Ingrid started bringing the slaves to Aldritch one after the other. Since they were under his control, all of them were obedient and followed her orders without resistance. Aldritch wouldn't have gone through such a long process, but it was necessary.
He wanted to avoid them breaking out of the control due to shock by all means possible, which would only be bad for him and make things stressful to deal with.
The first person walked towards Aldritch by the side of the river, and once he got to him, Aldritch wasted no time. With one swing of his dagger, he slit the man's throat, giving a smooth passage for the blood to gush out.
Before the blood could touch the ground and flow into the river, Aldritch used his skill 'Blood Manipulation' to hold the blood midair so it didn't spill and create a mess around, though he was standing in the shallow river edges, so it would have still mixed with the water and flow away.
The man choked and instinctively moved his hands to hold his neck while gasping for air since his airways were also slit, but under Aldritch's 'blood manipulation', the blood didn't stop flowing out even after the pressure lessened naturally.
Aldritch found it difficult to control the blood still inside the man's body, so after getting the one that spilled out and drawing a bit more as much as he could, he sucked the rest as much as possible until he could no longer get anything from it, then he discarded the body into the river, watching briefly as the currents swept the body away.
After making sure that the river could perfectly sweep the body out, he drank the rest of the blood that was floating in the air under his control, checking his system to see the numbers go up under the blood bank. 'Let's go on.'
The process continued like that with Ingrid guiding the slaves to Aldritch and him killing them and draining their blood before finally dumping their corpses into the river to take away.
As time went by, the process became easier and more fluid, and Aldritch also started seeing the gains from his light practice.
[Your skill 'Blood Manipulation' has levelled up]
[Your skill 'Blood Manipulation' has levelled up]
[Your skill 'Blood Manipulation' has levelled up]
[Your skill 'Blood Manipulation' has levelled up]
Once Aldritch reached level 5 with the skill, he found it much easier to control the blood inside the person's body as long as he was focused enough. Even then, it wasn't too difficult. His proficiency in using the skill must have gone up from using it to extract the blood from his victims, reaching deeper with each person while using the blood hovering in midair to craft different things.
His control wasn't good enough then, so he could only create rough mimics of easy objects like simple shapes, bowls, and weapons; though not ones that can deal any damage since the content was still very much liquid and would just shatter on impact.
'Doing these different things really helps with the skill's advancement.' He thought to himself.
Looking at Ingrid whose job was simple and dull, Aldritch decided to give her some more work. All those under him had the racial skill 'blood manipulation', so he decided it was a good time for her to practice her control with the skill, and maybe even possibly leveling it up.
Since others didn't have a system of their own, Aldritch was sure that they wouldn't even know that they had the skill and had not practiced with it. Getting physically stronger alone was not enough after all.
"Ingrid, come take this body." Aldritch said.
She was confused at first but still carried on with the order.
"There's still blood in that body. Draw from it and try to control the blood. You have the ability to do so." He explained, making some blood swirl around him above his head.
Ingrid had an intrigued look on her face as she watched. She noticed him controlling the blood before and that was a surprise on its own, but to be told that she too could do the same...
She did as Aldritch said, hiding the body in some bushes so the other slaves wouldn't notice it. While she directed more towards Aldritch, she tried to control the blood she had been told to.
It took several hours to go through all the bodies. The reason why was because Aldritch kept increasing the time he spent practicing with the blood, getting more used to it as time went by and it seemed like he was getting better at it quickly too.
Once he reached level 6 though, it felt like advancing the skill became way more difficult, so he gave up on it after some time, at least for the time being.
"It'll soon be morning. Ingrid, dump that body into the river. Let's return."
Just as told, she dumped the body she had been using into the river. Even after several hours of trying to control the blood, the most she could do was make the blood roil faintly on her palm. Even then, it was still progress and she was able to confirm that she had the ability. For someone who didn't have any magic abilities, it made her extremely happy to finally do something magical like that.
They returned to Ingrid's house where Lina and Olgud had been.
'Doing so is just what's going to be difficult.'
He was already thinking of how he would purchase more slaves, but going that route if he wanted to rely on that was going to be very expensive. 'At least, for the moment.'
'I was going to evolve them...' Aldritch thought, looking at the BP points that didn't seem enough.
"System, how much BP is needed to evolve through the first three Ranks of Vampires?"
[The amount of BP needed for advancement through the first three ranks of evolution are as follows: Fledgling - 0, Blood Sucker – 1,000, Blooded Vampire – 5,000]
"I see..." The amount of BP he had was definitely not even remotely enough. Looking at the requirements, Aldritch couldn't help but sigh as he pondered over his predicament.
'Should I just wipe out this kingdom?' The thought came to his mind but didn't stay long.
"Where are these slaves even gotten from?" He wondered, trying to figure out a way to gain more blood without dragging the kingdom's attention to himself, at least for the time being.
In whatever world, there would always be war somewhere or conflict of some kind that produces a lot of deaths and displaced people, who can also become slaves.
From Aldritch's thoughts, it would have been better if these people died for the cause of increasing his power instead of dying such meaningless deaths, 'such a waste of valuable human blood, spilled on the ground to drain out wastefully without bearing any fruit.'
"I'll be using this on myself then, after all, I'd have to be strong if I want to get even bigger hauls." He thought to himself.
...
[Blood Bank: 22]
[BP: 322 >> 10]
.
[HP: ====]
[SP: 60/60 >> 85/85]
[Strength: 12 >> 25]
[Agility: 19 >> 25]
[Dexterity: 11 >> 15]
[Vitality: 10 >> 15]
[Intelligence: 10 >>15]
...
(A/N: For reference - It would cost 1 BP from 1 - 5, 2 BP from 6 - 10, 4 BP from 11 – 15, 8 BP from 16 – 20... 16 covers 21 to 30)
After increasing his stats, Aldritch felt the increase in strength, knowing that he had become stronger than before, even then, after adding up all his stats, it only came up to 95, still a long way from reaching rank 5.
This didn't help in boosting his confidence, since he couldn't really tell how much more powerful the people in this kingdom would be, he could only think of the worst and still had to be careful.
"Nevertheless, I have to get out there and enact a plan to get more blood as soon as possible while..." While Aldritch spoke to himself trying to flesh out his plan going forward, he picked up on a very strange feeling, as if he was being watched from the corner. 'Someone's here.' He thought to himself.
Aldritch's grip tightened on the arms of the chair he was seated on as he could feel the presence watching him from his very room...