Disregarding everything but the six other Dantians that had yet to solidify into cores, just as Elizabeth prepared to leave, she felt her Clearlight Sparrow call for her attention and ask if it could eat the leftover bodies. "Mhmm… Do whatever you want. Just know that you"ll have to depend on yourself as I"ll be leaving to tame other beasts for the compet.i.tion."Leaving after sending the Sparrow that message, Elizabeth used her ability to manipulate fire to burn off all the blood covering the hand she used to Steal Talent, as she used her detection abilities to begin collecting King Stage Wild Beasts almost every other minute. With her abilities, even Peak Phase King Stage Beasts could do nothing but submit, lest they wished to die. Thus, after close to eighteen minutes, Elizabeth ama.s.sed a small army of 7 Tamed Beasts. The strongest of which being a Level 27 Tiger Beast which put up a relatively decent fight even after facing her various spells. Given that Tiger Beast"s strength, Elizabeth was forced to use her pistols to wear down the Beast"s health before it finally gave up its freedom. With that being the case, Elizabeth had spent the last couple minutes restoring the bullet wounds she had inflicted on the Tiger Beast.
Whilst healing the Tiger Beast, she was sighing as she felt she might have been able to get a couple more Tamed Beasts to join her army had there not been several other groups of people begging her to kill them. Two other groups, aside from the one she had eliminated before her Beast collecting escapade began, also looked to trouble her as she raced against the twenty-minute time limit and both were also annihilated in similar manners.
The second group to interrupt her time in the Second Stage tried to pressure her into yet another Martial Pledge like the first group. Only instead of just wishing to take her Clearlight Sparrow, they were a bit more greedy, desiring the treasure sword she forged in the Forging Even along with all the rewards she had thus far earned. Yet as they were more arrogant than the first group, they didn"t bother concealing themselves. This saved Elizabeth the trouble of having to bait them into attacking her all at once or hunting them down one at a time as she used the effects of her grandmist pressure to temporarily stun them defenselessly and reap their lives with ease.
As for the third group, unlike the first two, they had caught a glimpse of Elizabeth"s strength as she "fought" with a King Stage Beast before confronting her directly. Of course, with her sensing abilities, before they saw her, she felt them approaching. So, to successfully bait them into taking advantage of her by feigning to achieve a near-disastrous victory against her King Stage Beast opponent, Elizabeth left herself seemingly exposed as she pretended to be exhausted after completing the bonding process with the King Stage Beast. At that time, it played out almost exactly as she envisioned. With her back turned to them, the group tried to ambush her, but ended up dying before they could even understand why.
Now, after she finished healing the Tiger Beast, Elizabeth sent a message into the ether through her contract with all the Beasts she had tamed thus far into the compet.i.tion to regroup with her, and within seconds, the seven other Beasts could be seen or heard making their way towards her current position. Up until this moment, she had given the beasts she had tamed for the compet.i.tion free reign to do as they pleased, as she had no experience fighting with Tamed Beasts by her side and experimenting during the compet.i.tion would probably end in disaster, if not inevitable inefficiency.
With all the beasts gathering, Elizabeth jumped aboard the large back of the Tiger Beast she recently healed and commanded it to lead the rest of her Tamed Beasts back to the Tournament Area. As she waited for the Tiger to reach the tournament, she reviewed her gains from this little excursion.e
After killing the three groups of hostile pract.i.tioners, she had used her Talent Stealing Blood Seal to take in and use up enough energy to excavate another 3% of her hidden potential. With all this killing, her bloodline"s urges shouldn"t come back to bother her until after the Tournament ended. She had gained seven new Tamed Beasts which made up a group of two Fox Beasts, three Wolf Beasts, one Bear Beast, and that last Tiger Beast which she was currently riding. Lastly, Elizabeth called for her Clearlight Sparrow to descend from the skies for her to check up on its status. It looked to have grown by at least double its size before she left it to feed on the corpses of her fallen enemies, and her probing registered strength nearing the p.a.w.n Stage; something highly anomalous for what was originally nothing more than a weak Mortal Grade Wild Beast that had been alive for less than an hour.
[Status
Name: Unnamed Clearlight Sparrow
Bloodline: Peak-tier Mortal Grade Clearlight Sparrow [Ancestral Awakening]
Level: 4
Rank: Late-Phase p.a.w.n Stage Tamed Beast
Affection Rating: Incorruptible Mother-Child Bond
Current State: Excited And Hopeful For Praise
Description: Recently born out of your Magic"s Influence, after establishing a Soulbound Contract, this Clearlight Sparrow looks up to you as a child would to their mother.
Innate Skills
Fire Affinity
Tier: Mediocre]
…
Back at the tournament arena, most of the compet.i.tors had already returned. The overwhelming majority of the compet.i.tors present only had with them one Tamed Beast and among this majority, another majority was made up of Beast Tamers with Tamed Beasts that possessed a cultivation base inferior to their masters. Rarely did anyone show up with a Tamed Beast equal in power to their cultivation and those that came with two or more Tamed Beasts could be counted with two hands.
Time was pa.s.sing with only seconds left for the twenty minutes to end. Yet, as the attendants in charge of managing the gate leading to the Northern forest watched their clocks turn to only thirty seconds remaining for the Second Stage, from a distance, a weak rumbling could be heard fast approaching. Within five seconds, the sight of a dust trail could be seen in the distance and five seconds later, Elizabeth could be identified tyrannically leading her small army of Tamed Beasts into the tournament arena.
The reactions she received… To put it simply, she had just been too much for the majority of people to handle as the crowd just sunk into a hollow silence. How Elizabeth managed to tame these beasts in such a short amount of time itched on the minds of nearly everyone present, and soon into Elizabeth"s return to her little area within the stage, she could feel more Mortal Realm pract.i.tioners try to deduce her cultivation to no avail.
Snickering, Elizabeth got off her Tiger Beast and had all her Tamed Beasts lie down behind her. As the people paying attention to her witnessed her absolute control her the eight total beasts, they cringed. Seeing that their actions in probing the Smithing Demon were nothing but an exercise in futility, the more obsessive crowd-goers opted to probe her Tamed Beasts. Though that only made things worse, as none of the beasts in her group were less powerful than Mid Phase King Stage Beast. Her sole Bear Beast was also a Peak Phase King, and just the attempt of probing her most intimidating Tiger Beast led most of the weaker Warrior Stage or lower leveled pract.i.tioners coughing up blood as backlash.
Those that did manage to successfully probe the Tiger Beast were themselves were either at or pretty close to the Spirit Realm and the discovery of the Tiger Beast"s actual strength left them even more curious of how Elizabeth managed to convert it to her side; and in such a short time! The rest of the crowd didn"t have to wait much longer as mere seconds after Elizabeth returned, the time limit for the Second Stage ran out.
With the gate closing, any remaining compet.i.tors still out in the Northern Forest lost their chance to return and were immediately disqualified. The announcer returned to the mic to say, "Guess this is it… Anyway, to those that returned with at least one Tamed Beast, at this moment, the judges will evaluate the c.u.mulative strength of each compet.i.tor"s party and draft the mini tourney for the hundred compet.i.tors moving on to the Final Stage."
After the announcer finished speaking, over a dozen Spirit Realm judges hovered over the compet.i.tor"s area and began probing the compet.i.tors" Tamed Beast party strengths. This was the fastest Stage that was judged as Spirit Cultivators could probe dozens of Mortal Realm ent.i.ties in a matter of seconds. Thus, even with the compet.i.tors having to peer review their a.s.sessments, the entire compet.i.tor base was accurately a.n.a.lyzed in less than two minutes.
Within seconds of the final results being recorded on the judges" tablets, in the announcer"s room, cards containing the judges" findings were printed. Thus, it was exactly two minutes after the Capture Stage ended that the announcer began to reveal the result to the arena.
Elizabeth drowned out everything aside from the compet.i.tors in the top ten as she didn"t care to listen to the lackl.u.s.ter results of most of her peers in Beast Taming. Even then, it wasn"t until the top three were announced that she actually bothered to pay attention as the compet.i.tors who ranted 10 through 7 were relatively similar in score.
Listening in as the announcer said, "Staying in third place, the Princess Tamer has ama.s.sed a formidable group of three Twin-tailed Foxes. With two being in at the Peak of the Warrior Stage and one being a Beginner Phase King Stage Beast, she thoroughly outcla.s.ses all the others below her and then some!"
Continuing, the announcer said, "As for the runner up… Felix has retained his place in the Event with a terrifying duo of Late Phase King Stage Highsnow Leopards."
People could hear the helplessness in the announcer"s voice as he gave a depressed sigh as he moved on to announce Elizabeth as the winner… again. He said, "And uh… Staying in first place, Ms. Ultimatia brought with her s-seven beasts, all of which are at the very least in the King Stage. Yet her most terrifying accomplishment is subjugating a Frigid Beastly Tiger with the equivalent cultivation to an Early Phase Martial Saint..."