Living Life As A Game: Through And Through 171 Preparation For The Second Jump

Many more hours pa.s.sed and now a stable yet small flame danced around Elizabeth's dominant hand. Thus, the time was ripe to renew her status as Demon Smith. With unbelievable ease, she created the advanced alloys that she planned on creating before she began cultivating her Cold Fire. Her energy reserves barely took a dive as she processed kilogram after kilogram of material and with each new piece of ammunition, armor, or weapon, the stagnant Forging Skill that hadn't moved since yesterday's Forging Event now skyrocketed; fast approaching the fabled Grandmaster Rank that would be attained at Level 21.

One factor that made Elizabeth's forging several times easier was the Septima Fire Fragment and Pith. The tool when combined with the effect of her furnace made the process of heat and energy conservation several times easier. It was so useful in fact, that it only took her one session to create all the armaments and ammunition she planned on bringing with her to the Shadow Realm. And on the very last batch of bullets she created for her Base Dawnbringer, the experience she could gain from her [Saintly Forging] method was capped.

[Alert!

Forging Level 20 (7,236,875/CAPPED)

Current Effect: High-Peak Grade Mortal Armaments and ammunition forged by the user come out 100% more powerful.

Hidden Quest: Smith Rank Milestone #2 (Complete)

Difficulty: SSS

Degree of Completion: Excellent

Objective: Reach the pinnacle of the Master Rank along the path of Forging✔

Description: Congrats, you're now a G.o.dlike smith for those in the Mortal Realm. Sadly, the same can not be said for the higher Realms…

Reward: Immortal Forging: From True to Truth

Bonus: The Building Blocks Of Engravings: The First Step To Become Your Own Smith

Hidden Quest: Smith Milestone #3 (Complete)

Difficulty: SSS+

Degree of Completion: Mythical

Objective: Forge any armament or piece of ammunition of Low-tier Spirit Grade

Description: Let's just say it is very, very, …, very hard for a King Stage Pract.i.tioner to make Spirit Grade Ammunition; never mind actual armaments.

Reward: Crafting Tree: Spirit Ammunition

Bonus: Choice of: 10kgs of Fire Elemental Ore, Ice Elemental Ore, Lightning Elemental Ore…

Status

Name: Soulst.i.tchting Acupoint Needles

Grade: Low Tier Spirit Grade

Description: Though forged with each needle having a Core Soul-Emerald, the finished product is nothing more than a crude prototype of the true Soulst.i.tching Acupoint Needles. With a lacking Refining Rate of 76% and no engravings these are just a slightly improved version of regular Acupoint Needles. However, as nothing more than sharp needles that have yet to be engraved, the set of acupoint needles still hold the potential to become more refined and ascend to higher tiers

Effect: Improves a Acupoint Master's control over the soul by 5%

Name: Infernal s.p.a.ce Gauntlets

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +366

Defense: +320

Speed: +55

Description: Crafted by a legendary smith in the King Stage of the Mortal Realm, this Armament would be beneficial to even Transcendent Foundation Stage cultivators in the Spirit Realm.

Principle Effect: Doubles Speed and Strength at the cost of 1 Million Inner Strength units for one minute for those in the King Stage.

Secondary Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with s.p.a.ce and Fire type energies which lead to 50% potency to all s.p.a.ce and Fire abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities.

Special Effect: Can transform into a special mode that prioritizes Speed over Strength.

Name: Infernal s.p.a.ce Spirit Armor Set

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +110

Defense: +680

Speed: +110

Principle Effect: Doubles Defense at the cost of 3 Million Inner Strength units for one minute for those in the King Stage.

Secondary Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with s.p.a.ce and Fire type energies which lead to 50% potency to all s.p.a.ce and Fire abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities.

Special Effect: Can transform into a full body suit that can withstand some of the harshest natural environments.

Name: Frozen Yin Spirit Armor Set

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +75

Defense: +880

Speed: +100

Principle Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with Yin and Ice type energies which lead to 50% potency to all Yin and Ice abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities.

Secondary Effect: Activates the Heart's Sublimation Enchantment that has been engraved to temporarily bolster spiritual prowess and retain calm even in the most dire of situations. Effect varies based on the user's spiritual parameters and Yin and Ice Affinities.

Special Effect: When ever damaged, a portion will be negated as consequent of a Yin-Ice barrier and minor damage to the armor can be regenerated over time.

Name: Earthen s.p.a.ce Spear

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +550

Speed: +350

Principle Effect: Doubles Speed and Strength at the cost of 1 Million Inner Strength units for one minute for those in the King Stage.

Secondary Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with s.p.a.ce type energies which lead to 50% potency to all s.p.a.ce abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities. A similar effect manifests with Earth energy but to a much lesser degree as no Earth-type Enchantments where engraved. This effect, derived from the Earth-type spiritual metals used in the construction of the spear, only give rise to a 15% increase in potency and 8% decrease in energy needed to activate Earth-type abilities.

Name: Sky And Earth Spirit Armor Set

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +110

Defense: +680

Speed: +110

Principle Effect: Doubles Defense at the cost of 250,000 Inner Strength units for one minute for those in the Warrior Stage.

Secondary Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with s.p.a.ce type energies which lead to 50% potency to all s.p.a.ce while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities. A similar effect manifests with Earth energy but to a much lesser degree as no Earth-type Enchantments where engraved. This effect, derived from the Earth-type spiritual metals used in the construction of the spear, only give rise to a 15% increase in potency and 8% in energy needed to activate Earth-type abilities.

Special Effect: Gains potential from moving through s.p.a.ce or along the earth. Over time, a tremendous boost to speed can be acquired.

Name: Solitary Yin Sword

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +400

Speed: +555

Principle Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with Yin type energies which lead to 50% potency to all Yin abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities.

Secondary Effect: Can gain up to another 100 units of strength through the activation of Spiritual Sharpening. Increases strength when slicing spiritual air while clas.h.i.+ng against objects that can not be directly cut losses acquired strength.

Special Effect: Makes the cultivation of both Yin and Sword Arts several times easier.

Name: Solitary Yin Spirit Armor Set

Spirit Grade: F

Strength: +50

Defense: +880

Speed: +125

Principle Effect: Synergizes exceptionally well with Yin type energies which lead to 50% potency to all Yin abilities while requiring 25% less energy to activate said abilities.

Secondary Effect: Activates the Heart's Sublimation Enchantment that has been engraved to temporarily bolster spiritual prowess and retain calm even in the most dire of situations. Effect varies based on the user's spiritual parameters and Yin and Ice Affinities.

Special Effect: Actively generates the equivalent of hundreds of thousands of units of Inner Strength per minute without the need for meditation.

Name: Consummate Steel Alloy Bullets [5,000]

Grade: Peak-tier Mortal Grade Bullet

Description: Crafted by the user, these are pieces of magical ammunition imbued with Ice and Fire Magic along with Basic level principles of the path of forging. Consistently, these fine pieces of ammunition came out with a 98% Refined State and near perfect inscriptions.

Effects: Damages ent.i.ties up to Level 35. Typically fatal to beings Level 25 and below.

Name: Consummate Steel Alloy Bullets (.50 Caliber) [1,000]

Grade: Peak-tier Mortal Grade Bullet

Effects: Damages ent.i.ties up to Level 40. Typically fatal to beings Level 30 and below.

Name: Perfect Steel Alloy Bullets (Slug) [250]

Grade: Peak-tier Mortal Grade Bullet (Threatens the barrier to Spirit Grade)

Description: Crafted by the user, these are pieces of magical ammunition imbued with Ice and Fire Magic along with Basic level principles of the path of forging. Consistently, these fine pieces of ammunition came out with a 100% Refined State and perfect inscriptions.

Effects: Damages ent.i.ties up to Level 40. Typically fatal to beings Level 33 and below.]

Scanning through the items she had created in preparation to make surviving in the Shadow Realm as feasible as possible, Elizabeth sighed. 'I'm only halfway through with the preparations...' There was still the food she needed to prepare as well as the jade slips she planned on leaving so that the Martial Society as well as the first generation of the new cultivation society would actually made progress in the time that she left.

Fortunately, Elizabeth had everything she needed with her, thus she wasted no time at all in resuming her extensive preparations. With the dozens of Storage Enchanted talisman papers that she made for the Enchanting Event of the Wus.h.i.+ Event, she had enough room to store enough food to last their group a year in the Shadow Realm. And with her insane tunnel vision when it came to advancing — be it for cultivation or a skill — it was like she was being held a gunpoint and forced to cook as much food as quickly as she possibly could as the corpses of King Stage Beasts that cluttered her Storage Enchantments and Spatial Ring were being used up at an absurd pace.

Elizabeth lost herself to the process of cooking as the day turned to evening and then deepened into night. But she did stop around one after midnight as a drone came to deliver all the things she had requested from her father as well as her precious tea leaves. Taking exactly ten minutes to jot down her understanding of the Principles of Secondary Occupations the Martial Society had not a clue about as well as some general information about Mages and their philosophy, Elizabeth made hundreds of copies of the original jade slip she inscripted with her thoughts and the application of her soul, and left her room after returning the jade slips to the drone and pa.s.sing her father a message.

Unsurprisingly, with the way the world was changing now, when she went downstairs, even the "civilians" — people at or below the Mortal Stage — were hard at work; if not for the impending threat that was announced via the news, then to cultivate their newfound talent for martial arts as those before them did when no Dimensional Upgrade was around. Among those hard at work, Yrre was having a field day whipping all of Elizabeth's friends and family members as she did her master; for training purposes...

The ruthlessly overpowered teacher Djinn stopped as Elizabeth finally left her sacred domain of cultivation and with the demon herself approaching, everyone picked themselves up; no matter how badly their state was with Yrre's "care."

"Ay, I see you guys are hard at work down here..." She slightly cringed as she made eye contact with Yrre and read her look that seemed to convey, 'Are you ready for YOUR training?' Shaking the nervous chill that ran down her spine at the moment, she stopped looking at Yrre as some jade slips appeared in her hands.

She tossed the jade slip which contained Kurt's understanding of Formations towards Jane and the one containing Maria's understanding of Alchemy to Sun. Then without paying the bystanders any mind, the s.h.i.+ny new toys she had been working on were pulled out one by one and handed over to their intended owners.

Sun received the Infernal s.p.a.ce Gauntlets along with its armor set, Jane received the Frozen Yin Spirit Armor Set, Liam received the Earthen s.p.a.ce Spear and Sky and Earth Armor Set, while Tristan received the Solitary Yin Sword and Armor Set. Elizabeth hoped that with overall improvement to the group's gear they wouldn't find any trouble even if they all split up to adventure or training by themselves. With all of them being at different levels of strength it could be expected for them all to train in the same area, after all.

"Now, if you guys don't need me right now, I need to head back to finish our preparations..." Even with her close ones nearby, Elizabeth had yet to develop much social skills if any. Aloof was her appearance and obsessive was her behaviour…

With such a disposition no one even attempted to stop Elizabeth as they all carried on with whatever training they were in the midst of. Their excitement over the new gear Elizabeth had gifted them was replaced with renewed vigor for cultivation as they watched Elizabeth zero-in on her cultivation.

Back in her room, Elizabeth resumed her cooking process. Though her priorities slightly s.h.i.+fted as could be seen when she resumed the cooking by setting up a brewing station for tea even though she had left other dishes cooking as she went downstairs.

It was only after dawn had already brought the sun over the horizon and into the early morning that Elizabeth felt satisfied with the amount of food she had prepared. As a final note to maximize this cooking session, she brought all the remaining meat in her various storage compartments to the roof of the dojo and set up a drying station to create Jerky.

With everything prepared and ready to go, Elizabeth thought of any potential things she may have missed and decided to return downstairs to gauge her party's combined strength before leaving. This would accomplish two things. First and foremost, it would let everyone understand where they could and couldn't go once they arrived in the Shadow Realm. But more importantly, it would be the perfect excuse Elizabeth could think of to finally complete her VS. Ice Side Quest!

She dawned on a smile of antic.i.p.ation as she came down from the room to the dojo on the first floor and found the members of her group still up and at it. She calmly walked over to Jane first as she held the highest priority with a Side Quest completion sign essentially tapped to her back. Seeing Elizabeth walk over to her, Jane stopped with her meditation and smiled.

With her attention successfully captured, Elizabeth said, "Let have that spar you wanted now~" Unaware that her actions were so robotic Elizabeth retained the natural smile on her face as Jane couldn't be bothered to react negatively to a spar from her.

"Are we only using swords like we talked about on the island?" Jane asked.

"First, I'd like to see how we do in a real all-out battle. In the Shadow Realm we'll be surrounded by danger in the beginning, until we can find some civilization. Even then, I can't say for sure whether we'll be accepted, as that dimension and our world are completely different. I promise to have a sword only spar afterwards, so..." Seeing Jane nod as the Evergreen Copper Sword appeared in her hands, Elizabeth stopped talking as both of them moved into the sparring field which held a defensive formation.

By now, people would have to get used to insane displays of battle, so even as the other dojo members that were left in charge watched as Elizabeth and Jane prepared for their serious battle, none of the civilians were asked or forced to leave. With Jane and Elizabeth making moves, even if the rest of their party's members didn't stop their training, they at the very least took notice and watched from afar.