Chapter 73: Deryn

"Why did you refuse her?" Annica asked while looking at Keith's puzzling face.

"Like you said, she is not what she portrays outwards. Besides, I haven't refused her yet. It's just that I find her a little terrifying. Who knows what she's scheming? There might be a trap waiting for me inside her residence.

Pffft!

"Were you this cautious before beating random students?"

Annica tried to control her laughter but to no avail. 

"That was a different issue. They were weaker than me, so I had no reason to back down. Also, I earned a hefty sum of blood coins, so it's a win-win for me." Keith replied proudly.

"You are right, it is a good way to collect money. Just don't get caught by the seniors, or you'll lose all your hard-earned money." Annica laughed.

Keith didn't pay her any mind and looked at the test area for the upcoming tests. Only one row of students was left and there was still no sign of any extraordinary performance. With this batch of students, Keith recognized a vampire.

The arrogant, self-entitled vampire he met at the entrance of the academy. Keith wondered how his performance would be. He was the son of a duke, so he must have a lot of secrets blood-qi techniques with him. With a renewed interest he kept his eyes on him.

"Oh, you found that little rat. I hope he can cross the viscount stage with his own strength. That would be a sight to see." Annica snorted with contempt.

"Is he that weak?" Keith asked curiously.

"All he does is sit around all day and drink blood. How can that lazy bum condense enough blood-qi to pass the test."

"Maybe he has some secret blood-qi technique. You said he was from a duke family, didn't you?" 

"I doubt he learned any blood-qi technique from his family considering how lazy he is. We have to see for ourselves…" She turned her attention towards the test area.

"What was his name again?" Keith asked with a frown.

"Deryn…"

The ten students stood in their position and started walking inside the baron layer. Deryn was looking at the judgment pillar with a mocking smile. When the test started he immediately rushed towards the baron layer and covered half of the distance within a minute.

When he started to struggle in the middle of the baron layer, he extended his arm and activated a rune that was carved on his arm. A large amount of blood-qi came out of that tattoo and transformed into a wolf-like creature.

It was two meters high and six meters long with a tail that stretched above his height.

"What is that? A summon" Kieth tried to guess.

"Correct. His family must've given him a rune to help him control the blood summon so he could give the test without getting disqualified. I thought he would use an artifact, despite it being banned. I got my hopes up unnecessarily." Annica replied with a bored face.

"Wait, that isn't considered an artifact or outside help?" 

"Unfortunately not. Blood summoning is a special discipline and the people who go down that path are dime a dozen. They use all kinds of methods to make this process simpler and control the blood summons easily.

This rune is not considered cheating because it is allowed by the academy. He can use this rune to control the blood summon and pass the layers. If he used a real artifact that boosted his blood-qi, that would disqualify him from the test." Annica replied.

"So if I got a blood rune for a summon, I could've used it to pass more layers?" 

"But you don't. That's the difference. Getting one of those higher-grade blood summons is not an easy task. You need a viscount level or higher blood summoner and a blood ritualist to create a blood rune. Then you use the blood summon the high-level vampire already created to transfer it to the new owner. You can't just find a beat and convert it to your own blood summon." 

Now that she said this, Keith remembered the things his uncle said before he left Ennes castle. The blood summoners needed to carefully convert a beast into a blood summon by injecting blood-qi within them for years. If anything went wrong the beast would die and their chance of getting a blood summon would perish with it.

Seeing the big red wolf that was standing near Deryn, he also wanted a blood summon for himself. Inside the test area, Deryn wasn't trying to mount the summon yet as he turned around and scanned the students sitting in the front row. 

He had a beaming smile as he showed his blood summons to all the students present. He was proud of himself for owning such a blood summon.

"Why isn't he moving?"

"Maybe he doesn't know the rules.."

"Or he just wants to show off his blood summons." 

Many students started murmuring and giving their thoughts on the blood summon that was standing alongside the arrogant youth.

Keith was also very interested in the blood summon. He wanted to study it and hopefully record the process of blood summoning and how to maintain it. He didn't know a thing about blood summoning, so it was surely tempting at first glance.

"Do you know a way to steal blood summons?" Keith asked Annica with a smile.

"Hah! I know what you're thinking, but no. You can't take the blood summon of other vampires. They are connected to them with a blood core. Their blood-qi is similar so even if you kill and attempt to integrate it with your own blood core, you will get blood-qi poisoning instead. So stop thinking about such useless things.

"The blood ritualist can alleviate the blood-qi poisoning and help integrate the blood summon, like with the case of Deryn, but the other party, the donor blood ritualist must take back his blood-qi as much as possible before giving away the blood summon," Annica explained.

Keith nodded his head after understanding the basics of the blood summoning transfer. As for the blood-qi poisoning, he was not too worried about that. He had the system that could refine the blood-qi of other vampires with ease and he didn't have to deal with the foreign attributes.

If he could somehow get access to the blood summon's source, he could theoretically integrate it with his own blood core. The question was, was it doable? From what he heard from Annica, the blood summon's source was located inside the blood core of the blood summoner, so he needed to secure the blood core of a blood summoner, which basically meant to kill them.

As no vampire could live without their blood core, the only way to achieve the blood summon was to kill other blood summoners. Keith didn't want to do that inside of the academy. If he was found out, he would be in deep trouble. Death would be an easy way out compared to things the council would do to him.

Moving on to the next issue, he didn't know how to control a blood summon either. So getting one and then being unable to control it would make it useless. A blood ritualist was needed for creating a suppressing rune that also acted as a controller for the blood summon. 

He didn't have any experience in blood rituals and he just knew a handful of rune formations, that also from the cave he stayed to absorb the corrupted blood-qi. He was ignorant about the uses and applications of the runes and how they were created.

After thinking it through, he gave up the idea of stealing the blood summon from Deryn. Besides, he wouldn't get the chance inside the academy anyway, so he better look elsewhere. 

'First, I need to learn the blood summoning technique and use it on the beasts. Learning the basics will help me in the long run. If I can get the proper technique to create blood summons and integrate them inside my blood core, that would be amazing.' Keith's mind drifted as he thought about the uses of blood summoning.

"Look! He is crossing the count stage." A vampire shouted behind him, which brought Keith back from his inner thoughts.

As he looked at the test area, the blood summon was running swiftly inside the count layer and on it was sitting the arrogant boy who was not looking that good. His eyes were bulging and he was sweating profusely as the summon moved further and further.

"Stop! I can't take the pressure anymore, go back." Deryn ordered its summon after he crossed halfway into the count layer.

The wolf turned around and headed back to the outer layers. After the summon reached the baron layer, Deryn slowly got down from its back and stood there proudly.

The results on the metal plate changed and Deryn's name appears on the third position after Keith and the young boy. 

Deryn wasn't that happy with the result and as expected he shouted back at the council members.

"What is this? Why isn't my name in the first position? I clearly passed the most amount of layers." He shouted with an angry face.

Valencia shook her head and didn't pay any attention to him. The entire central hall was looking at Deryn with a strange face that showed a tinge of disgust. He was so self-entitled and shameless that some students wanted to get to the test area and beat him down.

"Were you not present before the test?" The vice president asked.

"Huh! Was I supposed to? I came here right now when it was time for my test." Deryn replied with confidence.