Blood Shaper

Book 2: Chapter 39

With his brand new Enhance Blood Skill enhanced and the blood of a hydra pumping through him, Kay’s injuries healed totally in less than a minute. As he straightened up and glanced around for his weapons, he saw another silver flash in the corner of his vision. He looked and saw his notifications were still open, and now something new was glowing. The line about Shape Blood hitting level thirty and opening him to get his first tier four class was shining silver.

“That’s something else right there. How did I suddenly get that many levels?” He asked the air.

There was no response.

“Alright, whatever.” He glanced up to where he could just barely see the Rittian-Eldritch Being hybrid dragging itself up the side of the caved-in walls. “Do I have time to do this?”

The light shone brighter.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes’.” Kay mentally opened up the tab and accepted his Class Advancement. The burst of power that filled him rejuvenated his body even as it strengthened him to new heights. He felt some of the mana “splash” out of his body and into his mana storage, which seemed like it would be wrong, but that’s what it felt like. He went ahead and opened the new class description.

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Class: Blood Melder

- You have learned the power of manipulating blood and shaping it into what you desire. Now comes the power to take blood beyond the limits of its basic form.

[————————————————————]

This description was also short. Kay read it three times before giving up on it for the moment. Maybe higher-level classes had shorter descriptions. Or hell, maybe there was less description because he was the first person to get these classes, and they didn’t have anything else to draw on. Maybe the devs just got lazy sometimes? Who knew? Kay certainly didn’t. And he definitely wasn’t stalling in order to to avoid having to chase after a disgusting monstrosity for just a moment more. No sir.

Kay sighed and glanced at his notifications. They’d updated once he’d accepted the new Class, as they did.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

New Skill!

- Skill: Meld Blood gained!

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

This notification didn’t glow, but he still went ahead and opened the Skill description anyway.

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Skill: Meld Blood (Level 1)

- When two things mix, there is a chance that they might become something more. This skill gives the user the ability to combine blood with others things, including items, spells, and the effects of other skills. Sustaining the combined blood requires large amounts of mana, with larger upkeep amounts required for more powerful combinations. Massive amounts of mana can be used to cause melded items to become permanent combinations. Melds containing spells or skill effects require extreme amounts of mana to create permanent items. Creating permanent items from melds that contain preexisting items cost less than creating permanent items from blood alone. Higher levels of this skill will reduce mana costs for ongoing merges and to create permanent items.

[————————————————————]

“Alright, that is broken. I can take skill effects, put them in blood, and then turn that into an item?” Kay reread the text again, and it still said the same thing. “No wonder Class Line Progenitors are so damn powerful if they can pull lots of classes like this. Give me enough mana, and I could make a kick-ass set of equipment. Although I do wonder how much mana I’d need for that…”

His notifications shimmered again, and he drew himself out of his thoughts.

“What?”

The glowing silver color danced around the edges of both the Skill notifications for Meld Blood and Purify Blood.

With his entire body feeling in top form from the mana infusion, Kay got what the mysterious glowing hint was in moments. “Meld the anti-eldritch effect into my attacks?”

The glimmer got brighter, then faded away.

“Right.” He glanced up at the small shape of the monster. “Here we go.”

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“I got those other houses done!” Darten called out to Eleniah as he walked into Kay’s office building, where she was writing down another list. It felt like she’d written a dozen or more in the last couple of days, and she was probably right.

Meten and the group of villagers he’d brought back with him had had the poor timing of showing back up the day after Kay and his party had left to go underground. If they’d shown up a day earlier, Eleniah would have been able to head down with Kay instead of leaving her student and friend to face the dangers below them alone. Not that he was alone, but she wasn’t there, dammit!

That was why she wasn’t in all that great a mood that day.

“Thanks.” She said curtly in reply to Darten, “What’s next?”

“Uh, I think I’ll go back to working on the walls, I guess?”

“Cool, do that.” She winced internally at her tone and glanced up at Darten.

He gave her a small smile, and the look in his eyes was commiserating.

“Sorry, I’m…” She sighed, “I’m worried.”

“Me too. We just have to trust them, right?” He shrugged, then gave her a little wave. “I really am going to go work on the walls, though, so I’ll see you later.”

“Bye.” Eleniah went back to working on the list she was making. The first few had been more of a census than anything else, with names, ages, families, and Classes listed out. Then there were medical lists she made with Chitel to note any diseases or injuries, which were thankfully few, then a dietary list to make sure no one had allergic reactions, lists of who should be near what kind of workshop, store, or other workplaces to make sure things were laid out efficiently, and on and on and on. She had a list just for the kinds of lists she had or needed!

“And this is the most basic kind of paperwork for a tiny little settlement,” She complained out loud to herself as she glared at the list she was working on, “When, or if, we get bigger, there’ll be even more!”

“You could always beg off once there are enough people to take over this kind of duty.”

Eleniah looked over at Ahthia; she’d been so quiet that Eleniah had literally forgotten she was there.

“It’s not like you won’t have the right connections to get out of paperwork,” Ahthia continued with a grin. “Just tell Kay you’re going to do something else.”

“Like that will work,” Eleniah snorted disdainfully, “He’ll never let me get away from it, not with me basically dragging him into this and the amount of paperwork he’s going to have to do.”

“Speaking of, that’s a good segue to bring up a topic I’ve wanted to before this.” Ahthia neatly collected her papers and set them to the side, “Why did you ‘drag him into this’? It wasn’t your only option.”

Eleniah leaned back in her chair and balanced it with only two legs on the floor. After some time staring at the ceiling, she glanced over at her dwarven companion. “I’m not going to tell you everything, not yet. But… well…” She trailed off, then sighed. “There are a few circumstances that one can find themselves in that either mean leadership or servitude. I’m sure you can think of a few, where someone either ends up in charge, or someone else’s servant, slave, or whatever.”

Ahthia nodded, “Sure, but just because Kay is one of those people doesn’t mean that this was the only or even best option.”

“Not the only option, sure, but not the best option? That’s debatable.” Eleniah rocked the chair back and forth a little. “It feels a bit different to me since I heard Kay’s take on the System being made by someone, but I’m a Pathwalker.”

“Oh.” Ahthia made a face of understanding.

Pathwalker were people who believed in a certain philosophy. It was a simple one with many variations. The base philosophy that connected all Pathwalkers was the idea that the World put people on certain paths for their lives and shaped their Skills, Classes, and for those who believed it mattered, their affinities, in order to shape and test them. Some thought it was part of Fate, others thought there was an intelligence that shaped things into what it wanted, others just thought it was how the World aligned itself, but all Pathwalkers thought there was some greater existence that made things happen in certain ways.

“Watching my cousin become Queen, hell, being there for almost the entire journey, it just seemed like some things shouldn’t have worked out the way they did. So I started believing the philosophy.” She tapped on the side of the chair with a finger, “After being there for that, then coming across someone with circumstances that were going to push them into being someone powerful? I looked at Kay after I came to like him and tried to figure out the best way to make sure he succeeded. You know what I came to every time? Something like this. Set up a settlement, build a power base, make sure there are people to support him.”

Ahthia listened carefully as Eleniah spoke, then quietly asked one question. “Do you believe in the War of Kings?”

“I’m not sure. It certainly fits in with the rest of the Pathwalker philosophy, and a lot of the theory lines up with reality. But what point would there be to push people, push Nobles, into fighting for bigger and better titles? I just don’t get that.” She let out a long breath, “But yeah, that was part of my thought process. If there is some driving force to make Nobles more and more powerful, someone like Kay would either be a great competitor or an even better pawn. After being in the pawn position before, I didn’t want him experiencing that.” Eleniah let her chair lean back down to level and stood up in the same motion. “That’s all I’m going to share right now, though. I’m sure you’ve already made some guesses, but I’m not going to confirm anything.” She walked off towards the door, “I’m going to take a break.”

“Bring back some snacks, will you?”

“Sure.”

Eleniah strode through the now larger settlement. They’d added multiple more houses near the rest in just the last couple of days, and it was more crowded than ever. Not that there were that many people around, but almost fifty people was more than the thirteen they’d had at one point. A few of the newcomers that had arrived with Meten glanced at her cautiously, but no one approached her. Meten had decided that it was better to stick together and retreat as a group if things went wrong with Kay’s Quest, so they’d stayed here. Plus, if, no, when Kay succeeded, it would save them all some time coming back.

Eleniah stopped next to the house that had been and probably still was Meten and Darten’s. Or maybe it would change hands at some point with Darten’s parents and siblings showing up, along with Meten’s previously unknown daughter. She stuck her head inside and found Meten, who she’d actually been looking for. As the other “elder” for the settlement and the only other tier five, he was the only person she could ask for advice about a certain topic.

“Hey, you busy?” She asked him.

“No, come in.” He set down a small notebook and turned in his seat towards her. “What can I do for you?”

“I want some advice.”

“Oh?” He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Do tell.”

“Should I go after Kay now that you’re here?”

He smiled softly at her and shook his head. “No, I don’t think so. You see-”

Meten was cut off by a muffled yet still horrific sounding shrill scream coming from the direction of, and most likely inside, the cliff. They both turned to stare at it. With the two of them being the only ones around with tier five hearing, they were probably the only ones who’d heard it yet.

Meten slowly turned to look at her. “I had multiple reasons to list, but I’ll give you just one. From what I’ve learned about our young leader, he’s probably very close to whatever that thing is.” He turned back to stare at the wall. “Which means he’s pretty close to us.”

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