Born in Blood



Once again, Liam began his search for more diamond flowers, indifferent to the insults and curses hurled behind his back.

It didn't take long for him to find another faint trail of 'Ora', cleverly hidden behind lush trees. 

Throughout the next hour or so, Liam had accumulated more than 6 White Gems. 

Honestly, Liam had much more trouble with the magical beasts surrounding the flower than finding and extracting it. 

Not all the flowers resided in such convenient locations – others were guarded underneath tight spaces, some behind the web and nest of Spear Spiders, others underneath a swamp of Devouring Crocodiles. 

All the while, Liam had to constantly be on edge to avoid getting ensnared by the jungle vines.

…Thus, he concocted a smart but shrewd tactic. 

For the flowers that were close to being discovered by any nobles, Liam simply waited until they did, and took care of any of the hard work. 

Then, while they were busy fighting the magical beasts, he'd swoop in and steal the White Gems before their very eyes.

By then, Liam was used to being called every curse word imaginable – in response to which, he just laughed.

'Unlike everyone here, I have a cheat code.'

Another 4 hours passed. 

At that point, Liam had 17 gems in his ring, and enough enemies for multiple lifetimes.

By mistake, he'd actually shattered two of the crystal flowers, which occured due to his hastiness and excessive force.

Soon enough, a cold, rainy night was falling. The thick canopy of leaves amazingly started to reel in, withdrawing into the trees they grew from. 

'I'll have to find a place to camp in. There's still 48 hours left for the test's deadline, and something tells me this place is much more dangerous at night.'

With that, Liam's senses and exceptional sight scanned the surroundings for a good enough spot to camp in.

He settled for a large tree cavity, the inside of which contained enough icky bugs to make a man squirm.

Liam instantly filled the cavity with his darkness, vanquishing the countless bugs, before making his way through the tight entrance.

Rain began pattering over the wood Liam resided in, with the thunder rumbling violently in the air.

Liam's stomach eventually growled, but he'd already stored some dried badger meat prior to his camp.

'This is more than just a test for finding flowers. They want to test adaptability, strength, determination, intelligence and more. Maybe they had enough with nobles using their status haphazardly.'

The rest of the night concluded with smooth cultivation. All the while, the outside flooded with gushing tides of water.

Before long, the waters receded. 

Liam instantly exited the tree cavity and resumed his search for the flowers. 

Strangely, he noticed how the jungle vines and general plant life were much stronger and faster compared to the previous night.

Before, a single swing of his first form did the trick, but now, he needed to pair it with Lethality Mantle.

If that wasn't enough, the air was now difficult to breathe in – Liam had to resort to strengthening his lungs with 'Ora'.

Furthermore, the itch on his skin was just unbearable. Liam had to actively bite on his tongue in order not to scratch it and make the rashes worse.

'Was it the rain?' Liam wondered with a narrowed eye. 

As usual, a bad feeling grew in his chest. 'That means the next night, it'll be even harder to gather the flowers.'

That was the catalyst for Liam to work much harder to find the gems, becoming even more daring with how he extracted the flowers. 

'I'm sure nobles have scouting techniques they could use. No sweat, I still have time!'

///

Meanwhile, scattered all over the jungle, nobles and peasants formed groups to find gems and equally divide it amongst themselves. 

…However, they just couldn't find any. 

The first night, they had some initial luck with where they spawned, but even then, they only managed to gather two or three gems. 

It was when that 'vagrant thief scum' stole from each individual group, that they started to realize what was happening.

That cursed peasant was too fast for them to do anything, but they couldn't attack him even if they desperately wanted to.

When the first 24 hours passed, chaos ensued. Almost nobody knew what to do with so much downpour, not with nature as their enemy. 

Ironically, grouping up actually worked against them – as a collective, the nobles constantly bickered as to who the leader should be… which ended with nobody leader at all. 

Half of the participants had to take off their bracelets, teleporting back to base, leaving the rest to scramble desperately for shelter.

///

6 hours remained until the test deadline. Night was about to pass, a faint mist flowing in the air.

'73 flowers,' Liam assessed the contents of his ring with a pensive gaze, perched atop one of the towering trees – the rain felt like thousands of tiny needles pricking his skin.

Below, an ocean of magical beasts were being swept by raging waters, creating a loud cacophony of gushing noises, wails and screeching.

At that altitude – and excruciating jungle atmosphere – breathing was arduous. One had to ration his air carefully.

'Have I done enough?'

Liam's clothes were tattered and covered with various shades of blood – his own, along with countless species of magical beast.

Underneath, his gory wounds started to squirm together to heal, while his grimaced face was paler than usual.

'It's probably a good amount, but there's no way to tell. If only there was a leaderboard of sorts.'

Lingering pensively, he nodded to himself. 

'This should do it. I don't want to overdo the test and get unwanted attention either.'

In the first place, he'd felt like it was enough, but his paranoia made him do more. 

Finally, night passed. 

Liam watched astutely as the ocean below started to absorb back into the wet earth.

Simultaneously, the jungle floor started to quake, causing Liam's eye to narrow uneasily.