A high-pitched ringing sound stirred me from my sleep. I blinked frantically as my vision came into focus.

The lethargy I felt stemmed from both physical and mental exhaustion. The shock of the experience dulled my senses and I questioned if I had re-entered reality.

“What…?” I muttered, finally realizing my apartment had been covered in blood runes.

From the floor to the ceiling there was an unending symmetry created from the runes.

Protection. Binding. Pathway. Vein. Release. Consuming. Absorbing. Concealing.

I recognized the runes easily, or at least what they meant. I had never attempted to invoke anything other than some rather basic runes.

I stood up– no, I tried to stand up but my body fell over.

My fatigue caused me frustration, but I was able to see that my own body was covered in blood runes.

The only spot that wasn’t touched by blood was an untouched circle on my floor that surrounded me.

“Ah, the artifacts?” The charms I had worn were completely drained, depriving me of all their properties.

So, I channeled the blood circulating in my veins and forced myself to stand. My body creaked and it felt as if shards of glass were embedded in my veins. I suppressed a grunt with each step until I stepped outside of the circle and there was a sharp pain.

The blood runes began glowing before they dissolved before disappearing altogether. Since there was one less mess to clean, I didn’t mind. The pain subsided and my slow walk to the bathroom was uninterrupted.

“What the hell?” I was dumbstruck by my own reflection.

A streak of gray hair intersected my previously brown hair and my skin was a shade paler. I had become visibly similar to Penelope in that way who had several streaks of gray hair within her black hair and had very pale skin tone.

…

Minutes later, I washed myself up and prepared to open the grimoire.

At first, I assumed that days would’ve passed, but it turned out that it had only been a few hours since the “ritual” was completed. I felt no obvious changes, but I felt I could channel my blood more fluidly.

Since I couldn’t make sense of it myself, I brought out the grimoire and began to read the changes.

You have defied fate, this accomplishment is not without consequence. There are beings who will seek you out to challenge your resolve. Defeat them and receive great rewards.

The Path of The Dread Sorceror:

The Endless Penumbra: The penumbra is currently sated, feeding it any more will incur the development of the ‘Greed’ attribute.

Art of Sanguina: Take control of your lifeblood and you will find the only restriction in the use of blood arts lay within your imagination.

You have successfully gained control of your lifeblood and the force within it. Explore its limits.

Art of Mortality: To think that raising the dead is the peak of necromancy is pure ignorance. Only once you explore your own death and gain enlightenment will you gain an idea of the power you could wield.

You’ve looked upon the structure of your own soul and altered it. You have started to understand the concept of mortality.

Form of Bones: For a Dread Sorcerer, your body is your greatest defense. To be bent, broken, and crushed is a small price in that regard, wouldn’t you agree?

Form of Flesh: To use this form requires you to act as a medium between worlds. If you use your flesh as a gateway, you may summon spirits to fight for you… for as long as you can withstand the pain, that is. Or perhaps you wish you carve runes upon your skin and make use of their effect for a time?

Song of The Crow: Because you possess an artifact with a small affinity toward death, you can enhance its powers further and permanently bind it to your soul.

Song of Silence: This will summon a death fog in the area around you. The longer your enemies stand within it, the more you can will it to weaken them. You cannot move or speak while using this power as any sound you make will cause the death fog to target your soul.

Penelope’s Song: A unique skill that is the result of walking the Path of the Death Bringer and Dread Sorcerer. Once a month, when the moon is at its brightest, you may meet with Penelope should she be willing.

Breathless Walk: Move as the spirits of the dead do, silent and unseen. Pass through any solid object that is not affected by magic or living. While in this state, you may not attack others. Beings with strengthened perception and eyesight may discover you if you are not careful. If discovered by the living, you will be removed from this state. In addition, the moment you breathe is when this technique will end.

The Broken Scale: A pound of flesh is the greatest collateral of all. Offer a vital part of your body up and your sorceries will become more powerful. Any part that is exchanged will be rendered unusable for a year.

Stampede of Pale Horses: The ones atop pale horses look at you with curiosity, but do not accept you as worthy.

Touch of Azrael: You cannot accept this in your current state as it would tear your soul asunder.

Inheritor of Thanatos: You are absolutely worthless and will continue to be seen as such until deemed otherwise, Casper Clay.

The grimoire was hardly short on surprises. After essentially liberating my soul, I inadvertently upset an unknown number of beings. Whether they perceived my actions as arrogance or completely disapproved of me, I didn’t know.

“We’ll just add it to the list then,” I said aloud.

So far, I had disgusted the Demon Princes of hell. Which hell was it exactly? I didn’t know. I successfully pissed off New Era and would probably be meeting some of the members rather sooner than later. And now, to top it off, there was an unknown number of unknown beings who wanted to see my limits.

“Delightful,” I said sarcastically.

In spite of that, there was no way I’d live in fear of everything, after all, I had been through much worse so far.

…

A day later, I was standing outside of a Class-3 Ruin. Waiting for the guild team to arrive while indulging in the habit of smoking.

They came together, arriving in a stylish sedan before nearly stepping out of the car in sync. A group of four men carrying suitcases decorated with a sword symbol made it clear who they were. The ‘Eternal Sword’ guild was the second strongest guild in the world, just after Sleeping Lion.

“You’re Casper Clay?” One of them approached me.

“Yeah.” I flicked the cigarette away under his reproachful gaze. I wasn’t intimidated by his stern expression, it’s just that I didn’t want to be rude and wanted to curb my bad habit as quickly as I could.

While they were all business professional, expensive suits and everything. I was clearly more casual, wearing a black hoodie, track pants, and sneakers.

“I see,” He said, clearly less than enthused. “And do you understand the nature of this test?”

“Yeah,” I replied, glancing at the suited men behind him.

They all seemed sort of pissed, but I guess if you were meant to scout prospective talent, you’d get a little fed up. Especially if the aforementioned talent turned out to be a bust.

“Just to be clear, I’ll repeat the terms. You are expected to clear at least three-fourths of the ruin alone. This will demonstrate adaptability, strength, and ingenuity thereby showcasing your talent and combat ability. If you manage to do as instructed, you will receive sixty percent of the profit and will be able to negotiate for better terms. If you clear the ruin in its entirety, you will receive one hundred percent of the profit barring the discovery of any artifacts. All artifacts on your person must be accounted for before entering the ruin. If we discover that you attempted to steal any artifacts, you will be restrained and reported to the authorities. If you fail to meet the requirements, you can signal us for help but doing so will forfeit all profit and the possibility of joining our guild. Do you understand?”

Suppressing the urge to yawn, I nodded my head. “I got it so can we start already?”

The four men all showed different reactions toward my question and none of them were very positive.

…

For the sake of proving myself “adaptable,” I was given little on the ruin and had to search for details myself. The creatures I was meant to deal with today were Trolls, monsters that were physically similar to ogres, but that was where the similarities ended. Trolls were more feral and uncoordinated than ogres, rarely operating under a hierarchy, unless a Great Troll appeared. Besides their social structure, trolls healed from their wounds at an unbelievable rate if you let up for a second and had a greater resilience overall.

‘Ah, the smell!’

couldn’t forget the best part.

Maybe it was a defense mechanism or a way to mark territory, trolls often covered their fur in as much filth as they could. In addition to the putrid smell, their claws were basically poisonous if they managed to tear into the skin.

I purchased a cheap combat suit but I’d be relying on my sanguina to protect my body. Hopefully, it would be more effective this time.

“Do not take up too much time or our agreement will be null,” The talent scout from Eternal Sword sent me off after saying that.

I didn’t reply since I hadn’t even seriously considered joining their guild. I doubt there was anyone who chose to use recruiting assessment in order to train, but here I was.

A sent a crow out to survey the area around me, finding the thickets filling the landscape to be counterproductive to my efforts. With a quick flicker, I enabled Spirit Vision which revealed around a dozen or so presences within 500 meters or thereabout. There were several souls concentrated in a cluster near a brighter one which was a likely sign of a Great Troll being present.

I began sprinting toward one of the fainter presences that happened to be alone. After trudging through fields of tall grass and mud, I arrived at the location of the semi-clueless monster. It began sniffing the air almost as soon as I moved.

With a deep growl, it bore its sharp crooked teeth at me as it rose to its feet. It rushed forward without hesitation.

“Woah.” I backstepped, avoiding the reckless charge of the heavy creature.

At the same time, I sent two blood arrows toward its thick hide. A loud grunt sent in response let me know that they landed.

“Arggh!” The Troll seemed to grow angrier and its speed increased greatly.

Its body swelled with rage as it jumped toward me. I remained attentive and avoided the frenzy of swings.

“Haargh!” Another incoherent shout spilled from its mouth while its eyes went bloodshot.

I seized every opening and fired a steady barrage of blood at the massive target. I wasn’t looking to kill it or fatally injure it, I just needed to inject it with enough of my blood to test something.

In spite of the assault it suffered, the troll grew more rabid with each moment and it didn’t help that my environment was difficult to navigate. It brought its fist down on me and as I tried to dodge, my feet were slowed by the mud.

Without any choice, I attempted to control the large amount of my blood that should’ve been flowing inside of the troll.

I forced its body to come to a stop mid-swing and began counting.

‘One, two, three, four, five…’

The troll became rigid but put up fierce resistance, slowly wresting control back.

By the time seven seconds went by, it had broken free of my control and charged at me once more.

I twisted my body out of the way before extending a sharpened blood spike into its waist. It took effort to force the spike into its flesh and I hit bone almost immediately. With a thought, the solidified spike turned flexible and stretched further into its muscle fibers and organs.

“Aaargh!” The troll bellowed in agony before throwing a punch that could shattered bones toward me.

Before it could land, I forced the blood spike to burn. The pain all caused the troll to contort, stopping its attack midway. A scarlet blade emerged from my free hand and plunged into its abdomen.

Ignoring the putrid smell that was downright disorienting, I dragged the blade through its belly which spilled its entrails onto the ground.

“Disgusting,” I insulted the dead troll, pinching my nose to protect myself from the potent rotten smell.

I sent a small blood dart into its body and began to take control of its own stagnating blood. As the murky red fluid was drawn from its body, I thought about the Art of Sanguina.

By the words of the grimoire, its potential was said to be immense, but that didn’t mean whatever I think would just happen. I had to form an idea, build on it, and gather enough understanding and experience to.

Right now, I could wield my blood into whatever shape or construct I wanted and cause small effects like tiny explosions, but it wasn’t special. Drawing a blood rune could exert a greater reaction, but that required a touch of precision. If the rune sign was smeared or blurred, it would fail to work.

I absorbed the troll’s blood into me which gave me a burst of energy and washed away at least half of my fatigue. There was also Soul Siphon which gave me a temporary boost of strength which usually went away within 30 seconds. The amount of blood that my body could hold seemed to have a set limit as a portion went unabsorbed and began to orbit around me.

I think I’d have to name this state ‘Overflow’ on account of the fact that blood was overflowing in a sense. I wielded the excess blood, firing a ball toward a tree.

‘Fire,’ I thought.

I felt something click inside of me and the orb of blood suddenly caught fire. It struck the tree and doused part of it in blood. The damp tree failed to catch fire, but that wasn’t the result I was looking for.

I fired off another blood orb with the intention to have it explode which it did. However, instead of causing a fiery explosion, the blood orb splattered everywhere.

I sent another blood orb away, aiming for an acidic reaction. The blood landed on a tree and began eroding it like a powerful acid. A puff of steam arose from the tree I targeted.

The effects were certainly more potent than before, but they weren’t at the point where I could cause a bigger impact. Maybe on something on the level of half of a kilogram of dynamite to start with. I wanted to be capable of killing most class-3 monsters in one attack or injuring them at the very least.

‘Your foes are approaching from the east, take heed,’ The ring on my hand whispered to me, cutting my tests short.

“Dagger of Premonition, huh.” I looked at the dull silver ring with slight surprise.

It didn’t speak during the fight, so it either didn’t think I was in danger or there wasn’t enough “bloodlust” or “hostility” as the description said.

I crow-shifted and flew toward the trees to observe whatever was approaching. It didn’t take long to find out as not even a minute later, a fierce-looking troll entered the area with several others in tow.

‘A Great Troll?’ I thought as I watched them.

Carrying a rough-shaped club and wearing the bones of other trolls, the Great Troll stomped toward the lukewarm corpse.

It inhaled deeply before releasing a horrid breath that was eye-watering even while in the form of crows.

“Huuurgh,” The Great Troll growled. Its eyes slowly turned toward me and I flew away without hesitation.

Immediately after, a powerful roar filled air letting me know just how mad the Great Troll was.

I quickly put some distance between us before the shifting ability ended and headed toward another lone troll.