(One Month Later)
Over the last month, I spent my time mastering the Serpent's phase one. I was waiting for Virion to tell me his plan for figuring out Blood Magic. He insisted that I kept on practicing activating my Serpent's Will, so that when we got into Blood Magic, I had better control over it.
My birthday was last week, the royal family actually celebrated with me, it was nice. King Eralith still scares me a little, but they were all great to be around. Tessia gave me a black cloak for my birthday, saying that if we wanted to sneak into the city, we could use it. I really appreciated the gift from her, because I was getting tired of being stuck up in the same place all day, every day.
My core was at the same spot, dark yellow, I really needed it to advance again though. The more control over mana I had, the stronger my magic would be. Blood Magic was how I was going to save everyone. I just have to hope that whatever Elder Virion has planned works, he seemed pretty excited about it when he told me he was almost done.
I was reluctant at first, but Elder Virion got me to come around. He was now the only person that knew I was a Blood Deviant and was going to help me figure it out.
Currently, I was sparring with Tessia, practicing controlling my Serpent's Will. A ball of wind was heading straight for me, I conjured a wall of water and as it collided the water splashed back into my face, but it stopped the attack.
I had my water helix activated as I was forming attacks in the sky and sending them toward Tessia. I launched water attacks at her, and watched as she dodged each one, then she started to use her plant magic.
Vines grew toward me, but since I was able to track the movement of water mana with ease. I could predict where the vines were going to go, so I used water to form blades and cut right through them from above. They didn't even make it halfway to me, Tessia sent more wind spells my way, but they couldn't get through my water defenses. As her wind crashed with my water, I sent spells of my own at her.
Tessia was able to use her plant magic to protect her from my attacks, we were at a standstill, I couldn't land a hit on her, and she couldn't land anything on me. I had her on the run though, whereas I was standing still the entire time.
A vine was about to grow up and I quickly sliced it down with a scythe shaped blade of water. I was making sure she couldn't use plant magic around me, only in her proximity. I formed a sphere of water above my head and got ready to aim it at her but was stopped by Elder Virion.
"That's enough, you two." He called out to us, and we released our spells. "That was good work today, both of you. Virion, it seems like you have down phase one, what you can do with water magic is remarkable. I don't even know if I could get through your defense with range spells."
"Thanks, gramps." I smiled at him.
"Jeez, I'm tired." Tessia walked up to me. "I think the only to get past your water is to surprise attack you, or just attack you head on."
"Tessia, you weren't going full strength, I bet if you did, you would have gotten through." I told her, then turned to Elder Virion. "Are we done for today?"
"Not exactly, you two are done for now, but I want to see you later Virion. I'll come find you, alright?" This had to be about my Blood Magic, why else wouldn't he tell Tessia.
"Yep." I nodded and started walking into the palace with Tessia next to me, since I didn't win, I'm going to mess with her a little. "Tessia, do you like my brother?"
"Of course, Veer. Why do you ask?" She smiled as we entered the palace.
"No, I mean, are you and him like, what's it called." I paused and pretended to think. "Oh, a couple."
Tessia's face got red. "No, no, what makes you say that? Did Arthur say we were?" Her expression was priceless, she seemed so embarrassed just by that simple question. I was thankful that our relationship was at this point though, it should be beneficial in the future.
Let's keep this going. "I don't know, the way you two talk about each other, just makes it seem like you are." Was this mean? If Arthur found out I told her this, he would have gotten upset with me. Would have been worth it though.
"Stop joking with me, Veer." She lightly punched my arm. "I'm tired of it."
"What? I'm not joking, he talked about you all the time in his stories." I couldn't help but start to laugh a little. "The beautiful princess that he saved, yes Tess, he called you beautiful." Her face was still bright red.
"Veer, stop." I started to laugh even more; she knew I was joking but couldn't stop her face from blushing. "You shouldn't joke about things like that."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself." I laughed and smiled. "It's just too easy." I paused for a second and then to make her feel better I said. "Seriously, Tess, my brother won't admit it, but he does like you."
"A-are you sure?" She stuttered, now that I think about it. I probably shouldn't have said that. Oh well, it shouldn't change anything. I mean, me meeting her is already different from what was supposed to happen.
"Yes, Arthur isn't the greatest at dealing with other people's emotions. That's his greatest weakness." She either already knew that or was going to learn that in the future. It didn't matter when she did though.
"Arthur never was one to share his feelings." Tessia spoke, so she knew already. "Get some rest, Veer, you did good today." She walked me back to my room, and we stood outside the door.
"Thanks, Tess." I saluted her jokingly as I entered my room. "See you later." The door closed and I was now in my room alone.
I walked up to my giant bed and sat on it. My body was tired, I could take a little nap before Elder Virion comes and gets me. I have nothing else to do before then, and I don't know what he has planned.
I got in bed and laid on top of my covers since I was a little sweaty. I let my eyes drift shut, and just turned off my brain.
---
"Wake up, brat!" Elder Virion's voice screamed into my ear. "It's time."
I slowly opened my eyes to him standing over me, staring down at me. "You could have woken me up a little more gently." He moved away and I slowly lifted my head up. "How long was out?"
"How am I supposed to know?" He asked pompously.
I just shook my head. "Never mind." I got up off the bed. "What is it time for? My blood magic?"
"Yes, what else?" He looked at me confused. "We have to go down to the dungeon, that's where I have everything set up for you." He opened my door, and we walked out. "The only people that know about it are the guards I asked to set it up, but nothing was said about your blood magic."
"That's good." We turned down a hallway, and the stairs appeared that led down into the dungeon he was speaking about. "Why did you set it up in the dungeon?"
"It was the only place that was appropriate for what I have planned." A dungeon, really? This was the only place appropriate. We got to the bottom of the stairs, and I followed Elder Virion down the hall of their personal dungeon.
"Jeez, what do you have planned that we need to come down here?"Â He stopped in front of a door, it wasn't a cell, just a door.
"You'll see." He opened the door, and as I walked inside, I immediately stopped.
"You got to be joking me." I told him, as I stared at what he had planned.
"Not at all." He turned to me with a smug smile. "I told you it was a great idea."
In the middle of the large room, stood a mana beast, I was pretty sure it was an E Class Snarler. It was chained to the floor, unable to move, not making any noice like it was asleep. His plan was for me to test it out on mana beast.
Is this animal cruelty? No, mana beasts are not animals, they are beast, intelligent beast. An E Class though means that the beast is weak and not that smart.
"I see." I told him. "This will work for me." I smiled at the beast; this was for a greater deed. There was no need to think about how it felt.
"Good, then how about we start." We walked up and stood maybe ten yards from the beast. "All you know you can do is control people's body?" Elder Virion asked and I nodded my head. "But you haven't tried anything else?"
"Exactly." The mana beast's eyes were looking at me. It couldn't make any noise because its mouth was tied shut.
"Let's start with you controlling its body, and then proceed from there." Virion picked up some sort of device, with a button on it. "When I click the button, the chains will free up, and the beast will be able to move within a five yard radius so we are safe here. I want to see you hold the beast still."
"Alright." I haven't tried to restrict a whole body before, but I'm sure it will work the same. I activated my phase one, "Blood Oath." My connection to the water mana around me was increased, there wasn't a lot in this room, but I could still sense the blood inside of the beast.
"You ready." Elder Virion got ready to set the Snarler free.
I concentrated on holding the beast still, I connected myself to its blood, making it impossible for it to move. "Go ahead." Elder Virion pressed the button and the Snarler tried to get up and charge at us, but it couldn't. I now had control over its entire body. "I got it."
"Have you tried to move its body, and not just restrict it?" I shook my head as I tried to keep my control over it steady. "Make it raise its right arm."
I focused on the Snarler's arm rising up in the air, and then forced it to do just that. It came with ease; the Snarler's arm rose and then I held it there.
"Impressive, but that was the left arm." I looked at the Snarler's arms.
"No, that's right, what do you mean?" I continued to control the mana beast; it didn't fight back much so it was easy to keep it still.
"That's our right, brat. Not the mana beast's right arm." I could hear the sarcasm in his voice.
I rolled my eyes. "Oh my god, same thing." I lowered the Snarler's arm back to where it was. "What should I do next?" I wanted to try ripping the blood out like I did to Sebastian, but I didn't know if there was more than one beast.
"You can control body movement; can you disrupt blood flow?" If I did this, I would just be doing the same thing, immobilizing whatever part of the body I chose.
"Wouldn't that just be doing what I already am." I turned away from Snarler still holding it in place.
"What if you could disrupt all the locations around someone's core? You would be able to stop mana from coming out and going into someone's core. You could limit and get rid of their magic all together." It seemed like he thought long and hard about this, the look on his face told me so. "Why don't you try to disrupt the blood around the Snarler's core, making it so mana can't travel throughout his body?"
"Wouldn't that just be killing it?" If I disrupt blood flow, wouldn't the beast die.
"Not if you limit it to only around their core, you can let the blood go everywhere else." I still think I'll kill it. "If it was a human, they would still have a little mana to use outside of their core, but if you would block it off, after a spell or two, they would be done for."
"How will we even know if it works on this thing?" This beast didn't seem capable of using mana, I couldn't sense anything coming off of it.
"If it doesn't die, we will know." I gave him a, are you joking face, and he continued. "Just disrupt the blood around its core and block all the channels." He made it seem easy.
"I'll give it a try." I went back to concentrating on the Snarler, and I focused on the blood running all around its core. This wasn't going to work, but what the hell. I got ready to disrupt the flow of its blood in specific areas around its core. I took a deep breath, and I yanked the blood flow free.
The Snarler fell to the ground motionless, I released the Serpent's Will and turned back to Elder Virion staring at the thing calmly. "That didn't go as I planned."
I tilted my head. "You think? I told you i---." The Snarler got back to its feet. "How?"
Elder Virion pressed the button again and it pulled the chains back in to place. "That definitely didn't go as planned." He rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know what happened."
"Me neither." I activated "Blood Oath." I started to examine the Snarler from the inside, I made my way to the core location first. It was completely fine; the blood flow was back to normal. "How is this possible? I swear I disrupted the flow, but it's back to normal now."
"Hmm." Elder Virion started to rub his beard. "I don't know."
"It did collapse after I did it, what if it did work?" It did react to something I did, and it obviously didn't kill it. "It's and E Class beast, correct?" I asked him, I had a guess on what happened.
"Yes." I went to talk but he continued. "Oh! I see, what if it collapsed because this type of beast needs mana to move sufficiently, and when you disrupted the blood and cut off its mana flow, it fell, then got up when the mana returned to it."
"I was going to say that, but I agree." He stole my idea. "There's no way to prove it though. Another thing it could be is its mana core level, it is tremendously lower than mine."
"This is all speculation; we can't be certain that it would work on someone who is human or elf." That's what I was thinking, if someone was a white core mage, their body might be able to resist my spell since they have greater control over mana.
"Let's just continue." I told him, this was my first time using Blood Magic freely, and I was having fun. I was able to do it without hurting someone, and I was in control. I guess it was a good idea to master phase one before attempting all of this. "You have any more ideas, gramps."
"No, that was my only one. This is a new type of magic; I don't think anything is off the table."
What else could someone do with blood? I mean besides controlling their body and possibly disrupting their mana, I can't think of anything.
Actually, what about the brain, it has blood inside of it? What if I can use that to connect myself to the person?
"What about someone's brain? I mean there is blood in there." I bobbed my head, trying to think about it.
"That's pushing it, I don't think you could do something to someone's brain other than deprive it of blood." That's doing something though, uhh, I don't know.
Depriving someone's brain of blood would cause them to go unconscious, but it may not work against someone who is stronger than me.
"Yeah, I got nothing else." I released. "Blood Oath."
"Let's call it here, we don't know your limits with this power. It's best if we take it slowly." Elder Virion waved his arm. "Let's go get some tea, brat."
"Ha." I laughed. "Alright."