A bloody face. Filled with scars, and deep wounds and laying on the floor panting for breath.

Harry went near the man Evis followed beside him.

"He i...s a human," Lilly said with a stutter.

Nodding, Harry looked closer. The man's blood was spasming and his eyeballs were popping out. His blood leaked from his back and made a puddle beside him.

"Does any Stage 5 exist in the Continent with similar features as him?" he asked as he circled the man, cautiously examining all the minor details.

His heart was unusually nervous too. The insane sense of struggle in the man's eyes made him even more disgruntled.

This man had just attempted to awaken? he wondered.

"I do remember someone with that appearance," Lilly said, her face turning more pale by the second, "He is under one of the many academies that we created. He is the headmaster of one of the academies in the southern part of the continent."

Harry nodded and examined the man closer. Suddenly, the man's eyes bulged even further and they lost their last brightness of struggle.

Lilly clenched her hand across her mouth and Evis looked at the man with a frown.

She had cast some healing Gifts the moment she saw the man and it had done nothing to heal him. He just spasmed like that for a while and then suddenly died.

All three of them could feel the life leaving the man. Harry simply looked at him with his deep black eyes.

The blood reflected their faces.

"This is what happens when you fail in your Awakening." Evis sighed in frustration, "His Gift was Blood Control, by Awakening, he was trying to control the entire Magic Power's potential but he did not know much about it. That cost him his life."

Harry looked at her and she waved her hand with a nod.

A shadow of darkness devoured them all, teleporting them to the beach; they got a chance to take in some calm and fresh breaths.

Maybe because of the implications, that cave was extremely disgusting, and looking at the corpse was hard on someone like Lilly who hadn't really experienced anything harsh in her life.

Training did jackshit to make it bearable.

Harry had kept her in his bosom like a flower to protect her whole life and it was showing. Even now, her hands were slightly trembling.

Thoughtfully sitting on the sand, Harry took her into his lap and got comfortable before patting her head and bringing her into his embrace.

Lilly just hugged him and calmed herself. It was just too sudden for her.

Evis on the other hand, sat to the side and rested her head on his shoulders. Harry hugged her too.

"So, Dad, Awakening as I said..." Evis said, paused, and continued: "Magic Powers are Powers people like us – Cultivators – take tens of hundreds of years to master. They are techniques, even my shadow teleportation is a technique of the business path that I spent 179 years honing to work like today."

Harry nodded, he already knew that. She had told him before that all paths were like pleasure and every other path taker had Magic Powers they could study and develop.

She didn't have many Magic Powers of other paths but she had three of them in the Business Path.

[Shadow Teleportation] was her ability which allowed her to put shadow marks everywhere her Business had traveled. If she had done even a small trade thousands of kilometers away, it would still count and she could teleport there.

Evis had already done business across almost all of the previous Mystry and the current Isiah Continent.

Harry pondered as he caressed Lilly's back. Evis had also given Lilly the three techniques since she was also walking on the same path.

But Lilly didn't want to follow in Evis' footsteps and didn't train on the first technique, Shadow Teleportation.

She at first tried the [Trader's Eye] a Magic Power that could see across vast distances like a third eye. With every business base improving the senses after full mastery.

Evis had only basic mastery of this power and she could already keep everything happening in the continent in check. In her words, it could even see beyond into other continents at her Rank 3 cultivation if she had mastered it.

But Lilly did not find that much successful and she could barely use it to sense 2 kilometers around her. She could do much better with her current DreamWalker.

So, she had moved her focus to the last power. [Multiply].

With this Magic Power, she could be present everywhere in multiple forms. She could have clones, she could change the appearance of each clone and even though weaker than the original body, it will just keep multiplying.

And if she could have 10,000 clones, it was said to be full mastery.

She hadn't even been able to make one due to pregnancy as of now. But she planned to start training it soon.

She won't mention it but Harry knew she also had some weird fetishes and thoughts. For one, she did not like his own clone coming near her. The first time she saw it, she had made boundaries clear.

It was nothing, due to his lazy air, he seemed like a different person from the clone, and like all his other women, that unsettled her.

All such fragmented pieces of thoughts flickered in his head and in seconds, his thoughtful pondering was over.

"So, these Gifts as you know Dad, are things that don't belong to us in the end. It is the Eye's power. It had taken effort to train in Magical Powers like any other cultivator and gave all its mastery away for someone to have for free."

Harry nodded, already understanding most of the essence of this particular situation.

"But they are using its?Gifts and when they die, it will go back to it and it will give it to someone else. But these Gifts are never mastered because they did not train on it themselves. And Awakening Stage or Stage 6... Means trying to take control of something that doesn't belong to you in the first place."

Harry's gaze cleared and he nodded. It was about the same thing he had figured out.

"So, if I am to Awaken, I am trying to learn something that usually takes centuries for others in mere..."

"Mere Days, 3 Days of constant tug of war with the sealed power inside you – the gift – and if it fails then, the Magic Power will overwhelm you. It will destroy you from the inside and even I can't save you after that."

Harry nodded and Lilly finally spoke, "That person had Blood Control and after he died, it looked like his own blood had eaten him from the inside. Big brother..."

Looking up at the sky, Harry sighed. It was indeed a hard choice. To Awaken was to get his so-called Memories back and to fail was to die.

If he really wanted to Awaken, he could've killed 2000 more people of Mystry itself. Everyone had a Gift and killing 2000 people won't be really that hard.

He could even find some prisoners simply and kill them. But he was hesitant and pushed it away with multiple excuses.

He was reluctant to Awaken.

"Don't worry Lilly, I won't Awaken unless I am one hundred percent certain of my survival."

Lilly hugged him tightly. The biggest reason for her fear was the moment she saw the man, Harry's image had overlapped with him.

That frightened her.

Evis looked at the thrashing waves in the sea, the floating clouds. "I think you should wait before you Awaken, that is the safest and most clear choice."

If he was extremely strong to the point of reaching Rank 3 like herself, and if he found some Pleasure Path Magic Powers to practice...

He would have experience, he would have more power and he would be much prepared to handle the burden.

"Dad, as you heard many times before, there has never been someone who actually succeeded in Awakening and lived to tell the tale except people chosen by the Eye itself." Evis Paused, "Only it's slaves, the people it had invited like you but chose servitude had ever succeeded and that is because the Eye gave specific guidance that you don't have."

Harry nodded but his mind wandered in thought. He still remembered that System message saying it had scanned the Eye of Blessing and shifted his Pleasure Path away from the norm.

Having reached that thought, he looked up at the sky and smiled. He still felt tiny among the world's brightest stars.

He was just a big fish in a small pond. The mere thought made him lick his lips. His heart trembled in excitement and he chuckled.

"Challenges are fun," he said, "Those make living much more colorful." 𝑏𝑒𝘥𝑛𝘰𝑣𝑒𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝘮

Evis smiled, kissed his cheeks, and nodded proudly. Lilly also looked at him with starry eyes.

Harry smirked. The throne of Mystry didn't excite him much. It was just a random accomplishment in his endless list in his mind.

For him, he always wanted to conquer more.

Wait, the throne of Eternals.