"Kiddo, you might want to consider slowing down and listening," Mister Black chided. "If you go a bit to the left and straight ahead, there's a clearing with an interesting specimen, a bicorn at the peak stage of the fifth grade."

Strong River flushed, embarrassed at his oversight. After so much planning and preparation, after ridding himself of one blood enemy and obtaining new techniques, he had let it all go to his head and forgot the basics.

He rushed ahead, pushing himself off of the trees with each step as he strained to listen ahead. The sound of flowing water murmuring over rocks came through, a rhythmic splashing overlaid above it. As he came into view of the water, the source of the splashing became obvious.

The water was in a stream-fed pool that reflected the late afternoon rays. Next to that pool was a large, lanky beast, its tawny golden shoulder the height of a man. Its head, crowned with two substantial spike-like horns that each went off to its left and right, was currently bowed at the water, the splashing now clear as the sound as it lapped up water.

The bicorn finished its drink and turned to regard its new visitor. Its red eyes flashed with a reflective quality that made them seem to glow. The creature neither advanced nor retreated, instead appearing to be assessing its target with an intelligence lacking in lower beasts.

"Any tips, Mister Black?" River asked.

"It's faster than you might think," Mister Black observed. "Don't assume you can play fancy flipping acrobatic games with it like you have the lesser beasts, or else you'll have the business ends of one of those horns up your rear before you can think better of it. This is an endurance match, don't expect a single blow to clinch it. This is a good opportunity to practice sapping at intervals with the Blood Devouring Palm, which will provide you fuel for your Blood Ignition Acceleration. That will take self-control. The urge to keep draining when you should instead disengage is one of the drawbacks of the Blood Devouring Palm that you need to master before it masters you."

River nodded as he continued exchanging a glare with the bicorn. This would be the most challenging encounter of his life so far; there was no sneak attack to make, no tricks of intimidation or sheer overwhelming power to crush it with.

"Well, here goes nothing," River muttered, dashing forward to the beast.

The bicorn stamped its hoofed feet and lowered its head to meet the charge. Already in motion and with two horns threatening either flank's approach, River decided to challenge the beast on its terms. Reaching out with his hands as he landed, he launched himself forward and grabbed at the horns. Man and beast connected with an impact that rattled River's bones, and the two entered a contest of pure strength; he pushed down on the beast's horns, attempting to lower the creature's head to the forest floor, and the bicorn pushed back, trying to lift the man.

The veins on the creature's neck and the muscles of the young man's arms stood out as both were locked in their wrestling match, either only achieving their aim for a finger's width or two before the status quo was restored.

This was a good match, but it was also a deadlock. Both strained in their stalemate, neither gaining the upper hand, but a feeling of dread started to churn in River's stomach: contact with the bicorn's horns was not enough to activate the Blood Devouring Palm, and without that, his endurance would soon run out and leave him at the beast's mercy. It was time he made a move to alter the situation.

River changed the direction he was exerting his strength, launching himself forward with the bicorn's horns and borrowed force as a slingshot. Reaching down, he attempted to make contact with the creature's flank, but his fingers brushed over the tawny coat. With a bone-jarring impact, one of the creature's rear hooves connected with River's thigh and he was launched further, splashing down into the pond.

The creature spun around, snorting as it turned to regard its aggressor. River, in turn, pushed himself up from the shallow water, shaking off the excess. The first round belonged to the bicorn. The creature did not press the advantage, however; there was no point in joining the young man in the water, as it could intercept him wherever he tried to escape.

Mister Black's lack of commentary indicated volumes to River: he had screwed up, but he needed to get himself out of this one. Gritting his teeth as he pressed on the gash in his thigh, he picked up a round stone from the pond's floor and hurled it at the bicorn. The creature intercepted the missile with a flick of its neck, the rock careening off from a horn and into the distance.

So much for that plan. River frowned. Well, if it could deflect something substantial...

The young man dashed forward to meet the beast, hunching to cup water in his two hands before splashing it at the beast's face. Watching the horns as the creature shook its head to try -- and fail -- to deflect the liquid, River used the moment of blindness to slide past the sharp implements and reach the beast's side, slapping his right palm onto the creature's flank.

Power, glorious power flowed into River through that palm, but only for a fleeting moment as he recalled Mister Black's admonition. He cut off the flow himself and activated the Blood Ignition Acceleration art to escape.

River's vision distorted, the field of view growing narrower and blurry even as everything took on a hellish red glare. He could see the muscles in the bicorn's flank flexing, bunching in preparation to give him another solid kick. He shoved himself backward to avoid the strike.

To his blood-soaked perception, River moved normally. The bicorn, however, seemed to be trapped in a fluid, each movement deliberate and slow, easily observed and avoided.

Feeling the rush of power that he had pilfered waning, River moved back further and deactivated the Blood Ignition. His vision snapped back to normal, the blur and reduction in his field of view going with the bloody tint. Sparing a glance at his thigh, he noticed that the pain had reduced to a mere itch as the wound was already staunched following the infusion from the Blood Devouring Palm.

The bicorn whirled to again face its opponent, a trace of wariness now in its eyes. The creature's intelligence was enough to comprehend that something beyond its expectation had occurred and that its own reserves of stamina had been reduced in the confrontation.

Smiling, River decided a new tactic was needed to wear down the beast for the kill. This time he preemptively activated the Blood Ignition Acceleration, daring to risk the possibility of draining from his own vital reserves. The boost in speed and perception allowed him to rush past the creature's horn and make contact with his palm long enough to replenish what he had lost, and then some.

Then he again escaped, leaving the creature perplexed and further weakened.

This cycle continued as the sunlight waned and the battlefield was bathed in moonlight. The bicorn finally understood that it would soon be too weak to retaliate and that it was already too drained to escape this strange opponent. It took the initiative to charge at River first.

This was an error, a misjudgment beyond either party's previous calculation. The creature's hooves, unsuited for a slick surface, slipped on the pebble-laded bed of the pond and it plunged to the ground with a shallow splash.

Seeing the opportunity, River grabbed the dagger from his waist and leapt over the creature. The bicorn, too concerned with regaining its footing, could not deflect or even tense its muscles as the dagger penetrated behind its neck, slipping between the vertebrae and severing the creature's ability to control itself.

Leaping back from the collapsed beast, River took a moment to confirm that the creature's impairment was real as it no longer made any attempt to rise. He did not put it beyond the bicorn to lay an ambush at this juncture, as it had proven a formidable opponent.

It never did rise again. Stepping forward, the young man laid his palm on the creature's back in a gesture that was almost a caress rather than an attack. Even paralyzed as it was, something in the body resisted that tyrannical palm, the shrinking muscles twitching as all the creature's vitality and blood were sucked into the young man.

River felt like a dam had burst inside him as the power coursed through him. His blood grew heavier, his muscles stronger, his bones denser and his tendons more elastic as the warm flow of vitality tempered these things.

Breakthrough to the sixth-grade Human Realm, successful!

Letting go of the drained corpse, River checked the wound on his thigh. Not only had the bleeding stopped entirely, but besides the damage to his clothing one would never think anything had happened. Not a single one of the little scrapes and bruises one would expect to have after such a melee remained present, all healed by the bicorn's monstrous vitality.

Stepping away from the creature's corpse, he kneeled in the water to wash the sweat from his face. What he saw was startling.

The man looking back at him in the moonlit reflection was still recognizably himself, but his hair had grown almost to his shoulders. The red, before a coppery auburn tinting, was now a dominant hue. River didn't pay much attention to his appearance, and so the moment of this transformation escaped him. Was it just now, when he broke through?

More importantly, how would he explain this new mane of blood when he returned to the camp?

"Problem?" Mister Black, sensing River's befuddlement, chimed in.

"What happened with my hair?" he asked.

"Ah, yes. That sometimes happens with those who cultivate blood arts," Mister Black remarked in a dry tone. "The energy tends to filter through and change the hair. It's nothing major, just a likely sign that you have been tapping into some exceedingly rich sources. Even if it's permanent, it's not like the shade is doesn't occur naturally or anything."

"Nothing major? How do I explain it then?" River fought back against a sudden wave of panic, trying to grab it and throw it into Passion Sublimation's black hole.

Mister Black chuckled. "That's easy. When fleeing into the forest, you came across an opportunity and had a breakthrough. This is the side effect of what it did. Anyway, now is not the time to worry about that."

"Oh?"

"Your battle has attracted some attention, and it's about to arrive. How about you take the opportunity to try out that new Dusk Aura Concealment of yours? Then I can run through all the ways you screwed up before you repeat them."

Frowning, River activated the Dusk Aura -- at least he thought he did, it didn't feel any different than usual to him -- and situated himself up in the branches of a nearby tree, where Mister Black began to rattle off a litany of errors he had just committed.

Even that wasn't able to dampen his excitement at having broken through, though. And this was only the beginning!