Freedom or Sin

In a lush forest, a woman with long curly blonde hair ran swiftly, her face marked by fear. This woman was Ebina, her clothes torn and claw marks on her arm.

Twenty meters behind her stood humanoid creatures, ten in number, resembling humans but mixed with other forms. Some had sparse fur, others sharp claws, and still others scales.

"Damn mission!" Ebina screamed to the sky.

A few minutes ago...

Ebina, upon arrival, found herself in a dark, damp cell, entirely constructed of wood.

After surveying her surroundings, Ebina heard something in her mind.

Ding! [Evolutionary trial! The more you fulfill the objective, the more rewards you will receive, but in return, the difficulty will increase.] 

Ding! [Objective: Free the prisoners 0/11]

Ebina nodded and looked at the door with disgust. "Prisoners, huh..."

She approached the door, which was made of thicker wood than the walls, but noticed it was poorly closed. She stuck her head out the opening and saw a corridor, with her cell seemingly the last.

She counted ten cells, a wooden door at the end of the corridor, likely where the responsible individuals were, and a huge hole in the wall just to her right.

"Well, here goes nothing. Nothing says they won't come back and stop me from completing the mission," she muttered, launching herself entirely outside and heading towards the nearest cell.

Ding! [Objective: 1/11!] 

Ding! [Trial can be completed by going through the "Hole"]

She abruptly stopped and turned her head, as if her joints were rusted, towards the hole, a helpless smile on her lips. "That's tempting after all. It's unfair."

After a 1 second internal debate, she decided to check the other cells first. After all, the hole was there, and couldn't run away.

Arriving at the first cell, she attempted to pull the door, and strangely, it opened. She tilted her head to look inside and froze, as if electrocuted. Even a slight intake of breath echoed in the corridor.

Ebina's naturally gentle face went through two phases at a dizzying speed: first shock, then black rage. Her face, twisted by anger, was terrifying.

Through her clenched jaw, causing her gums to bleed, she softly growled, "Monsters..."

In the cell, a little boy of about six or seven, dressed in rags, stared at Ebina with vacant eyes, leaning against the wall, eyes fixed on the opposite wall.

Ebina quickly entered the cell and grabbed the boy in her arms, tears in her eyes. "It's going to be okay... sniff... I'm going to get you out of here... sniff"

She took the child in her arms and carried him towards the hole, explaining to him to use it to escape. The child kissed her on the cheek and slipped into the darkness of the hole. As Ebina smiled, happy to see him leave safe and sound...

Ding! [Objective 2/11] 

Ding! [1 prisoner took the "Hole"! Passage rights reduced!]

The wall miraculously began to repair itself, making the hole smaller.

Ebina stood there, powerless. If she had seen correctly, about 10% of the wall had been repaired. So, if she saved everyone...

"If they're children, so be it. We'll improvise for the rest," she decided, rolling up her sleeves before heading towards the other cells with a smile.

After a few minutes, the hole, initially huge, was now only a few centimeters in diameter, just large enough to allow a little girl to pass in front of her.

"Come on, go join the others," she said softly, pushing the girl to encourage her to enter. The girl smiled at her and waved before disappearing into the hole.

Ding! [Objective 11/11] 

Ding! [Objective completed! New objective: survive 00:10:00 minutes]

A cold shiver ran down Ebina's spine when she saw the second objective. She looked at the end of the corridor apprehensively, then sprinted towards the door as fast as she could.

Ebina had barely reached the door and opened it when she saw two things: first, a humanoid creature, covered in fur, with red eyes and huge claws, and then a forest to her left.

Without thinking, she began to run to the left, but as she stretched her right arm behind her while running, she felt a cold sensation, followed by a tearing pain.

Without understanding with her mind, but with her eyes, she saw five deep gashes on her arm. Terrified, she ignored the pain and continued to run, but the further she ran, the more she heard the sound of water.

A few minutes later.

"Damn mission!" Ebina screamed to the sky

Soon, as if it were destiny, she saw a void in front of her, with a waterfall 100 meters away.

"I don't know how much time I have left, and going around the precipice is certain death. They'll catch me," she murmured, seeing the creatures only meters behind her.

With no choice, she closed her eyes, accelerated with all her might, and jumped into the void. But when she reopened them, she realized it wasn't water below her. The waterfall poured into a small river far below. Beneath her, there were only rocks and trees.

She closed her eyes, without regret, as she fell faster and faster. But just as she thought she would die and fail...

Ding! [00:00:00] 

Ding! [Auxiliary trial succeeded!] 

Ding! [Perfect success of both trials!] 

Ding! [Special reward: Stigma enhancement awarded

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Name : Ebina

Stigma:

Name - Freedom Wing 

Type - Corporeal 

Rank - White

- Mana Wings (White) - 

Can materialize wings by consuming mana. Carrying a heavy load does not allow for flight. Physical endurance required for sustained flight.

Statistics: lvl1

- Spiritual strength: 3 

- Physical strength: 3

Mana Exercise: -

[Bronze promotion condition: level 10 + ???]

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***

Hayashi Yoson had always been a girl with a weak character, struggling to say no, to look people in the eye, or even to ask for what was rightfully hers.

She had been diagnosed as semi-awakened when the iris of her eyes, normally brown, lost all color to become a pale gray. According to the experts at the bastion, she was a mental semi-awakened, but of a rare sub-branch... ocular art.

However, apart from the change in the color of her eyes, nothing else had changed about her. Since then, she had hidden her eyes behind glasses and a fringe, often lowering her head to avoid drawing attention.

Ding! [The 7 Facets trial has begun! Enter one of the two available doors!]

Ding! [Red 0/1] 

Ding! [Orange 0/1] 

Ding! [Yellow - Sealed] 

Ding! [Green - Sealed] 

Ding! [Blue - Sealed] 

Ding! [Indigo - Sealed] 

Ding! [Purple - Sealed]

She looked around her at a large square, closed like the inside of a room in a castle. The walls were adorned with frescoes and expensive decorations, the ceiling rising at least 10 meters high.

The room was pentagonal, each corner housing a door with different-colored grooves. Only the red and orange doors were ajar.

Hayashi approached the red door cautiously. "Excuse me, is anyone there?"

No response came, but as a precaution, she waited and took the opportunity to read what was written on the door.

"In the burning mirror of anger, masks fall and true faces emerge, revealing the buried fury in each of us," she read aloud. Once the sentence was read, she felt her eyes become uncomfortable, inexplicably drawn to the door.

She approached the opening slowly, filled with an immense desire to know what lay beyond. "I'm entering, sorry for the intrusion."

Once inside, everything was red, as if a red smoke had invaded the place. She turned to see that the door had disappeared.

"What's happening here?"

Ding! [Red 1/1]

Ding! [Baptism of Anger is about to begin!]

Suddenly, all the smoke paused for a second before furiously entering Hayashi's eyes. Panicked, she put her hands in front of her eyes, but nothing seemed to stop what was happening.

After a few seconds, she saw in her mind a multitude of scenes from her life where she should have been angry, but had hidden it within her for fear of retaliation or disapproval.

"No... no, please stop," she begged, crying at the images unfolding before her.

This baptism lasted for Hayashi, who had to relive every scene of her life related to anger for several days, although in reality it only lasted a few seconds.

Believing her ordeal was over, she began to see identical scenes but featuring strangers, in a loop, as if the smoke wanted to imprint every situation and every tear of frustration shed by these people into her mind.

After an indefinite time, the room was without any smoke, just totally gray, and Hayashi's initially gray eyes had become a deep blood red, as if several shades of red were concentrated in a single gaze.

She stood up, sighed, her temperament had changed, her gaze was more "alive". She grabbed her glasses and threw them away from her.

"I won't let anyone crush me anymore! I've had enough!" she declared before disappearing from her position and appearing in the center of the previous room. The red door had disappeared, replaced by a wall where a drawing representing a sad mask concealed another, furious.

She looked at the orange door and approached it with confidence. "Let's do this, let's finish it."

She observed the door and read the inscription: "In the deceitful glint of the greedy gaze, worldly desires awaken and souls are ensnared in the nets of greed, sacrificing the essence of humanity for fleeting wealth."

The same thing happened with her eyes, but this time, she entered directly, and orange smoke surrounded her.

Ding! [Orange 1/1]

Ding! [Baptism of Greed is about to begin!]

She opened her eyes wide, a smile on her lips. "Show me another facet of the human heart from which I was deprived the right to know!" freed from a burden in the previous room, she was even eager to discover this new trial.

And when the smoke entered her eyes as before, she was first greeted by scenes from her life where people had mistreated her out of greed, then by endless loops of stories where men and women had destroyed lives to satisfy their greed and temporary material pleasure.

Her eyes, once all absorbed, changed from red to orange, similar to a sunset, but quickly turned red again. It seemed that Hayashi's basic eye color was no longer gray, but red, the first color to tint her eyes.

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Name: Hayashi Yoson

Stigma:

Name - The Eyes of The Sinner 

Type - Mental 

Rank - White

- Facet Eye - 

 - Can change the color of her eyes to obtain different abilities.

- Each eye change consumes a lot of mana.

- Each person can only suffer the effects of one gaze.

- Mentally stronger individuals are immune.

Red (White) (Furious Gaze): this color allows the user to project a gaze filled with the concept of anger, capable of temporarily driving those who meet it insane.

Orange (White) (Greed Gaze): this gaze has the power to enchant others and drive them to avidly seek wealth and material possessions.

Statistics: level 1

- Spiritual strength: 4 

- Physical strength: 2

Mana Exercise: -

[Bronze promotion condition: level 10 + ???]

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