Chapter 73 - 57 : The Blood Within (2)

Chapter 73: Chapter 57 : The Blood Within (2)

He wrote: Controlled circulation confirmed.

Then: increased circulation produces temporary enhancement of body’s performance and vitality.

He paused.

He added: Effect increases with quantity used.

Then he thought about the last observation.

He crossed out quantity then replaced it with: Effect appears related to the amount actively circulated.

That was more accurate. He wasn’t measuring yet. He had no numbers, only observations. Ethan continued .

Prolonged circulation causes faster depletion of the active reserve.

He stared at the sentence. That was important. Living Blood was powerful but it wasn’t free. He closed the journal.

The sun was already beginning to descend.

Ethan packed his things, though part of him was tempted to continue. He had uncovered enough to give him a clearer picture of Living Blood, and the unanswered questions only made him more eager to continue exploring it. For today, however, he was satisfied with what he had learned.

Three days later, Ethan returned to the same secluded spot beyond the hills. He had spent the days between going about his usual routine, allowing his body to settle while his thoughts returned repeatedly to what he had discovered. The more he considered it, the more he wanted to understand how Living Blood affected his recovery. His journal was tucked away among his belongings as he settled beneath the same tree.

This time, he had another question in mind.

His body recovery. His previous injury from the failed Qi Refining attempt had healed unusually quickly. But he had never deliberately tested the relationship between Living Blood and recovery. He needed something small enough to be safe. Ethan looked around. His eyes settled on a sharp edge of stone.

He hesitated.

Then shook his head.

"Not worth it."

He wasn’t going to injure himself simply because he was curious. There were better ways. He remembered the minor discomfort that had remained after his previous cultivation failure. If he could reproduce even a fraction of that strain through cultivation, he could observe the recovery without deliberately cutting himself.

Ethan sat down.

He began circulating Qi, slowly and carefully. This time he didn’t attempt to refine more Living Blood. He simply pushed his Qi through the familiar circulation route until a small amount of strain developed. When the discomfort appeared.

Ethan stopped.

The discomfort was minor, but Ethan could clearly feel his body responding to it. His heightened awareness allowed him to notice the subtle changes as the pain gradually receded.

There was no dramatic transformation. No sudden surge of power or visible sign of anything happening beneath his skin. The discomfort simply faded, noticeably faster than it should have. Ethan’s expression changed.

He repeated the observation later that day but not changed he still got the same result. Then again the following morning. The pattern remained. Living Blood was supporting his recovery. But there was something more. Ethan realized that the recovery did not appear to require him to consciously command the Living Blood.

His body seemed to make use of the Living Blood on its own.

That was different from the deliberate circulation he had practiced. Ethan thought about it for a moment. When an ordinary person was injured, they didn’t need to consciously tell their body to begin healing. The body simply did what it was meant to do. Perhaps his was no different. Only now, Living Blood was part of that process. And a rapid recovery process at that.

Ethan remained quiet for a while, letting the thought settle. There were things his body could do without his direction, and he suspected he had only begun to discover them.

Ethan wrote: Living Blood supports natural recovery without conscious activation.

He added: Deliberate circulation appears capable of increasing the body’s response.

He stopped.

A faint smile appeared on Ethan’s face.

His body could do this on its own. That thought alone was enough to excite him. He had spent so much time studying what his new body could do that he had almost overlooked something far simpler: he was a vampire now.

And this was one of the things that came with it. His body could heal itself without him having to think about it, without him having to direct every part of the process. Ethan couldn’t help but feel a little satisfaction at that.

There was something deeply satisfying about knowing that even when he wasn’t paying attention, this new body was still working in his favor.

As the days continued. Ethan began experimenting less aggressively. Not because his curiosity had diminished, quite the opposite. He had realized that understanding something properly required patience. So he changed his approach.

Rather than trying to uncover everything at once, Ethan simply let his observations build naturally over the following days. He paid attention to the small changes here and there like how his body felt after a meal, after cultivating, after a good night’s rest, or after letting the Living Blood circulate on its own.

Sometimes he paid attention.

Sometimes he didn’t.

There wasn’t much difference at first, but as the days passed, certain things began to make more sense.

Living Blood was always present. It supported his vitality continuously. When he deliberately circulated more of it, the effects became stronger. When he stopped, the excess activity faded. And when he used too much, the available active reserve diminished. The Blood Seed slowly replenished what had been used.

Not instantly.

Not endlessly.

But steadily.

That discovery made Ethan sit back and think. The Blood Seed was producing Living Blood continuously, but not without limits. What it produced remained within his body, ready to be circulated and used when needed, while the Blood Seed steadily replaced what was consumed.

It was a simple process, yet the more Ethan thought about it, the more naturally everything seemed to fit together.

The Blood Seed produced it.

His body held it.

He used it.

And with time, it was replenished.

For something he had only recently discovered, the process was already beginning to make sense.

Ethan looked at his journal. He had filled several pages. Yet he felt as though he had only scratched the surface.

The thought brought a quiet smile to Ethan’s face. Back on Earth, he had spent plenty of time reading about cultivation, fascinated by the strange worlds and systems authors had imagined. Now, something just as extraordinary was taking shape within his own body.

Only this time, there was no story to follow and no one to tell him what came next. Every answer would have to be found by him.

One evening, Ethan sat alone in the same secluded area outside the city. The sky was turning orange. The wind carried the smell of dry grass. Far away, something moved through the forest. Ethan could sense it through Blood Perception.

He didn’t turn.

He simply smiled.

His awareness had changed. His body had changed. Even his understanding of himself was beginning to change, yet beneath all of it, he was still Ethan.

He looked down at his hands for a moment before closing his eyes.

The Living Blood responded almost immediately, a faint warmth spreading through his body as he guided it into circulation.

This time, there was no struggle or uncertainty. He knew how much he could safely move, how long he could maintain the circulation, and what happened when he stopped. More importantly, he knew his body would continue replenishing what he used without needing his constant attention.

Ethan opened his eyes.

It wasn’t a breakthrough. He hadn’t entered a new realm or gained some overwhelming power. But he understood his body a little better than he had yesterday. And for Ethan, that was progress.

Ethan opened his eyes.

The more he understood about Living Blood, the more he realized how much remained hidden from him. He still didn’t know how far the Blood Seed could take this process, how much Living Blood his body could eventually produce, or what might change as his cultivation grew stronger. And there was one thought that kept returning to him. Could the Blood Seed refine something other than Qi?

Ethan’s gaze drifted toward the darkening forest. It was an interesting question, but he wasn’t in any hurry to find the answer. There would be plenty of time to explore it.

Ethan closed his journal and let his gaze rest on the covers for a moment. He had started with a simple question about the strange blood flowing through his veins. Now, after days of observation, he understood that Living Blood was far more important than he had initially assumed.

It wasn’t merely something that kept his new body functioning. It was something his vampire body could use, something it could circulate, replenish, and grow stronger with. And if that was the case, then simply producing more of it wasn’t enough.

Ethan’s thoughts naturally moved beyond the Blood Seed. If Living Blood was going to become the foundation of his vampire path, then sooner or later, he would need to understand everything that affected it. Like how it was produced, how it could be improved, and what his body would eventually require as it grew stronger.

There were still too many unknowns. But he didn’t feel frustrated by that. If anything, the thought made him smile. There was still so much to discover.

Ethan stood and gathered his belongings. The last light of the day had disappeared behind the hills, leaving the sky darkening above him. He turned toward the city and began walking. His thoughts were no longer fixed on what his body could do. They had shifted toward something else.

What would this new body need to become stronger?

And perhaps more importantly, what would he need to provide it?

The question followed him as he walked into the gathering darkness.