49 - Creation

Su Tao woke up in the endless grasslands.

He heard the light breeze going by, the rustling of the grass as it blew.

He could smell the flowers that were blooming here and there. The smell of nature, the wind, everything, and he knew right away that he was in another trial, though he did not know what for.

After some time passed, Su Tao finally saw a change. In front of him appeared a black book.

The appearance of this black book surprised Su Tao a little bit as it abruptly appeared as if it had simply popped into existence, and it had no aura and no interaction with the world, just like that feeling he had when he first came back to the endless grassland.

When he opened the book to try to read it, he realized that the page was completely black, and that nothing was written on it.

Even with his eyes that were several thousand times as good as normal eyes, he saw absolutely nothing on the page, not even a speck of dust.

Then, slowly, some weird words written in an ethereal white light started to shine on the pages of the book.

"Learn the way of the abomination. Do not mistake holy for good. Do not mistake wickedness for evil. Do not mistake kindness for good. Do not mistake unkind for bad.

The path of the abomination is holy and wicked. Kind but merciless. A balance of all that there is in this world.

A demon is not fit to be called an abomination. A saint is not fit to be called an abomination.

The heart is the center of creation. Don't be fooled by appearances. Keep a steady heart to strengthen your will."

After reading this, the book vanished from the world as if it was a bubble that had just popped. He didn't even have a chance to see if anything else was written, but he figured that there was likely nothing else.

He then waited to see if there was something that would change about the endless grassland like in the other trials.

In the first trial, a bow had appeared, making him shoot at targets. In the second trial, the world had changed entirely to bring out his most powerful emotions with specific scenes.

Sure enough, a change happened after a few seconds as a simple knife appeared in front of him on the ground. It was a throwing knife, but it wasn't even sharp at all. The blade was so dull that you couldn't even cut paper with it.

A blade this dull would be utterly useless. On top of that, it seemed to be extremely thin and fragile, as if it would break just by being smacked against something.

Su Tao bent down and picked up this throwing knife, looking at it curiously. He had no clue whatsoever what he was supposed to do with this, and nothing else had appeared either.

He had noticed that it was dull and fragile, but he didn't know what that meant in the context of the trial, though he was certain it had something to do with it.

He also noticed when the book had disappeared that his vision had gone back to normal and the power of his eyes was cut off. But he thought nothing of it since this had happened previously in the trial of his left eye at certain points in time as well.

But even without the boost in vision, he could clearly see that this was a very inferior throwing knife. It probably wouldn't even go through the air properly due to a lack of weight.

He knew that knives in particular couldn't have any flaws in them, especially throwing knives. This was because of how they were used, and any flaw would mean either failure to do something or death.

Other weapons could have flaws that would not effect them that much, but knives couldn't have any flaws at all.

He figured that this trial probably had something to do with the fact that this knife was flawed, but he didn't understand what he could do with a flawed throwing knife and nothing else.

After all, this was the endless grassland, and if he didn't see something right away, there likely wasn't much else.

He knew that there were villages in the endless grassland, but they weren't always there, and he was pretty sure that all of them were a set distance away from him at the start anyway.

He didn't understand what the book meant by a steady heart, so he didn't have any guidelines.

He looked at the knife, seeing if there was anything strange about it. However, there really wasn't anything weird about it. It really was just a normal inferior throwing knife.

He wanted to look around for some villages before he did anything just in case he did the wrong thing.

He did the same thing as before and walked around for a long time. After all, he previously found the village even without the help of his improved eyes.

His body was still stronger, and he was capable of moving many times faster than before. However, he didn't find any villages even after searching for a long time.

He was incapable of using his inner energy here, but he could use the black blood. As such, he assumed that this was a trial for his heart, which was also backed up by the fact that the book spoke about a steady heart.

Seeing that there was nothing even after searching for such a long time, he just looked at the knife.

The book said "Do not be fooled by appearances." So he figured that this knife might be as simple as it appeared.

With nothing else to do, Su Tao just directed his black blood from his body and into the knife.

He had tried this with other weapons before, but it never made much difference in strength when it came to the attack from the weapon, so he just ignored it. It didn't make much of a difference when it already helped him a lot anyway.

When the black blood tried to go out of his body, it was converted into a kind of energy that went out of the blood and into a purer form. This meant it was technically stronger outside the body, but it didn't make much difference.

As it went into the knife, Su Tao immediately noticed that he didn't have very much control over it since he didn't have the precision that came with his enhanced eyes.

It wasn't like inner energy where you could at least somewhat control it in another object. He had no control over it whatsoever.

He now realized that the only reason he was able to control it before was because of the precision that came with his eyes.

As the black power seeped into the knife, cracks slowly started to appear and spread through the thin metal. It seemed that the metal was not only substandard, it was also extremely brittle, like rusted iron.

It soon completely broke apart as Su Tao completely lost control over the black power of his heart.

The pieces of the knife then fell to the ground, and Su Tao didn't know what to do now.

But then, just like the arrows previously, another knife fell from the sky, but it was not identicle to the throwing knife.

It was another useless throwing knife, but it's flaws were different from the previous one. But this made sense since he would eventually adjust to that specific knife if they were all the same.

The knife stuck into the ground next to him, barely holding itself together.

He then picked it up and tried to send his black heart's power into it. It once again cracked and the pieces fell to the ground.

This process repeated about ten times before Su Tao was able to control the black power a little better. This time, he was able to get it to go into the handle of the knife without breaking it apart. As such, he moved on to the blade.

But the moment he tried to get that black power into the blade, it fell apart.

He then tried time and time again, with it never working.

He managed to make progress bit by bit, but this was just the process of getting the black energy into the knife, not actually doing what he figured the trial wanted him to do.

He knew that this was going to be a long process, so he didn't get annoyed at this slow progress.

After doing this about a hundred times, he finally realized that he had not actually used that much black power from his heart even though he was consuming a massive amount of it.

In reality, he would likely have already used a significant portion if not all of his black blood doing this, but in the endless grasslands, logic often didn't apply, and he could use vast quantities of the black blood without much effort to replace it.

He soon had tried and gone through more than a thousand knifes, and there was a pile of shattered throwing knives on the ground.

However, he was finally able to get the black power from his heart into the entire blade without breaking or cracking it.

At this point, the knife looked like a throwing knife then had a black coat of paint around it. But this black stuff was the power from his heart that he was controlling on the surface of the knife.

He could now start to try to use the black power to fill in the flaws in the knife, which he assumed was the point of this trial, or at least part of it.

But as soon as he tried to do this, the knife once again shattered.

It was only now that he truly realized how much he had grown to rely on the precision that came with his eyes.

He had really taken advantage of it, and he realized that this was probably a bit like what others had to go through to learn the same things he had.

After all this time with his eyes and the black heart, he had somewhat forgotten that he wasn't naturally talented, and that it was all a result of those two things.

But he still continued to mess around, breaking more and more knives.

Very soon, he had managed to go through ten thousand knifes, and he had gotten to the point where he could fill in some of the major flaws in the knives, and they were now viable to actually use.

As such, he threw out the knife just to see what he could do with it.

Obviously, it didn't fly properly, but that was because Su Tao had never trained with throwing knives.

However, he could see that it actually held together for a second before it broke from the force of being thrown and the instability of the black power.

But this was a major improvement from before.

By now, there was a giant pile of broken knives, and it was only getting bigger as time went on.

With every knife that Su Tao broke, he made more progress. As this point, because he was able to actually keep the knife intact while fixing some flaws, he was able to progress quicker.

With all this time, he had gone through a hundred thousand knifes, and he was now able to bring the quality of the knife up to an average quality, and even if he threw it, it would stay together the whole time it flew, only breaking apart when it hit something and sometimes not at all.

He was also able to learn how to more properly throw the knives, but he only did so with a couple knives to test his progress while the rest broke from him making a mistake.

He realized that the black power could be controlled outside his body, just like inner energy, but it seemed to be different.

It was odd to control, and it seemed to shift if not under his control, which was why the knives broke even if he made them stronger with the black power.

It could be said that, if he was able to achieve a rough surface right now in terms of control, he needed to be able to get it smoother than a pane of glass.

The edge of the knife currently wasn't much sharper than before, but Su Tao wanted to work on the integrity of the knife before working on the edge.

As he continued to work on his control, the time passed by quickly, and a month had gone by without him noticing.

By now, he had a small mountain of broken throwing knives.

But he was finally able to make sure that the knife was completely held together and it was extremely strong now, even if he threw it.

He had also unintentionally made it much sharper, allowing it to have a semi-sharp edge that was more than capable of cutting things, although it wouldn't be the best cut.

He was very happy with this ability of the black heart, and he continued to get better and better as time went on.