Born in Blood

Liam heaved a long, long sigh after the events of the sixth Trial were done with.

The migraines.

The constant repetitions.

The loss of limbs and bodily organs.

The damn boulders!

Liam despised boulders now. 

'If I ever see a big rock in the open again, I'm gonna crush it into rubble,' Liam thought with furrowed brows.

A sudden rumble shook the fake dimension. 

Liam felt the ground shake, almost throwing him to the side, but his feet were firmly placed to the ground.

Liam cursed.

Slowly, the fake dimension stabilized. 

Opposite him, the seventh Trial gate opened. 

Then came Eternal Sword's voice. It was deeper now. Glitchier and distorted:

"When o-one is given a blessing, they must use it t-to th-the full-full-fullest p-potential."

'Damn it, it's getting worse and worse!' Liam cursed inwardly. 'What am I gonna see in the next Trial?'

The last thing he wanted to die to was an inheritance error.

For now, Liam put those thoughts aside.

Right now, he had a massive problem to worry about.

Last Trial, he received nothing as a reward.

He felt a pang of regret and spiritual pain when that happened.

Now, Liam held his breath.

'If it happens again, I'm using Void and tearing a hole through this place to escape.' 

'If I don't receive a reward now, I probably won't receive any in future Trials,' Liam thought with furrowed brows.

Liam didn't throw away the idea of escaping once and for all.

He didn't test it yet… but he was sure that Void was able to poke a hole through the fake dimension's invisible walls.

It cut through air and matter itself.

Everything else was also susceptible to its deletion.

So, if everything went belly up, Liam wasn't going to take any chances.

Ten seconds of silence passed.

Something started to emerge from the grass!

Liam almost heaved a sigh of relief, but he waited to confirm what it was. 

Slowly, his multi-colored eyes widened with shock.

A lovely marble dais emerged from the ground.

…But on its surface were two blinding white runes instead of one!

Liam got twice the profit!

Not to mention, surrounding the dais were 4 different pills!

Their pungent bitter, sweet and sour smells permeated the air. 

Each one of them looked different to one another.

One of them looked like it was made from jade. 

Another one looked golden with ornate designs on its surface. 

A third was purely black. 

A fourth was purely white.

Liam approached the dais with a greedy glimmer in his eyes and a wicked grin on his lips.

It was about damn time he was rewarded!

Gently, he picked up the runes and crushed them one after the other.

One half of the motes of light melted in Liam's sea of consciousness.

But the other half didn't.

Instead, it reformed into a line and solidified inside Liam's mental sphere!

Then, it turned as sharp as a blade!

Inside Liam's head!

Liam grumbled.

He didn't like where this was going.

As if answering the bad feeling he had, the motes of light lurched at the golden barrier of Liam's mind.

SHING!

Liam fell to his knees with a jolt of pain.

Surprisingly, even his eyes went bloodshot, which they usually never did.

That's how badly it hurt.

Liam felt like someone incised a portion of his brain.

It felt dreadful.

A full hour passed of Liam simply clutching his head in pain.

Most of his mental energy had regressed in volume due to the pressure it faced.

By now, half a quarter remained of the full amount.

But slowly, the agony dimmed. 

At the same time, the slash caused by the motes of light slowly settled on Liam's golden barrier wall. 

It was one with Liam's mind.

Liam stumbled to his feet and let out a long groan.

When the pain became bearable, Liam felt the urge to smile, but didn't.

What happened?

Well, the two techniques Liam received were pretty good in their own right.

The first was the one that melted in his mind.

The technique was called 'Hone.'

Liam raised his right hand.

WHOSH!

It surged with glowing dark flames, dancing wildly in his palm.

Ever since Liam had advanced to the liquid-stage of the third Rank, his darkness lasted way longer.

It could linger on a wound for minutes even, without puffing out.

It even had an eerie black glow to it, like a real flame.

Liam used Hone.

Suddenly, the dark flames on Liam's hand constricted to a different form. 

It grew vertical and narrow, turning into a slash!

Liam inspected the piece of darkness.

It was still made from a mixture of gaseous and liquid darkness.

But it had turned incredibly sharp. 

Liam could hold and handle the piece of sharpened darkness like it was an actual solid.

Liam threw the slash forward.

As it made contact with the ground, it exploded into a wad of flames, lingering for a few minutes, before gradually puffing away.

It was a Rank 3 liquid-stage attack, just like that.

It could even rival a spell!

But it didn't end there.

Liam cut off a bit of his mental energy and put it in front of himself.

With the King's Eye, Liam added a bit of iridescent color into the mental waves.

Then, he used Hone.

Slowly, Liam's mental energy became a blade!

With it, he could not cut the flesh.

But he could cut the mind!

Hone basically meant that anything that was material and mendable, Liam could make it sharp.

That included his chaos and Void.

Liam raised his hand and a ball of chaos shrieked in the air.

Using Hone, the chaotic energies were forcibly turned into a mini-sized slash. 

ZZZZ!

Although the edge was slightly sharp, chaos was too volatile to be used for cutting.

Liam threw it at a patch of grass. 

As it soared the air, it created a loud buzzing noise.

BOOM!

The slash exploded.

Hone, on its own, wasn't that strong. 

Sure, it allowed anything to attain a sharp quality. 

But that was the extent of it. 

Just sharpness.

However, it also grew alongside Liam's centers of power!