Abyssal Awakening

Chapter 222: Alice's Self Experimentation

Finding herself an empty operating table, Alice grabbed a seat and several tools and placed them next to her.

'First experiment. How the blood changes based on the activation of Sigils.' Alice thought to herself as she sat down and placed her hand on the table.

Strapping her arm down, she narrowed her eyes and grabbed the scalpel. Without any hesitation, she cut into her arm, carefully avoiding her tendons, veins and arteries.

Controlling her blood so that it didn't spill everywhere, she took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

Recalling the sensation of the one Sigil Resonance, Alice tapped into the power within, controlling the energy so that only her first Sigil was activated.

'Stage one activation has no issues. Curiously, it seems like there is a tether being formed within my body. The tether reaches out and links up with the Abyss, hence the appearance of Sigils. They could be called the pathways where we, as the host, and the Abyss perform the exchange of power.' She documented in her mind.

Little by little, the Sigil started to branch out from its initial spot, making its way across the surface of Alice's skin.

'More pathways are being forcefully opened, allowing an influx of energy to enter the body. It seems to be giving the first Sigil… More priority.' Alice narrowed her eyes.

Now that she was observing the changes carefully, she understood why Resonances required three Sigils rather than being forcefully activated by one.

Each of the three acted as a counterbalance while opening new pathways to the Abyss. By having three conflicting powers, even if they synergise, it creates a stable foundation for the transfer of power. By having one side become more dominant than the others while opening pathways, the structure of power within the body collapses.

Thus causing the side effects that Alice had felt before along with the Sigil trying to for lack of a better word, 'consume' the rest of the body.

Making a note of this finding, Alice narrowed her eyes and clenched her fist, forcing the deactivation of her first Sigil. Having done so once, she knew what she needed to do in order to stop the activation.

'Compared to the partial activation that Allura showed, it seems like my version is more volatile but grants more power in exchange. Allura is like slowly opening three openings and allowing the water to flow in slowly while my version is turning one on full blast while the others are dormant.'

With her initial observation completed, she moved to stage two.

Reaching towards one of the lab equipment that she had borrowed earlier, she started to connect her arm to the device with several tubes going into her veins and arteries.

While she didn't know the exact name of this device, she had seen the scholars use something similar before. It was one that allowed her to observe the changes and purity of her blood.

For the Scholars of the Zenia family, this was one of their favourite tools as they could watch in real time how her blood recovered from being Abyss Blood back to 'normal' human blood.

'Unlike the full Resonance, I can use this multiple times. Though the trade off is still unknown for now except extra fatigue and the crown above my head.'

Taking a deep breath, she activated her first Sigil that transformed her blood into a hallucinogenic poison. Watching the numbers skyrocket towards the boundary between normal blood and Abyss Blood, Alice verified Cayla's claims from a while back.

Those who obtain Sigils have already stopped being 'human' in a sense. Their blood was merely in the stages of transforming into Abyss Blood.

Then what would happen if she were to activate her one Sigil resonance?

Upon activating the Resonance, the needle on the counter immediately broke past the boundary!

Through her one Sigil Resonance, her blood had fully transformed into Abyss Blood!

'No wonder it felt alive. Using the one Sigil Resonance is no different to overdosing on Abyss Blood and transforming. In that sense, my arm was trying to f*cking kill me!' Alice sighed, looking down at the Sigil that was trying to spread across her body.

Perhaps this was a power that was only open to her due to her special constitution.

Deactivating the Resonance, she watched as the numbers returned to normal.

There didn't seem to be any lasting effects thus far.

'It doesn't seem like people are able to emulate this power, thankfully. Without direct control of the flow of energy and the ability to perceive it, people are still bound to the three Sigil resonance. If this method of Resonance was to be discovered, some stupid idiot would probably try it and die in the process.' Alice frowned.

However, she paused as she realised she had indirectly called herself an idiot. Who would immediately attempt a method used by Abyss Beasts to power up on themselves without any prior experiments?

Only a reckless idiot would.

Sighing softly, Alice removed the tubes from her arm before condensing the blood in the machine into a blood bead so that she didn't leave any traces.

Setting the device to the side, she was now left to her final experiment. One that she wanted to test out the most.

How her violet flames are able to burn the influence of the Abyss. How it could cancel out abilities upon contact.

She wanted to find out if she could use this to 'purify' the people influenced by Abyss Blood beyond the point of saving. If she was able to burn away the influence in their blood, would they turn back to normal?

Alice could remember the expression Allura made whenever she saw someone who was on the verge of transforming or someone who had been transformed.

If she could solve this issue, Allura wouldn't have to feel saddened by the state of this world and its addiction to Abyss Blood.

She wasn't doing it for the good of humanity. No, she was doing it for Allura.

This last test required her to use both machines to see the changes of the blood along with observing how the flames attacked.

The first was to track the numbers while the second recorded the changes in the blood and transcribed it onto a piece of parchment.

With the combination of these two devices, Alice wanted to see if it was possible to return Abyss Blood back to normal while also seeing how it was done.

Pulling out a few vials of Abyss Blood, Alice poured a sample into the first machine and recorded the numbers before creating a small flickering flame above her finger.

It wasn't exactly how Allura was doing it but rather she was creating the same effect through her third Sigil.

By constantly providing the flame blood to burn, she could replicate the finger lighter that Allura uses.

'If I directly apply the flame, it'll burn up the sample without leaving anything behind. That's not what I want. What I want is to 'purify' the blood. So please, don't just burn everything connected to the Abyss.' Alice thought to herself as the flames had a mind of its own.

Unless their goals were aligned, it was extremely hard to control. Of course, there's been a semblance of understanding between the two of them hence why she was able to use it however she wanted but for more precise operations such as this, she needed more authority over her flame.

Meaning the violet flame needed to surrender itself to her control.

Taking a deep breath, Alice tried her best to slowly lower the flame onto the sample.

As the flame drew near, she could see the numbers on the machine fluctuating rapidly between the two values of human and Abyss Blood.

Meanwhile, the second machine showed that part of the blood had already been evaporated. The values shown before the evaporation revealed that the values had decreased slightly but it was barely noticeable.

Continuing until the sample was completely evaporated, Alice picked up the piece of parchment and read through the transcription.

'Hmm… Seems like it's possible to some extent.' Alice thought with a sigh.

There was a slight issue with this. The issue was that the flame was too volatile. Just exposing the Abyss Blood near the flame causes it to start dropping in purity before burning up. Even though it had shown the possibility of purifying the blood, exposing the blood to this flame would kill the victim.

Scratching her hair, Alice was glad she didn't try to forcefully purify the blood of Allura's old friend. Otherwise, it may have caused him even more pain before death and that was the last thing she wanted to do.

Destroying the parchment with her fire, Alice prepared the second sample.

This time she wanted to control the flames in a similar manner to how she achieved the one Sigil Resonance. By observing the flow of energy and feeling its movements, she wanted to adjust the flow so that the flames weren't as volatile.

There was another idea but she didn't want to try it out in an enclosed lab. And that was the one Sigil Resonance using her second Sigil!

Through the Resonance, the abilities of the Sigil were increased. Meaning theoretically, she could further enhance the potential of her blood.

The first enhancement granted her flames that cancelled out the Abyss, what would the second enhancement do?

Regardless of the answer, she knew that she couldn't do it here. So for now, the only thing she could do was practice her control using the observation method.

But as expected, trying to control the flame this way didn't seem to yield the results that Alice had wanted. In fact, it did the opposite. By trying to control the flame directly using her control over this abyssal energy, it became more defiant and unruly, refusing her commands and trying its best to burn up the sample before she could see the results.

Seeing this, Alice could only sigh.

"Hm?" Noticing something strange, Alice couldn't help but furrow her brows and double check what she was seeing on the machine. The numbers that revealed whether or not the sample was Abyss Blood or Human blood was… in the negatives?

If Human blood was 0, Abyss Blood was 100, the effect her flames caused had turned the number into -100!

She knew the flame countered the Abyss but she didn't think it was the complete opposite side of the spectrum. If that was the case, where did this flame even originate from? What was the secret of her body?