72 Internal Refinemen

"Hey Sun, care to show me where you get your equipment?" Evidently, Sun had chosen to meditate outside of his room and by the training area. Logically speaking, that kind of choice was a fool's errand; especially since he was still a greenhorn newbie. But, even after thinking along these lines, Elizabeth didn't bring it up as Sun had shown signs of someone entering meditation; at least before she bothered him that is…

"Uh… sure, follow me~" Sun came off about zoned out as he had been interrupted just before entering meditation by himself for the first time. Though he didn't get mad at Elizabeth, as in all honesty, he'd probably let her get away with doing just about anything to him at this point. Sun took Elizabeth outside of the training area in the ground floor and lead her to… a basement?

In Florida, in general, it was hard to find buildings with basements, never mind the fact that Atid's Dojo was extremely close to Miami Beach, therefore close to the eastern American Coastline. Curious as can be, Elizabeth asked, "Um… Isn't it like dangerous to have a basement because of the aquifer underground?"

"That's only part of the reason there normally aren't basements built here. Without getting too technical, the water table for most of Florida is extremely high, meaning the level where the ground starts to get saturated with water is very close to the surface level. Now, even if we weren't affiliated with the Martial Society it's still possible to build a basement in place with high water tables. Thus, with connections to people like Gianluca, we can easily dig out a decently sized basement."

Unfortunately, Sun undersold the sheer size of the dojo's basement by merely calling it "decently sized," as Elizabeth roughly estimated Floor -1 to be a couple hundred square meters large — Yes, Floor -1 meaning she could see more stairs leading to even deeper levels underground…

Sun brought Elizabeth over to a stockpile of equipment and introduced her to pieces he used as well as the ones he knew Jane used as well. All the equipment suitable for Sun were lined with unique black stripes, while the equipment Jane had been using was line with red and black interlaced stripes.

Elizabeth took one of the pieces of gear suitable for Sun and compared it with a near identical copy she found except at a higher tier.

[Status

Name: Pawn-Specific Training Arm Weights

Grade: D

Defense: +10 Defense

Special Effect: Weight Suppression (Neutral Pressure ranging upto 50kg per arm)

Description: Created out of a non-spiritual iron alloy and refined for durability, these pair of arm weights can technically be used as arm guards, though their intended uses are for resistance training at the Pawn Stage. The "Special Effect" comes from the terribly drawn Neutral Resistance Enchantment and Storage Enchantment combo. Not sure whether to call it genius or stupid beyond belief, the creator of this gear actually managed to salvage the effects of the worst possible Neutral Resistance Enchantment by supporting it with a more complete Storage Enchantment inscriptions. Though its borders on collapse, somehow, the overall inscription system works out fine enough…

Name: Soldier-Specific Training Arm Weights

Grade: C

Defense: +25 Defense

Special Effect: Weight Suppression (Neutral Pressure ranging up to 200kg per arm)

Description: Weights near-identical to the Pawn-Specific Training Arm Weights, the only difference being the "completion" of the Neutral Resistance Enchantment. This piece of gear, while still admittedly terrible when compared to what it could be with even mediocre enchantments, is a decent improvement to the Pawn-Specific Variant. At least these weights need not rely on Storage Enchantments to not collapse under their own needless convolution and haphazard design.]

'Ay~ To think my first guess was actually correct! I still have no clue how Neutral Enchantments manage to exist when the Storage Enchantments are already so terrible. Mhmm? I should stop wasting time thinking these useless thoughts...' For once, Elizabeth wasn't too curious on a mystery as even if she didn't know why Neutral Resistance Enchantments existed when even Storage Enchantments were on the difficult side of Enchanting for Earth's Martial Society, she already knew all there was to know about creating these kinds of Mortal Grade Neutral Enchantments; it didn't matter if one talked about Storage or Neutral Resistance, Elizabeth would surely bring utter ruin to those that dared to test her knowledge of either case.

Elizabeth picked up her own set of equipment and returned to the ground floor to set up her new training station. She made multiple trips to the basement to get everything set up as Atid already gave her permission to put her special equipment in storage for daily use and after everything was prepped and ready to go, Elizabeth once more thrust herself into the depths of hell; this time it wasn't just her spirit that had to weather torturous levels of pain.

Recalling Godking Gabriel's Book of Ice and Fire, Elizabeth started channeling fire-type Inner Strength through the Yang Governing Meridians across her body while ice-type Inner Strength coursed through her Yin Governing Meridians. It was an extreme understatement to describe her current state as uncomfortable as half her body felt like was boiling and the other submerged in a lake of arctic condition.

But, the pain was well worth its return in gains to her strength as she could feel in every moment she stuck with body refining method, her body becoming stronger. Eventually, she got acclimated to being in that state of internal refinement as she prepared to move on and train her Muay Thai on top of everything else. Sadly, for this first time she applied the refining method in practice, she looked extremely pitiful as she appeared to be an anemic patient on the verge of collapse, during the time she tried adapting to moving whilst conducting internal refinement. With a pale complexion and her pores practically pouring out sweat as a result of the horrifying battle taking place underneath the surface, Elizabeth looked even less experienced than her first day at the dojo, when she learned the basics of Muay Thai from Sun.

Fortunately for her psyche, the body refining method of ice and fire took ridiculous amounts of Inner Strength to generate ever-increasingly potent pulses of Ice and Fire. Thus, even with her new and impressive 4,750 units Inner Strength, she could only persist for around two and a half hours. This time would only get shorter and shorter as her body became stronger and required even more energy to keep up the pace. Yet if the results of those "short" 150 minutes of training were made public, they would cause a storm in the Martial Society on a global scale…

Elizabeth didn't check her status just yet, as her attention was fully captured after Jane popped out of some random corner right after she stopped to take a break and asked if she wanted to spar. Spar? Elizabeth would jump for joy if her reserves of Inner Strength and body weren't exhausted right before the point of collapse. She said, "Give me a couple minutes," before a lengthy 15-minute long session of meditation and acupoint treatment was applied and she felt ready to tackle the now Warrior-Stage Jane.

For the spar with Jane, Elizabeth stopped with her internal ice and fire refinement and instead activated the Pawn-Specific Training Armor set she'd previously picked up from the basement. Made up of Arm, Leg, and Core weights, Elizabeth could summon up to 400kg — 50kg max to each arm and leg weight and 200kg on a type of chest armor — of suppressive weight to add several times the amount of productivity to her workouts. Unfortunately, a spar, especially with someone much stronger than her at the moment, was a terrible time to be using weight training and Jane let Elizabeth know it.

Jane said, "What are you doing?" She resisted the urge to berate Elizabeth for making such a dumb choice and instead tried to explain why her idea was counterintuitive.

"Huh? I'm training with these weights to get the most amount of training as I possibly can."

"That would only work out if you were several times stronger or more skillful than me as you could justify a handicap then. But at the moment, you're nowhere near my level and the best use of our sparring is for you to fight me with all your ability. Remember, sparring, unlike regular training, is geared towards developing skill, not strength..."

Elizabeth nodded her head as she understood where the logic on her part failed, and after tossing aside the Training Gear, her second sparring session with Jane began. Now, because of Elizabeth recent breakthroughs in strength even if she was still rather new to martial arts, the sheer speed and strength behind her punches made her look like a battle-hardened veteran. Of course, her impressive physical abilities displayed when compared to Atid and Luca fighting where nowhere close to being comparable. So, even if she was fighting impressively, it wasn't something straight out of the supernatural.

Elizabeth fought Jane and achieved about as much progress as she did the last time they sparred. Not once was she even close to breaking Jane's guard as all her punches, kicks, elbows, and knees were either checked, redirected, or interrupted. However, the subsequent failures her efforts yielded didn't put Elizabeth down as she knew that Jane was close to three times stronger than her, and that was without accounting for Qi and Inner Strength.