Chapter 121: Cave

"Finally the blood core is stable. Let's see the changes.."

The system got up from the bed and examined the changes that happened to Keith's physique. Opening the status window that displayed Keith's present stats, the system glanced over the numbers one by one.

[ Keith Ennes ]

[ Blood Core: Viscount ]

[ Body detected: Vampire Dragon Hybrid ]

[ Level : 2.107 ]

[ Blood-qi: 5.5 ]

[ Blood Warrior Frame: Count ]

[ Physical Strength: 5.8]

[ Vitality: 6 ]

[ Agility : 5.1 ]

[ Path: Blood condense ]

[ Blood-qi techniques :

Ennes Warrior Frame Technique : Count(Max)

Blood Summoning Technique : Blood-Qi integration and Soul control(Phase 1)

Blood Ritualist Technique : Basic Rune understanding(lv0) ]

The growth was tremendous, especially the physical stats like strength and vitality. Blood-qi levels were at the early stage count and his vitality was close to the middle stage of count. Now he needed to practice the warrior frame and get used to the new power level.

Looking at the Blood-qi techniques, the system noticed that blood ritualist technique is added to the list. Although the understanding of runes were limited, it still showed up on the status bar. The system could only change and manipulate certain runes and it was because of life energy manipulation.

By seeing how runes interacted with the other runes and following the life energy trail as they shifted their form, the system could more or less guess the operation they were doing. It was not a hundred percent accurate but it did save Keth's life many times.

In the orientation ceremony, the system successfully diverted the attention of the judgement pillar and recently in the demon cave, activated the rune formation that helped him escape from the collapsing rubble.

As the system was thinking about the sacrificial chamber, it remembered what happened after Keith absorbed all the corrupted blood-qi from the viscount ghoul.

The cave was silent as usual. Barely any ghoul made a sound and most of them were standing hundred of meters away from Keith's position. An empty space two hundred meters in diameter could be seen inside the sea of low level ghouls, and in the middle of it was a youth sitting peacefully as his count level aura was exuding its dominance.

After Kieth evolved his blood core to the viscount stage and the warrior frame to the count stage, there was still plenty of blood left on the crater. The viscount ghoul's body had dried up after the blood was extracted from its body and now looked like an empty husk.

The amount of corrupted blood-qi left was thirty percent of the entire amount. It would be a waste to just throw that away. Now that the blood core has evolved to the viscount stage, it could take in some blood-qi until its full, same for the warrior frame. 

Carefully absorbing the blood-qi into the two sources the system filled all of the empty spaces that were left out during the evolution process. As the process was very accurate there was rarely any spot left but the concentration and density of blood-qi was uneven at many places. 

To be able to reach the maximum efficiency without risking a blood-qi eruption, it had to be monitored to the tiniest details. There was no way normal vampires could achieve this kind of precision, that's why Keith's blood-qi was even spread out and there were no  gaps and lower concentration blood-qi zones.

This helped him increase his blood-qi density because all parts of his body had a uniform amount of blood-qi and collectively they amounted to more blood-qi than vampires at the same level.

On top of that, Keith's warrior frame was also capable of storing blood-qi independent of the blood core. It didn't need external blood-qi and could operate on its own. It was an incredible advantage and resulted in Keith's blood-qi reaching two to three times the previous amount. 

In battle, this advantage gave Keith an element of surprise as the opponent could only see his blood core and not the warrior frame, not until he activated it fully. In the idle state the warrior frame only exerted enough power to maintain Keith's weight and nothing more. It would appear as if it was just a viscount level warrior frame until Keith went all out.

Despite absorbing corrupted blood-qi into the blood core and warrior frame, it was not enough to deplete the reserve. In the end the system absorbed the corrupted blood-qi  for itself and converted it onto life energy.

The next upgrade for the system needed way more blood-qi than the current reserve could provide. Even if Keith killed all the low level ghouls inside this sacrificial chamber, it wouldn't fill a single bar. As it turned out the twenty percent of the viscount blood barely filled one bar out of hundred in the upgrade status.

[ Seems like the next upgrade is a major one, maybe it will unlock my lost memories and a part of my divinity. Still, it would take a long time to absorb that much life energy. I have to make sure this body is strong enough to face the dangers of this world.  I can't just blindly upgrade my system and leave this body unattended.]

Not a single drop of blood was left on the crater containing the viscount ghoul's blood. It was all absorbed by Keith. Getting up after he finished absorbing corrupted blood-qi from the viscount he started looking for the other two ghoul barons. 

Their blood-qi was insignificant compared to the viscount ghoul but it was still something. The system swiftly absorbed the blood-qi from the two corpses and filled up the system upgrade. There was no change in the bar as the system predicted.

Now that the most important thing was taken care of, Keith took out his student rune card to see if he could send a message to the academy.

Nothing. There was no signal as the runes covering the sacrificial chamber were blocking any kind of life energy trail to escape. Looking around the chamber which was just a finely decorated cave, Keith started looking for an exit.

When he moved in a certain direction, the low level ghouls cleared the path for him and gathered in a different spot.  After searching the entire cavern, Keith couldn't find a single exit. But the viscount ghoul did come here somehow. They saw it first at the entrance to the cave so there must be a path connecting to the exit.

Without a single clue about the exit, Keith went back to the rune formation from where he arrived here. It was similar to the one carved into the bottom of the pool. 

[Does it connect to another place?] 

The system examined the rune formation and tried to male out the patterns. Unfortunately, the formation was not active and without the demon runes, the system didn't know how to activate the formation.

[There must be a way to activate this without the demon. The viscount ghoul!]

In a flash, Keith appeared on the spot where the viscount ghoul's dried up corpse was mangled up. There was nothing special about the body and upon scanning for any life energy signatures, nothing was found. 

Still, Keith didn't just leave and picked up the corpse for examination. He searched every part of its body and inside his organs as well. In the end that also didn't provide any results.

[ The head?]

As the system remembered that the head of the ghoul was crushed and buried inside the crater, Keith's hand dug that spot immediately to find the cracked head. A mushy and broken head beyond recognition was buried two feet under the crater floor.

After digging it out, Keith used his aura to cover up the crushed head in  a hope to activate the runes. As soon as the aura seeped into the head, the system sensed the runes immediately.

It was at the back of the skull barely larger than a fingernail. The blood-qi activated the rune and Keith quickly carved out the part of the skull that was holding the rune. Looking closer, it was similar to the rune  that surrounded the demon rune while activating the passageway.

The system remembered that when he put the demon rune above the formation, a gap opened up the size of the rune and fit inside perfectly. 

[Maybe this is the rune corresponding to the exit.]

Holding the piece of skull carefully, Keith walked up to the rune formation. He used his blood-qi to activate the rune formation just like befor and put the skull piece close to the center.

As the system predicted, the rune formation changed and in the center there was a small gap similar in size to the rune carved on the skull. With a smirk, Keith placed the rune at the center of the rune formation and it glowed brightly, also absorbing blood-qi from Keith's body.

***

If this continued, Rena could surpass all humans and even reach the level of vampire nobles. The problem was the supply of pure life energy easily consumable by the human phsyique.

The plant was a rare herb that contained rich life enery and the flowers futher diluted that. Rena couldn't absorb all the life energy at once. The system could convert the blood eseence to life energy but it was more taxing and there was not a medium to hold the energy.  Keith's body acted as stable resorvoir to store and convert blood-qi but the energy quicly dissipates after getting out the body and merges with the surroundings.