Living Life As A Game: Through And Through

Standing in the center of the sparring ring, Elizabeth looked at Jane with newfound hesitation as even though she had been training to fight other with martial arts, in reality this was the first time she had ever sought out physical confrontation. Somehow, in her twisted mindset, killing and slaughter didn't seem to be so bad, but fighting and sparring? What if she messed up and did something so egregious, her current relationship with Jane was destroyed? What if she annoyed Jane with one wrong move and the Level 14/15 Soldier decided to end her right then and there?

This was but a friendly spar, but to Elizabeth she would almost rather be put on a fight to death; almost… She could only sigh and assume her stance to begin the combative training and hope for the best. If anything, Jane should expect her to make mistakes, as she had time and time again, stated her novice-tier standing in the world of martial arts. But that kind of thought would not cross her mind, as she had been used to a mindset of never having to interact with others in the first place.

Elizabeth and Jane stood about two or three feet apart from each other, and almost as if to taunt Elizabeth, Jane didn't take appropriate form and just stood there; standing completely neutral. She gestured with her hand for Elizabeth to start, and the spar began.

Almost immediately, Elizabeth's worthlessly low combat experience was put on full display as she didn't even know where to begin. Given that all she had been doing since yesterday was hitting a sandbag, now that she was facing a real living and breathing human, a human capable of thought and with endless times the amount of experience she possessed, what hope was there for her to not appear silly when put up against Jane?

Elizabeth threw her first punch, fully empowered by her over 22 points in Speed. Yet, all Jane had to do to block it was move her hands a couple inches away from her face. Jane also didn't exactly baby Elizabeth as her block carried with it a sizable amount of force, which caused Elizabeth to stumble backwards.

After a moment to process that everything was "fine," Elizabeth returned to continue striking at Jane, trying out move after move. She punched, kicked, kneed, and elbowed with every move Sun had taught her yesterday, but her lack of experience led to everything she did being either blocked or caught. Elizabeth could only resentfully get up after every failure and try something new. Even as she failed with no signs of improvement, the mindset she had put herself in for constant improvement didn't leave her. But, by the hundredth time she fell to the floor, even with her tenacity to train forever, should her stamina/Inner Strength permit it, she started to form doubts as to whether this was worth all the effort.

Fortunately, before she gave up on sparring in favor of Inner Strength Conversion, within a couple dozen more defeats, a rather absurd notification from the status functions woke her out of her slump.

[Milestone Alert!

Hidden Quest: Martial Arts Milestone #1 (Complete)

Difficulty: F

Objective: Get any Martial Art to Level 5 ✔

Description: Congrats, you now qualify as a mortal martial artist. It's not much really, but hey, we all have start somewhere, right? Here ya go! Hope this bad boy is put to good use~

Reward: Trash-tier Elemental Affinity Stone

Martial Art: Art Of The Eight Limbs (Muay Thai)

Level 5

Experience: 70/100

Grade: F

Current Effect: Unarmed combat at the Mortal level yields a 31.25% buff to Strength and Defense.]

"Holy shit!" Elizabeth couldn't help but curse out loud as her progression in Muay Thai was absolutely ridiculous. Just a couple minutes ago, when she was hitting the sandbags, she would barely see one experience point emerge even after dozens of minutes passed. Now, all she had to do was dance around with Jane and her Muay Thai had shot through a couple levels?

What she didn't know what how much of difference there was from dynamic training, like fighting, to just the static training of practicing against a sand bag. From the start, she had been approaching the aspect of training her martial art the wrong way. The very best way to train her skill, would to practice against another practitioner. It was the same reason half the time she paid attention to the others around her, they were sparring. Hitting the sandbag and training alone was only good for conditioning, as there was not much one could improve without a reference to clearly see their mistakes.

As Elizabeth was back in her own little world, not at all ready to come back down to reality from the shocking information she had just received. Everyone around her was staring at her once more, the reason of course being her foul language. In much the same way that her frail body dominating the sandbag for over an hour shocked people, the juxtaposition between her good looks and that gutter talk of hers was of startling contrast.

As Elizabeth looked over the details of the hidden quest, her eyes drew blanks as she read the description and rewards. She asked P "Hey, what's with the odd "description?" And what exactly is a "Trash-tier Elemental Affinity Stone?""

P, apparently always available, didn't even take a second to respond back. She said "The description for that quest comes straight from *********. Apparently, ********* really likes your gamer thing and decided to contribute in making the process more fun. As for your reward… Affinity Stones? Mhmm…. You can think of them as cheats that instantly improve your talent. Like, you know how in RPG's there are usually level caps?"

Elizabeth, like a true idiot, nodded her head in the real world as she confirmed with a "Yes?" through her thoughts. P continued saying "Well, your talent limit would be like a level cap, and every time you improve your talent your talent limit increases accordingly. Trash-tier is basically the worst, most basic, level of talent one must possess to begin generating either magic or qi. So you better stop disrespecting trash-tier quality since as of now, you don't even have talent..."

Bullshit! Elizabeth looked defeated as P told had essentially confirmed that one of the character creation choices she picked out were already withdrawn. What about her Time Affinity? What about the backstory she had concocted from before she had turned into Elizabeth? Wasn't she supposed to be a being infinitely close to ascending to Godhood via Spacetime mastery? How could P say she had no Time Affinity… "What? But don't I have Time Affinity? How could I have no talent for Time!"

"My guy… you haven't even checked what Time Affinity does. Look it up with your status functions before you continue making a fool of yourself."

[Innate Skill(s):

Time Affinity

Tier: Sub Trash-tier (Fragmented Transcendent)

Description: Upon losing the totality of your cultivation before descending from Heaven, all that remains of your previously cultivated Time Talent are shattered remnants of divine splendor. Fortunately for you, your master didn't cripple your talent, only fragment it. Alas, even a god can't achieve the impossible and only the Time aspect of your talent was preserved; Space and all your other previously cultivated energy types have been lost to the void in exchange for you to not becoming crippled. As a result, time talent can once more be cultivated upon the shattered remains of your previously godlike talent, thereby allowing you to progress through a path already paved by your previous efforts.

Current Effect: Upon restarting Time Talent cultivation, the user improves twice as fast while only having to put in half the effort.]

Elizabeth visibly became less downtrodden after reading through the status of her Time Affinity, and upon using her mind like a search engine, she found instances of "talent" being used in the knowledge she had gained from Temporal Meditation. She learned that talent didn't play a role until she was through with the first five levels, better known as the Mortal Stage, and was preparing to enter Level 6. It made sense that she had no clue what P was talking about, since even though she had all of the contents of Temporal Meditation downloaded directly to her brain, she would only access what was relevant for her current level of strength.

Returning back to normal, Elizabeth dismissed her thoughts about the Affinity Stone and restarted her sparring with Jane. She would find some other time to use the stone as that was not an urgent matter at the moment.

Though her antics and nonsensical mood swings were humorous to Jane and everyone around watching her behavior, to those that shared some form a relationship with her, Elizabeth's newfound enthusiasm to getting repeatedly knocked down and pushed back was concerning.

Whereas before, her face would ever-so-slightly turn grimmer after every single beat down. After letting loose that audible curse and changing facial expressions two or three times, Jane's "sparring practice" seemed to have become her new favorite activity; hardly leaving her capable of containing herself.

The sounds of Elizabeth smashing against the floor became louder and louder as time passed, since Jane was beginning to use gradually higher intensity moves to block or guard against Elizabeth's increasing Muay Thai Skill. Yet, the "victim" in question seemed to not know what pain was, as she propped herself back up after every beat down with a smile on her face and excitement at the thought of her gains…