That fire… it taunted her, flickering with ever-hot wisps of heat, attempting to lick her as it concentrated and blazed with more and more Inner Strength fueling its potency. "Fire?" Elizabeth recalled that Sun was someone with fire affinity as she stared at the flames before her, and when she thought about her skills, something in her clicked, causing her face to turn downcast faster than a blink of an eye.

"..." Elizabeth stood quiet as her face gradually changed back to normal. She didn't resort to cursing this time, as her mind was more thankful for that annoying flame that taunted her back then. The critical error she had failed to pick up could have caused her much more time wasted had it not been for this moment of annoyance, so, more than anything, Elizabeth felt relief.

She voiced a quest through her mind, asking P, "Ay, quick question. Say I use my Trash-tier Elemental Affinity Stone to gain Trash-Tier Fire Affinity. After gaining affinity for fire, will I immediately gain better control for fires in my cooking and forging? Or do I first need to find a technique like [Temporal Meditation]?"

"Huh? You're finally starting to think for yourself? Wowzers~"

'Wowzers? What the f.u.c.k kind of G.o.ddess...' Elizabeth stopped with her treacherous thoughts as a familiar deathly pressure began to descend on her.

"Anyway… Yeah, using up that stone to get fire affinity would definitely lead to your abilities in controlling fire to increase exponentially. However, it would be even better if you had a fire-type technique or training manual to continue developing fire abilities. But, as a word of caution, You'd best think twice about how you're dividing up your time… The more time you spend on supplementary activities, the less time you have for training and cultivation."

"Tsk!" Elizabeth clicked her tongue as she looked down on P. 'Isn't the stone suppose to be a cheat? I'd be an idiot to keep such a heavenly consumable lying around and collecting dust when its use is in high demand!'

She brought up her Status Overview, went over to the rewards pending page, and accepted the Trash-Tier Elemental Affinity Stone. When confirming its materialization, the option to pick what type of element arose. Naturally, she chose fire-type affinity, and within seconds, a very ugly dark-red stone took form atop the table where Elizabeth sat by.

Elizabeth took the stone into her hands, and her knowledge of forging materials highlighted a very serious problem. This stone was just a piece of Souljade, a type of rock that held recording properties. There was certainly some sort of fire-type material melded together with the Souljade, but it was very weak and hardly identifiable.

Elizabeth didn't understand how such a relatively normal piece of Souljade would be of much use to her. But, knowing its functions and how to operate then, she held the stone in her hand and infused it with her Inner Strength… Suddenly, time stopped and s.p.a.ce distorted. Before Elizabeth could react, she found herself in an isolated dimension and the only thing she could concentrate on was the horrific heat surrounding her.

"f.u.c.k!!!" Elizabeth's habit of cursing came cras.h.i.+ng back to life after she tried using Inner Strength to defend herself. Alas, her body seemed to have reverted back to square one; to back before she even changed to a girl, and was but a worthlessly average mortal. Without Inner Strength to her name or even a decently trained body, the heat surrounding her felt unbearable as Elizabeth could almost feel her blood evaporate as her skin burned and peeled away.

With searing pain and that ever-familiar threat of death coming back to haunt her, Elizabeth sunk back down to react on instincts. Yet no matter where she moved to, no matter what she looked for, no matter how hard she thought. Absolutely nothing she did seemed to remedy the situation. Thus, for a torturously long period of time, she moved through the fire and the flames doing anything and everything in her seemingly nonexistent power to escape.

Eventually, Elizabeth realized that she wasn't actually dying; she wasn't even harmed in the slightest. Only the pain and experience of being tossed in blazing flames was concretely real. She realized this after are instinctual persona let up a bit and reason came back to her. At that moment, she understood that while her body had reverted back to powerless, her comprehension and perception of reality stood untamed; the recently acquired Timeworn Eyes were completely unrestrained.

So, with reason slowly but surely commanding more and more of her actions, Elizabeth began to calm down and try to focus on the pain instead of trying to avoid it. Subconsciously, she had all but deduced that she would only leave this h.e.l.lhole after using the tempering experience to rise her affinity with fire through comprehension, as her conscious mind was completely devoid

of distracting thoughts.

Still, even though her thoughts were focused on trying to feel out the heat around her, that internal clock of hers was keeping track of time, which from a psychological perspective, brought along various demerits. Her frustration and insanity could be imagined as the hours turned into days and her pain barely diffused. She was certainly improving her understanding of fire, but knowing how slow she was progressing probably made her lose focus more than she would have had her internal clock not kept reminding her of the seemingly endless suffering she had yet to go through.

The days turned to months and the pain kept decreasing. Well, to Elizabeth who had grown used to to the h.e.l.lscape, it could have been that or perhaps her weathered mind was losing its edge and the damage hadn't decreased at all; just her mind having grown numb… Thoughts like these were what slowed down the progression of her advancement in becoming familiar with fire. Yet, throughout the whole ordeal, Elizabeth never fully broke down by the madness of it all. It was awfully tempting to just rage at her circ.u.mstances and lose her reason; especially since there wasn't anything around her she could use to cope with.

But, for 159 days or so, of constant burning pain, Elizabeth persisted through it all. In the final moments stuck in the h.e.l.l that had trapped her for months, she finally lost all feeling of pain from being held in the blazing isolated dimension. Yet, before she could even celebrate the peace she had sought after all this time, she found herself back to where it all began; in her room at the dojo, halfway through the day, and with the now crumbling Souljade "Fire Elemental Affinity Stone" turning into dust in the palm of her hand.

"..." For a moment, Elizabeth became paralyzed as her internal clock on earth clashed with the acc.u.mulated time she had spent in the isolated dimension. But, after sorting out the c.h.i.n.ks in her perception of time, to Elizabeth's amazement, absolutely no time had pa.s.sed at all!

Before Elizabeth could think any more into what she had just gone through, P's voice sounded off saying, "159 Days? Shoot, you're pretty good. Maybe it's not a bad idea to spare some time for fire training after all?" Oddly enough, P's voice was void of any sarcasm or criticism. In fact, she actually sounded a bit proud of Elizabeth.

"What? 159 Days is pretty good? Were you actually expecting me to stick around in that h.e.l.lhole for even longer than that?!?!" Elizabeth had just now left the place that had tortured her for what she had counted to be around five months. She wasn't exactly thinking with as much calm and collection present to her normal self, and the reason was evident and justifiable.

"Huh? You think 159 Days ain't s.h.i.+t? Let's recap what just transpired, ok?" Without waiting for Elizabeth to respond, P continued saying, "You used up the Fire Elemental Affinity Stone without ANY supplementary help to finish the Souljade's trial. Not only do you not have any techniques that would help you understand fire at a quicker pace; something like the mantras and pa.s.sages of [Spatial Meditation] or [Temporal Meditation].

You didn't even take a year to understand Trash-tier levels of Fire application, with nothing to go by! Do you understand? That's pretty insane even for Martial Ancestors, the people who created martial arts in the first place! Granted, Martial Ancestors had it tougher than you, given they didn't have trials like the one you completed to protect them while they pioneered martial arts… But, it's still very impressive to say the least!"

As P's voice completely faded away, a notification brought Elizabeth out of her thoughts.

[Alert! Breakthrough in Affinity!!!

Innate Skills:

*New) Fire Affinity

Tier: Trash-tier

Description: Now possessing the ability to generate fire energy/magic, active fire skills and spells are usable.

Current Effect: Cultivation of energy remains unimpeded until Level 10. Low Mortal Grade Fire-type buffs are 50% more potent.

*New) Touch Of Temp

Description: Having turned much more sensitive towards the presence of fire and its energy, the user has developed a natural sense for where there may be flames, as well as how to better control both internal personal fire and external hostile fire.

Current Effect: Fire energy control and sensitivity increase exponentially for every new level of fire-type affinity the user reaches.]