Chapter 71 - 56 : Living Blood (2)

Chapter 71: Chapter 56 : Living Blood (2)

Or perhaps something was being added to it.

Ethan couldn’t determine which. The Blood Seed remained quiet. There was no violent reaction. No sudden surge. The process simply happened. And when it was finished, the resulting substance once again moved into his blood.

Ethan opened his eyes. He picked up the journal.

Observation Two.

He wrote slowly.

Refined Qi interacts with the Blood Seed and produces a separate substance.

He paused.

Then added:

Substance does not behave like Qi.

He stared at the words. That was the most important discovery so far. He closed his eyes again. This time, he tried to follow the substance through his body.

It was difficult.

His normal internal awareness was built around Qi. He understood how to recognize Qi because he had spent months cultivating it. This was different. It didn’t move according to the same pathways. It seemed to travel with his blood.

Or perhaps through it.

Ethan couldn’t tell yet. He concentrated harder. A faint sensation appeared near his chest.

Then his arms.

Then his shoulders.

The sensation was extremely subtle. It wasn’t power. It wasn’t strength, it was closer to vitality. The feeling of his body being alive. Like you are been pumped with Energy.

Ethan frowned.

He had felt something similar after his transformation. At the time, he had assumed it was simply one of the changes brought about by becoming a vampire.

Now he wasn’t so certain.

He shifted his attention toward his blood. The Blood Seed remained quiet. Yet something within his blood felt different from before. Ethan slowly clenched his fist.

Nothing dramatic happened.

His strength didn’t suddenly increase. His body didn’t change. He released his hand. He needed more evidence. He repeated the process.

Again.

And again.

He didn’t rush.

After each attempt, he recorded what he observed. The amount of Qi used. The duration of the response. The sensation produced.

The way it moved.

The way his body reacted.

Hours passed without Ethan noticing. The moon gradually crossed the sky. The wind became colder. Dew settled over the grass outside the rocky hollow. Ethan remained where he was. He was no longer trying to cultivate.

He was studying.

By the time the first faint light of dawn appeared beyond the hills, several pages of his journal had been filled. He looked over them. The results were consistent.

That mattered.

The process was not random. The Blood Seed responded whenever refined Qi interacted with it under the right conditions. And something was consistently produced.

Ethan closed his eyes once more. He wanted to understand one final thing. Where did the substance actually go?

He gathered a small amount of Qi. This time, he deliberately slowed the process almost to a crawl. The Qi entered his body.

He refined it.

He guided it toward the Blood Seed. The familiar response occurred. The transformation began. Ethan followed it as closely as he could.

The Blood Seed seemed to process the refined energy. Then the resulting substance spread outward, into his blood. From there, it moved throughout his body. Ethan’s awareness followed it.

His chest.

His arms.

His abdomen.

His legs.

His entire body.

There was no rejection or resistance. No sign that his body regarded the substance as foreign. Instead, it seemed to accept it naturally.

Ethan opened his eyes.

His expression had changed. He finally understood one important thing. The Blood Seed wasn’t simply storing Qi. It was doing something to it. Something unique to his vampire body. And the substance created through that process wasn’t simply cultivated energy. It had become part of him.

Ethan looked down at his hands. He remembered the first moment after his transformation.

The sunlight.

The food.

His ability to survive without eating.

The strange vitality he had felt beneath his flesh.

The changes in his body.

The Blood Perception.

At the time, they had seemed like separate discoveries. Now, perhaps they weren’t. Perhaps there was something connecting them.

The Blood Seed.

His blood.

His vitality.

Ethan slowly reached for his journal. He turned to a fresh page. For several moments, he held the pen above it.

He needed a name.

He couldn’t continue writing unknown substance forever. The substance was produced inside him. It was carried through his blood and it seemed to support the life within his transformed body. It wasn’t ordinary blood. But it wasn’t merely energy either.

Ethan thought for a while, then he wrote two words.

’Living Blood.’

He looked at them.

Simple.

Accurate enough.

For now.

He added beneath it:

Living Blood : provisional name.

Then he stopped. After a moment, he crossed out provisional. He had enough evidence to give it a name. He didn’t yet have enough evidence to understand everything about it.

Those were two different things.

Ethan closed the journal. The eastern sky had begun to brighten. He looked toward the hills. Another day was beginning.

But Ethan didn’t immediately continue experimenting. He had learned enough for one night. More importantly, he had learned something about how he needed to approach his new existence.

He could not simply borrow the cultivation methods of other cultivators or in this case, other races and expect them to work perfectly. His body had its own structure.

Its own foundation.

Its own method of transforming cultivated energy. And now he had the first piece of evidence. The Blood Seed was not a replacement for the dantian.

It was something unique.

Something belonging to the vampire body itself. Ethan looked down at the journal one final time.

Living Blood.

The name remained simple on the page. But the more he thought about it, the more questions followed. How much of it could the Blood Seed produce?

How much could his body hold?

What happened when Living Blood was exhausted?

What did it do to his strength?

His recovery?

His vitality?

Could it sustain him indefinitely?

Could it be deliberately circulated?

Could he use it outside his body?

Ethan stopped himself. Those questions belonged to another stage of the investigation. He closed the journal and placed it safely inside his storage pouch.

One question at a time.

He stood and stretched. The rocky hollow was still empty except for him. No witnesses.

No interruptions.

Exactly how he preferred it.

Ethan looked inward once more. The Blood Seed remained silent. The refined Living Blood flowed quietly through his body. He could feel it now.

Not strongly.

Not enough to understand its limits. But enough to know that it was there. Ethan allowed himself a faint smile. He had found what the Blood Seed produced. Now there was only one thing left to discover.

What could Living Blood actually do?