‘My mana pool is already dangerously low, this isn’t good!’ Mars realized to his own horror, ‘I must hurry this up!’

“Is that all you’ve got? Let’s get this over with” he screamed from within the roaring flames

From where Lucy stood on her rocky platform, she smirked a bit at Mars’s tenaciousness before slightly clenching an outstretched hand towards Mars.

“Absorb the energy as you would mana” was all Lucy said as the blood around his chest suddenly roared to life.

‘Energy? What energy?’ wondered Mars when suddenly he felt a strange force all around him.

Mars sat in a meditative pose in the Blazing Sphere as he opened himself to any outside energies. 

This was how Mars routinely cultivated as he absorbed the mana from his surroundings. As he extended his senses in search of this ‘energy’ it suddenly rushed at him like a dragon.

Multiple streams of thick blood energy and mana floated up and through the Blazing Shield and drilled into Mars’s body.

Once the streams of powerful energies floated into Mars’s body, massive amounts of mana began to pour  throughout all of his mana pathways like a rushing tsunami.

Mars eyebrows knitted heavily in concentration as he worked to run the violent energy in his mana pathways and mana pool cyclically, this was how mages further refined their mana. But just when Mars was reaching his limit using this method, he thought of another one.

‘Let’s hope this works’ he thought determinedly as he once again began chanting the Blazing Sphere’s spell.

Almost instantly the sphere around Mars blazed even hotter while the cave around Lucy and Sera lit up in a dim fiery orange glow from the spell’s intensity.

Inside the fiery sphere Mars now had a more relaxed look on his face as he sat close eyed in his meditative pose.

Every now and then a strand of his hair would catch fire but not burn while small jets of flame would periodically shoot from his nose.

His skin was as red as a tomato right now and he was in excruciating pain but he felt much better than he had moments before. He was fortunate his use of the Blazing Sphere worked out like he hoped.

 He continued his chanting as minute after minute passed while also running the smoother energy throughout his body.

 The still fierce lava like energy initially scalded and threatened to burn Mars’s mana pathways and pool to crisps.

But after gradually absorbing the energy and taking his time refining it, the once tyrannical energy appeared to be now strengthening Mars’s mana pathways and body. 

Multiple branches of the mana pathways and even a small section of his mana pool now shone with a fiery red crystalline brilliance.

They were also much larger and thicker than before which would allow them to handle larger amounts of mana in the future, suffice to say Mars was beginning to reap the benefits from Lucy’s strange process.

From some distance away in the cave Lucy and Sera squinted as they tried to observe the changes inside the sun like orb.

“What’s going on in there master? His heartbeat sounds much calmer than before” asked Sera

“It appears he’s using his defensive spell to ease the refinement and  absorption of the blood energy” Lucy said quite amazed “lets see how long it lasts. Add the last 3 jars of beast blood now.”

At that moment Sera stealthily from the side of the stone basin telekinetically  placed three rather large gourds right beside the basin. The gourds were at least half of Sera’s 5’10 height and were uncorked.

Once Lucy saw the 3 gourds placed in position, she extended another hand in their direction. Much faster than before the blood inside of the 3 gourds suddenly rose up and flowed fluidly into the basin.

As soon as the now larger pool of  blood and the fiery shield  touched each other, they naturally began to clash with Mars in the middle.

The strong metallic scent of copper increased in the air as large amounts of blood sizzled and smoked once they met Mars’s shield.

‘Let’s see… how you handle… this” gritted Lucy through tightly clenched teeth as larger and larger bubbles of the boiling blood popped and released forks of mana and blood energy.

As Lucy utilized her Blood Domain ability to the fullest extent the roiling basin of blood with Mars in the middle began to bubble and froth feverishly.

 The surface of the blood even shifted sporadically from time to time, one second it was crashing like waves and the next spiky like a porcupine’s back.

After she was satisfied at the results and saw that the pool was starting to evaporate Lucy lowered her hand. She and Sera then stared hard at the scene below them.

 From the outside looking in the situation appeared unchanged. But at this moment small yet monumental changes were beginning to take place.

The Blazing Sphere sat in the basin and established a domain of heat within. The blood in there appeared now like a ring as Mars, inside the fiery orb, drained it of the vital energies inside.

Once Lucy had increased the output rate of power, Mars fell into a deep meditative state.

His eyes were closed, and he appeared completely calm inside his shield, as half of his hair and it’s strands glowed on fire and his skin and pores oozed blood and impurities that were instantly vaporized.

By now even more of Mars’s mana pathways and now even his very bone marrow appeared like they were formed from shiny red crystal. Mars himself did not feel any of these changes as he leisurely dreamt of swimming in pools of lava.

Hour after hour passed yet the Blazing Sphere did not dim, nor did Mars wake up from his deep meditative state.

Surprisingly enough he did stop chanting which prompted Lucy and Sera to come closer for a look,

“His heartbeat is strong. Steady. I think he’ll make it master” said Sera as they observed the scene, “The sun has now set, we should go feed I know you must feel weak”

Lucy nodded her head as they slowly moved to exit the cave.

 She was very curious what would come of the daring mage, but she really did feel quite weak now. Truth be told, this was an experiment as vampires had never attempted blood energy tests on mages or humans.

She believed he could handle the excess mana in those jars of Class 2 magic beast blood, but whether he could handle the tyrannical blood energy remained to be seen.