had yet to actually make the breakthrough — another had reached the Spirit Realm, a sense of insecurity and despair couldn't help but take form in her heart…

With all the absurd things she had accomplished thus far, she still came up as only 13th seed and thus being very far off from first place. Knowing as much, she couldn't help but wonder what that Alex guy had done to reach the equivalent to Level 31…

Still, time was ticking, so there wasn't much time spent dozing off as Elizabeth quickly willed "Yes," and she found herself experiencing a teleportation sequence similar to the one that took her to and from the Shadow Realm. With the world turning into a shade within a greyscale, one moment Elizabeth was walking to the bathhouse of the dojo and in the next, she was standing before what looked like a t.i.tanic castle.

Surrounding her position were cliffs which pointed inward and below them, a sea of clouds. A moment later, the castle's doors opened and as if to direct where Elizabeth should be going. It didn't take long for Elizabeth to follow through with the obvious course presented to her as there literally wasn't anything else to do.

With cautious steps and a familiar vigilance possessing Elizabeth, the la.s.s entered the castle and began progressing through the lavish interior. After entering through the doors, Elizabeth could see two lines of pillars extending up to a wall just 50 meters away. There wasn't anything else worth noting, so, Elizabeth approached the wall; curious as to what she was supposed to do…

As she approached the wall, Elizabeth thought 'Wait… I don't have my guns or sword. I don't have my tools either… What the f.u.c.k am I going to do?!'

Now downcast and halfway depressed, Elizabeth's focus s.h.i.+fted and she missed some of the writing the appeared on the wall that she could have seen had she been paying attention. She only noticed the small text after the distance between her and the wall became less than 10 meters apart.

Miraculously, the text was actually a holographic message which morphed before Elizabeth's very eyes as she started to try reading. Initially, the message was in a language probably foreign to Earth itself, as it didn't look like it belonged to any style of scripture that was intelligible for humans. But after Elizabeth's eyes chanced upon the scribbles, a strange message was displayed. The message read "Test Cultivation: Touch The Wall To Proceed."

The task was simple enough, thus, Elizabeth touched the wall and felt a foreign energy invade her body. The foreign energy initially spooked her as she hadn't expected anything to actually enter her body. But after seeing it behave rather harmlessly, her heart rate slowed back down to her usual resting stage as she awaited the result.

Thirty seconds later, the energy left her body and the text changed, now displaying, "Mortal Stage: 2??% Talent: G.o.d/******** Time Remaining: 23H 59M 59S"

As if the wall could tell what Elizabeth had read, the moment she finished digesting the entirety of the message, Elizabeth could see the wall teleport away across a couple hundred meters after prominently displaying the time remaining at the far side of the ground floor which it had previously hidden away.

Now the hallway, which had previously stretched out to only 50 meters, looked to extend out to about 300 meters into a large round room. After Elizabeth walked into the round room, she could see several doors opened and s.p.a.ced rather close to one another. Above the doors, there were signs, presumably indicating what the room would contain as some of the sign's Elizabeth read said, "Foundation, Alchemy, Time, ..." to name a few. Then, as if the message wasn't already clear enough, Elizabeth received a new Side Quest.

[Chain Side Quest 1: Legacy Inheritor (Incomplete)

Difficulty: D

Objective) Reach the second story in the castle legacy trial

Optional Objective) Pa.s.s a substation legacy trial.

Description: The Cataclysm's First Stage for you has been determined to be this castle. Make the progenitor of this legacy proud and you might get some exclusive techniques or abilities!

Deadline: Once the First Stage of the Cataclysm ends.]

Elizabeth sighed as she closed off the notification and looked at the spiraling staircase leading up to the higher floors within the castle. She figured that the substations were the rooms within the round room, so before taking off to reach higher levels, Elizabeth entered the room labeled "Medicine" as it was the field of work she was most proficient in at the moment.

As Elizabeth entered the room, she heard the door behind her close and panicked, flipping herself to face the door as her heart rate sped up once more. Then, just before she started to calm back down, Elizabeth could hear the dying whimpers and groans of a small boy, causing her to flip around once more; the whole ordeal was laughably melodramatic.

Somehow, in the time she had taken to flip herself to confirm the status of the door, an extreme change had taken place in the previously blank room. Whereas before, the room only had the color white from edge to edge and surface to surface. Now, Elizabeth found herself in what looked to be an operating room back on earth. Aside from the distressed child which lied flailing in evident pain on what looked to be a standard operating table, Elizabeth found that she was completely alone.

To her side, there were various surgical tools and chemicals, and just as Elizabeth finished taking all this information in, a message crossed her mind; similar to the ones she received from the notification alerts of her functions.

[Save the patient through any means necessary. Performance will be graded on time taken and final status. Time Remaining: 30 Minutes, 29 Minutes 59 Sec...]

As Elizabeth reached over to pick up the stack of needles lined alongside the "normal" surgical tools, she couldn't help but think, 'Funny… He'd be dead in around 30 minutes if nothing were done anyways...'

Yet, even if her humor was morbid, Elizabeth started operating with the full scope of her abilities. Very quickly, she came to the conclusion that this was not a very difficult ailment to resolve as both the boy and his injury were non-spiritual in nature. Though she looked very unapologetic and even monstrous as she held the boy down and restrained him all whilst he cried in pain, Elizabeth worked with uncanny speed to take away the boy's pain as her acupoint quickly worked its magic.

The boy stopped his crying after about a minute into Elizabeth's treatment and not thirty seconds after that, he could be seen as fit as a fiddle. The body lifted his body up from the operating table and said, "Thank you miss!" and in a move that caused Elizabeth's hair to raise, he suddenly threw himself to hug her before vanis.h.i.+ng away as nothing more than a construct of energy. As the body vanished, so too did the room and all the equipment Elizabeth used or could have used; once more returning to that white prison with the exit unlocked.

Still rather shaken by what she took to be a sneak attack, Elizabeth didn't rejoice after receiving a rather impressive score as a result of her astounding performance.

[Medical Substation Performance: 97.8 Reward: 1 White Ticket]