Not at all minding the spectating crowd"s worthless opinions on her, Elizabeth picked up her needles to treat the little girl"s unseen broken body, but stopped as the sight of her needles caused the little girl to enter a panic."Ok, ok… I won"t use the needles..." Gesticulating in a most hyperbolic manner, Elizabeth withdrew her needles back into her Spatial Ring"s inventory as she resorted to only use her fingers to emulate the acupoint formations. Usually, she wouldn"t stand for this inefficiency and would resort to knocking her patient out cold for having cold feet. But since her patient this time was but a small child, the thought never even crossed her mind.
Although this non-needle acupoint method would be inefficient, it would still be more than enough to finish treating the little girl well within the thirty-minute time limit. But, since she would at work for a couple minutes, Elizabeth lost her antisocial tendencies if only to confirm whether the little girl was truly a victim of abuse or if her teachers and family were just incompetent beyond comprehension. Prompting a conversation as she healed the little girl"s Acupoint and Meridian Energy Circulatory System, Elizabeth started a conversation as best she could, asking, "So, uh… what"s your name?"
"...I don"t want to tell a monster like you!" Frightened by all of the ultrmenacing actions Elizabeth had pulled since they met, the girl reacted as most children would.
"C-come on! Don"t be like that! Aren"t you slowly feeling better? How can you call me a monster when I"m making your pain go away..." Doing her best placate the little girl, Elizabeth wasn"t bothered by the name calling.
"..." Returning only the starkest silence, the little girl closed her eyes and tried to ignore Elizabeth…
"Wh- I didn"t use the needles!" She wasn"t offended, it"s just that nothing else seemed to come to mind as Elizabeth had no experience coaxing children.
"Mmmmhmmmm..." As time pa.s.sed and she saw that Elizabeth truly was making the pain go away, the little girl slowly loosened up and said, "I"m Amy… But why did you turn into a nice person when you looked like a monster a minute ago..."
"That? I have a problem hiding my emotions and when I saw the state of your body I thought of the worst case scenario. But, as you can see, I"m not a monster. In fact, I"m interested in knowing more about you!" With the idea that she was talking to a child thrown out the window, Elizabeth returned to speaking like her usual self…
"Why?" Amy was confused, she didn"t know this monste… person, yet after just meeting, she became interested in knowing about herself? Even as a child, she understood this to be odd.
"Mhmm… How can I explain it to you without complicating it? You know the feeling of pain you feel through your body?" Seeing her nod, Elizabeth continued saying, "Well, as a doctor, I can see what causes your pain."
"Really?!" Excited at the prospect that Elizabeth might be the key to stopping the torture she was forced to endure, Amy asked, "So what"s the problem? My dad told me that if my sickness was cured, I could be the clan"s strongest heir!"
Cringing at this most obvious clue, Elizabeth responded with a question of her own. She asked, "Your clan… you wouldn"t be hailing from a Yin bearing clan would you?"
Confused by the question Amy asked, "What?"
Simplifying the question for as best she could, Elizabeth said, "Like, the main techniques of your clan… Are they Yin-type or in any way connected to manipulating Yin Qi?"
"Oh! Yes! How did you know?" Amy was surprised after being able to answer Elizabeth"s simplified question. She had yet to display any martial techniques and yet the doctor was able to figure out her clan"s signature skill?! "Amazing! She must be really smart!" In this small exchange, Elizabeth somehow went from a world-ending monster to a smart doctor…
Sighing, Elizabeth said, "Well, if my guess is correct, then the cause of your pain is practicing that technique. See, your body is like a container that can hold different types of energy. You currently have a container that accepts lightning and water energies, but doesn"t respond well to yin energy. By cultivating yin and forcefully trying to get that energy into the container, you slowly start to break the container"s walls and end up in your current state. With the walls of your "container" threatening to cracked, your body becomes less resistant to energies and since you slowly broke your container with yin, you get afflicted with cold symptoms."
"So… does that mean practicing the clan"s technique is what caused my sickness?!" Taking away only the worst information she heard into account, Amy felt her entire life"s purpose evaporate at the thought of no longer being able to make her parents proud by cultivating their clan"s technique as they so strongly encouraged her to do.
"Mhmm… not quite. It"s your incompatibility with your clan"s technique that makes you sick. You could still practice the technique, but only after you slowly let your body get used to the aspect of Yin. What you"ve been doing now, is like smashing a square into a circular mold and hoping for everything to happen instantly. What I"m telling you now, is that you can still change the square into a circle, it"ll just take some time. Of course, the best course of action for you would be to abandon training in the technique as it isn"t an area where you"re innately talented in."
Listening to Elizabeth"s a.s.sessment, Amy started to go pale from the thought of abandoning her clan"s signature technique. She even started to cry as her imagination conjured up the images of her parents scolding and punishing her for being a no-good daughter. Up until this point, life had only been a bit painful and if she could continue with training the technique, she would be willing to do just about anything; even increase the amount of pain she felt. Looking on with hopeful and tear-filled eyes, Amy asked, "Is there anything else you could do? Even if you can"t do anything immediately… As a doctor, do you know any other ways I could get my body to get used to Yin faster?"
[Choice Quest 5: Expanding Contact (Incomplete)
Difficulty: Incalculable
Choice 1) On occasion, when deemed appropriate, spread good fortune with others
Choice 2) Keep to yourself and the people within your immediate circle of intimacy
Description: Will you help Amy out of the "kindness" of your heart and sow a seed of karma? Or would you rather not bother with strangers and only help those who"ve helped you in the past or have their use immediately available?
Choice 1) Increases the world"s probability to survive future Cataclysmic Events by elevating the potential and power of the people you influence. However, you take the gamble of trusting others not to use the fortune granted onto them against you.
Choice 2) Makes the path of Tyrannical Domination much easier to follow through. Without your influence as the chosen anomaly in the current dimension, it will be incredibly difficult for the native earthlings to combat against your faction"s strength.]
Elizabeth stopped healing Amy as her face formed a frown. Thinking critically, she thought, "Let"s see… It would cost me nothing to repair this little girl"s body, even granting her a Trash-tier Affinity for Yin wouldn"t be too hard… But why should I do that? For fun? She and I are nothing more than strangers… and thought I was caught up at the thought of her suffering abuse, now knowing it more about the situation, she should be able to resolve this problem herself. Telling her teachers that she doesn"t have Affinity for..."
Suddenly, a thought struck her out of her inner monologue. But, instead of digesting it, Elizabeth spoke out loud saying, "How do her teachers not know about her innate affinities?" Testing for affinity was something any relatively decent Martial Pract.i.tioner above the Soldier Stage could do. Coming from a "Clan," Elizabeth couldn"t imagine that her teachers wouldn"t check this most basic thing before imparting her techniques. Moreover, Amy herself was at the Beginning Phase of the Soldier Stage. Her Qi"s emergent properties of affinity should have been easily detected after she entered the p.a.w.n Stage!
"Y-your teachers… Did they know you don"t have an Affinity for Yin, yet still had you learn the skill?" Too caught up with trying to diagnose and talk to Amy, it was only now that Elizabeth pieced together the incongruencies she found when treating the little girl.
"Um… How would they know? They aren"t doctors like you?" Naive to the methods of testing for affinity, Amy innocently tried to retort Elizabeth"s question.
"You don"t need to be a doctor to check for affinity… Tell me, how old were you when you first started training martial arts?" Once more, feeling a sense of hatred at the thought of the little fix or six-year-old girl being the victim of abuse, Elizabeth"s face changed into its earlier half-dead look.
"I started when I was four. A little over a year ago..." Though she couldn"t feel the emotion behind Elizabeth"s current state, Amy was starting to feel frightened as Elizabeth looked like she could detonate at any moment.
"Mhmm… Do you perhaps any memories of your teachers telling you to channel your Inner Strength into their bodies? Do it with me to see if it looks familiar..."
Amy hesitated, but after seeing that Elizabeth hadn"t really changed her att.i.tude talking to her, she felt it was safe enough to follow through with her request. Feeling the energy enter her body, Elizabeth used her Magic Connection to take Amy"s Qi from her right hand, where it entered, to her left hand where a pulse of soft blue liquid and bright yellow plasma periodically altered.
Looking at the two fluctuating energy signatures, Amy recalled a scene from over a year ago and said, "Yeah, around the time I started learning the clan techniques, my mother had me do something similar! However, she didn"t have me channel energy through her hands, rather she sat down and had me put it through her back and instead of there being changing lights, there were those two lights on each of her hands never changing!"