6 Leaving Her Domain (Revised)
Having just concluded her first shower, Elizabeth toweled herself dry feeling much more awkward and embarrassed than she anticipated.
'Damn, I guess this means I'm not an asexual monster,' She thought as she carefully appreciated her new body.
Before now, the closest thing to sexual attraction that she had experienced came from her understanding of human body language and culture. Though, looking at her naked body now...
'This... this might take some getting used to,' Elizabeth thought.
She felt a twitch run through her right eye as she further thought, 'This is definitely going to bring me problems, isn't it?'
She knew what she looked like and to put it mildly, she was gorgeous. Even an idiot would know that generally, fat boys were treated completely different than supermodel-like girls.
'Guys better fucking control themselves around me,' Elizabeth squinted her eyes. Without P's direction, she had found a reason to take cultivation seriously.
Returning to her room covered up by only her towel, Elizabeth cringed. She looked at the tar-like black mess coating the spot she had meditated atop her bed on and sighed.
"Note to self," she said, "Don't cultivate on the bed until I get rid of all my body's impurities."
She changed the sheets and sat on her bed before checking the update to her Status.
[Status
Name: Elizabeth Ultimatia
Level: 0 (0/5)
Rank: Non-Practitioner
Sex: Female
Strength: 10
Endurance: 10
Speed: 21
Defense: 10
Intelligence: 20
Luck: 10
Inner Strength: 54/54
Innate Skills:
Name: Inner Strength Conversion
Grade: F
Description: Near-universally learned by Non-Practitioners aiming to enter the Mortal Realm and begin cultivation as Practitioners, Inner Strength Conversion allows its users the ability to permanently increase their physical abilities with the expenditure of Inner Strength. Activating the ability while doing different activities will yield different outcomes for different Stats.
Current Effect: Depends on the activities and intensity of training, the user's Intelligence Stat, and Inner Strength Energy expended.]
"Zero and five?" She mused, looking at the numbers in parentheses next to her Level.
"The first number indicates the level you may directly rise to when all your parameters rise to the prerequisite, while the second number represents the Level at least one of your parameters has reached. If you were a regular person trying to cultivate perhaps only the second number would matter," P explained.
She continued, "However, you aren't a common Cultivator. You're my Chosen, so I expect nothing but the best from you. You may only Level Up when the foundation you lay in each Stage of Cultivation is deep enough to reach Godhood."
Elizabeth asked, "So technically, I can increase my Stage before reaching its intended Level, but doing so would be lowering my level cap?"
"Yes..." P's voice indicated a degree of cringe as she said, "You can rush through the process of cultivation if you want, but the more steps you skip and the less solid your foundation, the more likely it is for your cultivation to eventually stagnate. Following your analogy, you would effectively be capping your Level."
"Welp, guess I just have to follow your system of progression. The worst thing that can happen to you is failing to prepare early for the endgame," Elizabeth concluded.
She had just come to terms with all the absurdity revolving around her life and would be damned to not take cultivation as seriously as her games.
'Only an idiot would level cap themselves,' she assured herself.
[Quest Alert!
Side Quest 2: Get More Clothes!
Difficulty: F-
Objective 1) Leave your domain (house).
Objective 2) Buy more sets of clothes for your new female form.
Optional Objective 1) Buy at least seven sets of clothes.
Description: P wants you to start changing your ways while also solving your most pressing issue at the same time. Unless you plan to never leave your house again and/or only wear your Beginner Armor Set perpetually, you better shape up, leave your home, venture out in one of the local commercial districts, and go shopping for clothes.
Deadline: 11H 59M 59S]
"Can I like... not?" Elizabeth asked.
"Sure," P responded with unexpected passivity. "I know what you're thinking. You can certainly order your clothes from the internet and have them delivered before the deadline expires. To complete the Quest's first objective all you have to do is physically leave your house if only for a moment."
Elizabeth asked, "Uh... Then, why go out of your way to add those details to the Quest in the first place?"
Elizabeth could almost see P shrug from the way she said, "Honestly, the Side Quest is more a formality for me to give you some important... Well, let's just call them materials. You need to complete a Quest to get them in the first place, and I think this would be a good way for you to start adapting to your new life."
"Exploiting the system, are we?" Elizabeth smirked.
"It's impossible to exploit your Goldfinger," P replied a bit too seriously for Elizabeth to continue joking.
P continued, "You get rewarded for the difficulty of the Quests you manage to complete and punished for not being able to complete Quests. What I intend to reward you with isn't a supreme ability, nor an invaluable treasure. But for your current, weak and ignorant, state, the reward will be more than worth your while."
"Hmm," Elizabeth groaned as she thought, 'I should just get this over with. I'm going to have to leave the house and talk to people now, anyway.'
'Besides,' Elizabeth's eyes narrowed, 'it's not like I'm doing this for nothing. I just hope the reward truly is worth the effort.'
She stopped her procrastination and opted to clothe herself with her Beginner Armor Set. It was the only thing in her possession that actually fit her body.
Moreover, for an "Armor Set," the clothes were relatively fashionable. Not only did she not look out of place wearing the dress, but it's color scheme instead complimented her looks in a way that seemed natural.
Unfortunately, Elizabeth didn't have underwear or shoes. She begrudgingly accepted having to wear her male counterpart's oversized briefs and sneakers if only for this trip to the world outside her "domain."
After finally clothing herself, Elizabeth took her phone and wallet before leaving the house. She stood before the gates to her mansion of a home for a moment to take in the remarkably unfamiliar sight; consequently, evoking a memory she found inherently sad.
'Damn, when was the last time I went outside? Was it last year, during fall? I think it was for a family dinner or something,' She thought.
Adrian only left the house when he absolutely had to. Since elementary school, he had been homeschooled. He disliked anything that could remotely disturb the game-obsessed life he lived.
"Tsk," Elizabeth clicked her tongue at the thought.
She searched for the nearest clothing outlet with her phone and thought, 'Two miles? If I actually had shoes, I might have been able to test my Inner Strength Conversion Skill.'
Pocketing her phone away, she stretched and thought, 'I don't think I've covered two miles in the last half a decade, but with this new body it shouldn't be a problem.'
"I hope," she added before beginning her journey.
For the first half a mile, Elizabeth passed by mansion after mansion until she finally walked out of Quince Island. Most people might have grown annoyed or at the very least concerned seeing that the road ended past the bridge connecting the freeway to the island, but Elizabeth didn't even bat an eye.
She simply disregarded everything and everyone on her path as she walked about another mile and a half, next to the bike lane on the asphalt roads.
Upon leaving the asphalt, Elizabeth made it to the commercial district of her hometown; Miami Beach.
As a major tourist hub, especially in the summer, the place was loaded with people and places to spend money. Thus, it was almost immediately after leaving the freeway that Elizabeth found her destination.
'Damn, that was boring,' Elizabeth complained internally as she looked at the stores in the shopping plaza.
'I'm glad my unfit, er... maybe not unfit, but untrained body managed to easily cross the two miles, but next time I should bring something with me to make the journey less monotonous. I should get some earbuds,' she mused.
"Tsk," she clicked her tongue in frustration after a minute passed.
She muttered, "Fuck if I know where girls go to shop. I'd have better luck walking around until I find a store with feminine clothes than standing around here guessing."
Miraculously, though she recalled she could find the closest shopping district to her home with her phone and the internet, it didn't even cross her mind to search for brands that girls wore and then look up nearby stores.
