Emilio woke up without knowing where he was. He looked around and all he could see was white. It took a few seconds for his memories to start coming back, once he remembered how he passed out utterly drunk, he was surprised he could remember absolutely everything. Even more, even if he took a few seconds to recover, he had no hangover at all.

  He soon sat down and he was in some kind of mattress, courtesy of Tuor.

  “That didn’t end up as I expected at all,” Emilio murmured. “And I didn’t get to ask all the questions I wanted. Well, I shouldn't bother him again so soon. Maybe after the Trial.”

  Emilio stood up and stretched a bit. He felt completely fine even if he had gotten drunk not long ago.

  If I feel like this I don’t have to hesitate. ‘System, I want to enter the Mind Trial,’ he ordered and vanished again. This time, he appeared in a room that was blue, instead of the red one in the Vitality Trial.

  The trial is the same. How is it going to be this time?

  Emilio sat on the floor waiting for another flow of energy, similar to the one he faced on the last Trial, but this time he was faced with something different.

  At first, he didn’t feel anything at all, but soon enough he started to feel like he was having a slight headache, his head started to feel heavier and he felt kind of groggy.

  This is not a nice feeling, but not that bad either, Emilio thought as he concluded that this Trial seemed easier than the Vitality one. Especially since he was upgrading the Stat from 3 to 4.

  He endured for a while, until he felt that his head broke out of a cocoon. At that moment, he felt mentally refreshed and finally understood what Milagros said. It really felt like his mind processing was improved, almost as if it had been foggy his whole life.

  This Trial was a little bit different from the previous one and when he passed the test he had already upgraded his Mind. In a way the Trial itself was the process of upgrading the Mind, something that also happened with the Vitality Trial, but not completely.

  Either way, he had managed to raise his Mind and pass the Trial, which meant he had to go to the next step of the Trial that was even harder.

  As soon as the Trial continued, Emilio could feel that the pressure in his mind was higher and the headache more intense. Either way, Emilio could withstand it without much issue and managed to improve his mind again. This time gaining quite a few more things.

  His daggers improved again, going to the [Exceptional] quality. At the same time he reached 5 points in Mind, resulting in a new Trait.

  The Trait was exactly the same as the Vitality one, but for Mind, making it evident that all of the Stats were going to have the same Trait, which was not bad.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Emilio decided to relax a few minutes while his daggers upgraded and he was soon in the next step of the Trial.

  As soon as it started again, the headache became really bad. It was almost like a bad migraine and it was slowly rising in intensity. For the first time in the Mind Trial, Emilio considered that it was going to be difficult to keep enduring the Trial.

  His biggest challenge was the pain he was feeling in the head. At that moment, Emilio remembered that he had a similar problem with the Vitality Trial and he was able to use his Trait to help out.

  He tried to replicate what he did before and use Mind Control to reduce the pain, but it was to no avail. He couldn’t find a way to reduce it. When he was at the Vitality Trial, he could feel the energy entering his body and damaging him, this time all he felt was the pressure and pain, but didn’t feel any energy.

  All he could do was withstand it and wait, so he did that. It took longer than what he expected, but he was finally able to feel his brain power improve even more, together with a System message.

  As soon as he received the message, the Trial started again with several times more intensity than before. That meant that Emilio didn’t really have time to think about the Skill he had just earned or how it was exactly what he had asked for several times.

  He also didn’t know if he received it for his actions, maybe it was because he kept hurting himself, or because he was actively trying to find a way to reduce the pain the headache brought.

  Either way, he was thankful for the Skill, but the headache was so intense that he didn’t have time to focus on reading what it did. He didn’t know if it was active or passive, but with the pain he was feeling, he doubted it was active at that moment. Which meant he had to activate it as soon as possible.

  As soon as he thought about turning the Skill on, it was like a switch that turned on. The heavy migraine became a really slight headache and Emilio could relax a bit. It was not that the Trial had stopped, but he was not feeling the pain. Even like that, he could still feel the pressure in his mind and it was not comfortable at all, but without the mind breaking pain, Emilio trusted that he could keep enduring the Trial for a while.

  Given that he did not feel at his limit anymore, Emilio focused on what the Skill was doing in his body. He felt like his mind was sending some kind of internal waves that alleviated the pain. He didn’t know how it was doing it, but he guessed it had to do with controlling the Mind, just as the Trait said he could do.

  Emilio kept enduring the Trial, focusing on using his new Skill to slightly increase or decrease the pain he felt while trying to understand what the Skill did and how it did it.

  He lost himself in the focus and forgot about the trial, at least until it ended and the Trial stop to upgrade his weapon again. While he waited, he decided to check his new Skill on the System, even if he already understood part of it by using it.

  It was short and to the point, but he could confirm it was active. It still didn’t require his focus to work but he had to think about turning it on or off. It was exactly what he had asked for and had no complaints at all.

  It didn’t take long for the daggers to finish the upgrade and the Trial started again. Without the pain, Emilio could focus both on what the Skill and Trial were doing in his body, trying to understand more about the Mind Stat.

  As the Trial continued, the pressure kept increasing and it felt as if some entity was pushing down on his mind. That compression was what was making the Mind Stat develop each second. It soon came to a limit, where it couldn’t compress anymore and his mind pushed back against the pressure at once, making his Stat increase by one point.

  Using his new Skill, Emilio was able to pass the Trial thee more times and reached 9 points in Mind, but on the last possible Trial before the point cap, Emilio faced a probem he did not expect.

  He did not feel a lot of Pain because of his newest Skill, but the pressure had been increasing all along. On that last Trial it was bigger than any one before. It was so much that he felt dizzy and his sight became blurry.

  Emilio kept enduring, but the pressure was too much even without the pain. It didn’t take long for him to feel like the world started to turn around and he finally passed out again.

  In the end, he finished the Trial with 9 points in Mind and the one Skill he had been constantly asking for during the previous week. He also managed to upgrade Void to the [Peak] quality of Rank one, which was supposed to be a weapon that only a Rank 3 Blacksmith could make.

  Thanks for reading!

  Another chapter drops later today at 22:00 Argentina (UTC -3).

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