Blood Shaper

Book 3: Chapter 59

“This is tasty,” Eleniah muttered as she took another bit of her lunch. “I really like this sauce.”

“Yeah, the mustard in it is great. Did you get any with that spicy-sweet pepper?” Kay asked.

“The molchino peppers? Yeah, I put some in both.” She held up her other flatbread fish wrap she hadn’t started on yet and used it to point at the small bag of roasted peppers.

“Oh, I only put them in one.” Kay indicated his second wrap, “I like it both ways, so I made one of each. I love how he just gives you the peppers and lets you do what you want with them.”

“Why are you discussing your food when we should be testing my theory!?” Ahthia demanded loudly, “And why did we have to wait for Eleniah to get here!?”

Kay held up one finger for her to wait while he chewed. The baked fish with the mustard-based sauce and the vegetables, one of which Kay had never heard of before landing in Torotia that was like a delicious combo between lettuce and artichoke, made a delicious meal that he would never been able to have on Earth. The simultaneously sweet yet spicy peppers were also something that didn’t exist back home, and he loved them. He swallowed after savoring the taste for a few more moments, then responded to her, “You’re the one who said I could get some food from the kitchens before we started testing.”

Eleniah’s head snapped up, “This is from the kitchen? I thought these were from that food cart by the Academy?”

“Oh, they used to be,” Kay grinned widely at her, “I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse! It was money. I offered him a lot of money to come work here. That plus the ability to apprentice under some of the more experienced chefs Amanda found, and he jumped at the offer.”

“You fiend!” She gasped dramatically and mimed, leaning back with her arm draped over her head. “You stole the cook from the best food cart by the Academy with your tyrannical powers and offers of really good pay and opportunities!? How could you? You’ve denied so many people access to such delicious food!”

“You still get to eat it since you work here all the time.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right.” She went back to eating.

“Are you done talking about food now!?” Ahthia growled, stalking closer to them.

“First, have you had any of these? They’re delicious; you’d be talking about them too.” Kay waved his second wrap at her, “Second, no, we’re not because we’re still waiting for a healer to show up.”

“Huh?” She stopped in place with a confused expression, “Why?”

“Because you said this was dangerous enough to warrant coming out to a training area instead of doing it inside. So I had someone get Eleniah and sent for a healer. There’s no point in doing things half-asses when it comes to safety.”

“Especially if we’re testing on the lord of the city,” Eleniah pointed out.

“Finish chewing before you talk,” Ahthia sighed, her shoulders slumping as she accepted the need to wait.

One of Kay’s detail stepped forward and murmured in his ear, “The healer should be only a few minutes more, my lord.”

“Thanks.” Kay glanced over at Ahthia and her disappointed slump. “You okay?”

“You aren’t as excited about my theory as I am, and it makes me sad.” She replied with a pout.

“You haven’t told us what it is yet.” Kay started gathering the trash from his meal. It was interesting to see what little cultural things that were Earth-like existed in Torotia, like food carts and take-out meals. I wonder how much is parallel development and how much got spread by Outworlders. How many things that I just accept because they aren’t from home got brought by Outworlders that weren’t from an Earth?

“It’s supposed to be a surprise!”

“I can’t get that excited about a surprise when I have next to no information about what it is. It’s a theory about my Skill, sure, but I need more than that to actually get excited.”

“Fine!” She sighed again, more aggressively this time, “Do either of you have any more food topics to talk about then?”

Oh, yes, I do!” Eleniah perked up and yanked a piece of paper out of her pocket. “Remember that meeting with some of the ship captains we recruited?”

“The one last week with the people from the port? Yeah, what about it?” He paused with a frown, “Why haven’t we named the port town while I’m thinking about it? Shouldn’t that be done already?”

“There are still meetings going on about it ’cause no one’s agreed on a name yet. But that’s not important right now!” She unfolded the paper and jabbed her finger at an entry on it, “I was talking to some of the captains, and they know where some of the foods from Earth you’re looking for are here on Torotia!”

“Oh?” Kay leaned in with interest to try and read the paper, “Which ones?”

“Uh…” She dragged her finger down the list, “Tomatoes and potatoes!”

“Really!?” Kay pushed into her space to see, “Where are they?”

“Up north! Apparently, they both grow in two different areas of the northern parts of the northern continent.” She grinned at him and waved the list a little, “I already put some people working on getting trade deals for them.”

“That’s everything we need for real pizza!” He threw his hands up in the air in celebration. “Finally! I thought that the fruit our trade people found in Tumbling Rapids was going to work, but it wasn’t right. And with potatoes, we can do fries too!”

Eleniah basked in his joy while he celebrated, and Ahthia let go of her mostly superficial grumpiness to be happy for him. Kay spent the next few minutes animatedly going over what different recipes they could recreate once they had access to those two ingredients. His two friends and advisers mostly just listened, not having any context to understand the dishes Kay was describing.

In the middle of Kay trying to describe a baked potato to people who hadn’t had potatoes before, the healer arrived. The young beastkin woman jogged into the training area with the palace aide Kay had sent to fetch a healer and one of Kay’s guards trailing behind them. The aide bowed to Kay and left after Kay dismissed him.

“Sorry, Lord Kay.” The young woman had rounded ears that could have been from any number of different kinds of beastkin, “There was a bit of a mix-up at the Sentinels’ office.”

“The Sentinels of Avalon” was the name that had finally made its way through Avalon’s Parliament for Meten’s organization of state-sponsored adventurers. The same session had also resulted in a new name for the guard force, which was now “The Wardens”. Kay didn’t think either of them were the most original, but he also didn’t have much to stand on when it came to names.

Kay shot her a concerned look. “Is everything alright?”

“Oh, it’s fine, sir.” She grinned at him with a mischievous glint in her eye, “I was just making sure I was getting paid for this.”

Kay shook his head and chuckled, “Alright, Ahthia, what’s your idea?”

“I want to see if you can meld blood from someone else into you to speed up how fast you can gain Skills!” She told him excitedly.

They all stared at her in shock.

“What?” She demanded, “It could work!”

“Personally,” Eleniah replied slowly, “This is more shock based on the potential implications than disbelief in your theory.” She looked over at Kay, “It’s definitely worth trying.”

“… What Skill should I test?” He asked, jumping right into it.

“Well, I’d say one of my movement Skills?” Eleniah held out her arm to him. “One of those would be useful if you do get it faster than normal or even if it takes you the normal amount of time.” She looked off to the side, pulling up her Status. “I think… yeah, Quick-Step is probably the best one. It’s one of the simple ones that I know you can get without needing other Skills or Classes.”

Kay quickly took a few drops of her blood. He stopped with it hovering in front of him and stared at it. “Do you think I should try and infuse it into my bloodstream? Is that the idea?”

Ahthia nodded with an excited expression.

“I should show you the Skill first so you can focus on it while you try this.” Eleniah deliberately put one of her feet down so the ball of it touched the ground and pushed off with force. She moved farther and faster than she should have with the level of power she put into it. “So, in theory, it’s simple. Focus mana in the right places in your feet and release it when you lift off to drive you forward.”

They spent a few minutes practicing the Skills, with Eleniah demonstrating it multiple times and Kay slowly figuring out where to balance the mana in his feet.

“Right, I’m going to try it.” Kay focused his will on Meld Blood and the Quick-Step skill as he ran Eleniah’s blood through his veins. Normally there was a sensation as the Skill worked at the task he gave it to, but at that moment, it felt like a failed attempt. “I don’t know if it worked, but let me try.” He spent another ten minutes trying to use Quick-Step, with no success.

Eleniah watched him with her head tilted to one side. “Normally, it would take you a few hours to get a Skill to level one, so I don’t think less than half an hour is really enough to be a good test…”

“But you know the sensation of a Skill working, right? I’m not getting that. It feels like… something’s missing? It’s almost as if I don’t have enough Skills to pull off what I’m trying.”

“Could that be your Class Line Progenitor Title ability working? You get a sense of what could lead you to new Skills and Classes, right?” Ahthia asked with a small frown.

“Right. I think it’s that, and I don’t think I’ll be pulling this off for you right now.”

She shrugged, “It was just a theory, not like I had all my hopes and dreams bound up in it.”

“Well,” Kay started gathering a floating ball of blood, “I did get another idea off of yours, so let’s see if it works.” He walked over to Eleniah and gently took her wrist, “May I?” She waved her acceptance, and Kay took another couple of drops of blood from her arm. He sent one over to the orb and quickly made a blood simulacrum of Eleniah.

“Alright, you guys will probably be better at this specific part than me. We need to measure all the factors of this simulacrum when it’s using Quick-Step.”

“Then you’ll try and meld more of her blood into it and see how it does after that!” Ahthia interrupted excitedly, “Genius!” She hustled over to the red, stock-still elven form with her notes ready. “Let’s start!”

An hour later, the testing was conclusive; Kay could use Meld Blood to slightly empower the Skills and Classes he made when copying someone with Create Simulacrum (Blood). There was a limit of three Skills that could be empowered or one Class, with individual Skills getting more if he did them separately compared to strengthening the Class that had those Skills.

It also finally got him the last level he needed in Meld Blood.

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

- Skill: Meld Blood has reached level 40!

- Workable Class Confluence of Minimum Two Tier Four Classes Achieved!

-Tier Five Classes Available!

- Class: Sanguine Transmutor Available!

- Class: Master of Shaped Crimson Available!

- Class: Sanguine Broken Mirror Available!

- Class: Sanguine Augmentor Available!

- Class: Blood Knight Originator Available!

- Class: Blood Champion Originator Available!

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

“Shit!”

“What?” Eleniah and Ahthia both asked.

“That unlocked six Classes!”

Eleniah grinned and bumped her shoulder against his, “Nice! Blood Melder has a lot of combinations with your other Classes, then. The good news with that is you’ll have more options for alter; the bad news is you’ll have to work extra hard at getting experience into Meld Blood to get them all.”

“That won’t be a problem!” Ahthia exclaimed, “I’ve got loads of more tests for you to do, and I know Cyrus is going to be drooling once we tell him how many expensive products you can make!”

Kay grinned along with her enthusiasm, “Let me look over these options, and then we can talk about more tests and money.” He pulled up all of them at once, along with their Class Skill, and started going over them, reading them silently a few times before describing them out loud to his rapt audience of three, the healer still hanging out with them. Realizing that he got a few words into the first Class before pausing.

With a few mental commands, he moved the menus into the corner of his vision and looked over at the young woman.

She cheekily smirked at him and snapped her fingers. “Darn! I thought I’d get to be the first person outside your main circle to hear about your tier five options. What good bragging rights that would have been once everything went public.” She waved and started walking off, “See you later, Lord Kay! If you need any more healers to stand around and do nothing while still getting paid, I’ll almost always be available!”

Eleniah watched her leave with a grin, “I like her.”

“I am so incredibly not surprised.” He went back to detailing the new Class options.

[————————————————————]

Class: Sanguine Transmutor (Combination of Blood Manipulator + Blood Melder)

- Take the essence of blood, the mythology of blood, and the power of blood and transform or infuse it into something else. With your knowledge, will, and mana, you may take something that is magic and make it into something different. Different and bloodier.

Class Skill: Sanguine Transmutation

Class Skill: Bloody Metamorphosis

[————————————————————]

[————————————————————]

Skill: Sanguine Transmutation (Level N/A)

- A change with, from, or into blood. This Skill passively increases the variety of effects possible with the Meld Blood Skill, increases the potential of previously available effects, and decreases all mana costs of using the Meld Blood Skill. Higher levels of this Skill further decrease the mana costs of Meld Blood.

[————————————————————]

[————————————————————]

Skill: Bloody Metamorphosis (Sublime Skill)

- Take your blood and what you will and generate anything you might conceive. Through blood, the birth of new power. This Skill allows the user to take mana-rich blood and another object with one or more magical properties and use both to create something entirely new. What can be created is only limited by the user’s imagination and mana and only curtailed by what has been taken to be transformed. As a Sublime Skill, this Skill has no level and will not change with experience or use. (System Access Info: Warning! Sublime Skills are only loosely balanced! Changes and updates may occur without warning!)

[————————————————————]

Kay was interrupted at the very beginning of reading his Class Skills.

“Two Class Skills! That’s a great Class!” Ahthia squeed, the first time he’d ever heard her make a noise like that.

“I have two Class Skills,” Eleniah muttered.

“Yeah, but you had those when I met you. I’m already done being excited about that.” She glanced up at Kay, who was staring at them with half-lidded eyes. “Sorry! Keep going.”

He made it another few lines into reading before he was interrupted again by both of them.

“A Sublime Skill!?”

“Fuck yes!” Eleniah spun away and did an awkward victory dance, “I knew picking you up was the best idea I ever had!” She grabbed Kay’s face and gave him a smacking kiss on the lips. “This is fantastic!”

Kay ducked away from both of them. “What’s a Sublime Skill, and why haven’t we talked about it before?” He demanded.

“Because they never come up!” Eleniah was still fist-pumping and making other celebratory gestures, “I only know of two people alive with one, and one of them’s the Rune Master!”

“Who’s the other?”

“My cousin.” She stopped dancing around when she saw their expressions and shrugged. “It never came up.”

“More information, please.”

Ahthia took over the explanation while Eleniah started doing flips. “They’re powerful Skills that don’t Level and have crazy effects. Every single one of them comes as part of a tier five or higher Class that has more than one Class Skill. That’s really all we know. All of the ones that are known and have reliable records of them are said to have been incredibly different.”

Eleniah flipped over to them and landed with her arms outstretched next to Kay. “It’s fantastic!”

“Should we skip leveling up Leadership and take this one as my first?”

“No. Classes with more combinations take longer, period. This one only needs two Classes to make it, so we do the Class that uses the most first. This is definitely on the top of the list after that, though.”

Ahthia nodded in agreement. “She’s correct. Now, what are the rest?”

“Isn’t this moving on too quickly?”

“No, keep reading. I want to get through all this and get you your first tier five so we can come back to this and do testing!”

Kay and Eleniah both started laughing.

“So that’s your motivation, huh?”

“Damn straight! This is one of the most interesting things that’s happened to me!”

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