Blood Magus Chapter 79

AN: Sorry for the lack of chapters these past few days! I ended up having to basically do an entire group final project by myself for one of my classes when both of my classmates stopped responding to my messages, so I got very unexpectedly busy for a bit. But I'm done now, and just have regular final projects to do from now on, so hopefully I'll be able to upload chapters more consistently.

This chapters about twice as long as usual, so hopefully that makes up for it. Thanks for reading!

Zeth stayed at the top of the stairs for a couple minutes, listening as the chorus of footsteps drew closer and then drew further away. Once he was sure the cabal members up on the surface weren’t actively about to discover the trapdoor leading into his base, he slowly crept back down so he could inform Astrys of what was going on.

When he found her in the main room, she was standing, cautiously looking upward at the ceiling.

“Are there animals on the surface?” she asked.

“No,” he responded, “humans. I think they’re with the cabal.”

She nodded curtly, her face hardening. “What will be our approach?”

Zeth shook his head. “We aren’t attacking. There are way too many of them. I don’t doubt you could beat any of them in a fight, but all it takes is one of them getting away for our cover to be blown. And I have no idea what kind of power they might be able to call in once they figure out where we are.”

“So we will be waiting for them to disperse on their own?”

“Yeah. I’m hoping the disguised entrance will work well enough—it doesn’t look like they know much about our position, so they shouldn’t be turning over every little rock in the whole area. But in the meantime, I’m gonna work on getting some defenses set up. You just go keep an ear out by the entrance to ensure we know if they find anything.”

“Understood.” With that, she walked off to the staircase.

For his part, Zeth went over to the storage room to retrieve the last blood they had stored. It wasn’t much, but he’d need it to activate some more Hellfire Rituals. All he currently had were the ones painted as defense around the base, with nothing he could use as a weapon in case they got to him. He knew it was technically possible to use his own blood to fuel them, but with the amount he spent practicing Ephemeral Bloodforge, he didn’t want to expend any more of the precious substance.

So he sat on the ground with a cloth and began drawing, anxious to get as many defenses set up as he could with the number of enemies around here.

Thankfully, the next couple hours were relatively quiet. Zeth could still occasionally hear muffled voices or footsteps from the people aboveground, but there were no invaders breaking into his lair and Astrys never came to raise any alarm, so it seemed like everything was okay.

He ended up finishing four Hellfire Rituals before he ran out of blood to fuel them, and decided that four would have to be enough. Ultimately, if they found this place, having a couple extra would likely do very little to help him.

As he worked, Zeth managed to Rank up Ritual Nexus Mastery, which was proving quite slow to progress with, to fourteen, and was reminded of something. In the confusion of the morning, he’d overlooked a Skill he unlocked—or, rather, the Evolution—in his sleep. That would definitely be useful to look at, so as he drew, he looked it over.

[Foe of the Unhallowed (II) - Cost: 9 Skill Points

Replaces Friend of the Unhallowed

The natural fear-inflicting effects of the demon species have a diminished effect on you by an additive 10% per Rank in this Skill. By Rank 10, the effect will be completely nullified.

All fear that you would normally feel from a demon’s natural effects is now reflected upon the demon that would afflict you with it, causing them to feel equivalent fear to what you would feel, plus an additional 10% for each Rank in this Skill.]

His eyes widened, glancing over the second paragraph that was added onto the original Skill. Reflecting the fear aura’s effects would be insane, but this not only did that, it multiplied the fear. At Rank ten, what it currently was at, he’d double everything he would feel as he reflected it, and at Rank twenty, which would be its new maximum, he’d triple it. That was ridiculous.

Unfortunately, though, the Skill made no mention of being able to disable its effects. Sometimes, Skills like this would inherently be able to be turned off by their holders with the simple flick of a mental switch, but considering the fact that demons couldn’t ever disable their own fear auras, he suspected Foe of the Unhallowed would similarly be constantly active. That made Zeth a little reluctant to purchase it.

Normally, he wouldn’t mind. Even if he’d terrify the demons he summoned, that would only enhance his negotiation abilities when speaking with them. He knew as much from how much it’d affected him when he was trying to negotiate while under the effects of their auras. But now that he had Astrys on his side, he was reluctant to take a Skill that’d hit her with such a powerful fear effect.

Foe of the Unhallowed was a profit Skill, costing only nine, so it felt unfortunate to say, but he felt like he may have to pass up on it—at least for now. As an Evolution, Foe of the Unhallowed would lock out all other Evolution options for Friend of the Unhallowed if he took it, so he wasn’t about to take one that he wasn’t too happy about just because it was currently the only option. He could think of plenty of other Skills he was close to bringing to max Rank that could unlock a new Evolution option with Friend of the Unhallowed.

And not only that, but there were several he hadn’t even purchased yet that he was curious about—particularly the ones that were explicitly related to demon summoning. He didn’t currently plan on taking Empowered Summon or Unstable Anatomy, but perhaps, if he ever had an abundance of Skill Points, he could purchase and Rank one of them up to see what kind of Evolution unlocks they would bring.

…And, of course, there was also Hell Portal. That was one of the two Skills Zeth was actively afraid of, next to Forbidden Knowledge, so he wasn’t sure if he wanted to mess with it, but it was certainly true that both of them would likely unlock some ridiculous Evolution options for his Skills if he ever did touch them—and technically, Hell Portal was cheap. It was cheap enough for him to purchase right now.

But he wasn’t so desperate to try that yet. Opening up a genuine, permanent portal connecting the First and Thirteenth Realms was certainly an effect he’d want to make preparations for before he ever attempted it.

Right now, Zeth had his eye on one single Skill that he wanted—Vascular Hypertension. And, with the latest Ritual Nexus Mastery Rank-up bringing him to eleven Skill Points, he now had enough to afford it.

It looked like, even if the cabal was out searching the forest for him, Zeth would have some time on his hands. And it’d take a long time after purchasing Vascular Hypertension for his body to produce enough blood to fill up the storage it added to his body, so now would be a perfect time to purchase it.

He looked over his list of unlocked Skills once more. There were a few Skills that he still wanted to buy soon—particularly the profit Skill Resonant Whispers and the other two requirement-reducing ones, Compact Rites and Secure Rites, alongside Incendiary Intensification, which would reduce the amount of blood needed to activate his rituals—but this one felt like the most important Skill to buy currently, so he went for it.

[You have purchased Blood Magus Skill: Vascular Hypertension.

-11 Skill Points. You have 0 Skill Points.]

Instantly, Zeth felt his body change, suddenly able to hold almost twice the amount of blood that it’d normally be able to—and that was with the Skill still at Rank zero. He felt empty, like he had gone from being a bit low on blood to suddenly having basically nothing in him, which, proportionally speaking, was now true.

After that, despite the crisis of so many enemies so close by, Zeth strangely found himself with little to do. He couldn’t go out into town, and couldn’t go out into the forest to acquire more blood to fuel his rituals. In the past, he’d always had sacrifices lined up to activate an Empowerment Ritual, so now, finally lacking blood and lacking the ability to obtain it, he was left without any tasks to fill his time.

He went over to find Astrys, finding her sitting by the bottom of the stairs. “Anything?”

“I have heard nothing notable,” she said. “However, there has been no sign that these people will be leaving the forest soon. I would not suggest going out there.”

He nodded. “Yeah, seems like we’ll be stuck down here until they cool off.”

There was a moment of silence between them, and Zeth was reminded once again of the feelings that had flooded into his chest ever since morning, when he’d fully Ranked Friend of the Unhallowed. He’d recovered from the surprise by now, and felt much more in control of himself, but his heart refused to stop thumping when he was near her.

She looked at him with eyes that made him wonder if she knew something was up. But she said nothing, so he said nothing. He forced himself to remember once again that she was a demon. There was no dynamic to be had between them except for that of unstable allies.

“Are you okay?” Astrys suddenly asked.

He mentally shook the thoughts from his head. “Hm? Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You are acting strange. If you are upset with being forced to be in my presence for this long, please let me know and I will head deeper into the hallways and ensure I am out of your way—I will not take offense.”

“What? No, that’s not an issue.”

“Is there something else I have done, then? Are you frustrated with me for being unable to clear out the forest of enemies? In that case, I apologize profusely for—”

“No, seriously. I’m not mad at you or anything.”

“...I see. Perhaps my Influence was wrong, then.”

She certainly didn’t look like she thought whatever information her Influence Stat was giving her was wrong. It was almost unsettling, being around someone who could read the fact that something was up with him so easily. He wondered if she knew even more than she was letting on, and this was just her way of saying ‘I know you feel that way, but I’m going to pretend it’s something else.’ He certainly hoped that wasn’t the case. The idea of a human falling for a demon was probably just as ridiculous in demon culture as it was for humans—if not moreso.

“Uh, right,” Zeth eventually said. “Anyway, I’m gonna go sit down. Let me know if you hear anything.”

Astrys nodded silently, and for what felt like the hundredth time, Zeth wished he could read more of her inner thoughts from that stoic face.

He left, ironically still feeling almost as though he was leaving a different type of anxiety aura as he walked away from her, and sat in the pile of hay in the main room. As he sat, he glanced down at the mostly-healed wound in his arm from last night. With some extra time on his hands, it’d be best if he could keep doing something to improve, even if it wasn’t working on Empowerment Rituals. And, though he wanted to save blood, maybe there was still a way to practice Ephemeral Bloodforge without spending as much as he did last night.

Slowly, he drew a tiny bit of blood from his arm, telekinetically controlling it to slither through the gap in his flesh and into the air. He guided the stream to twist and turn in circles in front of him as he watched, then formed it into the shape of the needle shape he’d been practicing. Only, this time, once he got the shape formed, instead of hardening the blood into a weapon and watching it drop to the ground, he simply unformed it, moved it around for a bit, then formed it again, over and over, reusing the same blood.

He wasn’t getting any practice with the process of holding the shape in place as it hardened, which was an important step in using the Skill, but he at least was getting practice moving the blood around, and that was arguably a much more difficult step. And, this way, he never had to draw any more blood out of him than this little bit, which heavily decreased the costs of practicing the Skill.

So he simply resigned himself to practicing while he waited for the cabal members to eventually leave. It probably wouldn’t take too long.

It took a very, very long time for the cabal members to leave the forest.

The issue was that, without any knowledge of what was going on up there, Zeth had little idea of when people were nearby and when they were gone. Sure, he could hear their footsteps when they were right above him, but he wanted to travel from his lair all the way to town, and if he encountered anyone on the way, it’d be a massive issue. So for as long as he had any suspicion that there was anyone anywhere out in these woods, he had to hunker down and wait them out.

That process took several days.

He was extremely thankful he’d stockpiled food and water down in his storage rooms, as he was forced to sustain himself entirely with his stores, unable to go up to restock. There were stretches of time where they heard nothing at all and hoped the cabal members had given up their search, but then randomly they’d hear voices again as it seemed like they kept looking and looking. Thankfully, nobody ever stumbled upon the little disguised trapdoor, but that didn’t make this occurrence any less of a setback.

In all the time he and Astrys were stuck down in the underground base, he wasn’t ever able to gather more blood, so he wasn’t able to spend any of his time Leveling up. And, with the Inquisitors and cabal both breathing down his neck, he was very upset to lose out of that potential power. Especially with how unsure the future of the town was and his family stuck in the Inquisitors’ prison, the fact that he was unable to go check on them was endlessly frustrating. Anything could’ve been going on in town and he would’ve had no idea.

That said, it wasn’t like he’d totally wasted his time stuck down in his base. In a way, the time was a sort of blessing, giving him time to focus on silently practicing instead of getting himself busy with the goings-on in town. He just sat and worked on getting used to the telekinesis of Ephemeral Bloodforge, slowly growing more and more proficient with the strange mental movements required. With him trying to build up the new stores of blood given by Vascular Hypertension, Zeth didn’t want to needlessly spend his blood, so he just kept doing what he’d figured out earlier, forming and unforming the same bit of blood, figuring out new movements and shapes. He occasionally hardened it to practice with the weapons in combat, and then afterwards would draw out a little more, but most of the time, he just kept recycling over and over.

Eventually, he got good enough with his practice that he realized he was able to do that and draw ritual circles at the same time. He was mostly just practicing and perfecting the same movements of forming those little needles, so it got to be pretty mindless, and he was able to run those actions in the background as he did other things. Of course, he still had no real sacrifices, but that didn’t mean he had nothing to draw.

First, he drew up a full Empowerment Ritual circle, which took just about a whole day to do. He couldn’t actually use it with no blood, but it was at least prepared now, and with an upkeep time of only about an hour and a half, he figured he’d probably get some blood soon enough that it’d be worth it to have it set up early.

And after that, he decided to draw a couple Demonic Covenant ritual circles. Those took about two and a half hours each, which theoretically could’ve been spent drawing yet another Empowerment Ritual circle for his next Level-up after the one he’d already drawn a circle for, but he didn’t know how easy it’d be to access more blood for Level-ups, and two full Empowerment Rituals would eat up quite a lot of time every day on upkeep.

Of course, the Demonic Covenants would also eat up upkeep time—in fact, with Speedy Rites’s discount, their time required to draw was now actually lower than their upkeep time, meaning they would be fully erased after existing for twenty-four hours—but he wanted to get additional defenses set up in case the cabal ever discovered his hideout.

Astrys alone wouldn’t be able to hunt down everyone who found him, and he imagined they’d have some countermeasures against demons set up now that they knew who they were messing with, so he figured having two more would probably be best. And with two prisoners still stuck down in his lair from back when he broke those Wicked thralls out of prison and took them in for his own use, that made two offerings perfect for demon bargaining with. Those circles were temporary, simple provisions in case of a break-in that he’d let decay once the threat was gone, but having them around made him far more comfortable when the footsteps echoed from above.

He did speak quite a lot with Astrys over the days, of course, with her being the only other person down there he could really talk to Unfortunately, against his wishes, his brain simply refused to rid itself of the feeling it got whenever he laid his eyes on her. He’d hoped it would dissipate over time, but during these days, it only seemed to grow stronger. He caught himself staring at her on several occasions, and constantly scolded himself for constantly overthinking things regarding her. The fact that he relied on her for basic survival at this point—and, of course, she relied on him as well—made interpersonal relations far more complicated than they needed to be. And spending every waking moment together, sleeping in the same room for safety like they usually did, didn’t help at all. But she never said anything about it, so neither did he. This was not the priority.

Eventually, though, enough time passed without any further noise that he decided he could leave. Or, really, he ran out of food and water stores to sustain himself on, and realized he would have to leave sooner or later if he wanted to survive.

So he ascended the staircase, resolving himself to listen closely for a few minutes in order to ensure he heard nothing from up there lying in wait. He knew it was unlikely that he’d come up to the surface only to find himself in the middle of a trap, the cabal members having secretly found his trapdoor and laid an ambush for when he decided to leave, but all the time down alone underground made him feel a bit paranoid.

However, after all his training, he felt more equipped to take on combat with his enemies than ever. All in all, he could at least say he’d been productive with his time stuck down in his lair. Quite a few of his Skills Ranked up—to the point where he needed to start figuring out what Skill to buy next again. But he wanted to check on the situation up on the surface before committing to any one purchase. He checked his Status, as he took the time to listen for danger, looking over the changes.

[CLASS

Class Slot 1: Blood Magus - Level 14

Class Slot 2: (Locked)

Skill Points: 12

STATS

Strength: 3

Endurance: 48

Dexterity: 80

Awareness: 14

Poise: 28

Influence: 0

Shaping: 98

PURCHASED CLASS-EXCLUSIVE SKILLS

Vascular Hypertension - Rank 4

Ephemeral Bloodforge - Rank 7

Friend of the Unhallowed - Rank 10

Speedy Rites - Rank 10

Sanguine Renewal - Rank 6

Otherworldly Excellence - Rank 8

Demonic Covenant - Rank 5

Vile Focus - Rank 10

Hellfire Ritual - Rank 10

Empowerment Ritual - Rank 7

Ritual Nexus Mastery - Rank 16

UNLOCKED CLASS-EXCLUSIVE SKILLS

Foe of the Unhallowed (II) - Cost: 9

Confusion Ritual - Cost: 12

Reinforcement Ritual - Cost: 14

Ring of Plague - Cost: 28

Massacre’s Boon - Cost: 13

Hell Portal - Cost: 10

Unstable Anatomy - Cost: 12

Empowered Summon - Cost: 14

Incendiary Intensification - Cost: 13

Resonant Whispers - Cost: 9

Secure Rites - Cost: 12

Compact Rites - Cost: 12

Forbidden Knowledge - Cost: 25

Unholy Strength - Cost: 18

PURCHASED UNIVERSAL SKILLS

Self-Destruction - Rank 0

Exercise - Rank 10

Steady Hands - Rank 10

Butchering - Rank 10

Meditation - Rank 10

Prayer - Rank 10

Human - Rank 10

UNLOCKED UNIVERSAL SKILLS

Sleep Deprivation - Cost: 10

Heat Resistance - Cost: 14

Binge Eating - Cost: 16

(30 more)]

The most notable changes were Speedy Rites, reaching Rank ten but unfortunately not unlocking any Evolutions—he wondered if there would be one for maxing out Speedy, Compact, and Secure altogether, though—and Vascular Hypertension, which he’d earned his first Ranks for. That one seemed to Rank up passively as his body naturally made more blood, so it worked pretty slowly, but would also do so without any real effort on his part.

But out of everything, the biggest one in his mind was Ephemeral Bloodforge. Now at over double the Rank it previously was at, he felt more than ready  to take on an opponent in combat. With a body full of blood and a sharpened mind prepared to utilize that fuel to its fullest, Zeth was deadlier than ever.

He hoped he wouldn’t run into anyone, but a small part of him wanted to find something that needed killing, just so he could test out his skills.

But with no sounds having come from the surface in a while now, he figured it was as safe as it’d ever be for him to emerge from his lair and do a supply run, checking in on town and seeing what had been going on these past couple days as he did. He just hoped he hadn’t missed any major developments.