Living Life As A Game: Through And Through

Unlike her run in the First Stage of the Forging Event, for the Beast Taming Event, Elizabeth didn"t spare her fellow compet.i.tors an appraising eye; or rather, she couldn"t. Since she had thus far only nurtured a Demonic Beast Egg, the likes of which would be born with an innate talent that surpa.s.sed the Spirit Realm, she had no idea how long nurturing a regular Beast Egg would take.

Thus, as soon as the Nurturing Stage began, Elizabeth took the Egg into her hands and bound it to herself by offering it some of her blood. She attempted to force it under her possession similar to how she forced her moose companion, but the second her blood came into contact with the Beast Egg"s sh.e.l.l, it immediately relinquished its independence.

Now bound to her and capable of achieving resonance, Elizabeth entered a meditative state as she focused all her senses in deducing what was the maximum rate of energy transmission she could pa.s.s onto her Egg without harming it. Unlike her Demonic Beast Egg, this normal Beast Egg ran the risk of over-nurturing with her current cultivation as a Peak-Phase Warrior Mage.

Taking a solid minute to figure out the energy threshold of her Beast Egg, once Elizabeth felt comfortable constantly supplying energy in this restricted manner, she stopped restricting herself and began a serious meditation. After she broke through, before arriving at the Tournament site, Elizabeth had unlocked a new section in her body where she could cultivate hidden potential; her bone marrow.

Sticking to her philosophy of not wanting to waste even a modic.u.m of energy, Elizabeth used the surplus of Inner Strength generated from meditating to cultivate Chaos Requiem and synthesize fragmented grandmist. She didn"t notice at first, but as she cultivated her hidden potential with grandmist, an undetectably small trace of the wisps of grandmist that she created was being sent to the Beast Egg.

Slowly, as time pa.s.sed, Elizabeth began noticing as the Beast Egg experienced the same effects as her. With its hidden — unborn — potential rising due to the nurturing effects of grandmist, it became stronger and able to take in more and more potent energy. Intrigued by this unexpected benefit, Elizabeth let the Beast Egg greedily take up as much Inner Strength and grandmist as it could handle as even if its absorption abilities increased, they were still a far cry from being able to severely impact her own personal cultivation. Even if the Beast Egg managed to adversely affect her cultivation, at the moment, given that she was taking part in a Beast Taming compet.i.tion, it would temporarily be fine.

After three minutes pa.s.sed, several of the best Beast Tamers started feeling their eggs start to become active. By four minutes, Clearlight Sparrows started hatching and the general rule of thumb was that the sooner they hatched the better, as the Beast Tamers would be given more time to enhance the quality of their Sparrow"s feathers.

After seven minutes pa.s.sed, practically everyone had their Beast Eggs hatch aside from the least talented Beast Tamers and Elizabeth. At this time, there several Clearlight Sparrows of varying hues being nurtured. Most possessed red feathers, then by order of most common to least common, there appeared Sparrows with orange, yellow, and even green feathers.

At the eight-minute mark, Elizabeth was the only person still nurturing an unborn Beast Egg and that remained the case until time ran out. Sighing as her time had run out, Elizabeth shook her head in disappointment as she gave an attendant her Beast Egg. All around her, people could be heard discussing the sad performance she gave. For the most part, those that were negatively impacted by her performance in the Forging Event were the most vocal as well as the harshest.

"Tsk, Tsk! Serves her right for thinking she could actually compete in two different Secondary Occupational Events."

"What a disgrace… Propping herself up to be unparalleled when it comes to Forging, but then throwing all that momentum away? What was the point in such idiotic actions?"

"Maybe she thought it would be funny… Who knows? This is, after all, her first Wushi Tournament. Inside that undeveloped little brain of hers, maybe clowning around at this time was worth it~"

…

As Elizabeth sat in her area, statically taking all this verbal abuse, within the VIP area, as the judges were writing down the scores for all the compet.i.tors, one judge came across Elizabeth"s unborn Beast Egg. Unsurprisingly, this judge was confused as it was obvious that the score for whoever turned in such abysmal work would be disqualified. To qualify, a Beast Tamer needed to at least nurture their Clearlight Sparrow to the point that they developed orange feathers. But never mind the feathers… this Sparrow wasn"t even born.

Shaking his head in annoyance, the judge responsible for a.s.sessing Elizabeth"s Egg didn"t even touch it, as he typed "Disqualified" in his tablet right next to Elizabeth"s name. Pa.s.sing his score and the Egg to the judge next to him in accordance with the protocol of the tournament"s judging standards, the first judge expected his peer to do the same. However, the second judge to review Elizabeth"s Egg didn"t rush to disqualify her.

Unlike the first judge, he had attended the first Forging Event as a spectator and had seen what kind of anomalous ent.i.ty Elizabeth was. Extending her the benefit of the doubt even if he would have to disqualify her on the merits of the tournament rules, this second judge took the Beast Egg into his own hands and probed it to see what Elizabeth managed to accomplish in ten minutes.

The moment his Qi moved to probe the Egg, the Beast Egg violently shook as it resisted taking in any energy source aside from its master. Raising an eyebrow at this unbelievable phenomenon, the judge pondered what he could possibly be doing wrong. "Strange, it"s not born, yet possesses the will to resist energy from me?"

Thinking that his energy was just not potent enough for the Egg to accept, the judge lowered the quant.i.ty of energy to a minimum and began using True Qi of those in the Spirit Realm. Yet, the result stayed the same… "WHAT?!" Not daring to believe his eyes, the judge looked at the Beast Egg with confusion and a bit of fear.

"Darby, what"s wrong?" Drawing the attention of the other judges, Elizabeth"s current judge saw a close friend approach him.

Returning a disbelieving look, Elizabeth"s judge said, "This Egg… I can"t probe it..."

"Wh- You can"t probe it? What are you talking about? It"s clearly just a Clearlight Sparrow"s Egg!" Clearlight Sparrow Eggs were known to be particularly easy to nurture. Taking into account their easily accepting temperaments, even if they took on a master, so long as a stronger Beast Tamer offered better quality Qi, it was almost guaranteed that they would turn their loyalty.

"Here… See if you can probe it." Handing over the Egg, the defeated judge couldn"t even imagine what method Elizabeth used to solidify her unshakable position with the unborn Sparrow.

Taking the Egg and probing it with several degrees of force, the judge drew a similarly hopeless expression as he said, "I really can"t probe it..."

With a commotion erupting after two Spirit Realm judges failed to probe a Clearlight Sparrow Beast Egg, more and more judges were derailed from their positions to try and discover the true state of the unborn Beast. After five judges failed, even as more judges attempted to successfully probe the Egg, one of the judges who already failed decided to consult the leader of the Martial Societies highest ranking Beast Taming faction, Marshall Quinn.

Taking a moment to call Marshall via his phone, one judge stood at the edge of his seat waiting to see what the greatest Beast Tamer around had to say about Elizabeth"s Egg. Usually, the highest ranking pract.i.tioners of a given secondary occupation would not bother with the first two rounds of the tournament events. It also wasn"t uncommon for said highest ranking members to not even stay present to personally come see the results at the end of the Events. Marshall Quinn, being a part of the faction that virtually ran the Beast Taming community on Earth, came into the tournament already expecting for the top 20 to come from his faction. So it was safe to say that he wasn"t planning on attending the event at all.

Still, being an attentive leader, it didn"t take more than two rings of the phone for Marshall to connect through the line. Surprised by the call, Marshal asked, "Darby?"

"Yeah, boss it"s me… Sorry to disturb you, but we"ve ran into a problem here at the judging panel and need your help."

"What"s the problem?" Confused, even though Marshall wasn"t present to see it first hand, he knew the Event should have only progress to the First Stage. "What could they possibly have trouble with during the First Stage?" He thought.

"Uh..." Realizing how ridiculous it would seem if he explained it through the phone, Darby said, "This is not a joke, but one of the contestants in the Nurturing Stage turned in an unhatched Beast Egg and even though it"s clearly a disqualifying score, after we tried to probe the Egg to see how well it had been nurtured, we couldn"t see the results as all the probing attempts ended in rejection..."

In a tone that could be considered half condescending, half serious, Marshal said, "I see… You can"t probe a yet to be born Clearlight Sparrow Beast Egg?"

"Uh… Not just me..." Adding up all the attempts that have pa.s.sed since he called Marshall, Darby said, "A total of eight judges have failed to probe the Egg..."

"And just so we"re clear… This Egg was turned in after being in contact with a compet.i.tor in the tournament for just ten minutes?"

"Um… yes?" Hearing himself confirm reality left Darby shaking his head.

"Interesting~ I"ll be there shortly." Promptly hanging up the phone, Marshall was captivated by this bizarre situation. He wasn"t really busy at the moment and even if he was, he could excuse his business by explaining that a situation arose pertaining to the tournament. So, with a glint of amus.e.m.e.nt tainting everything from his visage to the aura around his person, Marshall literally flew over to the VIP area within the Beast Taming Tournament Site.

Arriving as promised, mere moments after the call ended, Marshall"s arrival caused everyone at the judges" panel to stop with their business and offer him a greeting. Waving them to be at ease, Marshall asked, "So then, where"s this un-probeable Egg?"

The judge who currently had the Egg in his possession didn"t hesitate to present the Egg to Marshall. Then, right before the crowd of judges, Marshall attempted the process of probing himself; utterly confident in his abilities. Alas, things took a turn, as he too failed to convince the unborn Sparrow to accept his Qi. Marshall"s face grew grim as he saw his most potent Spirit Realm Qi get rejected as if it were nothing but trash. However… he couldn"t just call it quits after arriving so confidently.

Feeling the need to uphold the sanct.i.ty of his position as leader of all Beast Tamers, Marshall did something dangerous and unethical. Disregarding the rules set in place to keep the treatment of Tamed Beasts safe from abuse, before all the judges, Marshall covertly began increasing the quant.i.ty of Qi he used to "probe" the Egg. Only, if he were being honest, he would admit this was no probing attempt, but an attempt to force the Egg to absorb his Qi or perish!