Elizabeth was right about the training being exhausting and painful. And the fact that she was being put through a lighter regiment, for now, than what Maria had to go through was both comforting and filled her with dread for the future. While Maria proved to be a great Hunter and trainer, she was also gentle enough to give her apprentice time to recover and helped her out when needed.
The two sparred with each other rather regularly, honing Elizabeth's skill to wield the Reiterpallasch, even though the hidden gun was never actually loaded with live ammunition, only gunpowder. Maria was of course always holding back, not wanting to kill her apprentice in their sparrs. The young Blood Mage had also gotten used to wearing and using the Vileblood Prosthetic, occasionally using it in combat to either catch and redirect the blades of the Rakuyo, or simply deliver a really hard punch into the Hunter's gut. Which usually caused the two to take a short break, mostly so that Maria could recover from getting the wind blown out, usually while muttering that she should have seen the punch coming.
It was during one of these sparring matches that the two accidentally discovered something unique about Elizabeth's Blood Magic. A unique ability in her blood (literally) that was given the name of Bloodborne Bomber. The ability made any of Elizabeth's blood that left her body become highly explosive, effectively turning her bloodstains into remotely detonated bombs. An ability that Maria couldn't help but compare to an ability of her own known as Bloodborne Inferno, which caused the Hunter's blood to combust. Maria's final ace in the hole. While she was very reluctant to use the Blood Arts of the Cainhurst Vilebloods in combat, she was however pragmatic enough to see it as an ace in the hole, something to only be used when everything was on the line and no other option was available. Which actually made sense since the continued use of the ability required the Hunter to keep on bleeding, hopefully killing the enemy before bleeding out. Elizabeth asked Maria at one point if there ever existed a Blood Mage in Cainhurst who's final trump card was a suicide attack, intended to take as many enemies down with the user, to which the Hunter responded that she didn't know. Seeing Elizabeth's thoughtful expression, the Hunter told her apprentice that such a trick could be a good truly final trump card, but something that should be the absolutely final option. And considering that Elizabeth's unique ability was called Bloodborne Bomber, it was rather obvious what that truly final trump card would be.
But the Hunter and apprentice didn't only spend time training. The two went down to the village, which was revealed to be named Lordran, on occasion and made the acquaintance with the people living there, who while initially sceptical about the new residents in the old mansion happily accepted the two when Maria and Elizabeth successfully wiped out a small pack of werewolves who had been terrorizing the town for some time. Even if Maria did most of the work with her apprentice only killing one werewolf using her Reiterpallasch to shoot it in the head through the right eye. When they weren't spending time in the village, the Hunter and her apprentice were trading stories, even if it was mostly Maria telling Elizabeth about some of her hunts, rather selectively picking the ones that had, in hindsight, rather epic battles against Beasts. Something that actually surprised Maria was the revelation that Elizabeth was adopted into the Potter-family as a baby through blood adoption, which actually explained the young Blood Mage's unusual appearance.
Elizabeth's hair was a strange mix of both a pale blond, not unlike Maria's own hair, and pitch black, which was usually kept in a short braid, the mixture of colors resulting in a pale blonde and pitch black pattern. Something that might not necessarily be considered unusual but definitely rare was Elizabeth's eye color, a bluish green. Maria suspected the mixed colors of the hair was caused by Elizabeth's status as a Blood Mage, being resistant to Blood Magic that she herself didn't use. And that resistance to Blood Magic caused… interesting effects when the Blood Mage was subjected to rituals that fell into the category of Blood Magic, like the blood adoption ritual. A common change that the blood adoption ritual caused was a change in hair-, eye- and skin color. Without the blood adoption ritual, Elizabeth's hair would most likely have been either completely pale blond or pitch black and her eyes completely pale blue or green, depending on which colors was the Blood Mage's original colors.
Though something that made Maria feel quite uncomfortable was the fact that Elizabeth woke the Hunter up in the middle of the night and asked if she could spend the rest of the night with Maria after having a nightmare on more than a few occasions. The fact that the Hunter didn't really mind seriously confused Maria, wondering where the strange feeling was that she felt whenever she saw her apprentice fall asleep peacefully next to her with an expression of content on her face. Whatever the feeling was, the Hunter couldn't help but quietly admit that it was a rather nice feeling.