Waking up again Helo thinks to himself, I really need to stop before this becomes a habit. Looking around he really isn’t sure how long it has been. He shivers as he remembers the smell, but then it was magically cleaned. Next, he was talking to Alli and Hinata.
Now looking around he is in his bed, and he is in a new change of clothes. I wonder who changed me this time. Helo thinks with a weak groan. Stretching in bed he is happy to note that he is feeling a lot better. Looking around he can feel a familiar weight on his legs. Reaching a hand down he starts to scratch Lelai between the ears.
It takes about thirty minutes for Helo to finally get up, but at the same time it feels amazing. He is a little better than he was before he used his new skill. But at the same time, he is much further along in his bloodline progression. It doesn’t show up on his status, but the energy in his body feels much more pure and powerful. His body is producing about one-eighth of life energy, and his spirit is doing the same but for dark energy. The dark energy isn’t filling him with vitality, but it has a since of power and feels like a cloaking presence.
Getting out of the shower Helo puts on a hoari with a massive rose on the back and a pair of white joggers. Grabbing his vulpine cane, he is ready to meet the day, whatever day it is. Checking his window, he is happy to see that it is still early morning. Heading into the sitting room on the third floor Helo freezes. In the middle of the room his ritual is filled with just the lightest touches of gold and black.
“Dammit.” He mutters as he goes back into his room. Taking off his clothes, he puts on a pair of shorts. Foregoing the belt he enters the ritual. Taking a seat his body greedily absorbs all the energy.
A few hours later Helo opens his eyes. The smell isn’t as bad, and Helo actually feels pretty great. Three hours of absorbing energy wasn’t enough to tire him out. So, he feels fresh. Activating the cleaning rune, he lets it get to work.
“Ahhh. I feel a lot better.” Helo says thirty minutes later. He got ready for the day, for a second time. Looking out his window, now it is just a little into breakfast time. Heading down the steps he smiles as he hears his teammates talking.
Before he gets to the bottom Helo stops and looks at his status.
Name: Helo
Bloodline: Redacted (21.6%)
Tier 1
Class: Shaded Predator (Pseudo Tier 3)
Level: 40
Stats: 529
- Str: 31 (+5%)
- Agl: 85 (+15%)
- Dex:56 (+15%)
- Per: 63 (+30%)
- Vit: 112 (+50%)
- End: 34 (+15%)
- Int: 33 (+5%)
- Will: 112 (+50%)
Absorbing all that energy increased his awakening by over one percent. He can’t help but feel a little annoyed. That was a lot of energy. At this rate, it will be a hundred years before his bloodline is fully awakened. Each fraction of a percent seems to require more energy, and stronger energy.
But there is nothing he can do about it now. At least he enjoys meditation. Finally reaching the bottom steps Helo walks into the main floor. Everyone turns their head as they hear the “Tap, Tap, Tap” of Helo’s cane on the hard wood floor. “Ah. Morning.” Helo says with a smile.
“Your finally awake! First it was over two weeks. Then it was nine days. Now it was another three. What are you some kind sloth beast-kin?!?” Alli yells at him as she jumps up. Her joke causes everyone to laugh, and they ignore the fact that as she got up, she bumped into the table, knocking over Cody and Luna’s water glass.
Scratching the back of his head Helo smiles at them. “I don’t think so.” Pushing just the slightest bit of bloodline energy into his hands he watches as his nails sharpen, elongate, and curve forward slightly. “At least I don’t think sloths have these.”
Just as he finishes speaking a bun and a spoon get tossed at him. His instincts don’t cry danger, and he is too weak right now to dodge. So, the spoon bonks him on the forehead and the bun hits his chest.
Looking up from where he was staring at the two tossed objects, he catches Rocco and Arisah’s eyes. Rocco stands up and points at him. “No, your healer has not okayed you for minor energy usage yet.”
Arisah just crosses her arms and vigorously nods her head in agreement. Helo just looks at them with his mouth open. The two are taking their roles seriously. Neither Hinata nor Alli yelled at him to not use the tiny amount of energy, so both Rocco and Arisah feel like Healer Eriana’s words were justified. Alli and Hinata can’t be trusted to yell at Helo for minor infractions.
With a sharp nod both sit, after Helo voices his agreement. Feeling just a little shock, he takes a seat. He finds his usual spot between Alli and Hinata. Looking around the table, he asks, “So tell me what you all have been up to?”
One by one the team goes down the list of all the different things that happened. Levels gained, skills upgraded, and things like that. But what most of the team talk about is how their meditations have been going. Meditating surrounded by an affinity that is similar to your own can help you grow closer to your affinity. Mixed with a ritual that is supposed to help you integrate and awaken your potential it is helping the team a lot. By the time breakfast is over Helo is all caught up on what has happened.
“It is mid-July now. We have a little under six weeks before we go to the school.” Hinata updates her team before everyone can break away.
Looking down at Helo, Hinata helps him get up then brings him upstairs. “So, a lot of us have been training. But, you’re not really in a great place to train your body or your skills.”
“I know. I was thinking I would work on my enchanting. All the energy comes from mana cores, and my stylus does a lot of the work.” Helo says with a smile. He is a little excited about being able to dedicate his time to working on enchanting. Even when they all go to the School of Awakening, Helo will have over a month before he can use his energy.
Thinking about what the next two months will look like for him, he just hopes he gets cleared to use his ‘Dark Grasp’ skill. He doesn’t want to use it to fight. But to grab things for him. Shaking his head at the thought Helo just uses his cane and enters his ritual circle.
Sitting down Helo puts on the belt and starts to draw the energy into the same whirlpool like pattern of the first time. He doesn’t want to just absorb all the energy and move on. He wants to take the time to go through all the different things he found from the vampires and traitors.
The whirlpool is something that is easy for him to create and maintain. All he really must do is mentally increase the rotation occasionally. “Ha, cultivating is so easy.” He says to himself with a shake of his head.
Letting his cultivation progress without really focusing on it, Helo starts going through his tablet and necklace. On his tablet he has photos he took of the rituals that were set up in every single rift. Looking through all photos, he finds a few runes that he can’t identify. For most of the others they have to do with blood, mana, vital energy, moving energy, and growth. “I guess this is what you would expect to find in a blood sacrifice ritual.”
Writing down the few runes that he doesn’t know, Helo goes back to looking. Eventually he has gone over every photo and he sets the book aside. Next he goes through the items he picked up. He quickly finds the catalyst to be a dead end. Most of the catalysts are body parts and the kind of things that he would never use in a ritual. “Well I guess the main catalyst would be the corpses.”
“Huh. Corpses…” At that word Helo looks through his. “Gross.” He says as he finds multiple bodies of people he has killed. When you don’t want someone to find a body it is easy to just toss it in his storage. “I have to deal with this… Later.”
Next, he takes out the manacles. These were the cuffs that were suppressing the goblin rift leader. Looking them over, they seem interesting but not something useful. At least not for now. He has no desire to capture a monster from any dungeon. Next, he pulls out the dagger he picked up off the ground.
Dagger of Blood Sacrifice (Rare)
A dagger made to sacrifice the living. Metal of the blade is dyed red due to the countless innocents that have suffered.
- Converts vitality into mana
- Empower any vitality absorbed
- Sends mana into linked ritual
- (???)
“What a vile creation.” Helo looks at the flag with some disgust. Reading over the description his ‘Appraisal’ skill gives him Helo takes a look at how the dagger was made. To his surprise it is extremely impressive. The rune work is top notch and the skill put into the dagger is far above his own. At best he could make an uncommon item and that Is because of the library of rune knowledge from his father, and if he used powerful materials. The medallions he made for Alli and Hinata are uncommon rarity. But the materials are doing all the work.
Looking back at the dagger he finds a rune that is like one he had in the array. It is written down in a book next to him as one of the runes that he needs to look up. Sending his consciousness into his necklace he finds his mind surrounded by the knowledge left to him by his father. Sending the necklace an image of the rune, he immediately gets a response. It is a book on conversion runes.
“Conversion rune…” Helo looks at it and suddenly he has an idea.
A week later Helo is finally able to walk around without much pain. Most of that is due to his Vulpine Cane. It makes his joints feel like they are clouds. He is able to walk around without help and is even getting pretty fast. But most of that is because of his high agility.
Finally getting back from the blacksmith, Helo has the materials he needs to start working on his idea. He has been thinking about it for a week and finally decided on a way to go.
At first, he considered using another medallion, then it was a wand, then a glove. In the end he decided to use a ring. He is going to make a ring that acts like the dagger. But instead of killing people, it will draw from Helo’s own vitality and convert it into mana.
Whenever Helo wants to activate the heating runes in his shower, turn on the stove or even a light. He has to pull out his Stylus for the Manaless. It isn’t a huge deal. But being able to just simply touch something like everyone else would be great. So, making something where he just needs to touch the ring to whatever he wants, and it will inject mana would be great.
After coming up with what he wanted the device to look like, he had to write out the enchantment. It was not easy. Conversion runes are incredibly difficult, and it is the main reason the dagger is a rare grade item. From what Helo knows, the arrays that the traitors used came from the vampires, and they are something the vampires have researched for a long time.
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Helo believes he can make the enchantment. But at the same time, he will be falling back on his own connection to his mother tongue. Using runes from his own races language will make the difficulty drop considerably.
Getting back to his room with a bag of different test rings Helo is finally ready to start crafting. Truthfully, he is really excited. He has felt useless this last week. Not to mention he was practically useless and unconscious for many of the previous weeks.
Sitting down at his desk Helo sets the rings to the side and pulls out all his notes. Next, he pulls out the same box of sand that Elder Shelby gave him almost a year ago. For the next few hours Helo traces out the runes in the box of sand until they look perfect.
He had to simplify the enchantment a lot to make it something he could even make. But he believes that it will work, even if it is extremely inefficient. He has high enough vitality that burning fifty units to turn on a light won’t even affect him. That is only five vitality worth of energy. He will regenerate that in under two minutes.
This first iteration has a rune that is created on the underside of the ring. It directly contacts his skin and is made to pull out the vitality. Then it stores it within a garnet which is known to store vitality well. From the crystal a rune siphons the energy away and converts it into mana, then stores the mana in a sapphire. The blue sapphire will be on the top of the ring and will have a rune embedded inside it to pull out energy and insert it into an object.
Helo must be careful during the creation because carving gemstones can be incredibly tedious. It is extremely delicate work. At the same time, gemstones are rare and expensive. So, using them has a lot of risks. But they are also great at storing energy. The only thing that surpasses them are mana crystals… Well and living beings.
It takes Helo about three hours to finish the first ring. Before he even puts it on, he can tell it isn’t going to work. The ring is constantly pulling in vitality. Which happens to be the trace amounts that are found within the space around them. Then it tries to convert it, but it has so little vitality that the conversion process can’t even activate.
Looking over his item, he realizes that he needs to add a rune that will act like an on and off switch. Going over the ring again Helo finds a place in the already completed enchantment where he might be able to modify it. Now modifying an enchantment is tricky. Like wiring an outlet that is connected to a hot wire. You need to be careful not to let the energy within the enchanted flow or blow. Both will leave the enchantment inoperable.
Putting the ring into a clamp, he has it positioned so that he can access the area on the ring that is clear of all runes. Working carefully, he starts carving a rune that allows him to turn the ring on and off. The rune he is using is pretty basic, it activates when it senses a mental nudge, and one thing that Helo is really good at, is using his mental energy.
Almost done with the most difficult part, Helo now has to add the rune into the already created array within the item. He needs to draw a mana pathway that connects the switch to the vitality siphon. As the pathway meets the new rune, a backlash of energy occurs. This is like a shortage in a direct electrical current or a clog in a tunnel that sends whatever was going through it back out. As the backlash happens Helo doesn’t have a way to calm down the mana. This is something that classes enchanters might have a skill to help with. In the past Helo used the properties of his aura to weaken the mana. But right now, he can’t use his aura.
Watching as one after the other every single rune in the ring ignites Helo rips it from the clamp. He accidentally breaks the clamp in the process. Not having the time to worry about it, he runs to the patio door in his room. Jumping outside Helo launches the ring straight into the air.
Both Alli and Hinata are sitting outside on that side of the deck. This is the side where Alli has her room, it is also the direction of the sunset. Both girls were enjoying some tea on the top deck with Aiko and Luna.
They are suddenly interrupted as Helo dives out his room with a wild look. His clothes are a mess; his hair is extremely unkept and he has a wild look in his eyes. Before they can ask a question, they watch as he tosses something that is glowing blue into the air. The next second they hear a loud. “POP!”
Then Helo sighs in relief and into a chair on his side of the deck. While he is sitting there and moping, he hears snickering coming from his right. Turning his head he freezes as he sees the girls sitting outside. All of them are covering their mouths and trying not to laugh. Groaning, Helo just puts his face in his hands. “Ahhhhhggahh. This couldn’t get any worse.”
Just as he finishes speaking, he hears “Whhoshhh! Whosh, Whosh, Whosh, Whosh.” Looking up Akira is standing next to him, beside him is Yuki. Flanking them both are the three tier 3 fighters in the clan Ema, Daigo, and Arata.
At this point all three girls are openly laughing and Helo just shrinks back into his chair. “It wasn’t a challenge.” He calls out to the sky.
Then things get worse. All three of the clans most powerful tier 3 fighters bend the knee to him. Arata tends to lead the three speaks for them. “We are honored to be of service to the prince.”
Looking up in horror Helo doesn’t know what to say. Alli and Hinata see his face and are now rolling in their chairs with laughter. Just shaking his head he says, “Nope. I don’t even know what I am the prince of. For all we know my mother was married into the family and I was already born, or I was adopted or…. Something.” At this point he is just trying to find a reason to get people to stop bowing to him.
The trio stand up and Arata smiles. “We were told you preferred to remain anonymous. But we all wanted to pay our respects when we saw you next. We will all go back to business as usual.”
With a sigh Helo feels a little relief at that. “Thanks.” He says with a small smile.
Then Akira finally speaks. “So, anyone going to say anything about the bomb?”
Alli happily throws Helo under the bus. “Yeah, that was Helo. He came charging out of his room and tossed something into the sky.”
All eyes turn to him, and he blushes. “I tried something I have never done before. Well, never done successfully. Usually I have my aura and there are no negative side effects for failure. This time… there were.” He shrugs and isn’t sure what else to say.
“It’s okay sweetie. We know you’re having a hard time with your injuries. But from what I hear your making great progress.” Yuki steps forward and gives Helo a warm hug. He doesn’t often get touched, let alone hugged. Especially not by a motherly figure, and he can see why people like it. It’s nice. Almost makes him miss not having this after Ms. Accleass disappeared.
Looking away Helo nods his head. “Thanks.” He mumbles and then looks for a reason to escape this conversation.
Hinata can see how uncomfortable he is, and she smiles at him. She is happy that he felt something from her mom’s hug. She always felt bad for him with his past. But she doesn’t want him to get overwhelmed. “Helo come sit with us. You need to take a break. Maybe tell us about what you’re doing.”
Stepping away from the adults, Helo heads to Alli’s side of the balcony. As he is walking over both Alli and Hinata scoot to opposite side of the couch they are sharing. Helo just lightly smiles at this; they seem to like placing him between them.
Aiko gets up to serve him tea and even the adults take a seat to enjoy the sunset. Nobody talks for a while as they all enjoy the view. From their position on Mount Fuji, they can see a sea of trees below them. It leads off to show a great view of the sun setting over Japan.
By the time the sun is set Helo is feeling much better. He even ran a hand through his hair and fixed his clothes. As the adults all get up to leave Hinata finally asks him about what he is making.
Helo pulls out the dagger and shows it to everyone. They all give him a questioning look. “You’re making a sacrificial dagger?” Alli asks out loud for everyone. Akira and Yuki were just about to leave but they heard what Alli asked. Turing back, they wait to see what Helo says.
“No. A ring.” Everyone still gives him a weird look. “I realized that the true effect in the dagger is a conversion of blood to mana.” Helo looks at them expectantly, like they are supposed to just get it. It takes a second, but Hinata does.
“And… you have no mana.” She says slowly, like she is still tasting her answer.
Nodding happily Helo explains. “Everything is run using mana. You want to start the dishwasher, inject a point of mana. You want to turn on the water heater, just use some mana. Of your toast needs toasting, just toss in some mana!” By the end Helo is almost yelling.
Everyone now looks at him with understanding. “I have to constantly use my stylus to turn on everything. So, I want to make a rune that draws on my vitality to create just a touch of mana.”
Akira was a little worried at first. He likes Helo and has never had an issue with his daughter’s interest in him. But if he is interested in sacrificial rituals, that might be a touch too far. But now he nods in understanding. If anything, he thinks it is a great way for Helo to practice his enchanting. He has already read the reports on the rituals the vampires were using. He also saw a dagger like the one Helo took out. He knows the pitfalls that Helo will have to overcome to make the ring work.
Looking at his wife he gives her a smile. They both were worried about Helo being cooped up for the next five weeks before they leave for school. Then at school he will still be injured. But at least then he will have a lot going on. This is a great project for him. Yuki voices it out. “That is a great practical application of what you’re learning.” Looking at her husband he nods, “If you don’t have it done a week before you leave for school, we will help you figure out where you went wrong.”
Smiling at her, Helo truly appreciates it. This is something he is excited about working on. But at the same time, it is important to him that it works. So as Hinata’s parents finally leave, Helo starts to explain to Hinata, Alli, Aiko and Luna about what he is working on.
“So, I need a section to first collect and gather the vitality. Then I need it to convert it into mana. Finally, I need to gather the mana and have a way to use it.” Pulling out some of the notes he took, Helo shows the girls what the runes look like. They all understand at least a little about what he is talking about. But all four of them look surprised at the complexity of the conversion rune.
“You need to create that rune, on something the size of a ring?” Alli says with shock.
Helo nods his head, “Yes but I found a conversion rune that is a simplified version of the rune from the Ser’pri’shafa language.” Everyone looks surprised at the power in the word, but Helo winces as he speaks it. “Owe. That hurt. I forgot how powerful that word is.”
Talking to the girls for a few more minutes Helo gets a little restless to get back to work. Hinata can see him fidgeting and she laughs. “Go. Finish your project.”
Jumping to his feet a little too quickly, Helo smiles at her with appreciation then heads back into his room. Getting to his desk, Helo sets out all his materials in front of him. Right now, he is practicing so instead of using full sized crystals he is only using fragments. Enough to test out his theories.
Crafting another ring takes almost two and a half hours. It is faster than last time, but this time he also added in the control rune. Pulling out his ring, Helo doesn’t ‘Appraise’ it. Creating items can be weird, when you are crafting something new ‘Appraisal’ doesn’t always work. Unless you finish the final project.
Putting on the ring Helo guides a strand of mental energy into the control rune. As he does the rune lights up and starts to draw in mana from a power crystal. As it does the vitality siphon activates. Starting at it with an expectant look he is underwhelmed as the ring only siphons his residual vitality. It is just barely enough to power the conversion rune.
As the fragment of a tiny amount of mana is created Helo realizes that he needs a second control rune to release the mana in the storage crystal.
“So two issues, something is wrong with the vitality siphon, and I need something to control the mana output.” Getting back to work Helo is quickly able to fix the mana output issue. Instead of using two simple control runes, he decided to use one more complex one.
A lot of enchantments just activate as mana gets added into them. If they have a rune to activate an ability, usually it is a basic control rune. It is simple and hard to mess up in the middle of a fight. All you need to do is push some mana into the enchantment and it activates.
But there are more complex runes available. Ones that can be used to activate multiple things. There are two ways to go about using one. First you connect it to something that acts like a relay board. The relays will tell the control rune what to turn on and off. But there is a second way. You use your own control over mental energy to send the signal down the correct pathway.
The second option is the one Helo is going to use. One thing that he knows is that he is great at controlling his mental energy. Plus, this ring isn’t made for combat. It is made for the convenance of a dude that has no mana, in a mana-filled world.
So, with the first problem already figured out Helo needs to figure out the second. He doesn’t want to create a second practice ring without at least making some changes to the vitality siphon. In the end he doesn’t come up with any good ideas before the day ends.
A little under a week goes by and Helo has spent the majority of his time in the clan’s library. It took him a while to get access to the clan’s books on blood magic. But with the books finally in his possession he is hoping to solve the issue with his ring.
Durning the week he came up with the idea of manually pushing his physical energy into the ring. Similar to how his underwear can store extra physical and mental energy. But in the end, it didn’t work. The conversion rune didn’t treat the energy the same as it does the tiny amounts of vitality it can siphon from the air.
With the blood magic books on hand Helo is excited to figure out what he is doing wrong. The first book is called ‘The Beauty of Sacrifice’. It is one of the books that the clan took from a vampire in World War Two. They don’t like destroying knowledge, so when they find books like this on, they lock them away in what they call the ‘Forbidden Section’.
It takes him a little over an hour to finally find a passage on why the ring doesn’t like the energy he provides. It is something that he glossed over because his own body is unique due to his bloodline. Vitality and Physical energy are not the same. They are close, they are easily interchangeable, but if Helo wanted the ring to work on physical energy, he would need to add another set of storage and conversion runes.
It is like how intelligence supposedly increases mana capacity, even though it isn’t a mana stat. In the same vein an increase in vitality increases the amount of physical energy the body creates. The body then uses that increase to create a higher vitality, like increasing regeneration of both health and stamina. Helo’s own body is unique because he is starting to directly produce and run of vitality.
Almost everyone experiences something similar as they tier up. The body starts to change into an engine that runs off of whatever affinity they have. Someone with a fire affinity might still have blood. But at the same time if you put them in the center of a bonfire, their body might absorb it to replenish their blood. Like the goblin Helo fought that could heal using fire.
Helo is just ahead of his peers in converting his body. This has to do with his efforts in cultivation, but also the power of his bloodline. So, he completely glossed over the fact that vitality and physical energy are separate. His own body is now directly producing about two-eighths vitality. When his bloodline is fully awakened, he expects that number to reach one-hundred-percent. By that time, it will be like he replaced all the energy in his body with vitality. The same is true for his spirit, but darkness.