Living Life As A Game: Through And Through
/ Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 106 Arriving At The Island, Unparalleled In The Fores
As she waited for the ship to finally dock at the harbor, Elizabeth held a short conversation with Jane, Sun, and Irene. Those three were the only ones that fought with her during her time aboard the ship and they would be the only people that could accurately speak of her flaws. She didn't just take during this conversation, also giving insight into their mistakes as they discussed how best to improve. In this calm environment, time passed rather quickly and in no time at all, everyone that would participate in the competition gathered together to leave the ship. Before departing everyone had their luggage gathered together before Luca used an improved Storage Enchantment to store everyone's belongings in a small 20 cm metal cube.
Once out, everyone was led by Atid and Luca from the harbor through the port town and then through a mountainous forest until they reached Sharktop Island's main city. Taking the excursion as yet another form of training, everyone ran at car-like speeds and trekked through tiresome terrain as if it were flat grounds. With Atid and Luca leading the way whilst exerting the signature of Spirit Realm cultivators, no wild beasts were dumb enough to antagonize the group. Although the extra bit of training would have exhausted a regular person to total fatigue, the members of Atid's dojo barely even broke a sweat by the time they made it deep enough into the Island to see their final destination.
Off to the distance, an extravagant little village of sorts was visible from the mountainside Elizabeth stood on. The village didn't look as impressive as a fleshed out metropolis; there still weren't any skyscrapers or highrises. But, mansions and beautiful antique-like roads were spread all around.
At a supernatural pace, the group descended the last forested mountain and entered the village. At the entrance, some people moved to stop the group, but after registering Atid and Luca into their sights, they didn't bother them for any longer. The group checked into an Inn and after Luca released everyone's luggage from his metal cube, they were given free rein as to how they would spend their last day before the competition.
After "setting" her things in the room assigned to her in the Inn, Elizabeth promptly left to quell yet another murderous urge. Although she wasn't by the ocean where fishes were beyond easy to find, she was by the forest and though there would now be a challenge to find prey within the terrain, with her Lifespan Watch ability, the issue could be resolved.
Walking through the streets, just before Elizabeth made it halfway to the village exit, she heard, "Hey you! Stop!" At first, she completely ignored the voice, sure that it couldn't be calling her as she didn't recognize the person speaking. But after seconds passed with the voice drawing closer and closer, eventually Elizabeth stopped and turned to see what the hubbub was about.
Restraining the killing intent her Godslayer mark urged forth after confirming that the man calling out was indeed trying to stop her, Elizabeth asked, "Mhmm… What do you want?"
Stunned by the total neutrality in Elizabeth tone and expression, the man became unsure of his actions as he said, "Urr… I just saw you walking by and wanted to introduce myself. You're here for the competition right?"
"Yeah, what of it?" Elizabeth was never patient to begin with. Now that this stranger stopped her, even if it was momentarily, she couldn't help but form a bad impression.
"Mhmm… Nevermind..." The man returned a blank face of his own before he suddenly stopped talking to Elizabeth. He approached with the intent to make connections with his peers, but after being talked to like he was a nuisance, he left without wishing to talk anymore.
Confused by the random exchange, Elizabeth shrugged her shoulders as she continued heading to the exit. She encountered two others on her way to the exit that wished to network with her. But only after being clued by the last person, did she understand why so many people "pestered" her. Happy to arrive at the exit, Elizabeth made sure the guards understood that she would be leaving periodically to hunt as a form of training before finally leaving.
With no one to bother her after crossing the border of the village, Elizabeth exploded forth at 80% of her max speed to easily traverse the rough terrain of the forested mountain. After entering the forest she changed into her armor and withdrew her Inferioria blade, as the world in her eyes changed to a stark white and black. All around her, every living being gave off a black aura of death that deepened the stronger or closer to death that living being current state's indicated.
Most living beings emanated a near white aura indicating their inferiority and only rarely did a faint grey aura capture Elizabeth's attention. However, the farther Elizabeth moved from the village, the stronger the creatures she encountered. Having surveyed the environment throughout the path Atid led her through furthered her understanding of how the wildlife behaved. Thus, with her knowledge, she made it deep to the east of the village's entrance before confronting the first set of beasts that actually required a bit of effort to kill.
Unlike in the ocean, where Elizabeth couldn't afford to venture deep underwater to fight strong marine life, in the forest where there wasn't pressure to keep up with a sailing yacht, Elizabeth thoroughly tested her might. She might have come out for the purpose of quenching the need of her bloodline, but as tigers and bears at Levels above 20 appeared, she figured now was the best time to measure her true power.
Running through the forest, Elizabeth killed what had to be 20 animals before her first real threat appeared. She couldn't properly measure the Level of the leopard before her as she had been easily disposing of weaker leveled predators with cultivation superior to hers. For the first time, a wild beast matched her speed and strength and though she never suffered an injury because of her solid swordplay, Elizabeth was taking too long to win without using any spells.
Alas, the moment she used [Spatial Contraction] to catch the leopard off guard, it died just as easily as any other helpless beast. Making it this far into the forest, it didn't take long for an even stronger opponent to show up, but through the combination of [Spatial Contraction], [Fast], and [Slow] Elizabeth didn't even have to reach for her pistols.
An hour into her wanton slaughter, she had killed more than enough to satisfy bloodline. With the superior strength of all the things she massacred, Elizabeth also improved her bloodline more in this mere hour than after the three days spent at sea. Her cultivation of Death also showed noticeable improvement and even her physical stats improved; albeit barely.
Sighing at the lack of fearsome enemies, Elizabeth stopped and began heading back to the village. 'What's there to do? It's only been a couple weeks after the dimensional upgrade, so it's only natural for the animals on earth to still be relatively weak. Maybe after this competition is over, I can start making real progress in the Shadow Realm...'
Elizabeth's cultivation of death was more dangerous to her than anything this forest could throw at her. Granted, she possessed top-of-the-line ultrgrade armor, making her nigh-invincible to the beasts in such low-level territory. But, she never had to use her pistols and by proxy her last Spell, and with her strength just barely crossing over the boundaries for King Stage practitioners, she never had trouble penetrating the defense of her enemies with her sword. To highlight how overpowered she was in the current environment, in her last fight, Elizabeth challenged herself to fight what later turned out to be a Level 23 Tiger Beast to the death without using her Inferioria blade and even then, she didn't find it too difficult to win using her Muay Thai…
In a move that could only be described to be wasteful to the extreme, Elizabeth emptied her spatial ring of all the fish corpses stored away in favor of the higher quality meat these higher leveled beasts provided. To lessen the distaste wasting these corpses would incite in her mind, she decided to gut the fishes left over to at least take their magical fragment cores. They provided such pitiful quantities of energy that even as she walked back to the village, Elizabeth popped the cores into her mouth and used up the energies stored within to mildly increase her stats via grandmist-pressured internal refinement.
Although everything seemed to be normal as Elizabeth made her way back over to the village, she didn't drop her guard even after knowing of her superiority in terms of strength. She'd already tasted the bitterness of being unprepared, so throughout the whole time she ran back, Lifespan Watch's effects on her vision were activated. To be extra cautious, Elizabeth used a crude form of sonar with her ability to create and catch spatial ripples, effectively covering her in all 360 degrees for dozens of meters.
Consequent to her extraordinary caution, nothing escaped her senses and after running a quarter of the way back, Elizabeth caught wind of other cultivators around her. Most of the people she discovered whilst heading back looked to be around her age; give or take a couple years. Though, because of her background as a gamer, Elizabeth didn't stop to so much as greet anyone as she didn't want to come across as "ganker scum," as she put it. Not that she would have stopped to make friends anyway, her mind just thought extra hard about the situation…
Alas, her act as a fleeing spectator had to stop as she encountered some fellow cultivators struggling to survive against one of the more bothersome enemies in the forest. Before she even caught sight of the imperiled cultivators, Elizabeth knew their situation to be grim as she could sense multiple pulses of death energy escaping at a rate only practitioners at or above the Warrior Stage that was also gravely wounded should be capable of outputting. Knowing herself to not be at risk, Elizabeth didn't mind helping people that would clearly die otherwise.
Chapter end
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