As the blue flame made contact with the Saint Stage Shadow, even in her current overpowered state, Elizabeth still felt the need to run as far as she could as the delicate balance between Fire and Ice energies shattered. She took a total of ten more steps to cross 200 meters as she had tossed her flame whilst running, but even at that distance, part of the residual damage from the otherworldly blue explosion caused her to almost trip over…Her white hair blowing chaotically as if within the worst regions of a hurricane, Elizabeth imbued her eyes with Neutral Magic to augment her vision and a ghastly look of disbelief overwhelmed her as she a.s.sessed the damage a mere wisp of Cold Flames created. Even though she had targeted a single Late Phase Saint Stage Shadow, she could only see three still remain as the dust cleared and even the three left were each in conditions each worse than the last.
One had lost a hand, the other body his arms, and the last was nothing but a body with the head still attached! After gulping a slow, cold breath, Elizabeth gripped her sword as if afraid of her own power before recalling that she was under the timer of her Fifth Chaos Seal. Within ten seconds of the Seal"s activation, Elizabeth ended the last of the 8 Late Phase Saint Shadows.
Hearing, "125 Billion Points! Final Phase, Begin!" Elizabeth steeled her heart as she put her overwhelming physical strength to the test. After four seconds pa.s.sed, the first of the 16 Peak Phase Saint Stage Shadows died, six seconds later, there were only twelve Shadows remaining.
No longer needing to use her Dawnbringer Pistol to keep the superfluous Shadows from interrupting her as she could outpace all twelve remaining Shadows at double her Blade Art"s enhanced speed, Elizabeth killed half the remaining Shadows in another three seconds. Alas, even though there were only six Shadows remaining, by the time only one Shadow remained, the Fifth Chaos Seal"s time limit expired.
Coughing up blood as backlash for using the Fifth Chaos Seal, Elizabeth felt time slow to a screeching halt as she knew for a fact that she would momentarily die in the simulation of the Testing Formation. Not only did the Peak Phase Saint possess stats superior to hers in all aspects, but the backlash for using a 5th Seal Grandmist enhanced body was severe enough to reduce her fighting potential by 30%.
Still, the thought of "losing" in the Final Phase of the Final Stage led Elizabeth to truly go insane. With a maddened laugh, another wisp of Cold Flames gathered by her hand as she watched the last Shadow come to deliver the killing blow. "Hahaha! If I am to die you"re coming with me!" Deranged to the point where she considered murder-suicide, the moment she felt her body start to tear by being pierced with the Shadow"s chop-shaped hand, Elizabeth held her hand out to the Shadow and crushed the wisp of Cold Flames into the Shadow"s chest.
The next thing she recalled was waking up in the real world with eyes, ears, nose, and mouth all bleeding. However, in complete dismissal of the damage accrued on her real body, Elizabeth was more concerned with the unrecognizable state the formation underneath her was in. As she stood up and materialized a couple acupoint needles to heal over the superficial damage done to her soul, Elizabeth faced the horrified crowd that had gathered around her.
"S-seven hundred e-eigh-ty one B-billion? BILLION?!" It was deadly quiet after the Formation"s Supervisor reaffirmed reality. Forget even one billion, for Warrior Stage pract.i.tioners who at most reached one or three and a half million points after pushing the limits of their martial arts against King Stage Shadows, reaching eight or even eighteen million points made you an elite among the elites. For a "mere" Warrior Stage pract.i.tioner like Elizabeth, even if she was at the peak of her Stage, it seemed impossible for her to have such a ridiculous score as it implied that she completed all the Phases for all the Stages.
Alas, though they had a Testing Formation, it wasn"t advanced to the point where the tests being conducted could be relayed to the outside. However, there wasn"t much of a question of whether the formation was faulty or not after both accounting for the fact that it was both performing perfectly fine before Elizabeth took her test and its current state after she came out of.
Most of the bystanders wouldn"t know it unless they understood the nature of Testing Formations, but looking at its currently fragmented state, any decent Formation"s Master could tell that the limits of what it could test were surpa.s.sed. This result wasn"t bad, instead, it was actually sought after. But… only by Martial Saints, at the peak of their Stage. Furthermore the fact that Elizabeth left the formation with a superficial wound to her soul only confirmed things even more as proof that ended her testing simulation with only the explosiveness of a Saint Stage battle.
It wasn"t uncommon for compet.i.tors conducting their tests in the formation to come out a bit scuffed. p.a.w.n Stage pract.i.tioners barely had any damage coming out by the nature of their "eventful" battles, while Soldiers showed a slight paleness in their face after being in the simulation. It wasn"t uncommon for Warrior Stage compet.i.tors to cough a bit of blood and in the past instances of the Wushi Tournament, King Stage compet.i.tors were the first to start perpetual bleeding. Saints had it the worst as their deaths in the Testing Formation began damaging their souls.
Of course, damage to the soul was quite the delicate situation as it was beyond difficult to repair. But by the very nature of the Testing Formation"s use, the damage done to a compet.i.tor"s soul never crossed anything that couldn"t be healed by a couple minutes of apt healing or even Mortal Grade Medicines and Pills. Elizabeth"s seemingly mystical Acupoint Skill wouldn"t even need a minute to restabilize her soul as it was already much more resilient than the average Saint Stage pract.i.tioner. Not only did she already possess an awakened soul land, but it had also even matured a great deal despite not being in the Spirit Realm.
"Oh? I get points for the Final Stage even though we both died?" Her day had been made just from knowing she had completed this "game." It wasn"t a perfect score, it was quite far from it actually, but at least she ran the gauntlet and completed it without a hitch.
Hearing her say "Final Stage," blew away any doubts that might have remained and consequently left everyone slightly fearful of the una.s.suming teenager before them. Their reactions weren"t unwarranted as they simply hadn"t known the true ridiculousness of her power. After all, who wouldn"t be disturbed to find that in the shadow of the little girl before them, there lay someone with power just below that of Spirit Realm elders?
One of the more thoughtful pract.i.tioners with a loose tongue accidentally spoke his mind, saying, "And she accomplished all this in three weeks?" In the wake of his words, the previously silent and fearful crowd turned bleak as they recalled the words that came from her during the very first Event of the Tournament.
"It-… it"s simply not human..." And to a certain extent that thought was valid. Though her G.o.ddess Bloodline was for intents and purposes void, she still counted as an Ancient G.o.dslayer Fiend. And beneath bloodlines, there stood the holy grail of absurdity; a foundation transcendent of perfection and laced with Grandmist… It still wasn"t realized as too little time and effort prevented it from manifesting, but if Elizabeth continued training and altering her body with Grandmist, and later Chaos energies, it would only be a matter of time for yet another bloodline to appear; one much more ridiculous than all the others…
Eventually, Elizabeth grew bored of waiting for the awestruck crowd, so she approached the Formation"s Supervisor and asked, "So, um… What now?"
"What now, indeed!" Thought the Supervising Formation"s Master. What was he to do with a Warrior Stage compet.i.tor who matched a Peak Saint Stage compet.i.tor? Naturally, the only thing he could do was give Elizabeth first place for her division as a Warrior Stage compet.i.tor. He picked up his phone and made a call to the higher-ups explaining the situation and gave Elizabeth a final piece of advice.
"Going by the rules, you will only take first place for the Warrior Stage division. It will be highly unlikely that you are challenged in the Second Stage by others in the same division given your, uh… strength. But, if you want, you may challenge people in the King and even Saint divisions, if you manage to beat the highest ranking King. Additionally… Since the higher-ups have a mixed reaction to your score, your score for the First Stage of the Martial Event will not be revealed until after the Second Stage concludes."
Turning to address the remaining compet.i.tors, the supervisor said, "The higher-ups have made Ms. Ultimatia"s score a Spirit Cla.s.s Secret. Besides the couple dozen compet.i.tors still remaining to be processed, absolutely no other compet.i.tors, be they as weak as the p.a.w.n Stage or as strong as the Saint Stage, are allowed to know of her score. Understood?"
As if they had rehea.r.s.ed this beforehand, literally all the compet.i.tors aside from Elizabeth said, "Yes sir!"
The supervisor then said, "Good!" As he faced Elizabeth once more, he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear him as he said, "Until the Martial Event concludes or the higher-ups decide to reveal your true score to other compet.i.tors, you"ll be the first person to proceed with a "Null" Score." The supervisor pulled out a small circular badge and engraved three ominous question marks before pa.s.sing it to Elizabeth as her score. Though this was the first time he had scribbled these symbols on a badge, the badge Elizabeth received looked as if it were 3D printed from how precise the engravings were.
After taking her badge, Elizabeth left to return to the waiting area of the Tournament Arena as the Soldier Stage compet.i.tors were still in the midst of their division"s tournament. As she waited for the Warrior"s division of the Second Stage to begin, Elizabeth glanced at her gains from simulating her true strength. Her stats might not have increased at all, but her various skills had all improved in proficiency. Smirking as her [Fast], [Spatial Contraction], [Target Homing], and even [Talent Stealing Blood Seal] Spells reached the level where she could endure inscribing the third level on her Dantian, Elizabeth settled into a meditative position and used an inconsequential amount of Magic to increase the complexity of the Spell Seeds that were etched in her Dantian.
[Innate Skills
Chaos Seals (9)
*New) Current Status: 6 Seals Complete (Fragmented Grandmist)
*New) Current Effects: Level 3 Pressure: With the user acting as the epicenter, a heavy pressure influences everything in a 100-meter radius. Level 3 Physical Augmentation: Multiplies the user"s physical parameters by up to five times, for up to one minute.
Skills
Name: Spatial Contraction
*New) Grade: SSS (Level 3 Spell Seed)
s.p.a.ce Energy Cost: 250 units of s.p.a.ce Magic for five meter of s.p.a.ce. For every additional 10 cm of s.p.a.ce contracted, the cost rises by 1.15 times the base cost.
Current Effect: Depends on the amount of Spatial Magic used.
Bullet h.e.l.l Codex: Target Homing
*New) Grade: SSS (Level 3 Spell Seed)
Energy Cost: 50 units of Neutral Magic per second
Current Effect: Margin for error whilst firing guns increases. The farther the target, the greater the effect.
Name: Slow
*New) Grade: SSS (Level 3 Spell Seed)
Time Energy Cost: Varies based on the target. The baseline for Level 3 would be 27,500 units of Time Magic to effect a King for a second. Doubles thereafter for each additional phase and decuples for each change in Stage.
Current Effect: Reduces the target"s rate of time by 2% relative to the surrounding environment.
Name: Fast
*New) Grade: SSS (Level 3 Spell Seed)
Time Energy Cost: Varies based on the target. The baseline for Level 3 would be 27,500 units of Time Magic to effect a King for a second. Doubles thereafter for each additional phase and decuples for each change in Stage.
Current Effect: Expedites the target"s rate of time by 2% relative to the surrounding environment.
Martial Art: Art Of The Eight Limbs (Muay Thai)
Level 58
Experience: 99,999/104,148
Grade: B
Current Effect: Unarmed combat at the Warrior level yields a 100% buff to Strength and Defense. (Total Applied: 100%; Total Achieved: 400%)
Blade Art: Basics
Level 66
Experience: 171,588/180,048
Grade: B
Current Effect: Armed combat with a blade at the Warrior level yields a 200% buff to Strength and Speed. (Total Applied: 200%; Total Achieved: 500%)]