Born in Blood



Liam took a good minute to inspect the shortsword from all angles.

It gained an umbral sheen that made it look alive. 

Naturally, Liam slashed against his bicep to test out its sharpness, and the blade slowly sliced through his flesh with some effort. 

His skin and muscles were still stubbornly tight, and it protested against the act.

'Still Rank 1 middle-tier...'

Liam was using his own body as a golden standard.

He wanted a blade that could sever at least bone deep, or near that point. 

Through his fight with Rishe, he realized his opponents were going to get a whole lot more difficult to deal with.

Then Liam fell into thought.

'How long will blades work against my enemies? I don't think a tiny sword will matter against a creature bigger than a mountain.'

For a brief moment, he felt dejected… but realizing something, the feelings melted away and Liam laughed under his breath.

'The blade just needs to be sharp enough to cut through it.'

Although Liam had only done the shortsword, he decided to hold off on the katana for now. He needed to focus on Blood Weaving.

Liam willed out a tiny droplet of blood. It seeped right through the pores on his skin and began to float. 

Using his blood manipulation abilities required his ichor to stay linked with his body, but Liam used a bit of his mental energy to keep the droplet in the air. 

The refinement process was the same. It was not easier or harder. Both the blood and mental energy had improved in quality, after all. 

Liam began conjuring up the meanings in his head. 

Sharpness.

Precision.

Edge.

Sword. 

Sever.

Cut.

Slash.

Instantly, Liam realized how his meanings had gotten more fluid and natural to link with one another. 

It was like stacking up eccentrically shaped cinder blocks atop one another. 

Except, what Liam was stacking were the concepts of sharpness itself. At least, his understanding of it.

Naturally, the more Liam added, the more it grew unstable and difficult to maintain. 

He first needed to perfect the foundation and his understanding of the concepts.

It was exactly the comprehension he lacked.

He wasn't amazingly talented in the field either, besides some experience he gained from rigorous studying and practice.

In his mind, sharpness simply meant how easy it is for a blade to sever something. 

A tool to kill and slaughter with.

For now, he would just test the waters.

He concluded the meanings and applied them to the droplet.

Absorbing it into his mental sphere was the same, except the pressure had increased threefold. 

Thankfully, his resistance matched it just as much.

It took two hours for the pain to simmer down. 

When it did, Liam gathered the refined blood on his right index, then began writing on his shortsword.

The ink was naturally more pure and refined, glowing fervently with crimson light.

Making the links was a completely different challenge.

It was like slowly connecting a puzzle together, but the pieces were up to him to make in real time. 

Thanks to his new comprehension of the vampiric language, the writings made a lot more sense with what he had in mind.

It allowed him to shorten the overall sentences he had to write over the blade.

The less Liam wrote, the more effective and powerful the general inscription would become. 

In the same way, using concise and simpler words was better than dragging out the sentences. 

The writing size itself mattered too. The smaller Liam could manage to write the characters, the more he could afford to add on the blade's surface. His eye helped greatly with that.

Another hour passed, and Liam was done with inscribing. 

Unbeknownst to him, he had not blinked throughout the entire process, like a surgeon performing surgery. 

Inspecting the blade riddled with glowing writings, Liam pursed his lips in thought, then smiled.

'Rank 1… upper-tier. It's close to the second Rank, too.' 

Although that didn't sound like much, it was basically the same level as Rogan's blades. The enhancement inscription worked amazingly, raising its tier.

'It's still shoddy work. My purified blood did most of the work. I have a long way to go.'

'Eventually, I'll need to start broadening my field of work. Enhancements are the easiest to do, but I don't plan on specializing in it.'

Spell making.

That was what Liam had his eye on.

///

Time passed.

Studies resumed.

Apparently, the House of Honor inhabitant had the privilege of being "home schooled", for lack of a better word.

All of Liam's teachers came and taught him personally, one to one. It was an unexpected benefit, but a welcome one, nonetheless.

His cultivation professor, Veila Rei, gave him insight into the future Ranks and the different hurdles one had to pass in order to arrive there. 

Evidently, Veila had offered her mentorship to him, but he humbly declined. 

Mentorships required time and effort, and Liam honestly didn't have any to spare.

His world knowledge teacher, Gorris Shel, informed Liam of the various celebrities within the cultivation world, those who were willingly public and didn't mind recognition. 

None were Rank 6, only below.

They were renowned for their accomplishments, like clearing out Rank 5 Death Zones by themselves, creating spells deemed impossible to, and exploring uncharted lands.

At the same time, Liam's knowledge of the countries and continents were expanding, which gave him more options to explore from in case he wanted to leave Echoria.

Meanwhile, Richard and Jordan helped with his specializations. Now that he was a Rank 2 Magus, the two were much more demanding with their expectations.

Jordan began teaching Liam how to integrate the forging room to his method. Liam protested, but the professor was firm.

"It's good to know if you ever settle down someplace. Forgeries help greatly in speeding up your work progress and easing your workload at once."

Richard, on the other hand, was giving Liam more insight into the different concepts he wanted to learn, such as spell and technique making. 

Liam hadn't told him about his purified ichor, though. Afraid that might cause the professor to cough another mouthful of blood.

All in all, Liam wasn't even a first year student, yet he was learning third year material! 

Like so, the months of peace were steadily passing. 

And the winds of hardship were beginning to churn.