Ace, Cherry, Anya, and sleepy Jim slowly walked up the steep trails of the mountain’s rocky layer. Due to the cold winds last night, the ground beneath them had become too unstable and slippery to walk on. To counter this, they all took off their ’shoes’ and walked with their legs transformed. This way, they’d be able to latch onto the ground with their long nails. Also, since they knew that the last layer of the mountain was going to be a snowy layer, the Blood Mutants decided to start looking for warm layers of clothing. Along the way, they’d encounter the same goblin-like beasts that, instead of running, decided to escape from them. Never in their lives had they seen pink-fleshed creatures running after them with the gift of sucking out blood from their bodies. Sadly, for them, the Mutants killed and skinned them so that they could make coats to keep themselves warm. Even if they could make layers from blood, it was not guaranteed to keep them warm so this was the best and only option. "Ace, we’ve been walking for more than two hours as you said," Cherry spoke, but she wasn’t tired. The reason she spoke was that Jim was beyond tired. He was barely walking at this point. The blood clones, controlled by Ace to follow them, were dragging him at this point. "Jim’s not looking too good." "We can rest here," Ace answered while making a soft ’bed’ out of the fur coats collected for Jim. "Let’s give him two hours to sleep. Maybe that’ll be enough for him." While Jim slept, Cherry and Ace dueled each other to entertain themselves and strengthen their blood skills. While doing so, Cherry started to notice a significant difference between her and Ace. To begin with, his eyes were always glowing a red color, despite his not transforming. At first, she thought it was something his system would do, but whenever she asked, he’d always dodge the question with a ’It’s not the system’ answer. Adding onto that, Ace’s body was more buff and cut than before. His arms bulged, and his chest was slightly larger and wider. His entire body was different. It was as if he had evolved in these short days. This left both Cherry and Anya to wonder what was the reason for Ace’s sudden increase in girth, strength, and even blood control, for he literally made two clones follow closely while carrying Jim. "Hold up!" Cherry urged out of frustration after getting kicked to the ground. Ace offered his hand to help her up but was instead rejected, leaving him confused and bewildered. "What’s going on, Ace? You’ve changed in these two days, man." "She’s right," Anya interjected. "Your eyes are always glowing, and that symbiote thing on your back looks like it wants to come out." "Yeah, how come you’ve suddenly put on ’weight’ now?" Cherry interrogated, getting closer to his face with each question. "Has your symbiote been pushing you to do this?" "I can explain," he spoke calmly, hoping to ease his sister’s inquisitive nature. "One Horn told us to, well, told me to let loose and stop holding back, right?" "Yeah, but there’s nothing for you to ’hold back on’ on this godforsaken mountain, Ace," Cherry argued again, continuously stabbing her finger on her brother’s chest. "Let me finish, Cherry." He grabbed her by her hands and looked into her eyes with his ruby-red ones. "While you two were sleeping, I was going around looking for creatures to kill so that I’d extract their blood while perfecting my skills. While doing so, I learned that these symbiotes play an important role in our strength. "The more I keep pushing myself to new levels, the stronger I and it get, and the stronger we get, the more power we have. I think this change in my body is a result of all of that." In silence, Cherry and Anya looked at Ace’s facial expression to judge whether what he was saying was true or not. The curly-haired man seemed to have been speaking the truth, for even his face showed he wasn’t lying. "I see," Cherry finally came down and stroked her chin. "Well, if that’s the case, I want you to show me what you’ve been doing too." "Same goes for me," Anya spoke. "It would be nice to actually benefit from this ’phase’ or training and actually learn something." "Fine," Ace answered while waking Jim up. "But this isn’t going to be some easy task, you know. The first thing that I’d advise you two to do is perfect your blood control skills to this point." Just by folding his hand, Ace was able to create two blood clones to stand next to him. "Doing this should become as easy as breathing for both of you. Once you perfect that, I’ll show you what’s next." The source of thɪs content is 𝗇𝗈𝗏𝖾𝗅✦𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾✦𝗇𝖾𝗍 And so it began. While Jim, who had gotten some rest, and Ace walked up the mountain, Cherry and Anya followed closely behind while using some of the blood they gathered along the way to create clones. Cherry found it much easier to do so since she was the first of the Mutants to learn and use the skill. Anya, on the other hand, was finding it challenging to create and keep the clone stable enough for it to walk. After repeatedly trying and failing, she slowly started to get used to it, perfecting it while also keeping up with the others. "There it is," Jim announced as he and Ace spotted the beginning of the last layer of the mountain. "We’re nearly at the mountain top." "Look at all of that snow!!" Cherry spoke in amazement, having never seen orange-white snow before. The final layer of the mountain was completely white, with the further parts touching the clouds. "Judging by those dark clouds, we’ll be heading into a storm," Ace said while padding himself in the fur coats he gathered. The others did the same as well, and just as they were about to leave, the ground ahead of them suddenly shifted. Loose chunks of snow rolled toward them, and soon, they all noticed a white beast staring at them in the distance. "The higher we go, the more life we’ll encounter."