"..." In the changing room, just before entering the bathhouse"s washing area, Elizabeth couldn"t help but cringe a little as Jane took off her clothes. Maybe now she"d be less pushy when disrobing others as the feeling of being disrobed herself was so… unsettling? It seemed to be bothersome for Jane as well, as she refused to make eye contact while the whole ordeal went down.Well, that remained the case until the most awkward part of this situation played out… For some reason, at one point, Elizabeth could feel that Jane"s hands were shuttling along her most intimately lower regions for a little too long and though she knew that Jane didn"t have in ill intentions, she eventually couldn"t stand the tingly feelings her hands gave out. Confused and a bit hesitant to know what on G.o.d"s green earth Jane was attempting, Elizabeth asked, "Um… What the f.u.c.k… are you doing?"
"Shut up! ...This is just as awkward if not more so for me than it is for you! I just can"t seem to find your tampon string..." Jane probably wasn"t as comfortable with the human body as say… Elizabeth, probably because she didn"t have as extensive a collection of knowledge on medicine as Elizabeth had. Thus, for this whole time she was trying her best not to look directly at Elizabeth private parts as to her, because she wasn"t a doctor or something of the like, it would be like taking advantage of her. Unfortunately, her lack of conviction to look at Elizabeth"s body resulted in her not finding out that Elizabeth wasn"t wearing a tampon at all…
"What? Oh, I don"t… wear those… You can stop… looking..." Elizabeth said, but internally, she asked P, "Hey, do I also get periods like girls?! Should I be wearing tampons now?" It had totally escaped her mind that this was one of the hardships of being a girl.
P responded, "Well, if it was before this whole ice and fire fusion fiasco, I"d probably recommend that you look into buying those sort of things. But, now you can probably get away with not needing those amenities… After you take a look at your status and check on the changes to your body, it"ll make sense. Just remember that your fire-type energy can be used to burn away any unwanted bodily wastes."
"..." Luckily, Elizabeth"s time of the month hadn"t come yet as she would have been completely caught unaware. She just made a mental note of P"s words and went on to see how the night"s adventure with Jane played out.
Jane, after hearing that Elizabeth didn"t wear tampons, gave her an awkward side glance, wondering to herself how Elizabeth dealt with her periods. But, given the atmosphere and context of their situation, she refrained from asking anything else and just began to stip herself.
When she finished putting away her clothes as well as Elizabeth"s, Jane carried Elizabeth to the showering area and a very hesitant and awkward shower ensued. As Jane was washing Elizabeth"s body, Elizabeth said, "Ay… can I get… some water… in my mouth?"
Jane didn"t even question Elizabeth, she just directly aimed one of the shower heads into Elizabeth"s mouth until she closed her mouth. Then, Elizabeth heated up the water in her mouth and throat with fire-type energy, gurgling and riding her esophagus of any dried up blood before spitting it all out and saying, "Thanks~"
The hoa.r.s.e and fatigued-plagued tone of her voice seemed to be cleared with that swig of water, as Elizabeth continued on to say, "Anyway, I really have to thank you for that unexpected breakthrough."
Jane continued to clean Elizabeth"s body as she said, "Oh? What exactly happened?" Though she was a bit surprised by Elizabeth"s voice suddenly recovering, the subject matter far outweighed her priorities.
Elizabeth explained in pretty explicit detailed how the whole emergency operation played out. From the cause of Jane"s breakthrough, those overwhelmingly despairing emotions, to how Elizabeth reverse engineered a solid cultivation method out of the one Jane gave her, practically all the details of the operation were told to Jane without reservation. Of course, all the stuff about Elizabeth"s energy fusion and the trials and tribulation of her Soul Land weren"t divulged. Instead, Elizabeth stated that the reason she was in her current state was from being a bit too greedy and wishing to use more Frozen Qi from Jane"s breakthrough than her body could withstand; a half-truth sufficient enough to give Jane a plausible reason.
Jane, upon realizing all that Elizabeth had done for her, from saving her life and letting her complete a solid breakthrough, to Elizabeth fixing her physical foundation, promising to give her the improved version of her ice cultivation method, and even being willing to share secrets to improve a "spiritual" foundation, a concept Jane had never even heard of… She couldn"t even begin to express her grat.i.tude as she broke into tears. Never in her life had anyone done so much for her, and this coming from someone as reserved and una.s.suming as Elizabeth... it totally came out of left field without granting Jane anytime to de-escalate her emotions.
Elizabeth tried to downplay the situation, saying things like, "Come on, don"t be like that! I"m just reciprocating the benefits you yourself gave me!"
Alas, Jane was a bit too emotional to let Elizabeth talk her out of feeling grat.i.tude. She took all the misdirections and honest words thrown to make her feel even and only conflated them to inspire even more feelings of goodwill for Elizabeth. It wouldn"t be an overestimation to say that Jane now looked at Elizabeth as if she were an angel or saint sent from the heavens for the sole purpose of helping her in one of her life"s worst periods of time. In fact, just a couple moments after Jane stopped in contemplation of Elizabeth"s actions, a notification from the status functions virtually confirmed Jane"s current thoughts.
[Alert! Drastic Change In Affection Detected!!!
Status Updating…
Status
Name: Jane
*New) Level: 16
*New) Rank: Beginner Martial Warrior
*New) Affection Rating: Undying Loyalty
Description: This Jane gal seems to take your actions with the seriousness they deserve. Even if she doesn"t fully understand the full scope of the benefits your actions and future promised actions will bring to her, if she follows you long enough, perhaps she might one day understand...
*New) Current State: Shaking And Crying With Grat.i.tude
Description: I"d recommend you say or do something before she implodes emotionally.
*New) s.e.x: Female
*New) Strength 100
*New) Endurance 100
*New) Speed 100
*New) Defense 100
*New) Intelligence 43
*New) Luck 10
*New) Inner Strength: 45,000]
"Yikes..." Elizabeth couldn"t help but show an adverse reaction to such underwhelming Intelligence and Inner Strength Stats. Sure, they looked impressive when compared to her own Stats; especially that 45k Inner Strength bomb. But, if one recalled that Jane was supposed to be three stages ahead of Elizabeth it was extremely sad in truth. This was so sad in fact, that Elizabeth completely forgot about some supposed Undying Loyalty when confronted by this utter travesty. Actually, what made Elizabeth even sadder than she already was, was the thought of what Jane"s physical stats would have looked like, had she not intervened and acted as a medium for Jane"s breakthrough to correct the flaws of her physical foundation.
"Hey! Stop crying already! If you keep crying… I-I won"t tell you how to fix the problems with your spirituality!" Elizabeth would have tried saying anything to get Jane out of her silent sobbing as even she had had enough of it. Unfortunately, Jane wasn"t fooled by the bluff as she just kept cleaning the tears in her eyes...
Eventually however, when Jane felt ready, she just silently returned to cleaning herself and Elizabeth until the task was completed. Then for an anticlimactic finish, Jane kept with her silence all the way through the time she dressed both herself and Elizabeth up and carried her back to her room.
When she returned to Elizabeth"s room, she set Elizabeth down on her bed and left to go get the dirty clothes from before back from the bathhouse. Upon returning, and putting Elizabeth"s clothes in the washing machine for her, Jane just stood sitting quietly by Elizabeth"s work table for a couple more hours…
Soon into the silence, Elizabeth"s cripplingly low tolerance for idling kicked in and she asked Jane to turn on the TV for her. Jane complied, almost robotically as she showed no intentions to speak whatsoever. But, as time pa.s.sed with more wacky news coverage causing Elizabeth to comment and laugh, Jane"s silent persona started to crack. She slowly warmed back up to being less uncomfortably silent around Elizabeth and the two moved on to talk about various things, from the news that initially broke Jane out of her communicative impa.s.se, to the improved cultivation technique Elizabeth had manufactured.
As time pa.s.sed, Elizabeth started gaining more control of her body and by the fifth hour, she could finally move her arms; albeit depression-inducingly slow at that. However, with movement returning to her body so too came the ability to heal herself with acupoints, and shortly after she started the healing process, she became fully able once more!