Elizabeth sighed as she let her mind relax again, then she walked back to her campfire. She looked at the options her meal would come down to, and eventually decided to eat meat from the dog as she didn't want it to spoil. Quite ironic to see a silk-pants second generation brat like her behave frugally when it came down to shelf life; especially when she knew that she would leave the Shadow Realm in after a couple of hours.

Elizabeth recovered her Inner Strenght back to full capacity before she began cooking. Once again, she used the principles of her [Saintly Cooking] technique. She used Accuracy and Precision to gut the dog up into recognizable cuts of meat, Heat Control to manage the flames of her campfire for cooking, and lastly, Energy Integration to make the potential of the meal come to life.

When Elizabeth judged that the meat's internal temperature matched her preferred doneness— medium rare — she retrieved the dog's core and fully saturated it with her Inner Strenght before it shattered and fell onto the meat like salt. Unlike the circ.u.mstances during the time she made Tartare, this time, Elizabeth's use of the core, was completed before the meal was finished. Thus, even with the core being implemented as a garnish, because Elizabeth would continue using Energy Integration for another two or three seconds, in that time, the effects the core would grant to the meal would be exponentially better when compared to the Tartare meal.

[+100 Cooking Exp

Cooking Level 3 (905/1,750) → (1,005/1,750)

Status

Name: "Dog Meat" Steak

Grade: Low-tier Mortal Grade Meal

Description: Crafted by the user, this is a magical meal imbued with Inner Strength and various Sub-Basic level principles of the path of cooking. A very impressive "basic" steak; though it could be improved with spices and herbs...

Effects: For Level 10 or below: + 2 Strength + 2 Speed + 2 Endurance + 2 Defense + 2 Intelligence for 5 hours + 500 Inner Strength recovered, natural regeneration is mildly promoted, and some fatigue is alleviated.]

After successfully preparing her meal, Elizabeth took a stable-looking branch and held it over her campfire. As the meat rested, she burned the branch to sterilize it. The branch would act as a skewer for her as she didn't want to get covered in grease from eating without utensils.

A couple hours later, after getting over the phobia she had developed about eating from meat she had personally hunted, Elizabeth began to chow down with her branch and blade. Honestly, it was G.o.d-d.a.m.n delicious as no meat from a place as spiritual inept as Earth could compare with even the cheapest, least appealing meat from the Shadow Realm.

To Elizabeth, who had started tempering her body with Inner Strenght, consequently improving all her senses — including her sense of taste. The magical meal before her tasted just as good, if not better, than anything some fancy schmancy Five-Star Restaurant from Earth could present her.

Elizabeth ate in the most civilized manner someone without a knife and fork could. As she did so, she thought about what to do next; after actively healing herself with Acupoint of course. With the energy she recovered from eating, conducting a breakthrough wouldn't take more than a thought. Though, in her opinion, it would be better to save that event for when she was preparing to leave, as the unG.o.dly smell the byproducts released from her breakthrough in this final phase of the Mortal Stage would surely be horrific to the max.

In the meantime, she could use that Beginner Forging Kit she recently earned to start ma.s.s producing quality bullets. There was also the issue of reforging her Beginner Armor Set into something — anything really — that could actually help her, as its current iteration was nothing more than some loose fabric neatly covering her up.

When Elizabeth thought about how badly she misunderstood the idea of her Armor giving her +20 Defense as well as its more realistic degree of benefit to her… her face lit up with red as embarra.s.sment and self-spite clouded her heart. Yes, the armor did in fact state that it would give her a +20 buff, it even specified that it would only cover +5 to four key areas on her body. But that only applied to the areas that were actually in between her body and the attacks…

If say, three sneaky doggies managed to completely avoid biting or clawing at the red fabric that made up her Armor Set and instead directly targeted her exposed flesh, for example… Then there wouldn't even be a point to wearing it in the first place! Elizabeth really did wish there was a nearby hole for her to bury herself in, as this "slight" oversight could have caused her to die in the most pitiful manner conceivable.

When she looked down at the scarred and still-healing tissue around her arm, leg, and hip, the thought that all of it could have been just some scratches and bruises had she truly possessed about 40 units of Defense left her in mild depression and even with some hatred.

'f.u.c.k me! This is bulls.h.i.+t!' Elizabeth thought as she flinched from tracing the areas of her wounds with her fingers. She continued on with her internal tirade, thinking 'The situation wouldn't have turned out this badly if I had come better prepared. If I'd take this more seriously maybe I wouldn't have had to eat raw dog meat! Hmph! Even then, it all comes down to experience OR strength… If only I'd come a bit stronger, then the teeth and claws of those s.h.i.+tty dogs would have been like mosquito bites.'

She finished her meal and after the effects of her meal manifested, she got down to the Acupoint deployment she had been waiting for all this time. Starting with the area around her waist and then working on her arm followed lastly by her leg, Elizabeth healed herself in less than thirty minutes. Her swift recovery came in part because she treated herself, thus not needing to resonate with foreign energy. Yet the biggest contributor to her rapid restoration had to be the constant regeneration imparted from the Tartare, as it had been in effect for well over five hours before any active healing even took place.

Furthermore, because her most recent meal also came with mild regeneration, Elizabeth didn't fully heal the scars left from her battle. She left the last phase of healing to the effects of her Steak meal and looked over her status to accept the Beginner Forging Kit.

[Rewards:

...

Beginner Forging Kit

Description: Tis but a meek little mini forging station. Kind of useless to people even at the later stages of the Mortal Realm, but don't complain! Hmph! It's better than having nothing!

Would you like to accept this item? Yes/No?

WARNING: After materializing, no items granted by reward functions can be withdrawn.]

"I don't know… Should I materialize the forging station in this cave? Or should I wait to bring it elsewhere..." Elizabeth asked her definitely loyal and "always-communicative" personal divine guide.

"Sure. Not to bust your chops, but this Beginner Forging Kit is REALLY small. You could probably carry it with you around the Shadow Realm even with your subpar strength."

"Mhmm..." Elizabeth squinted her eyes at the comment about her being weak, but she didn't let it get to her head; she already knew it to be true. She accepted the reward, and before the flaming campfire, a bunch of tools started materializing.

Of the tools condensing out of thin air, the ones that instantly attracted her attention had to be the staples of the forging path. They were the two most iconic tools a.s.sociated with smithing and forging: the hammer and anvil. Granted, the anvil was not very impressive or inspiring to look at; instead, looking to be something a kid would play pretend with… The hammer, on the other hand, was much more intimidating as it was inscribed with all sorts of fancy inscriptions; just like her acupuncture needles.

Speaking of inscriptions, alongside the hammer and anvil, a whole array of chisels, tongs, and inscribing pens also manifested as a part of the Beginner Forging Kit. Then at the very end, something that truly baffled Elizabeth appeared. It was an item that came with the Kit, yet Elizabeth, even with her knowledge of the forging path — granted by [Saintly Forging] of all things — had absolutely no clue what it was that she was looking at.

Elizabeth could only describe the item to look almost like a speaker from Earth. It was a rectangular box with disk-shaped chunks carved in. The "speaker" was completely black and there didn't seem to be any connection between it and anything remotely close to forging. But, before Elizabeth could even ask, P was already rearing up to give an explanation.

P said, "That's your furnace."

Elizabeth looked at the "furnace" in her hands and then to the image a traditional furnace inspired in her thoughts, and the two didn't line up at all…

Thankfully, P continued with her explanation, saying "Yeah… obviously a true furnace wouldn't just be given to you in a Beginner Kit. Never mind the fact that you wouldn't be able to handle it with your current level of skill in forging. You think I would recommend you summon a real furnace to this s.h.i.+thole?"

"..." After an awkward pause, P continued "That little box in your hand is a mini forge. Just like a real furnace you can infuse your Inner Strength and Magic within to create and control a forging flame. The only difference, being that the level of control and the strength of the flames this little guy can handle are but a joke to even the most worthless real furnaces..."

With that explanation out of the way, Elizabeth marveled at how seemingly inconsiderate P was, as she seemed to have developed a kink for shaming her ever since she settled down in her cave. She tried thinking of what made the usually straightforward P so pa.s.sive-aggressive, but when recalling that P was literally a G.o.d, Elizabeth stopped her exercise in futility and started fooling around with her tools in an effort to practice before starting a night forging session.