2.8 Blood Secrets
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Level up hit Alice on spot. Her whole body as though breathed all at once and then the energy disappeared like in a bottomless pit.

Wha-? The girl hurriedly prepared for a surge of blood energy in her heart, to sense every change, every movement, to find a clue, a direction in her cultivation.

It never followed.

Alice waited, first hoping, then her mind glossed over a possibility of some mistake, then no thoughts lingered before finally the girl opened the system log, scrolled way back and read,

> Blood integration reaches 50%. System support is being turned off. All respective tools are being disabled.

"I see."

A corner of her mouth curved up and twitched erratically.

"I see. No system support."

Her arm and the sword in it rose up high and then plummeted, the shell of the worker ant crashing open and the insides smearing the stony floor and the girl's leg armor.

"My fault. Status."

Unnapetizingly the sword's tip rustled inside the insect's head and dug out a dirtied glassy stone, dropped it on the ground with a ring as she stared in the space. Then Alice mouth's both corners twitched and the girl scanned the chimeric wolf really unfriendly. She broke open its skull in menacing silence and an even more savage manner. Two shiny magic stones soon lay in her palm, but Alice wasn't happy.

"Template attribute grow rate is that small."

Her status meant life. Literally. Every little decimal counted. The fact that she started talking to herself in the middle of pretty much a warzone, was there a magical jammer or not, showed how much Alice was disturbed.

Blood on the rocks underneath started to glow. The girl sniffed mana.

Not here. Go.

 

“Phew…”

Alice inhaled traces of magic emitted by burning blood and whatever liquids had ended up on her. No matter how small, the girl was determined to push down any chances a local apex predator could get a whiff onto her.

Admittedly, those chances were slim indeed.

The cave’s only visible wall had glowing crystal hubs high above; together with veins on the ceiling that Alice could see they were drawing out of the darkness an insignificant corner of this giant underground arena of hunt and murder. Light beyond a certain point wasn’t reaching the girl. Might be blocked, might be consumed or dissipated by something. Magic jammer thingy.

Sitting under an umbrella of a cliff with her legs crossed, the girl watched water dropping down from an unknown source. Pop, pop, the water was splashing on stones with quite a force, the only distinct sound around.

This level up brought me around 0.5 of physical stats. How poor. Normal classes get 3 points of free attributes per level, at level 10 when they likely have broken the limit already they will have twenty-seven points… Enough to bring several attributes to 15 or something.

The little fact her starting point in stats was also lower than many people she disdained to even remember.

Monsters in this dungeon have a growth spurt on level 10, too. My hunter template has no free skill progression nor free attribute points. All because I can cultivate. Wait, wrong.

Because the system discovered an option of blood integration and forced me to cultivate it.

Alice analyzed her situation calmly, all while playing with magic stones in her fingers.

“Quest log. I have…”

[#1: Destroy the closest nest of monsters. Time restriction: 44h 02m. Reward: 10,000 BP]

“…less than two days. This place may have more tunnel branches for ant and centipede colonies at least. I must focus on the closest to my Node.”

“What else? Cultivation is my bread or Alice, be the forever loser. Until I can fight that snake head-on.”

Subconsciously treating the snake as her enemy number one, Alice clenched two magic stones. Her eyes were coloured by gloom for despite sensing magic inside the girl had yet to find a way to extract it.

Chat. No, no distractions.

After placing a stone on a more or less flat surface, Alice drew her sword and pressed the blade onto it. The magic stone got cut into uneven parts surprisingly easy. Well, she was more or less a competent strongman.

Do I really...

The girl shook her head, cut the stone into small pieces and brought a half-fingernail sized before her eyes. Hesitatingly, she licked the slice and, having found nothing wrong, placed into her mouth.

Very... stony. Not that I am an expe...

Magic leaked abruptly, a tiny bittersweet substance mixed into the girl's saliva. A trace of blood essence gathered in her tongue on its own, whining for a treat. Alice contemplated on should she really eat magic stones from now on or not when an idea struck her.

Leaving a slice in her mouth aside, Alice pulled off the left glove and cut the skin with a wince, wondering how good she had become in hurting herself after a few days in a dungeon. Warm red painted her palm and Alice hurriedly grabbed an undamaged magic stone, urging blood essence into the wound.

Against her expectations, it flowed out joyfully. Dense, heavy, bright like a ruby, Alice saw it with her own eyes for the first time. The girl's blood essence wasn't transparent like Leviathan's in her dream, signifying a difference in quality or nature.

Three drops at once through the cut... she lost?

Impulsively, Alice willed them back. Bright blood obliged.

Stupified, the girl pushed it out. Then back. Then out.

Compliant to her thoughts, three scarlet blobs levitated above Alice's eyes and the girl stared at them wordlessly. She felt a mysterious and at the same time mundane connection to this blood of hers. Mysterious since it was uncanny indeed. Mundane because her control over her blood essence felt casual like over her fingers or eyelids.

Alice rolled a magic bit in her mouth, blinked, and said simple,

"Fuck."

 

During the following experimental phase, Alice discovered that apparently she had become a psychic:

The girl had direct control over her blood essence inside and outside of her body for starters. Good in a meter radius from her heart, bad after two meters, null after five. The dungeon recycled a drop of ownerless blood essence she purposely left beyond this range after a few minutes. However, Alice reclaimed another drop from dust before this time limit was up, clear and bright as new. 

In turn, blood essence provided Alice with limited control over normal blood it was infused with, too. The word limited prevailed over control though, the girl was struggling to find a useful application but was looking forward to the future.

Finally, the girl wasn't bleeding as long as she wished not to. Yet, the shallow wound on her palm lacked noticeable fast healing.

There were two more experiments Alice had postponed, but that was the gist of it.

Now the girl was sitting still with a magic stone in her hands covered with her blood and pulling its mana directly into the bloodstream. The little piece between her teeth she treated like candy.

77%...78%...

The blind spot under the cliff fared well: Alice never heard a monster skirting. Good, heartbeats in the ears were distracting while the dense magic stream was bringing her almost deafening pleasure.

When the fifth and the last whole stone crumbled, the girl exhaled and forcefully stopped herself from picking up the remains of the very first one.

Eight seconds of superpower.

Alice reached 80% of blood integration. Actually, eight drops of essence were making up a hundredth or less of her heart capacity, everything beyond just acted passively in body cultivation; Alice had theorized her heart would pump blood essence nonstop throughout her whole system once blood integration was complete. 

Status. A fast check revealed her physical stats did not move one iota and the girl nodded. Her attempt to guide and contain magic in the heart worked out. Now her body was being supplied with a bit more 'passives', which kind of proved the theory.

The girl collected magic stone shards in the free belt pocket, clenched her fist, making sure the cut wasn't a problem and donned her gloves. One could notice the leather on fingertips was missing, a crude work.

Time for hunting. But first...

Alice lifted a pinky. A bright drop of blood1Gonna use that instead of 'essence' here and there, do notice :-) seeped out through pores. Alice tossed it with a flashy move and willed,

"Burn."

A small fireball blazed with glow and fever for a glorious instant. Blinded like a fool, with light spots lingering in her eyes, Alice threw in a magic candy and grinned.

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