Epic Of The Demonic Sage

Both Gabriel and Lita knew very well what Kiana's Gift was, and they had seen it many times in the past. But what Kiana had just shown them was most definitely not the same gift that she had before.

On the palm of Kiana, a metallic layer could be seen. And from that layer, a needle was released. The needle came to float above her palm before morphing into the shape of a sphere, a cube, a cylinder, and then back into a needle.

"How… what happened to your gift?" Gabriel questioned, confusion visible on his face.

"It has changed," Kiana said.

"Changed? Changed how?" Lita asked, unable to comprehend.

"My Rare ranked Stone Shooter is now… an Epic Ranked Sting Sniper." Kiana revealed, before flicking her hand towards one of the pillars.

The needle easily passed through four pillars in a row before embedding itself into the wall. 

Both the Count and the Countess were in awe of this and could not believe this.

"Upgrading a gift like this… only the priests of the church have this opportunity. But even that is because their gifts are bestowed upon by gods themselves." Gabriel said, as he looked at Kiana.

"And that very feat has been accomplished by Asher," Kiana said with a smile.

The man and wife looked at their son, who was casually sipping on the glass of some beverage. They then realized it was something that Kiana had brought in the bottles with her. A sweet and slightly sour fragrance emanated from the glass and stimulated their taste buds.

Suppressing their curiosity about the drink that Asher was drinking, they focused on the more important part for now.

"How did you do this, Asher? This… something like this has never been seen before…" Gabriel stated.

"It was a combination of research, study, trial and luck." Lucius coolly said.

"No, it can't be just that. If it was that simple many would have accomplished this." Gabriel said, still in denial.

"Well of course, there was the additional hint of inspiration that I got." Lucius replied.

Seeing as his parents were still confused, Lucius decided to explain a bit more.

"At first I wondered what made gifts work and how they were given. Then I learned that the church could actually bestow gifts upon the people who became their priests, which led me to learn more about it.

I found out that depending on the power of their gift, the people of the church would get assigned a different rank like a priest, high priest, Bishop, archbishop, and so forth. Depending on the rank of gift they had before they joined the church, they would get equivalent 'grace' of the goddess.

Those who had lower positions can also progress their ranks and be promoted, which would increase the power of their gifts, which was the same as increasing the rank of the gift itself. Though the church does not call it that.

Correlating those factors, I reckoned if it was possible with that it should be possible with normal gifts too. Since all the gifts were a grace of the divines, then they should be able to be upgraded too. 

In the case of the church, the price for the upgrade is the piety and devotion of the priests. But in our case what can be the price? Since piety and devotion match the nature of the 'grace' of the gods, I reckoned something similar must be needed for the other gifts.

And thus I spent time on looking for things that could have a similar effect. Eventually, I learned about the Rock Bees and how they had a petrifying effect. Since both the gift of the Rock bee and Kiana's gift were related to rocks, I reckoned there should be some relation.

Of course, that did not work right away and I spent a bit more time before figuring out what could work. Then finally I got to doing it and Kiana truly managed to upgrade her gift." Lucius explained.

All of this was a bit too much for the Count and Countess as they were not used to certain scientific terms that Lucius had used. Since he was using the syntax of this world's language, it seemed strange to them.

This was intentional on Lucius's part, as he wanted to keep the method obscure. After all, this was all made up and would not work no matter what others tried. He could only do this because of his own gift, The Nexus. But there was nothing that prevented Lucius from capitalizing on this and thus he decided to do it this way.

"I… son, I don't fully understand what you said but I can see that it is something world shaking. You are truly blessed by the Goddess of Knowledge and Wisdom. Etara has blessed our family!" Lita said, with tears in her eyes.

Gabriel though, had a slightly different reaction. He had a serious face instead as he thought about the complications of such a thing.

"This cannot be revealed to the others!" Gabriel declared.

"I agree, father." Lucius calmly stated.

"Huh?"

Gabriel was stunned by Lucius's quick agreement. He had fully thought that Lucius would want to gain fame for himself and the family by bragging about this everywhere. If it was the Asher of the past, he would have definitely done this.

But with this response of Asher, all that Gabriel had thought in his mind was doused.

"We cannot reveal this to anyone. But… we can still capitalize it." Lucius said.

"What do you mean?" Gabriel asked, wanting to know his son's thoughts.

He had now accepted that his son was vastly different from before and was entirely a new person. Gabriel couldn't help but wonder if Etara had listened to his prayers from these past years and blessed Asher to this extent.

"I know our family is in the decline, I believe this can help us affirm our position and expand it even more. We will nurture our people… make them better than others, strongest than others, greater than others. Then… we will crush them… Crush all those that oppose us and have been suppressing us!" Lucius declared, a hint of his past life's aura of authority exuding from him.