Chapter 34: A Little Surprise

The next day, Keith stayed inside his room, absorbing the blood essence and condensing the blood-qi. His blood core increased in size as well. In the afternoon, he went to the open garden to practice martial arts while activating his warrior frame.

On the third day, he noticed that he absorbed all the blood essence inside his body. His warrior frame solidified and brimmed with blood-qi. The blood core also increased in diameter, albeit a little. What was more remarkable was that, after the warrior frame was properly injected with sufficient blood-qi, its output increased dramatically.

For comparison, when he first activated his warrior frame three days ago, it only gave him a thirty percent increase in power, according to his estimation. But with that came the weight, which negated 10-20% of the power boost.

Now, however, the warrior frame boosted his strength up to eighty to a hundred percent after absorbing more blood-qi.

‘I wonder how much of a boost I will get once I become viscount and provide the frame with more blood-qi.’ Keith thought.

Regardless, he was happy that he created his warrior frame successfully without any problem. This meant he won the bet against his uncle, and now he could learn blood-esper techniques from him. As he was severely lacking in actual techniques while brimming with unused blood-qi, he wanted to get his hands on every technique he could find.

The warrior frame itself was a great addition to his body. It gave him a solid base for body strengthening and tempered his muscles around it. As the flow of blood-qi was quite dense inside the warrior frame, it acted as a quasi-blood core, replenishing the surrounding muscles with blood-qi.

While this was good for his overall body, the blood-qi limitation due to this didn’t allow him to use blood-qi externally simultaneously with the warrior frame. Even though he was technically stronger, his limited blood-qi, after activating warrior frame, constricted his blood-qi strengthening on the outside like coating his hands and aura shield.

Keith clenched his fists and a sharp bang was heard as the air escaped his hand in an instant. He was ready to duel with his uncle again.

He came back to his room after practicing the martial arts for hours. It was almost noon, and he didn’t have his breakfast. He looked at the table where four glasses of blood were placed. He picked them up one by one and drank the blood with large gulps.

Haah!

He wiped his mouth and plopped back on his bed. Thinking about the progress he had made, a beaming smile appeared on his face. He was quite satisfied with everything. The blood essence was absorbed without a hitch, and he created a count-level warrior frame and solidified it within three days.

And he had his secret blood-qi reserve inside the underground cave. Nobody had found it out yet, and as promised to Jovan, he would take care of it within a week. He still had four days left, so he didn’t rush there to absorb the blood from the ghouls and the red cocoons.

He rested for a while and channeled his blood-qi. Rena came to his room when it was time for the meal. Besides that, she didn’t bother him with anything else. She also noticed how focused he was in his cultivation, so she left him alone. This was also good for her as she didn’t have to worry about him.

The next morning Keith arrived at the arena, prepared to have a sparring session with his uncle. He was early and warming up when Brad entered the arena. He shot Keith a curious gaze and inspected his blood core.

“You’re still giving me surprises.”

“The real surprise isn’t even revealed yet?” Keith replied.

“Oh! I can’t wait to see what it is.” Brad walked inside the arena and faced Keith.

Keith didn’t come to the arena for several days. Brad was wondering what he was doing for the past couple of days. The growth in martial arts techniques in a single day was remarkable. He was expecting his martial art skills to go up several levels as well.

What he didn’t expect was that he also increased his blood core level to the final stage of baron. Still, it didn’t matter unless he learned the blood warrior frame. His power output won’t change much without it.

Or so he thought.

“Ready for another beatdown?” He taunted Keith.

“You wish.” Keith smiled at him.

“Heh! You seem pretty confident, let’s see how long you can keep that up.”

Brad circulated his blood-qi and expanded his aura. The overwhelming aura surrounded the entire arena and a frown appeared on Keith’s face.

“I won’t go easy on you now that you have shown so much potential?” Brad announced.

“Neither am I.”

Keith knew that he couldn’t compare his blood-qi to his uncle. After he created his warrior frame, his external circulation was pretty much useless. He could only use it to create a thin coating of blood-qi.

‘I need to get close to him, and not let him use his Esper powers.’

Keith shot forward like a bullet, pouncing towards the terrifying concentration of blood-qi. He channeled his blood-qi instantly and swung his arm around Brad’s head.

Kachik!

His hand barely grazed the air around Brad’s hair, as his uncle swiftly avoided the attack. The next barrage of attacks that came from Keith was also swiftly avoided.

Boom! Boom!

The ground shook as they changed position quickly. Keith used his legs to repeatedly strike Brad’s lower torso, but his intricate and elaborate footwork dodged Keith’s every attempt.

‘Hah! I thought after leveling up this much, I could hold a candle against him. But it doesn’t make a difference. Though I have to agree that he looks more focused and serious than before. So that’s a consolation.’ Keith thought to himself.

He fastened his pace and revolved around Brad, attacking him from all directions. Then, one moment, he saw an opening. Without any thought, he struck Brad’s left abdomen.

“Gotcha!”

Brad moved his right arm from the side and grabbed Keith’s hand in an instant.

“Oh yeah! I was also waiting for you to catch me.”

Keith turned around sharply and activated his warrior frame, which he was saving for this exact moment. He didn’t want Brad to be on guard against his warrior frame from the get-go, so he didn’t use it up until now.

With this surprise, he hoped to do some damage, and with his guard down while they were locked in place, this was the opportunity he had been waiting for.

!BOOM