Surprises Abound

[Status

Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia

Bloodlines: Three Souls Djinn (5% Purity)

Level: 40 (41/42)

Rank: Chaotic Foundation Exalt Collapse

Foundation Trial of Requiem

Performance: 1?? (Beyond Core)

Rewards: Chaos Seal Art: Chaos Control

Skills:

Name: Soul Variation

*New) Grade: High-tier Spirit Grade

Primary Effect: Activation of the skill instantly increases your Soul Force's potency by 50% for every Embryonic Vessel of Seraph in your possession. It can only be sustained for up to a maximum of thirty minutes before injuries in the Upper Dantian begin manifesting.

Secondary Effect: The option to hand over the controls to your body to your Live Incarnations becomes available after they are cultivated to a certain degree.

Goddess Incarnation Effect: ???

Ancient Godslayer Fiend Incarnation Effect: While in the Spirit and Mortal Realms, the user may temporarily increase their Affinity for Death by one tier. Ancient Godslayer Fiend Skills also become twice as powerful under the influence of this state.

Primordial Ghost God Incarnation Effect: ???

Djinn Incarnation Effect: While active, Soul Force becomes twice as easy to control and Djinn Skills are twice as powerful under the influence of this state.

Five Void Embryonic Vessels: Can be used to supplement Vessels with Live Incarnations, otherwise only augment the Skill's Primary Effect.]

Elizabeth woke up unable to move, as expected. However, as she went through the several processes of checking her internal clock and digesting the information that came as a result of completing the Foundation Trial of Requiem, a feeling of dread etched itself into her heart.

She first finished determining how much time had passed and thought, 'It's only been an hour? That shouldn't be—'

Then she saw the improvement to her Soul Variation Skill and thought, 'What?! But I've never come into contact with Yrre's bloodlin—'

Again, her train of thought made a sharp turn as the feeling of her body quickly returned and she felt her mouth had been instinctively sucking on something.

'Don't tell me…'

Her eyes snapped open and she came face to face with a Yrre's concerned visage. She was laying on the Djinn's lap and sucking on her right breast.

"Hmm," Elizabeth hesitantly moved the breast out of her face, stood up, and took a look around the room before she asked, "So you took it upon yourself to bring me into the Resting Chamber and feed me your Bloodline Essence? Why?"

As she adjusted her clothes appropriately, Yrre said, "It might have been presumptuous of me to spend your Tickets as I saw fit, but after I saw you leave the Chaos Substation Trial with the highest mark…

"Especially after reaching Beyond Core in the Requiem Trial, I had to do everything in my power to wake you up as fast as possible."

"Yeah, but your Bloodline Essence," Elizabeth struggled to hide the twitch in her eye.

"You're my master; the one I'm bound to for the rest of my life through the Law Linking Chains. After you broke through to the Foundation Collapse Stage and my cultivation rose to the Spirit Realm, I was returned some of my more advanced healing methods and to be honest, I was prepared to lose much more Essence before you woke up so quickly," Yrre resolutely said.

"Thanks," Elizabeth said with a sigh.

She didn't have the words to express her gratitude, but, feeling that it was awkward to leave with such a bare word, she continued, "I'll find a way to pay you back for this when my Cultivation Base reaches a high enough state."

"Go, now," Yrre nonchalantly dismissed Elizabeth's promise, "You don't need to do anything for me in the first place…"

She turned to hide the smile that was building up from Elizabeth and added, "If you really want to pay me back, then stop wasting time here and make the most of the time you still have left."

With a drawn-out exhale through her nose that couldn't quite be considered a sigh, Elizabeth stared at Yrre for a couple of seconds before she left for the Meditation Chamber. As her Djinn companion and teacher said: the longer she delayed making progress, the more of Yrre's efforts would be undermined.

'It's been less than twenty-five or so hours since I became a Foundation Collapse Stage Cultivator. With the Chaotic Pressure I was under while cultivating to the peak of this Stage, I've already consolidated my Cultivation Base to the brink,' Elizabeth thought as she gave herself a day's worth of time in the Meditation Chamber.

'The odds are good that breaking through this quickly will set a Transcendental record for cultivation.'

Had her Cultivation Base not increased to its current level, Elizabeth would have opted for using the Practice Chamber to begin training up her Secondary Occupations for their respective Substation Trials. She couldn't have hoped for such a boon from the Chaos and Requiem Trials and thus, the decision to breakthrough came spontaneously to her.

As for what breaking into the Core Formation Stage entailed, it began with her now completely saturated black Exalted Spiritual Pillars. As she could no longer cultivate more of them nor nurture them to higher levels of saturation, the only way to increase their potency was through fusion.

Of course, as each Spiritual Pillar carried a terrifying potential of 500 True Qi, it was both unreasonable and dangerous to try fusing them all at once. Even cultivators with less profound Transcendent Foundation and Foundation Collapse Cultivation Bases had to start by fusing two Spiritual Pillars and then fusing additional Spiritual Pillars to the Pseudo Spirit Core that formed as a result.

Now, because Elizabeth had Exalted Spiritual Pillars, the amount of energy needed to form her Pseudo Spirit Core was naturally the highest it could be for all Core Formation Cultivators.

She spent the entire day in the Meditation Room struggling to barely fuse two Spiritual Pillars, requiring an additional day to stabilize her Pseudo Spirit Core and be considered a Core Formation Stage Cultivator.

[Status

Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia

Level: 41 (41/42)

Rank: Base Core Formation

Sex: Female

Strength: 50,000

Endurance: 50,000

Speed: 50,000

Defense: 50,000

Intelligence: 78,000

Luck: 10

Core Qi: 100 (+49,000 True Qi)

Innate Skills:

Name: Core Sense

Description: A natural evolution of Spiritual Sense, Core Sense utilizes much denser Core Qi to spread your Soul Force and commune with the world. As the user's Understanding of various Energies and the Upper Dantian develops, the range and penetration increases.

Current Effect: Core Sense can cover an area of 48 square kilometers or 120 kilometers in a single direction.

Chaos Affinity

Tier: Bad-tier

Current Effect: It is now possible to generate, gather, and manipulate Core Grandmist.

Quests:

Main Quest 9: Form A Proper Core! (Complete)

Degree of Completion: TRANSCENDENTAL

Spirit Grade Difficulty: C

Objective) Reach the Core Formation Stage (✔)

Reward: 1 Base Pseudo Spirit Core for each Energy understood to the level of Profound Truth (19 Total) + Situational Augmentation (Three Souls Djinn Essence)

Bonus:

Choice of:

1) 3 Core Level Reforging Crystals

2) 19 Base Pseudo Spirit Cores of Core Grandmist

3) 3 Origin Energy-Technique Integration Cubes

4) 3 Excellent Tier Affinity Stones

Main Quest 10: Complete Your Core Cultivation! (Incomplete)

Spirit Grade Difficulty: B

Objective) Reach the Core Refinement Stage

Description: After absolutely shattering the previous record of ascending from Sublime Foundation to Exalted Foundation Collapse in less than two days, you somehow took only two more for a total of four days to both complete your perfect cultivation of the Foundation Collapse Stage and enter the Core Formation Stage. Good luck continuing with that pace as your energy needs will only continue to grow exponentially with every fusion of Spiritual Pillar to Pseudo Spirit Core.

Deadline: 640 Days]

Elizabeth left the Meditation Room wondering how her strength would compare now that she had Core Qi to support her Profound Truths. As she made her way to pick up Yrre and enter the Practice Room, she thought, 'I should be capable of dismantling the Irelian Empire now, right?'

'The band of idiots that were so quick to wage war against me simply for seeing my Infantile Wolf God Form will be in for a rude awakening when I return stacked with Core Qi and a barrage of Blazebreeze Embers.'

She could almost picture the destruction that would follow such an assault as she recalled what her cultivated Blazebreeze Embers did in the Blazebreeze Substation Trial. It would probably take more than one Core Cultivator with defensive Skills powered by Profound Truths to even survive, nevermind block such attacks.

…

"What!?" Elizabeth's eyes widened as she looked over the prompt the Sky Seizing Castle Arrays transmitted.

[Blade Qi discovered: Foundation Trial of Blades is now available.]

"Don't get distracted now," Yrre said as she mercilessly aimed for Elizabeth's vitals with her blade.

Naturally, even as her attention momentarily escaped her better judgment, it was only a small portion that amounted to less than a tenth of a percent of Elizabeth's Soul Force. Consequently, she was able to continue fighting without a noticeable drop in combat efficiency.

Sadly, that didn't mean anything to Yrre, whose Skills and Understanding trounced Elizabeth a billion times over. With the message to never, ever, lose oneself to a distraction in the heat of battle, Yrre purposely struck harder than she needed to as her spar with Elizabeth continued.

She didn't so much mind Elizabeth's focus diminishing as she minded the extent of her reaction, as she thought, 'To be aware of your surroundings and react accordingly is good. But, reacting should be done internally; never in a way that can be noticed, nevermind exploited, by an enemy.'

After Elizabeth had increased her Acupoint, Forging, and Cooking Skills past the bounds of Grandmaster and into the Rank of Saint, she had collected her rewards from the various Milestone Hidden Quests as she expected and completed the appropriate Substations with ratings of Highest Core.

The aforementioned Secondary Occupations rose to the point of generating their own type of Energy and as a result, Elizabeth ended up adding three more Profound Truths to her arsenal, making the total reach twenty-one. However, their Substations already existed before Elizabeth stepped foot in the Sky Seizing Castle; they weren't like this new Blade Substation that appeared only after she had generated her own Blade Qi.

Thus, her shock could be imagined as the news came out of left field in the middle of her sparring with Yrre.

It bothered Elizabeth enough to make Yrre stop their fighting to ask, "What's the matter? It will be pointless if we continue with you so distracted."

"I got a notification from the Castle Arrays that mentioned a Blade Substation becoming available after my Blade Qi was discovered," Elizabeth said, getting straight to the point.

"That's what's been bothering you?" Yrre asked, a bit peeved that Elizabeth would fuss over something so trivial.

"What do you mean?!" Elizabeth took mild offense to Yrre's tone, irritably adding, "This means there could be other Substations hidden away, just waiting to be unlocked!"

More Substations meant more time and rewards for her to claim; it meant more Profound Truths and Innate Skills to be collected.

"Not to ruin the surprise, but the Sky Seizing Castle has Substations for every Energy under the Heavens. The ones you have access to at the moment are only available because your Soul Signature has been tainted by said Energies."

"What?! It's that simple?" Elizabeth asked before a light of greed threatened to manifest into a beam and pierce Yrre. "Could you—"

"Absolutely not," Yrre put an end to the request before it could even be made.

With a worried look, she continued, "Honestly, I wouldn't be opposed to the idea if you weren't so extreme with the way you pursue cultivation. I wanted you to learn the benefits of learning from more types of Energies and you decided to gather over twenty Profound Truths.

"If not for the Castle Lord's Chaos Requiem, your Soul would have collapsed by now as usually, only Core Bearing Stage Cultivators are in possession of a Profound Truth; and generally, they only have one or two at most.

Solemnly, she concluded, "If you were to start amassing Profound Truths for every type of Energy to ever exist, not only would you certainly die, but you may even lose sight of your path; that is, if you haven't already…"

"Hmm… Fine," Elizabeth grumbled, before quickly adding, "I'm still going to complete the Blade Substation and Gun Substation when I unlock it, though."

With a nod, Yrre said, "Those are fine as they are your choice of weapons. I just don't want you to ask me to teach you how to use every cold and hot weapon under the sun to amass several dozen Weapon Energies and Profound Truths by proxy."

"Tsk," Elizabeth clicked her tongue in annoyance as she admitted, "With the Cataclysm in progress, I probably wouldn't be able to stick around here long enough to learn them all anyway…