The Blood Mutants, after having their talk that lasted more than half the night, woke up to the unfair chills of the mountain’s early morning winds. The middle layer of the mountain, devoid of plant life, created a bare and unforgiving environment, allowing cold winds to blow through effortlessly. Everything the wind touched became cold and as the sun rose, the winds blew harder and more fiercely, forcing the Blood Mutants to cover themselves in makeshift cloth layers made with blood from their weapons. It wasn’t ideal, but it kept most of the cold out. The rıghtful source is 𝔫𝔬𝔳𝔢𝔩⟡𝘧𝙞𝙧𝙚⟡𝘯𝘦𝘵 "It feels like a storm’s about to hit," Cherry complained while placing her hands inside her makeshift blood sweater. "One Horn said this layer’s the longest, right?" "Right!!" Jim answered, once again assuming the position of leader. "It’s cold, and the creatures we’ve encountered so far don’t have enough blood for us to feed on, so we should walk slowly and preserve our energy." "Staying in the cold environment will make things worse for us," Anya complained. "Why don’t we stay somewhere until the sun is at its peak? Maybe the winds will have died down by then." "We’re not stopping for anything," Jim answered immediately. "We’re moving ahead but at a slow pace to reserve our energy." An awkward silence, caused by Jim’s outburst, enveloped the Mutants as they followed him up the trail. As they walked, the path became steeper and narrower to the point where they were taking steps by inches. The cold and slow walking conditions eventually led to pent-up frustration being forced out. Cherry was the first to crack and decided to move ahead using her own methods. "Screw this, this is taking forever." she complained while making four tendrils from her back. Using her claws, she scaled the mountainside effectively, saving her the trouble of keeping her footing steady. Eventually, Anya and Ace followed, using the same tactic as Cherry. Jim, on the other hand, was too focused on saving his energy and ignored the tactics used by the others. Before he knew it, he had already scaled the steep and narrow path, only to find the others occupied with the same rock-like beasts from the previous night. ’Damn it, if only they had listened, we’d be able to take down those creatures quickly,’ he mumbled and decided to watch the others kill the creatures. After twenty or so minutes passed, the last creature was killed, and Jim decided to join the others. "What took you so long?" Cherry teased while dissecting the beasts, looking for any spots with blood for her to feed on. Unfortunately, the beasts were mostly rock with little to no flesh at all. Even the flesh they had was too tough and chewy with very little drops of blood in them. "Don’t worry, we still have our blood reserves," Jim intervened while trying to assess the current food situation. "If we reserve our energy, we’ll be able to make it to the last layer. One Horn said we’d encounter even more dangerous beasts there, so it’s best we encounter them with our full strength." "Jim, if we keep up , we’ll get there tired and exhausted," Anya complained. While all of this was happening, Ace remained quiet in the background while trying desperately to use his System Scan Skill. Every time he tried activating it, the same message would pop up saying; [System Scan Skill: Unavailable.] *Huff* "Why isn’t this working? Is there a glitch in the system?" He questioned, wondering why his system had started doing this more often than normal. "Is this some way the system’s trying to get me to train?" While still in his thoughts, Ace was met with a sharp pain in his lower thigh, knocking him down to the ground. He looked back and saw a short, goblin-shaped creature with its claw dislodged in his leg. The others, having noticed this, threw their weapons into the beast’s chest, killing it on the spot. Thankfully, it had blood gushing out, which was immediately drained and rationed amongst each other. "You dropped your guard down, Ace," Anya said while helping him up. "What happened? Were you distracted?" Anya questioned but then went silent as she noticed Ace drifting off to some place in his mind. In actuality, the Mutant was too focused on his system since it had never done something before. [You rely too much on the system.] It notified him, this time using the feminine AI voice he had heard a couple of times on Earth. [New Quest Available: Complete this training phase without relying on your system.] Ace’s eyes widened as his system suddenly went off. He desperately tried turning it back on but was only left with the memory of the last notification it sent. *New Quest Available: Complete this training phase without relying on your system.* ’What the hell’s wrong with this system?’ he questioned until he took a moment to realize what it was trying to ’teach’ him. Ace had become too reliant on his system, and he didn’t fully understand what it was to be a Blood Mutant. Compared to the others, he was more cautious, careful, and somewhat cowardly. While the others fought to kill and survive, Ace would fight depending on where his strength was. If it was too low, he would hold back, and if it was high enough, he’d still fight sparingly. ’Curse you, system.’ He smirked in a happy yet annoyed way. Now he was like the others, reliant only on his skills and wit, not on the system anymore. "You seem to be distracted, Ace," Cherry whispered as they moved forward. "Is everything okay?" "Y-yeah, everything’s okay," he answered while constantly turning his hands into claws, a skill he’d always rely on his system for. "Just making some readjustments." "Well, it better be quick," Jim said while jumping in front of the others with his blood staff equipped. "There’s more of those creatures up ahead." At the foot of the mountain, Skyler and Grim stood opposite each other, their hands carrying a green, log-like object in their arms. Since the sun had risen all the way until now, Skyler had been in that position while Lord Grania continued increasing the weight of the object. "This is an artificial weight that allows me to naturally increase its gravitational pull," the Granian emperor spoke while increasing the weight of the object by almost five pounds. "Meaning if I want, I can make this thing go from being as light as a feather to heavier than a boulder." "I get it, but why must you make it this heavy?" Skyler questioned as she struggled to keep the object from slipping over. "I can’t keep carrying this thing much longer." "Precisely." Grania smiled while slamming his fists together. From his body came four auras of himself which surrounded Skyler. "Your goal for today is to keep these things from touching the ground as you protect yourself from my aura attacks. "The goal is simple, expand your energy to great amounts, then control and divide it between keeping the object off the ground while defending yourself. Understood?" Skyler hesitated for a moment. Within her, she knew that this was going to be quite the challenge. The object itself was heavy, and now she had to keep it off the ground while defending herself. After a few short seconds, she came up with an idea that she thought would work. "Understood. And I’m ready," she answered with a reassuring smile on her face. "When do we start?" "We start now," Grania responded and quickly sent forth his auras to attack. Immediately, Skyler transformed her arms into her groundhog form. Her arms grew larger in size, allowing her to readjust to the weight of the object. It was still heavy, but she was able to carry it with ease. As the aura figures approached her, Skyler tossed the object as high as she could and hit the first figure that approached. Using her powerful palms, she slammed the aura figure onto its chest and used the force of her strength to drag it back by a couple of feet. She then quickly returned her attention to the object and caught it just in time, threw it high again, and went for the second figure. For about twenty tedious minutes, Skyler repeatedly threw the object, fended off the aura figures, and caught it again just in time. Twenty minutes turned into an hour, and by this time, her body was covered with sweat. The only reason she did not become extremely exhausted was due to the cold environment around her. While this happened, Lord Grania would control his aura figures, manipulating them into hitting the pressure points on Skyler’s body. However, he remained amazed by how resilient she was, being able to defend herself while keeping the object from touching the ground. "Excellent," Grania said as the aura figures turned from four to eight. "Let us make this more challenging. Remember, focus your energy and spread it apart to cater to both objectives. Begin."