27th King, Laurance day 14649

  It’s truly unfair that Roman’s family has access to such a talented healer. The life warden path comes from the rare nature awakening making the best healers only accessible to the extremely wealthy. Any time I get an injury I can only rely on common medicine or potions. I can’t help but be jealous, I reincarnate in a fantasy world but don't get to experience this otherworldly healing.

  My hands rest on my knees in a kneeling position. I can feel a warm sticky liquid surrounding me coming up to my hands. A dark misty smoke surrounds me wrapping around me shrouding my vision of the liquid I am kneeling in. I try to arise to better inspect my surroundings, but my body won’t listen to me and stays kneeling.

  “Is this my awakening dream?” I think to myself.

  It’s so strange, not like any body awakening dreams I have heard of. For that matter I can’t even move my body in this dream. The warm liquid surrounding me gives me an odd sense of comfort. Strangely, the liquid doesn’t seep into my clothing causing it to become damp. The eerie smoke slowly swirls around me.

  “Hee hee hee hee.”

  An unknown woman's creepy giggle assaults my ears, seemingly from all directions. The smoke swirls around faster, rotating around my body until I can feel the quick brush of the air moving against my skin. The chill from the smoke brings goosebumps to my arms that are unable to move. A fear erupts inside me at my helplessness in this strange dream. It is unlike any of the body awakening dreams I have read about that I should be having right now.

  Is this the privilege of being the protagonist? An unheard of awakening granting strength capable of fighting high ascension from the start. My lips attempt to curl into a small smile despite the unknown force stopping my body from moving as I think about completing my awakening and finally becoming an adult.

  Suddenly the smoke stops swirling around me and comes to a stop parting above me. A massive pair of lips with blue lipstick emerge from the dark towering over me. Instinctively I can tell that this is a higher being. My body no longer wants to move

  The lips part to speak and settle into a wide unnatural grin. “Can you feel it? All the envy and anger in your heart?”

  Suddenly a hot pulse emanates from my heart coursing through my entire body. My vision turns hazy and red as I feel my thoughts become clouded. Sinful thoughts fill my consciousness. My mind is in turmoil recalling all the hate I have felt for Roman since coming to this world. How effortlessly he could beat me with his body awakening despite all my hard work. I can’t help but be jealous of his family, being so rich that he can get anything he wants effortlessly. Even the thoughts I’ve never had like the expectations to be a great knight that my father puts upon me while my younger brother can pursue his interests begin to make me angry. Strangely I can feel my heart darkening with anger.

  Suddenly the black smoke surrounding me begins to be pulled into my body. I can feel it flow through my veins and mix with my blood becoming one. It spirals around my heart quickly corrupting it into a deep sinister shade of red. My beating heart not only circulates blood through my body but also this new eerie smoke.

  “This is my gift to you. Your mind is corrupted enough to accept my great blood awakening. Remember to embrace your awakening.”

  With that her lips retract back into the endless darkness, and the remaining anime dissipates leaving me kneeling in a shallow pool of blood. My vision becomes dark and everything disappears.

  I suddenly woke up in my bed sitting up and clutching my chest trying to calm my rapid breathing. My back is covered in sweat causing my pajamas to stick to my back. Recalling her final parting words, it occurs to me. This wasn't the protagonist's special secret body awakening or a body awakening at all.

  I awakened a blood aspect. The dangerous awakening the most heinous criminals in history have had. The awakening that causes some countries to kill you on sight. I become panicked realizing the potentially dangerous fate that I will have with this awakening. I have to hide it no matter what. I can't let my father find out about my awakening.

  I need to disguise my awakening by claiming I've awakened a different aspect. Each aspect comes with inherent powers that the user inherits. In the case of my blood awakening I have increased regeneration. Inspecting my body, the bruises that I had from sparring against Roman have all healed returning my body to pristine condition. If I had a body awake like I was expecting, I would have gained incredible strength like Roman, something that isn't easy to fake. If I claimed that I had a body awakening it would be instantly exposed. The same is true for faith, beast, craft, fantasy, and nature aspects.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Faith aspects make your words carry more weight, easily influencing others. The main issue is that I've never attended church independently or prayed. The only times I've gone to church were for official events or holidays that my father made me attend. It would be extremely unrealistic to claim that I had a faith awakening.

  For a beast aspect, it mainly just causes one to act more on their instincts. Although annoying, I could pass it off for a while if I wanted. The main issue is I wouldn't be able to grow any stronger without exposing myself. This is because after the first ascension, people with the beast aspect will grow some sort of animal traits depending on who their higher being is.

  For craft I've simply never shown any interest in it, so it isn't believable. Fantasy allows people to enter the dream world in their sleep, where they can interact with other people with fantasy aspects. If nobody ever saw me in the dream world it would be too suspicious.

  A nature awakening lets you talk with animals, something that could be easily disproven when I'm the presence of another person with a nature aspect. Not to mention it would be annoying to pretend to talk to animals. I'm one of those people that animals instinctively hate for some reason.

  In conclusion the only two aspects I could reasonably claim to have awakened are knowledge and observer. Claiming to be an observer is dangerous though because of how rare they are. Not much is known about them so I could lie about it, but at the same time it would draw a lot of attention to myself which should easily expose me. So, the only choice I have is to claim that I've awakened the knowledge aspect. It's not an unfounded claim either, when I was younger and was just reborn in this world I loved to study and read about all the strange things in this world. Well, I haven't done much studying in recent years since I have solely focused on training my body, nobody can deny that I have an interest in knowledge.

  With my mind made up, I quickly got ready and headed down the hall to my father's room. Standing before the imposing double doors, I begin to hesitate. Maybe I could just tell the truth to my father that I awakened a blood aspect. I don't live in a country that kills you if you have a blood awakening, and my father would surely help to hide it since if it was exposed it would be the shame of our household. I consider it for a while but ultimately resolve myself to claim I have a knowledge aspect. It will be easy to pretend I have one by engrossing myself in study like my younger brother. The main issue with telling the truth is that my fate will become tied to my father. If he ever needed a scapegoat or found hiding my aspect too troublesome he could simply expose me or frame me. It's not that I don't trust my father, it's that I don't trust anyone. Nobody thinks fondly of the blood aspect even if it's not illegal to have it. It's something that I must hide at all costs.

  I knock on the wooden doors, calming myself and rehearsing my lie in my head one last time.

  “Father it's me.”

  “Come in.” His deep imposing voice comes through the door, intimidating me in a way that it has never done before. The clasp the cold golden door handle firmly with my right hand steeling myself to meet my father. The heavy wooden door slowly opens, and I slowly enter my father's study. He gestures to me to sit down in one of the chairs opposite of his desk, reminding me of what I would do when I worked in HR in my previous life. Maybe this blood awakening is a punishment for working in HR in my past life. Is this the karma that some people believed in in my previous world?

  Deciding it's best to be proactive in this discussion, I confess the aspect I “awakened” on my own. I don't want this to turn into an interrogation after all. Recalling what I have heard about common dreams for knowledge awakenings, I boldly proclaim my lie.

  “Father, I've awakened a knowledge aspect. In my dream I was in an endless library full of books. It felt like these books contained the answers to all the questions I've always had.”

  He remains silent for a while contemplating what I've said.

  “I suppose you did love to read when you were younger. Maybe it's my fault for encouraging you to train so hard, I didn't see your true passion. This is my failure as your father. As long as you study hard now, there is still no issue with you being my successor. Our country is in a state of peace after all, a knowledge aspect might even help our family grow more than a body aspect would have. Let's consider it an unexpected blessing. Your brother will likely also awaken a knowledge aspect so don't fall behind him. Maybe you both awakening a knowledge aspect can be good for both of your growths. A sort of sibling rivalry could make you both more motivated.”

  “Yes, I'll be sure to dedicate myself to study to make up for the time I've wasted.”

  “Good, you may go now. I'm sorry I pushed you so hard to awaken a body aspect.”

  I feel a bit guilty hearing him say that since I didn't awaken a body aspect or a knowledge aspect! At least it seems I was correct to choose the knowledge aspect as my lie. As long as I study a bit each day nobody will doubt me and I can even still inherit the barony since knowledge aspects are also prestigious among nobles. It will be easy to disguise the knowledge aspect since it just makes you comprehend information faster. As long as I study each day nobody will have any doubts.

  With our short meeting over, I instantly headed to the library. Not only does this help disguise my aspect, but I truly do want to do research right now. I never read much about the blood aspect, partially because I never considered it a possibility, and partially because most of the knowledge about it is intentionally hidden from the public. Lucky as a noble family, we should have some books about it in our library.

  There won't be as much information as the other aspects, but it's at least a starting point. I need to learn about the common paths of the blood aspect as well as which higher being I met in my dream. Understanding which higher being I met will help me better understand my own powers and potential paths after all.