73 Evolution Of A Martial Skill (1/2)

Elizabeth sparred with Jane for about two hours straight. In that time she was beaten down several dozen times, but never from making the same mistake. Each of their bouts got longer and longer until they finished their 59th session after fighting for over fifteen minutes. After taking a short break, Elizabeth returned to her extreme internal ice and fire body refining, alternating between purely increasing her physical parameters, and using the training ”armor set” she borrowed to practice Muay Thai with an upgraded sandbag, while Jane sat down to increase her spirituality alongside Sun.

With her strength increasing at a posthaste rate, Elizabeth became obsessed once more with these kinds of monotonous activities. Her apparent insanity seemed to have finally caught the attention of Sophie who had spent the past couple hours completely ignoring Elizabeth. Sophie left her own little training area — similar to Elizabeth she had a bunch of upgraded equipment on her own side of the dojo's training area — and approached Elizabeth when the latter was in the midst of taking a short break.

As Sophie walked towards Elizabeth, a mischievous smile hid a fleeting sense of malice as she said, ”Hey ”Ellie,” You wanna continue spar training with… me?”

”Huh? Ellie? Who the fuc...” Elizabeth quickly stopped speaking her mind as she recalled Sophie's request. 'She wants to spar with me? Mhmm… It can't possibly as a form of goodwill...'

Elizabeth called for Sophie's Status and another pulse of overwhelming killing threatened to escape her body.

[Status

Name: Sophie

Sex: Female

Level: 11

Rank: Early-Phase Martial Soldier

Affection Rating: Distant And Mildly Hateful (Improving)

Description: Your past attitude and acts against Sophie have created a bit of bad blood. The blatant disrespect you've thus far shown for her, your Martial Senior, in particular, has acted as the fulcrum for her mild hatred against you. Still, all isn't bad and an eccentric mind like hers has already found a ”fun” little game to play with you.]

'Game? Heh… This bitch better not try anything funny...' As per usual, Elizabeth went off to draw her own conclusion as to what others were thinking. This time, she conflated the ”fun little game,” Sophie thought of with an excuse to bully her. Still, even with her pessimistic outlook, she didn't decline Sophie's proposal to spar. After all, more than anything, what Elizabeth needed to learn at the moment was how best to defend herself. While others in her position might think about first developing their skills with weapons — like her guns and sword — Elizabeth couldn't stand but first improve her most basic weapon; her body.

Sure, being a proficient blade or gun user would improve her strength and security, but what use was there in training all those external forms of support when her body's ability wasn't up to par? Should she ever find herself without her weapons, what was she to do? Give up? Running away would be the best option in those cases to search for her weapons. Yet, she couldn't confidently say that for every possible instance where she met danger without her weapons she could easily run away. What if she were ambushed like the first time she entered the Shadow Realm? Granted, the main reason she suffered so greatly back then was her own obliviousness, but the logic held fast when applied to situations in which she was prepared.

In any case, Elizabeth — as a previous no-life gamer — naturally knew to think ahead. Thus, for the moment she would place improving her skill in Muay Thai just under the importance of increasing her stats.

Elizabeth returned a chilling smile of her own as she said, ”Ok~” and after moving over to a sparring ring as she had previously done so with Jane, the life of sparring continued. Only, contrary to Jane, Sophie wasn't exactly the ”forgiving” and ”patient” type. Unlike when she practiced with Jane, Sophie actually fired back some counterattacks which obviously came as a surprise to Elizabeth as she had yet to actually fight anyone; all Jane had done in the past was to block and dodge.

The first couple times Sophie fought back and actually injured Elizabeth, the latter didn't take it too harshly; after all, this was a spar. But as the evening progressed and Sophie became increasingly violent, Elizabeth couldn't help have her mind wander to the depths of depravity as she thought of playing dirty and fighting back with Inner Strength.

At one moment specifically, after being dealt a harsh kick to the gut, Elizabeth had thoughts of bringing her Cold Flames to life and seeing how Sophie would like it if she were the one being ”played with.” Fortunately, Elizabeth had P working as her personal arbiter of reason, thus, just before Elizabeth threw caution to the wind and let her fury be known, P's calm voice echoed in her mind, saying, ”Don't get upset because you're weaker than her.”

”Huh?!” Elizabeth felt betrayed. Here she was getting repeatedly beaten down and her supposed partner was raising her enemy while condemning her for want revenge.

”Huh yourself! You only have your lack of experience to blame for losing on a consistent basis against her. Need I remind you that she's significantly stronger and more experienced than you? You really think she's trying her best to fight right now? Instead of being a baby, you should recognize whether you hate her or whatever, that she's honestly working the part of a sparring partner. Actually… If you think about it, she might even be better than Jane as she's actually getting you trained to defend as well as attack!”

”...” A vein threatened to pop on Elizabeth's forehead as her frustrations were at an all-time high. But, there was nothing she could say to refute P's words, as she understood from a fundamental level that Sophie was indeed playing nice — ”nice” being extraordinarily generous as an adjective to describe her treatment.

Elizabeth swallowed the bits of blood that had surfaced to her mouth after taking that last brutal kick as she silently got back up to her feet and returned to the cycle of constantly taking beating after beating. If her previous motivation from training with Jane led to her obsessing over training, then this sparring with Sophie turned that motivation into insanity.