After Elizabeth and Yrre finished packing Elizabeth"s things, Elizabeth led the way out of her room and onto the outside of the dojo. To her amus.e.m.e.nt, Atid had called numerous black SUVs for those leaving to Sharktop Island. Apparently, with the way the cars were set up, there should have been one for each person. But, because of Elizabeth"s sudden return, several people wanted to share a car with her.The SUVs were indistinguishable from limousines, at least with respect to size. So, even with Elizabeth, Jane, Sun, and Atid occupying the pa.s.senger area of the car, Yrre could still fit comfortably; hidden from all eyes aside from Elizabeth"s, of course. Thus, a lengthy conversation between Elizabeth and her guests took place, as they were driven to the local harbor.
Elizabeth gained a basic understanding of what the dimension upgrade did from the perspective of regular people and the others "learned" what happened to her. Understandably, the effects of the dimensional upgrade were too much for the Martial Society to conceal and even though their connections and power across the world was basically uncontested, it was decided that soon, the appearance of ancient-style martial practices would resurface.
Elizabeth couldn"t help but shake her head at the thought that before she even encountered the Mage and Martial worlds of the Shadow Realm, her own home dimension would be changed to fit the same style. With spiritual energy now running amok, it would be easier than ever to join the ranks of pract.i.tioners, and as such, certain development of civilization was to be expected.
The dimensional upgraded didn"t just change the spiritual air, or lack thereof, on Earth or its surrounding universe. Rather, there was also a complete and extreme augmentation of the innate talents already present in both people with and without talent for cultivation. Only the worst of the worst, complete no-talent borne, people could pa.s.s through the baptism of the dimensional upgrade and turn out unchanged.
The average person would now possess either bad or mediocre levels of innate affinity for their compatible energy types and those that were talented before could even enter the Spirit Realm without much trouble. However… the biggest change Earth experienced because of the dimensional upgraded didn"t even have to do with the people. Instead, with the change in spiritual air, previously un.o.btainable spiritual items, ingredients, ores, and abilities could be cultivated.
Elizabeth didn"t have that much experience with Earth"s martial skills and methods, only that one Ice cultivation method that Jane chose to share with her. A technique that was created for the purpose of creating sacrifices for another"s cultivation. Yet even with that technique, which couldn"t at all be cla.s.sified as one of the more profound or advanced methods, Elizabeth managed to create her own functional Peak-tier Mortal Grade Ice Cultivation Method. Moreover, with the descriptions of the spiritual items she had thus far interacted with, Elizabeth could tell that Earth wasn"t short on excellent techniques by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, they were unfortunately not in a place where such methods could be correctly cultivated; something which was no longer the case…
Now, with all these new variables introduced to the previously tame Earth, a new era was bound to develop. An Era of cultivators, where what was previously thought to be impossible would no longer be the case. An Era, where every able person would need to learn cultivation and the previous paradigm of civility and law would undoubtedly change.
The saying "Give a man the power and he"s bound to use it," couldn"t be closer to the truth. Previously, that "power" was only used by an incomparably small proportion of humanity. That small proportion being those in the Martial Society; even they always resolved things through the power of their fist, not words or diplomacy. But now that around 95% of all humans had the capability and inclination to gain what is effectively a superpower, things would quickly devolve into total anarchy if the same systems were not put in place.
Through her conversation with the others, Elizabeth learned that the higher-ups in the Martial Society would soon formally declare the change to the globe and that as they were talking, those same higher-ups were discussing with the various world leaders of how it would all transpire. Given that the Martial Society had their greatest pract.i.tioners from parts of the world like the United States, China, j.a.pan, Korea, Russia, India, Southern Africa, and Western Europe, it was highly likely that there would be many changes to the territories of said parts of the world and that those too, would be announced alongside their main reveal.
The very last thing Elizabeth discussed with Atid was the state of everyone"s cultivation. For Jane and Sun, Elizabeth could rely on their Affection to bypa.s.s her Inner Strength"s limits at probing their spirituality. But Atid himself needed physical contact for Elizabeth to examined. Being at the Spirit Realm, after the dimensional upgrade"s baptism, his foundation, while not perfect, was still good enough to keep going for several Stages.
Sun had advanced to the Warrior Stage and similar to Jane had a Pseudo Perfect cultivation. He and Jane could be operated on to reform their Qi Connections and enter the path of True Perfection with Elizabeth. But, for Atid, to get the same results would require Elizabeth to put in more effort than she cared to spend. For someone who had yet to help her out, she wasn"t planning on sharing that she could still fix his foundation.
As Elizabeth concluded her examinations, the line of black SUVs stopped, prompting everyone to exit the vehicle. Treated like VIPs, Atid"s group were escorted to an outrageously expensive looking silver-gold yacht. After that, Elizabeth was taken to her room. Along the way, the person escorting her gave her the details of what her schedule would look like aboard the ship.
Reading through the rigorously planned out schedule, Elizabeth"s eyebrows scrunched up as she saw that the training led up to a compet.i.tion. She didn"t really mind the near 15 hours of training she had to get through on a daily basis while partaking in this training regimen, but the time… Her meeting with her family was in six days and the compet.i.tion would conclude in five. It would take the group a whole three days to travel to Sharktop Island, so there wasn"t a chance she"d be able to meet with her family if she went through with the training.
Worried that her absence will cause her parents to overreact, Elizabeth pulled out her phone. As she was tapping and swiping away to compose a message to alert her parents ahead of time, she found that Kurt had actually sent her a message a couple days earlier! To her joy, it would appear that his week off had been postponed because of some "recent developments." Her father didn"t go into detail about what it was that happened in the company, but it wasn"t hard for Elizabeth to guess it was probably something to do with the dimensional upgrade.
Kurt"s message read as, "Adrian! Sorry, but we won"t be able to return home next week. Unfortunately, some recent developments have come up and I need to give an emergency speech. Don"t worry, we"ll still get our vacation time. It"ll just take another two or three days."
Elizabeth didn"t question it as it worked out just fine for her schedule. This time around, she didn"t forget to set up the notifications system on her phone to appear every time she received a new message, as it would probably save her some time, now that she was no longer a shut-in. She set her things in the room provided by Atid, and with Yrre, Elizabeth left to start the training right away; it was that intense…
Elizabeth was instructed to report to the ship"s deck after settling her things. The very first thing she saw when she arrived at the deck, was the sight of Luca crouched over, drawing what appeared to be the seventh copy of some sort of inscription on the deck floor. The style of inscriptions he used was completely foreign to Elizabeth as they didn"t resemble s.p.a.ce, time, nor neutral inscriptions.
Not looking for trouble, Elizabeth followed what the rest of the people already gathered did. She moved over to the line and quietly waited to see what it was she would be doing. Eventually, Luca finished his drawing spree, but it was only after several dozen more of the same patterns coated the surface of the yacht"s deck.
Elizabeth could only stew in discomfort as she watched Luca work, as the man used various techniques to conceal his actions. As she was already unfamiliar with the inscription style, not being able to read Luca"s actions effectively made her unable to understand the reason for his drawing. With nothing else but the inscription to look at, Elizabeth"s tolerance for patience was tested; repeatedly…
When finally finished and started talking, Elizabeth was just below her boiling point. She hadn"t even started and already felt like quitting. Fortunately for her, Luca"s voice was there to color her interested for a little while longer. He said, "Now then… For the next six hours, you lot are to sit at the center of these formations and galvanize your Qi."
With that, he finished talking and everyone started moving to sit at an empty formation. Elizabeth however, wasn"t like everyone else. Instead of immediately sitting to meditate, she opted to ask, "Can I breakthrough? I"m kind of at my limit for cultivating Inner Strength."
"Sure? But afterward, galvanize your Qi like the rest of them. You weren"t here for the first half of the training, so you don"t know this, but these formations were a result of that bizarre occurrence that took place 17 days ago. They"re known as Spirit Collecting Formations and with the new spiritually rich air, the formations act like magnets attracting the energy to the center. Galvanizing your Qi in the formation is bound to make your cultivation much faster than before so don"t waste this chance."
With a nod of the head and a look of understanding, Elizabeth walked over to the last Spirit Collecting Formation. Her crimson red pupils shined as a ray of summer sunlight was locked within. She gave a smug smile and with a confident stride, she approached her personal formation. Though she had only been stuck at Level 5 for a couple days, it felt like an eternity and with her current maxed out potential, she was bound to feel excited now that the chance to progress was so clearly presented before her.