Chapter 11: The Importance of Frankenstein"s Diary
Vlad spent the next 10 year learning under the guidance of old Bernard, he soon found that he would not be left alone as there was always near him during his time at the library. He should have expected it, who would leave a kid to handle the precious books and scrolls on his own.
Finding his lack of freedom, he had no choise but to add runes and biology to his curriculum. Even if Vlad was still a child, after 10 years of study he had reached a professional level on these subjects (at least theoretical-wise).
He found that they were living on the year 1730 of the human calendar, there were nearly 300 years before the beginning of the plot. This diminished his stress and apprehension to healthy levels and he no longer felt pressured as there were not much he could do at his current age.
5 years ago his father started teaching him mind control and hypnosis to find out that he was blessed with a powerful soul energy and his study on the family notes went without problems. He may have enough energy to manipulate an average human, but his current level only allowed him to induce a second of paralysis to a non-expectant n.o.ble. Useful in battle if used as a surprise attack and only once.
But the more important point in his growth during this time, was that he able to activate and modify existing runes with his soul energy, he could not create new runes due to his lack of blood energy, but this discovery was important for his future exploration of the forbidden land. This exploration should take place within the following 20 years, as he hoped his misbehaviour to be considered as a child prank and get a light punishment if discovered.
His appearance at age 30 was that of a 8 year-old human, but he was no longer supervised due to his diligent hard work and his perfect handling of scrolls. Finally, he may indulge and copy the books that may be needed for future study. Sadly he found no novels on the library. Novels were kept on private libraries, exchanged or copied, but not borrowed... He was out of entertaining material and he was distressed.
He found books on chemistry, alchemy, psychology, anthropology, mind control and runes. He found that there were many books on many topics but not many people who were proficient on them, this was because the advantage of the n.o.bles was the manipulation of blood energy, mind control and battle with weapons. There were those people who were proficient in medicine, but they mainly got to practice their skills on unexpected visitors coming from the human lands. n.o.bles were usually healthy and it was difficult to find a case of sickness on the island.
It may sound like this 20 years had made Vlad into a library worm, but he only spent 6 hours a day on his studies. The rest of his time was for playing and spending time with his parents, except for the daily hour of sword training and the following half an hour of visualization exercises. He never stopped his explorations as a member of the Central Knights, he now knew that the correct name would be Knights of the Central Order... apparently n.o.body though to correct him on this because they enjoyed watching play and loose himself on his happiness. At this point he still enjoyed his games, but part of it was to his need for cover in case he was caught on his trip to the forbidden land... the truth was that he only thought of that a few week back, as he was asking himself if the should play less and spend more time training, but he was a child, right? And he still have nearly 300 years to prepare.
Regarding his sword training, he had come to realize that his talent for swords had already reached his maximum realm and it may not grow anymore. This distressed him a lot, but the damage was not as big as that time a few decades ago when he found out that there might not be cat-girls on this world. At that time he had decided that it there were no cat girls he would have to get Frankenstein into create them... a world without cat-girls would be dim and sad, he had to fix it! So the search for Frankenstein"s diary had reached a new level of importance.
But we were mentioning the sword, yes... the sword. Well he should keep practicing for health maintainance and to keep his current level as he grows. His realm in the sword may not improve, but his physical strength and agility will improve drastically when he became an adult. But, from now on he should start looking for magic... there was magic in this world, right? Why is it that he could not find magic on the library? The runes were a blood energy application, this was confusing. Perhaps, he should spend some time trying to understand those spells recorded on his soul memory palace.
Chapter 12: The Forbiden Land
The next 10 years went without much gain, the magic spells seemed useless and he would need to try again when his blood energy awakens. He continued with his studies and his interest piqued as he found, on his anthropology research, that among wealthy humans and their rulers was not uncommon to have more than one wife. He spent 2 years building an essay to try to get other n.o.bles to adopt this fantastic point of view, but he was forced to abandon this endeavor as he found out that this was one of the characteristics of the "greedy humans" that n.o.bles disliked so much. He was lucky that n.o.body ever found this "revolutionary" essay and it was destroyed by a depressed Vlad.
But his shows were not totally useless, he found that many works on his collection related magic to programing... he was not sure what this "programing" was, and apparently it will not be invented until the late 1980s, he would have to wait for that... surely his beloved collection would not lie to him again.
Well, on the productive part of this 10 years, he found the location of the forbidden land and even manage to identify some patrolling patterns. He found that the vigilance on this area was almost non-existant, the main difficulty would be the protection runes that Frankenstein have activated before leaving.
Finally, on a moonless night, he started the first and perhaps only attempt to the forbiden land (Vlad is 50 years old and still looks like a 9 year-old human). He was excited and full of hope... the possibility of cat-girls were at stake, no... his future growth, yes... that was it! But, cat-girls were important... he was wondering thou, why had he never heard a male comment on the lack of cat-girls? Perhaps it was a forbidden topic, he could not be the only one who understands that a world without cat-girls was not a good world!
Well by the time Vlad ended his delusions, he was already deep into the forbidden lands. He decided to pay more attention, he had no idea how he got here and he offered grat.i.tude to the heavens as no one had found him yet.
Opening the security runes was not difficult, there was no thieves in Lukedonia so it was more of a formality than a necessity. But he did not want to gather attention to his adventure, so it took him 2 hours and all his nearly 30 years of runes research to open a small gap on the rune-array hiding the house. He was successful! he was now looking at the fantastic mansion in front of him while smiling full of hope and with a thirst for adventure.
Although the door was closed it had no lock on it, he could not avoid a bit of noise as the door has not been opened for around 500 years. His only light was a small lantern that he lighted only after entering the mansion. There were many rooms, but most of them were empty as if they had never been used. It did not take much time to located a library, but this was not Frankenstein"s library, but the library of house "Cadis".
He was incredibly excited as he found books on usage of blood energy and top-level exercises on mind control, he also found history and advanced runes related books. He hesitated a little, but still decided to copy the books into his soul memory palace. He spent nearly 3 hours on this and started to feel worried as he had to leave this place before he may got himself into trouble, but this may be his only opportunity and decided to keep looking for Frankenstein"s records.
After half an hour, he entered an old-looking studio with a few books and many hand-written notes. He ran to the table with his hearth beating faster that ever, and he almost had a cardiac malfunction when he found the characteristic "-F" at the end of a page. He was too excited to think straight at the moment, so he copy every book and note, after another 3 hours when he finished he noticed that the first light of the morning had already arrived.
It was late and he considered for a moment to wait until night to leave the mansion, but realized that this would cause more trouble as his parents will find him missing and h.e.l.l would break loose. Feeling distressed, he ran all the way to his small "rune gap" and began to close it hopping for the best.
To his luck, closing the gap was easier than opening it and 15 minutes later he started to walk home feeling relieved. To his surprise he found himself leaving the floor... there was a tall black man with short black hair looking at him while holding him up from the neck of his coat.
"Who might you be and why are you here lad?" said the frowning knight. Vlad was startled, but he was also ready... he was wearing his Central-Order-Knight-like pajamas with a couple of wood sword-toys. Trying to look as innocent and childish as possible, he said proudly, "h.e.l.lo big brother, I am Du Lac Alexander Vlad! I am exploring the forbidden land looking for savage werewolves and greedy humans! And I"m happy to report that none were found on my watch!"
This childish yet incredible proud statement almost had the knight fall to the ground and his eyes softened a little while putting him back on the floor. "Little one, the forbidden land is called "forbidden" for a reason and you will get in trouble if you are caught playing here. Be on your way home now and make sure I do not catch you again or I will take you to your parents myself, do you understand?"
Vlad smiled and started to run home while saying, "Yes, big brother. I will make sure you do not catch me next time! Thank you!" The knight froze for a moment realizing that either he have been played or the kid did not understand the issue, but when he came to himself Vlad was nowhere to be found. The knight released a sigh in frustration and then went on with his patrol.
Chapter 13: Enlightenment
Vlad was delighted, he had accomplished the impossible and may find hope on the materials he had obtained by raiding the "Cadis" family mansion. He had no idea if he would get into trouble when he met the most powerful duo, but he was sure that no serious punishment will come as he was a child misbehaving. That of course, as long as he did not use the new knowledge in any non-n.o.ble acceptable way... on that note, he may need to consult with Frankenstein before doing anything related to fixing the lack of cat-girls in this world.
Vlad decided to take a day off to rest from the excitement of his night-raid and to calm himself, new planning needed to be done. He would had to slowly digest the notes and books found on Frankenstein"s study, that might take a couple of decades, but he had the time.
The books he found on the library of House Cadis, on the other hand, should be carefully handed. While there was not much danger in dabbling with the non-censored history books and the advanced rune tomes, the books on mental and blood energy control could get him in trouble if used out of the blue. He will need to show gradual improvement on his mental deployment abilities and get recognition as a born genius on this regard. The blood energy techniques could not be used at all, he could only take them as reference to improve his control and efficiency when his blood energy awakens.
The next 50 years were incredible fulfilling for Vlad, the notes he found were some memoirs of Frankenstein in wich he recorded non only his experiments but his experience dealing with human greed and the superiority complex of n.o.bles and werewolves alike.
His notes were difficult to understand and Vlad was forced to research many topics to get a whole panoramic of the records. He was terrified while reading Frankenstein"s experience of taking control of the "Dark Spear", the comic strip on his soul memory palace had failed to convey how terrifying this amalgamation of souls full of hate and despair was. He would never be able to force himself to wield a monstrosity like that, much less would he even consider creating one.
Vlad was impressed by Frankenstein ethics of only experiment on himself and only to take samples other beings as a comparison of sorts to improve himself. Frankenstein had never performed experiments that took materials of the other races or animals into his own body, he only used them as a reference to improve the characteristics and traits of his own body never loosing his humanity. Vlad decided to use the same philosophy of work for his future research.
His improvement on mind energy was notable to everyone and even some experts came willingly to teach him and give him advice. Although he did not like the attention as it may hinder his later research, it was a necessary cover for his innocent crimes of childhood. And he though that with the talent he had shown he may get a little more freedom and that would allow him to travel outside Lukedonia in the future.
Now Vlad was a 100 year-old youth that looked like a 11 year-old human child, he was not extremely dashing as the main characters of the series (that may come with the pureblood status) but he was a cute child that was sure to become a handsome man.
His sword arts have not improved at all, but his strength and agility have grow 3 times due to his constant practice. His sword realm was not top, but it could be considered high among the knights of the Central Order. He had found early in life that he lacked talent but the good foundation at early age have engraved the basic and middle level swordmanship to his very bones, while most n.o.bles started to practice with weapons been between 50 and 100 years old, young enough to enable talented individuals to master their weapon arts but perhaps a little late for an average talents to reach a high realm without focussing completely on weapon training.
Vlad was now less childish, he was still playful and easily distracted with new things... but even someone with a child mentality will grow a calm demeanor after living for a century. He had not completely abandoned his childhood dreams, but now they have become a sort of private fantasies. Still, on the topic of cat-girls... he may not create one himself, but perhaps a happy accident could occur while saving one of the poor victims of the Union and trying to undo the applied body modifications, no one would/could blame him for that, right? Surely people would even be happy for such accident...
Chapter 14: Rael, The Prideful Pureblood
At this time Vlad had finished studying and understanding Frankenstein"s notes, but had yet to make any research on his own. He was excited, but had no idea on what to do next.
Regarding the books obtained from the Cadis family collection, he have mastered runes and mental control to the limit that his own age permitted. In time he would grow stronger and his abilities would grow as well, he was suffering specially for the lack of blood energy. He understood runes to a high degree, but he was not able to create his own runes, he could only control and modify existing runes.
He was eager for the moment when his blood energy will awaken, he had studied the techniques of House Cadis and he believed to had understood them. He would only know after trying and he had high expectations on fusing this techniques with the magic spells he had on his soul memory palace, he was sure that whatever was born after the fusion will not be a spell but his own control technique for blood energy.
For non-purebloods it was rare for blood energy to awaken before the "come of age ceremony" at their 200th birthday. But there existed doc.u.mented cases of the blood energy to manifest after a century of life, mostly closer to the 200 year mark. Still, Vlad was full of hope but he could only wait.
One cold morning, Vlad was holding a book under the shadow of a tall tree on the park near his house while thinking on how should he start his own research to improve his body, but his peaceful existence was disturbed by a young and slender looking man with blond curly hair and a prideful smirk, he looked like a 17 year-old human so he must be at least 300 years old. "So you are him, are you not? The prideful peasant who believes his little abilities make him a n.o.ble...".
Vlad stared at him in disbelieve, he had never been insulted in his life. n.o.bles were kind and took pride on their elegance and manners. So more that angry he found himself confused and asked back, "Who are you? I do not know if you are referring to me, but I must confess that this is the first time that I met a n.o.ble without manners".
The blond scowled and snarled back, "How dare you!? I am Rael of House Kertia, unlike a peasant like you, I am a true n.o.ble! A pureblood!".
Now Vlad was getting angry, he had a calm personality but he have never been insulted in his life and was not sure how to react. The only think that came to mind was to leave and ask his parents what should he do in situations like this, so he started walking away while muttering "well, good for you I guess".
Rael was frozen for a moment, he was disregarded! By a peasant at that! So he attacked Vlad from behind using his hand as a knife. Vlad have trained the sword from a very young age, but more importantly he had trained his visualization exercises practically since the moment he was born, improving his senses to a very high degree. So even if he was surprised, he managed to move away getting a small cut on his arm instead of been pierced by Rael"s hand.
He was scared now, he was not sure if Rael was trying to kill him or only wound him. But such wounds would not be light. Now that he was a 100 years old he was allowed to use metal swords for his training and he happened to carry them with him as he had planned to train on the park today. Startled he let go of his book and wielded both swords delivering a counter-attack causing a small cut on Raels extended arm, much to his surprise and anger.
A peasant had first disregarded him and even dared to fight back! This insult could not be forgotten! Rael started to move at fast speed attacking multiple time making him almost invisible. Vlad, on his part, had entered a combat instinct form and moved his sword creating a small field to protect himself and counter-attack from time to time.
Rael was not using weapons he relied on his knife-like hands protected by blood energy. Vlad performance would had to be considered exceptional, but in the end he was being played with, Rael was much older than him. It was no different than a 17 year-old human toying with a 11 year-old child.
Unknown to both of them, Kertia Rajak, the family leader of House Kertia had witnessed the exchange and was both disappointed on his little brother and a little surprised by the youth"s performance, that he forgot to act the moment the fight have started.
At this moment Rael stopped his attacks, gloating on his advantage and was about to punish the annoying peasant with a grave wound to show him that purebloods should not be crossed. Vlad felt the danger and reacted on instinct, he used his most powerful mental attack trying to create a gap and was successful, he managed to paralyze Rael for a second and that was enough to end the fight. Vlad sprinted without hesitation and crossed both his swords on a scissors-like stand on Rael neck.
While Vlad had many bleeding cuts on him and was patting heavily, Rael was frozen in anger and humiliation, but he did not dare to move as the swords were cutting a millimeter on each side of his neck making him bleed and he was also terrified to find that the mental control technique of the brat in front of him could affect him.
At this moment, Rajak have finally come to his senses and appeared next to his brother. "Enough, young one you have your victory. Go home, Rael will not bother you again." Vlad was scared, he did not even felt how this man appeared so close to him, he would not even realized how he had died if he had wanted to kill him. At the same time he felt relieved, he had obtained victory but, he dare not hurt Rael much less kill him and without the arrival of this person he would had found himself on a difficult situation.
He removed his swords and bow slightly according to the etiquette he had learned. "Then you have my grat.i.tude". He quickly took his book and tried to leave as quickly as possible without looking fl.u.s.tered. He had so many questions, to be honest he was scared as he did not understand how he had gotten into this problem.
Chapter 15: Pureblood?
When he reached his house, his parents were not around so he decided to clean himself and treat his wounds to avoid alarming his parents. He would consult his father privately on this, trying to avoid making his mother worried, he really did not want to see her cry.
While cleaning himself he started to calm down and though, "is a pureblood different from other n.o.bles? What is the reason for that? Is the term pureblood literal? Does that mean that my blood have impurities?
While thinking of this he looked a his blood stained swords, stained with Rael"s blood... should he dare? Why not? As long as no one finds out, and he would be doing just a little experimental comparison against his own blood. There was nothing unethical on this, right? Even his "mentor" Frankenstein have used the blood of the n.o.bles who hunted him for comparative research.
Well, it seems that he had found his first project. Hypothesis: "Pureblood" is a correct term, thus the blood of a common n.o.ble can be purified to a similar or even superior level. After all, it was unlikely that the prideful n.o.bles have diluted their blood by taking humans as spouses, perhaps as lovers but he did not think that a child would had been born from those cases. So the blood of the n.o.bles may have been degenerated as natural occurrence of the world environment and those pureblood families were more resistant to such situation. But even those pureblood families should have some degree of damage?
This idea had taken his mind off the earlier troubles and unrest, he rushed to collect Rael"s blood to avoid contamination or lack of future experimental samples. He had all the equipment he needed on his room due to his previous studies on chemistry, biology and anatomy. But he restrained himself and waited to clarify his situation from his father to avoid future problems. Unknown to Vlad, Rael had gained his first 10 year-isolation punishment and a sermon of what makes a n.o.ble and the responsibilities of the pureblood families.
Later that day, Vlad wanted to talk to his father but found that Reias had already known of the situation, as the family leader of House Kertia went to present his apologies in person with a promise that there will be no further accident. Vlad calmed down as he understood that Rael was currently the youngest pureblood and that he had not met other children while growing up, his sence of superiority was to the undivided attention that everyone gave him and he had been jealous that Vlad had taken his place. Well, Vlad even felt grateful to Rael, he might not had gained the inspiration for this new project otherwise.
After this small inscident, Vlad returned to his fulfilling research with the utmost care. He would not be getting anymore pureblood samples to work with. He felt blessed that the preliminary research was successful, the term "pureblood" was literally correct. Every component that he was able to identify on Rael"s blood was found on his own blood but in less proportion. And Vlad"s blood have more of the other components that he had labelled as "noise" or "impurities". He though that those impurities limmited his potential. This only took a couple of months, the difficult part of his research has yet to come. How to purify his blood? He would have to try various methods and proceed little by little on the purification process to avoid secondary or unwanted effects on his own body, after all he was trying to purify his blood not to become a mutant of sorts.
Vlad spent the next decade working on his research with several degrees of success, but had yet to find a satisfactory method that he would be willing to use on his own body. The purification of his blood samples was performed by different methods on controled environments and with the improvement of purity there seemed to be no alteration to the essence and properties of the blood.
The most satisfactory method was the use of runes, he used the remains of Rael"s blood to draw the necessary runes while controlling them with his own mental energy. The now purified blood allowed him to repeat the process, but with a lesser degree of effect, he was on the right path!
While Vlad was immersed on blood purification, good news were spreading on Lukedonia... the Loyard family, one of the pureblood families, had a new member. A beautiful baby girl named Seira had arrived to this world.
Chapter 16: Growth
Vlad had spent 10 years on his research and he had finally found an ambitious method to purify his blood. He had already used the purified blood, obtained from his previous experiments, to create runes. That indicated that he had blood energy, in extremely low qualities thou. This seemed useless, but what if he could create very small runes and use his mental power to guide them. He got the inspirations from his treasured collection, the so called "nan.o.bots" that were contained inside the body and worked to repair or modify the body as required by the host. This "nan.o.bots" could be independent and perform the task without the host being aware or in control of the process.
He could not create "nan.o.bots", but he could use blood platelets as base and his mental energy to gather the "useful" components of his blood to create runes. This runes will be designed to devour the impurities on his blood, this modified blood platelets will then produce energy to nurture the identified "pure" components of his blood. The process seemed feasible and very long, this gave him a sense of security as he could interrupt the process if needed. And, with time, the purified blood would nurture his body in all aspects! or so he hopped...
It took him another 10 years to create this modified blood platelets outside his body using the previously purified blood to create the runes. This modified blood platelets become smaller and changed to a grayish-red color, he call them "bloodbots". To verify his hypothesis he released these modified blood platelets into a small vessel filled with his blood. The results were better than expected, at the very least he now had a small quant.i.ty of purified blood to be used in runes if needed.
Finally, after resting for a full week, he started the creation of the first "bloodbot" within his body. It took him 2 days using all his mind energy to isolate a blood platelet and modified it according to his previous experiments, it was a difficult process as he could not use the support of the already-made runes in his lab table. But there was no danger as he was working on a single blood platelet and the runes would not activate unless willed by his mind power. He decided to create the bloobot directly within his body to avoid any possible contamination and undesired side effect, one could not be too careful with his own body, right?
After completing the first bloodbot, he waited a full day before activating it. He wanted to observe the effects for a whole month before proceeding with the creation of more bloodbots. The experiment was successful, he quantified that his blood was purified by 0.01% after a whole month. He was very excited but decided to wait a little more before creating more bloodbots. Haste was not needed now, he already found a path of improvement and a steady improvement was what he wanted and needed.
While waiting for results, he made a visit to the library and was told by old Bernard that the little princess of the Loyard clan will be starting her studies on the following days and that it will fall into Vlad to teach her the rules of the library as well the way to handle the precious books and scrolls.
Vlad was a little surprised, Seira should be around 20 years old (looking like a 6 year-old human girl). At the beginning of the plot Seira was 217 years old and Regis was 199 years old, this meant that Regis was already born. Things will start to be fun now, he should take advantage of the fact that he was still a child (he looked like a 13 year-old human) and to have a little "innocent" fun with Seira.
But how would he trick little princess Seira into wearing cat ears for him? Of course, without anyone find it weird. He needed to plan this with care, it might be his only chance in life to see Seira in such a cute disguise. He went home in deep though, this was more important that keeping progress of the blood purifying treatment.
He finally got some inspiration that night, he will write a book for children about a cute gentle cat that would go around helping other animals and protecting her siblings from a playful but a little abusive dog puppy, with blond curly hair (sorry Rael). The little cat will be white-silver with red eyes, always elegant and kind. He would gift her the book under the pretence that it was his first time guiding someone and he was quite happy about it. Also it will help to remind her that even if her studies are important, she should give herself time to enjoy life... yes, that sounded wise.
This plan was flawless! If she likes the book, it will not be weird if he give her a diadem with cat ears as a reward for taking her studies seriously! Yes, this plan was flawless! He could not wait to see cute Seira wearing cat ears...
Chapter 17: Blood Energy
His plan worked surprisingly good... he even got a smile from Bernard and the other clerks when little Seira donned her cat ears proudly smiling shyly with sparkling eyes. Vlad did not feel guilty that his evil intentions were interpreted as kindness by everyone, he was to busy engraving this moment to his soul memory palace as one of his most important achievements in life.
Seira specially liked the book and the cat-ears diadem because Vlad had made them himself only for her. Besides Regis, Vlad was the only young n.o.ble she knew but he looked mature and trustworthy. The poor deluded Seira was happy to spend time with Vlad while wearing her cat ears with pride, it was a shame that cameras have not been invented yet.
As the years pa.s.sed, he got to spend much time with Seira and they both enjoyed playing together. He also got to met Regis, but Seira and Vlad seemed to be closer as time pa.s.sed.
The purification of his blood was quite successful, it had been 10 years and his blood purity was increased to a 25%, this improved his appearance taking him a full level higher. He could also feel that his blood energy was close to manifest.
The high degree of success was unexpected and for a time Vlad was distressed as he have not created more bloodbots. He discovered that his bloodbot was a little different to the ones used on his experiments, but after monitoring and not finding any harmful side effect or mutations he calmed down. After going back to his books and Frankenstein"s notes he though to have found an explanation for this unexpected result.
Apparently, while constructing this bloodbot inside his own body without a.s.sistance of external tools, he was forced to exert his will to maintain the difficult job for 2 days without rest. His will was his desired to grow stronger in order to protect his family and enjoy a happy life in Lukedonia. At that moment he did not have any misguided thoughs, only the pure motivation while working on his bloodbot.
That was the main point, he was mixing his blood, mind and will, while creating the bloodbot. Soul energy could be considered a combination of mind and will, could it not? He had created an embryo of a soul weapon, a weak microscopic one at that... but a soul weapon embryo non the least. This bloodbot only worked inside his own body for the moment and its ability was to devour, digest and produce energy to help improving its host body. This was a surprising result and he was very happy, this may not end with a soul weapon, but he was one steep closer that most of the n.o.bles.
For the moment he stopped his research and only monitored his "purification" process waiting for the time of its compet.i.tion, he speculated that the process will be completed around his 180th birthday. This means that he would reach the "pureblood" status before adulthood.
For now, besides spending time with his parents and Seira, he would focus on fusing the blood energy techniques he had with the magic spells to create his own blood energy control technique. If someone decided to ask about it, he could put the blame of this to his bloodbot as a soul weapon like ability. Yes, he planned to present his research and progress of his blood purification to the family leaders and the Lord. Vlad though there was no danger for him, as it was his own inspiration and everything could be related to the knowledge on the library and a series of lucky situations. And the benefits his findings could bring to Lukedonia were too important to be kept for himself. He doubt anyone could produce a soul weapon embryo like himself, as this was more of a happy accident than the pursued goal of his hard work. But if the blood purification process was studied further with the main resources of Lukedonia, the quality of life and training of the future generation may change for the better, and as he also theorized that even the pureblood families had suffered a certain degree of blood contamination, they would surely be interested on his research.
Vlad was 140 years old by the time his blood energy manifested, his constant research had given him a good initial control from the very beginning. He was able to coat his hand or weapons with blood energy and, with great effort, he was able to project a sword made of blood energy that would float around him to protect him or attack if needed, it seemed that this blood sword had an instinct to protect him but he need to use his will if he wanted to use it for attacks.
After 20 years of hard work, his blood energy control increased enough to allow him to project 2 blood-swords or a small blood-shield. He also managed to project a blood-chain that could be used to bind his opponents. By this point, Vlad was 160 years old and he looked like a handsome 15-year-old human who would no loose to Rael in looks. The improvement of his looks was so gradual that n.o.body even notice or though of a guided change, they all a.s.sumed it was his own natural growth.
Chapter 18: Comprehensive Growth
The expected moment have finally arrived, Vlad was 179 years old and his bloodbot had finally completed the purification of his blood. After completing the work it fell into slumber and did not seem to have any response at all.
His blood had improved his body little by little, as the bloodbot worked, and with his never abandoned 1 hour of sword training he felt complete control on his body in terms of coordination, strength and agility. His control on blood energy and mind energy also improved as his blood was purified managing a gradual improvement and not a one time power-up situation. Though he realized he may experience one after his 200th birthday, that only if his soul weapon embryo had the effect a soul weapon would have on a new pureblood family leader.
At this time, Vlad could use a sword coated in blood energy for low consumption battle. His blood projection control used too much energy but his battle power increased exponentially, he suspected that when his blood energy reached a new improvement in quant.i.ty he may be able to project runes and activate them for attack and defend. But that would have to wait to be tested.
Currently his most effective battle tactics were using mind control to paralyze his opponents for a moment and either use his weapons or blood projection techniques to bind or attack. This technique has proved invincible to anyone he had battled till this moment. He had never met a pureblood in a mock battle since Rael, so he had no real idea of how strong he was. In fact he should be considered a pureblood himself, so he only used tactics and not full power confrontations on his training battle at this point.
Vlad still enjoyed spending time with Seira and Regis, both of them looked like 8 year-old human children and he started to help them with their mind control training but most of the time they just played around. He had grow quite fond of them and he was reluctant to leave, as he had planned to travel the world outside Lukedonia for 20 years only returning for his "come of age ceremony". He already had permission from his distressed mother, this had proven to be a trying experience but he managed to convince both of his parents that he was capable of defending himself and that he will be careful on his travels.
There was no problem with his request and he would be leaving shortly, originally he would have travel along with an adult close his age but the only option seemed to be Rael and the family leaders though wisely to allow Vlad to travel alone on the condition that he reported his whereabouts from time to time.
Vlad was curious of the human world, but he also knew that at this point on time, the human civilization have yet to reach a technological turning point. He would have to take a second travel a 100 year later, he expected many things from the 1990s... perhaps he may find significant growth opportunities at that time.
At this point of time he was mostly interested in Europe, more specifically he wanted to visit England, Germany, France and Italy focussing on the famous universities or family libraries that he may found on these places. And out of curiosity, he wanted to search for legends, he was sure to find many ghost stories or news of haunted places on Europe and he was looking forward to it. It had been a while since he had visited his collection on his memory palace, but now that he was going to travel he though that it would be a good idea to find some of the things that the human world was famous for. At this point in time there was surely no anime or anything similar, but he had read many ghost tales and theories from his collection.
On a book series that described the lives of several vampires, existed a human organization called "The Talamasca" which sole purpose was to observe and record supernatural activities and events. Many of these books were related to ghost and haunted places, as vampires where mostly beyond they ability to follow. He wanted to find if there were haunted places on this word, he was sure they should exist as the Dark Spear nature was something much more dark and sinister that those.
The day for his departure arrived and he was "flying" over the sea, wearing a black travel coat made by his mother and on its inner pocket he had a handkerchief, with the coat of arms of the Du Lac family, embroidered by Seira herself. He felt blessed, he had family and friends, he loved the life on Lukedonia and wanted to protect them all, even that annoying brat Rael... after all, it was thanks to him that he was able to achieve so much.
Chapter 19: Haunted
Vlad made his way to London as it was his first destination, the place was a bit of a disappointment. The odors and sickness in the air were nauseating, so he did not spend much time exploring the city and focused on locating libraries and places of learning.
He spend a few months checking these libraries, but to his disappointment and pride, he found that the library on Lukedonia did not lack anything to the ones he had visited so far. His greatest finding was a journal on an abandoned old mansion, the already dead owner was famous for his obsession with ghosts and had study this topic for most of his life.
He theorized that were important differences on haunted places, the most dangerous of these were inhabited by a spirit or powerful soul anch.o.r.ed to that location without the ability to leave. The least dangerous haunted places did not have a spirit or soul anch.o.r.ed in them, the haunting was producing due to the negative emotions, suffering and distress that the living experienced for prolonged periods of time, these people exuded soul energy filled with those emotions. The soul energy was anch.o.r.ed to the place but had no sentience and only influence the mood of the people living in it, with extended exposure one could turn into a madman.
To his morbid surprise, there were records of several of these places on the journal. Well, he had found the adventure he had wanted and he would not be missing this opportunity! To his luck, London had many haunted lands (houses, factories, orphanages and cemeteries) but he was cautious as he did not want to met a powerful ghost. If those records were correct he would get into lots of trouble, it was better to visit one of those places that contained soul echoes to start his adventure.
Two days later, a 16 year-old boy could be spotted walking leisurely on an abandoned factory. He was wearing a black traveling coat and his eyes sparkled with curiosity and expectation. After asking a round, he found that this used to be a famous factory... well, more like infamous. On this place children use to work sewing b.u.t.tons, all of them were hungry and sick. They were forced to work and were barely feed, the place kept on working for nearly 10 years until strange events started taking place a people could not bear to come inside.
Vlad was curious, would he be able to feel the negative energy mentioned to exist on this place? He was seated on the ground and with his eyes closed, waiting with expectation. After a couple of hours he begun to feel uncomfortable but this only was for a moment, a couple of seconds later the feeling was gone.
He kept waiting while keeping his attention on the surroundings but nothing happened the whole night, except for the same feeling of discomfort that would go away almost immediately. He was disappointed, but then he was also curious about that uncomfortable feeling. He starting paying attention to his own body and after an hour he finally found something different, the bloodbot was no longer slept. The bloodbot was waiting in expectation, like a little cat waiting to jump to catch a bird.
Vlad was both curious and scared, his bloodbot should be dormant after finishing the blood purification mission. He again felt uncomfortable for a moment and he watched in horror as the bloodbot devoured something unseen and started to work on digesting whatever it had eaten. He was intrigued now, was his soul weapon embryo mutating? Curiosity overcame fear and he prepared himself to keep watching this strange occurrence.
After a week Vlad found that his bloodbot was devouring the soul echoes as they started to influence his body, just as it used to devour the impurities on his blood. But the energy that was released now had a darkness attribute that nurtured his blood. Vlad was happy to find that this darkness attribute had nothing to do with the Dark Spear, the energy had no sentience and was no corrosive or overbearing. The darkness attribute was calming, comforting, healing like the good attributes that a good night sleep will provide.
He reasoned that nothing was absolute, just like the dark energy could be overbearing and corrosive like Frankenstein"s Dark Spear, it could also be calming and healing like the energy that was being generated by his bloodbot. He guessed that this attribute could provide a type of sedative effect to his blood energy improving his blood projection technique.
So he decided to stay to absorb and transform as much dark energy as he could, it took a whole month to absorb all the soul echoes on this place, or so he though as he no longer felt periods of discomfort and bloodbot went into sleeping mode again.