Chapter 6

458 A.C.

My stomach growled while I waited for food. The quiet stillness of the empty dining room, and the empty chairs and tables, brought upon me a sense of loss.

That damned eye!

Joseph’s words once more echoed through my head. When I left my home on the Havso estate, I was supposed to track the Tal army. The estate lord, my father’s cousin, had asked me to go with his son, Joseph. Due to the fact that I was a young fire mage with a solid core, the lord thought of me as a trustworthy and strong guide and guardian.

After little more than a week, we found that the Tal would not attack us. Why didn’t I decide to go back then? I wonder if Joseph is still alive? Does he think I am dead? Thoughts like this rushed to my head. My hunger grew with my distress.

A hand placed a bowl in front of me. I looked back only to see Daska frowning at me. It seemed like they had been behind me for some time. “Are you listening now?" They asked. I nodded my head in response.

"Good, today I will teach you the condensing techniques you could use to create a bloodline. You're excited, right!" Daska asked with a smile.

Truth be told, I was not listening. "Do you know where the people I was traveling with are?" As I asked, Daska’s frown returned. "No, I don’t, you were brought here by Sarah, an old friend of mine. She found you heavily injured in the middle of a crater. There was no one around you."

"Where can I meet this Sarah?" I asked, with worry growing in my heart. "I do not know, Sarah wanders around, going from scholarly mage to scholarly mage. Her mother bound her own soul to an ornate pistol, before she died two years ago. Sarah has been searching for a way to revive her." Daska replied after sighing. They looked indecisive, as if they were choosing whether or not to say something.

"What is it?" I asked. My worry, now, was probably shown on my face. I was scared that my friends had died. *Sigh* "Well, before Sarah found you, she saw a giant fireball coming from where she found you. If your friends were near you when it exploded, they are probably dead."

"No!" I exclaimed. I no longer had an appetite, the bowl in front of me was growing cold. They could not have died. Wait a minute. I thought as I brought my hand to my empty right eye socket. My core exploded. It was not simply destroyed, it exploded. The blast might have killed those around me.

"No." I muttered in panic and grief. I wonder if they are still alive. I had a duty, if I returned home without them what would I say to their families? What would happen to mine? Joseph might have died too, I doubt the lord would let me live if I returned without him. I thought as a feeling of despair grew in my stomach.

"Eat, you need to eat, before both your food and heart turn cold." Daska told me while patting my back. I looked at them in disbelief, You want me to eat now?! I thought. "Here, a spoon." Daska gave me a spoon. I reluctantly took it from their hand. It was cold. I turned my head to the bowl. There was a soup with a red broth, black beans, onions, and what seemed to be beef in the soup. I brought the cold spoon in my hand to the bowl and scooped up some soup. I closed my eye as I ate the soup.

Delicious! I thought. The soup was savory, with a touch of pepper. I forgot my worries as I ate one spoonful after another. I forgot about everything else as I ate. I don’t know when I had finished the soup, but I was distraught when Daska removed the empty bowl from the table.

"Is your head clear now? You won’t start interrupting me again, right?" Daska inquired with a smirk. "Now, do you remember what I said before you interrupted me?" I thought back for a moment.

"You mentioned something about condensing a bloodline, right?" I asked. "Yes, here, take this." Daska pulled out a small scroll and handed it to me. "This is a record of the different ways humans can use Mana or Qi to condense a bloodline. Now, we aren’t sorcerers, so we won’t have any of those abstract bloodlines that can ‘topple nations’ or whatever they go on about. What we can present you are the basic bloodlines that have no glaring weaknesses and can help you cultivate to infinity."

As they were talking, I opened the scroll. It was filled with diagrams of the human body, magic lines that formed obscure formations, and text. I believe Daska called these things magic circuits. I thought as I analyzed a formation.

"Now all magic is based on intention of some sort. From spells, talismans, aura, runes, formations, and even magic lines, to allow the Aether, the Elements, Mana, Qi, etc. to move, your soul must guide it. So, to use intent is to use your soul to interact with magic. To form a bloodline, you fuse and integrate different ratios of these energies with your blood. After that, you will use an array circuit to allow the energies to form magic circuits in your blood cells, and their DNA."

I somewhat listened. I had some idea of everything they were talking about until they mentioned cells and DNA. I wonder what sort of magic those are. I thought. I was about to inquire about what they were saying, when I remembered them telling me not to interrupt them again.

"Back in the day, we arcanists needed to tattoo the bloodline arrays to our body, to keep them working, because we didn’t know of DNA. It was due to this that we could not form cores. That was the era before the towers. Unfortunately, our Lime Copper tower’s records don't talk much about this era." Daska droned on as I decided that I needed to stop them. It has been a while since I could follow the torrent of information.

"Cool, I am going to practice this in my room." I interjected with a monotone voice, as they began mentioning something about protein shaping. Daska looked down as I began to stand up. "Before you leave, the bathroom is two rooms to the left of where you have been staying. No need to thank me!" Daska looked up and pointed while saying this.

When I got back to the room, I opened the scroll completely. After reading through it, it gave me the method to condense eleven different bloodlines. There was a bloodline for Mana, Qi, every element, and surprisingly, even the Aether.

From the desk, I took a piece of parchment and wrote down a summary of the bloodlines. After writing it down the parchment read:

The Mana bloodline, also called the Illusion bloodline, allows those who have it to condense the Mana around them into visible objects and illusions. Apparently, at high levels, those who have it can easily create arrays and spells with the condensed Mana, as if they were breathing.

The Qi bloodline, also known as the Martial bloodline, allows one to infuse their Qi into different objects, which they then could control remotely. There are various applications of this bloodline, from exploding enemies, to mind control. One of the applications allows holders of this bloodline to be able to infuse themselves and their cores past the energy limit of humans. This allows them to go hand to hand with magical and monstrous beasts.

The elemental bloodlines allow their holders to control the element of their choice in a limited area around them. Each element, metal, water, fire, earth, lightning, wood, and the non-attributed element, had different starting effects. But, since all matter is made of different mixes of the elements, the bloodlines all result in some sort of manipulation of matter.

The metal bloodline, also known as the Craftsman’s bloodline, allows one to shape, purify, alloy, and to move any metal with thoughts to some extent. I.E. controlling a flying sword, or turning copper and tin to brass, turning a spoon to a knife.

The Water bloodline, also known as the Changing bloodline, allows one to manipulate the shapes and phases of objects and themselves. I.E. turning a ball into a disk, or turning a solid into a liquid.

The Fire bloodline, also known as the Thermal bloodline, allows its holder to control the temperature of an object(s) that they can see, hear, or touch. I.E. freezing water, or creating fire.

The Earth bloodline, also known as the Stone bloodline, allows one to move, shape, strengthen, and/or weaken anything they touch, and at high levels, the ability to turn any liquid they touch into a solid.

The Lightning bloodline, also known as the Charge bloodline, allows one to control the electric and magnetic charge of an area or object, as well as manipulating electric currents. I.E. turning a house into a magnet, or shooting electricity from their hands.

The Wood bloodline, also known as the Living bloodline, allows one to turn themselves and others into other living things, as well as having the ability to manipulate the actions and genetics of living beings. I.E. turning a human into a bat, or turning a vine into a whip, giving people four arms, etc.

The Non-attributed Elemental bloodline, also known as the Psychic bloodline, allows one to change the velocity of things the holder can see, smell, taste, hear, touch, or perceive. As well as predicting the near future to some extent.

The Aether bloodline, also known as the Alchemist bloodline, allows one to transmute energies to other energies by turning them to Aether then turning them to their respective new energies. This bloodline can to some degree mimic the other bloodlines with various levels of loss. It can also transmute matter, spells, runes, and basically anything , assuming the owner understands the process well enough to make the changes feasible. Since everything is formed by differing amounts of Aether the holder can do many things. The conversion ratios for Aether to the energies are:

Key: 1mu is equivalent to 100 Joules.

1mu of Aether =.95mu of Metal element =.93mu of Water element =.90mu of Fire element =.87mu of Earth element =.85mu of Lightning element =.83mu of Wood element =.80mu of Non-Attributed element =.75mu of Mana =.66mu of Qi........

Exhausted, I went to the bathroom, and after returning to the room I went back to sleep.