Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Kiana suddenly felt as if her body was starting to disappear. A few seconds later, she lost her sense of control and her vision went dark. By the time her vision came back, she found herself in Asher's arms.

"W-what happened?" Kiana asked, feeling fatigued.

"You passed out." Lucius spoke with a calm look.

"I did?" Kiana said, as she looked at her body.

"Yes, though you should be fine. You don't have any injuries." Lucius replied.

"How long was I out for?" Kiana questioned.

For her, it was as if only a few seconds that had passed, but from looking at the window she could tell the angle of sunlight had changed.

"It's been a little over an hour," Lucius answered.

"An hour… that was unexpected," Kiana spoke.

"Indeed. Though, you should be able to test out your new gift." Lucius said with a smile.

"Oh yeah. Wait! What's my new gift?" Kiana asked.

"Well, you should know that yourself, shouldn't you?" Lucius stated.

Kiana realized that her mind was still a bit dazed, and she needed a bit more rest. She had forgotten such an obvious fact. She relaxed for a few minutes before she felt her strength return.

Lucius though, was recalling all that had happened an hour ago. When Kiana placed her hand on the ore that was transformed into pure metal, it pierced her hand and traveled inside her body.

Lucius could then see a few symbols appearing over Kiana's chest that was the same as that of the rune of the rock bee. There was another symbol which Lucius had not seen but he reckoned it was that of Kiana's own gift 'stone shooter'.

The two symbols merged together before forming into a new symbol. Lucius reckoned he would be able to tell what her new gift was, but he was already out of Aether and he didn't have any Aether crystal to restore his Aether either.

Not that he would do that, as he had already spent quite a lot on them and would prefer to restore it himself naturally. After that, the symbol reentered Kiana's body and that was the moment she fell unconscious.

He didn't know the reason behind it but assumed it to be her body adapting to the new gift. Or it could have also been the exhaustion caused due to the rapid drain of Aether. Lucius had already become used to the drain of his Aether, as he would use it daily.

In these past days, he had learned of many gifts of the people around him. Though they were mostly servants and guards of the mansion. About ninety five percent of them had gifts that were of common or uncommon rank, while only a couple of them were of rare rank.

Of those that he saw had rare rank gifts were two guards and his own mother Lita. Lucius was rather surprised upon seeing what the gift of Lita was, as he had never asked her before.

Countess Lita had a gift called 'Poet's Gaze'. 

The gift was a mental type gift that allowed her to make poetry out of words of things that she observed. It was not really a practical gift and was mostly useful for artistic purposes, even though its rank was rare.

That was probably the reason why Lucius never saw her using her gift or mentioning it, as it was quite peculiar. He didn't even know if she used the gift or not, as he had not seen her do poetry before, either.

Though seeing a relatively 'useless' gift as this raised a question in Lucius's mind. What would happen if gifts such as these were further evolved? Lucius had already seen the requirements needed for the evolution of Lita's gift, but hadn't put it as a priority yet.

Besides, it needed ingredients that were not even found in this kingdom. 

Lucius looked at Kiana and waited for her to feel better.

"I think I'm good now." Kiana spoke.

"You sure?" Lucius asked with concern, which made Kiana smile.

"Yes, don't worry." Kiana said, as she stood up from the chair.

"So then, can you tell what your new gift is yet?" Lucius asked.

"Give me a moment." Kiana said, before closing her eyes and raising her hand.

A thin circle that seemed to be metallic in nature appeared on Kiana's palm before a needle floated out of it. The needle was plain and looked like any common needle, but Lucius knew there was more to it than just that.

Before Kiana was able to make small stones that she could shoot out at a great speed, that were like bullets. They were already quite deadly and he assumed it would only get better from that.

"I know it now." Kiana said with a smile.

She felt content upon learning about her new gift. The information about it had directly appeared in her mind, just like when she first had her awakening. It just took a little effort on her part to make that information appear.

But that was not all, as she also learned her gift had changed from a rare ranked gift into an Epic ranked gift. 

"Don't leave me hanging, tell me what it is." Lucius urged.

"My gift is an Epic ranked gift called Sting Sniper. I can shoot out small projectiles that I can freely shape as I want and whenever they hit something they will have a petrifying effect on a small area." Kiana said.

"Does it work on everything? Or only living creatures?" Lucius asked with concern.

There was a massive difference between the two effects. If it only worked on living creatures it was still fine, but if it could turn other things to stone as well, then that would be utterly terrifying. 

Lucius could imagine it hitting water and turning it into solid stone, or hitting an iron sword, turning it into stone and shattering it. The applications would be endless.

"I… I don't know that." Kiana replied.

"Hmm… well then, I guess it's time to test it out," Lucius stated with a grin.