Before I drank the refined Lio, I went to Art’s room as I had some questions.

  “Hey, Art. Did you receive the gift?”

  “Yeah, I did. I already drank it,” Art said.

  “Did your ability get an upgrade?”

  “Unfortunately, no. But I think it's close. When we enter a dungeon next time, I’ll see how much more I need before it can get upgraded.”

  “What about your stats? Don’t they get an upgrade too?”

  “Yes, they do. When you drink Lio outside a dungeon, you can’t allocate where to spend it, so, the Lio increases your innate ability and all your stats. Of course, that has the side effect of stretching the Lio you drank too thin, making you need big quantities to achieve significant growth.”

  “Is the amount of Lio that the Count gave us enough for me to become Mid-Rank 1?”

  “I’m almost certain it should be enough.”

  'I hope so.'

  “How do I know I reached the next stage?”

  “The mid-stage differs from person to person. After I reached it, I did some tests and found out that I could move a heavier weight with my ability and for further distances.”

  “Is there anything I should know before drinking the Lio?” I asked, afraid something might go wrong like the last I drank the Lio.

  “No, there is nothing to worry about. But, be careful, Lio can be addicting.”

  ……….

  I thanked Art for his help and went back to my room.

  I looked at the jar holding the Lio. The Lio inside looked just like water. When I opened the sealed lid and sniffed, it didn’t have any odor.

  ‘How do they know that it's not just water? Is it from the bad taste? There should be ways, I guess.’

  Gathering my courage, I took a swing at the Jar. The bitter taste returned, stronger than before.

  I drank the Lio in one go.

  The effects immediately started. I felt the world around me become sharper with more details showing. But the biggest difference was my ability. It felt like I could exert more intent on it. Like I just found a new limb I didn’t know I had.

  I immediately decided to test things out. I turned my entire body into liquid form but this time the liquid didn’t just drop to the ground, unmoving. I took ahold of the liquid and shaped it to resemble my human body. I also untransformed my eyes so I could see. Looking at myself, it was as if water took human form and started moving.

  My mana was draining fast so I untransformed myself. I decided to keep my hand transformed so that I could experiment on it. First, I elongated my hand’s fingers by giving them liquid from my palm but then I got an idea. I took a small chunk of my liquid hand and felt how my ability replaced the chunk. I tried to recreate the same feeling and something exciting happened.

  ‘I can create additional liquid!’

  The new liquid increased my hand's overall size. But it was much more mana-draining to keep it transformed than if I hadn’t added the additional mass. When I stopped my transformation, the additional mass slid off my flesh hand and dropped to the floor. I tried taking hold of it but it acted like water, losing its honey-like texture.

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  I retransformed my hand but this time I didn’t add additional mass to my hand. Instead, I formed a ball of liquid on my palm. The ball was the size of an egg and cost me a lot of mana to form but, thankfully, my reserves had increased after the upgrade. I gave the ball more liquid, but, instead of increasing its size, I wanted it to get dense. The liquid obeyed my will and the ball started taking color, turning white. The more I condensed the ball the whiter it got and the more mana I needed to keep going.

  ‘I can’t go on for much longer!’

  Before my mana got depleted, I stopped the condensing and transformation as I didn’t want to pass out or worse, get other bad side effects of mana depletion.

  The ball I created didn’t dissipate after I cut off my transformation like the less condensed liquid would. It got a snow-white color and was pretty heavy. It also had a shine to it like a crystal ball.

  ‘Wow, this looks amazing.’

  THUD!

  I dropped the ball on the floor and it cracked the marble of the palace.

  ‘Oh, shit! I didn’t think it’d be this heavy. Maybe my new strength increase gain made me underestimate its weight.’

  I did a few tests on the ball. Taking out my sword I hacked at it. The ball just rolled around, not allowing me to get a good hit.

  I held the ball in my hand to get it to stay in place then chopped at it. I was surprised at the ball’s durability as I only managed to leave deep cuts. I transformed my arm with what mana had regenerated, afraid I might cut it, and then, with all my strength, I chopped the ball in the middle. It cracked and separated into halves. The two halves’ spheres of connection looked beautiful. They had a gradual color change that went from white on the outside to lighter shades and then to transparent on the inside. The balls’ insides were still made of my transformation liquid, that seeped into the floor.

  ‘It seems I wasn’t fully able to condense all the ball.’

  At the end of the experimentation, I was satisfied. My upgraded ability gave me more ways to diversify my fighting style and I already came up with a few ways I could use the new ability in battle.

  ‘I’m becoming stronger. Staying with Black Eye’s group is annoying but has its benefits. It’s a blessing and a curse.’

  I always had thoughts of escaping but decided against them all in the end.

  ‘If I manage to escape and return to the village, Black Eye would just follow me and kill me. No, I have to stay with the party until I become strong enough to get my revenge on them, then, and only then, I can return to the village. Maybe after returning, I can assemble my own adventuring part.’

  After my experimentation, I went to Art’s room.

  “Did you drink the Lio?” Art asked.

  “Yes,” I answered. “So, what are we going to do now?”

  “I’m not sure. If you had asked me the same question before the surprise attack, I would’ve said we would be fighting on the front lines. But, now, I think we might stay here in the palace and protect it. Either way, we should find out today.”

  “I think I would prefer to stay here and protect the palace,” I said, not wanting to experience a life-or-death situation again.

  “Ha, me too. What about you Fin, do you prefer it here or on the defense line outside.”

  Fin just pointed with his finger to the ground, indicating he preferred it here.

  “By the way, how do you feel?” Art asked me.

  “How do I feel? I don’t want to sound like a coward, but all this stuff is stressing me out.”

  “No, I meant how do you feel after killing the Bara? He might be a barbarian but that doesn't mean he didn't have a family, a wife, and children. It’s the first you killed a human right?” Art said with a serious expression.

  ‘Now that Art mentioned it, I really killed a human being. How do I feel about it? I don’t know. At the moment of his death, I was just happy at my survival at triumph. But, now, after the fight was settled…’

  “I think… I think I’m afraid that what happened to the Bara might happen to me too and to my loved ones. I don’t really care if the Bara had family, he deserved what he got.”

  Art looked at me with a surprised expression but he didn’t say anything.

  “What did I say something wrong?”

  “No, it's just… Don’t you feel guilty?”

  “Do I feel guilty? No, truthfully, I’m just happy that I survived and scared that the same fate that the Bara had might befall me.”

  “This is new. When I first killed a human, I couldn’t sleep well for a few days. Guilt ate at me. Thankfully I just got passed it and forgot, as all humans do,” Art said with a sad expression.

  Fin approached Art and put his hand on his shoulder, comforting him. Fin made a lot of hand gestures that I understood none of. Art smiled at Fin and nodded.

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He was comforting me. He also told me that our different reactions to killing might be attributed to our different upbringings.”

  ‘Different upbringings? Well, I did have a harsher life than those two, so yeah, he might be right.’

  At that moment, a soldier barged into our room. He looked terrified.

  “The Baras have done a surprise attack on the wall and managed to take the gates! We need all help to repel them,” The soldier said while breathing heavily.

  “What?! How did they manage to take the gate? Where is the general?”

  “The Shamans helped the Baras, Surprising the general. Unfortunately, the General is… dead.”

  ‘Goddammit! Can’t I take a break?’