Lucien capped the -Child Breathing Method- just after he turned 2 years old. Which mean his stats were on the lowest adult level, excluding Soul.
-Lucien BloodMoon-
-Age: 2 years-
-Race: Human-
-Strength: 1.00-
-Agility: 1.00-
-Vitality: 1.00-
-Soul: 2.30-
Strangely his soul got stronger, Lucien wrote it off to growth, but he would have to find a way later on to improve the aspect.
And a month after turning 3, he finally had the points to pick a path. It was hard as at the start he couldn't begin eating 10 kg of common animal meat, it would be unnatural. So he barely got half an existence point every day. That included absorbing stuff unnoticed, and eating a little bit more than a normal 1 year old would.
After turning two and hitting adult level stats, he finally experienced absorbing with the second method, his eyes.
The moment he met the requirements, he heard the voice of All Existence in his head, even through he was not in the Crimson World.
-Crimson World fully connected to reality-
-Uploading information on usage-
It was the second time he felt the pain of a massive income of information, no less than the first initialization. It went on for what felt like an eternity, but was probably a blink of an eye.
Then with an experienced touch, he started sorting through the knowledge once more.
It was a few changes in how things worked.
One was that he could now communicate with All Existence in his mind.
Second was that he could now enter Crimson World by wishing it, either with his mind or his whole body.
Third was that his eyes were unlocked, and could absorb with them now, but only materials that have no will on them, so bodies of advanced beasts or humans were out of the question for now.
The first time he absorbed, he stood there astonished, trying to understand what happened.
He had just glanced at the small book he had prepared for the experiment and wished to absorb it. There was no fancy effects or lights shinning, the book just caved in on itself, like a collapsing planet being crushed inwardly, before exploding. The moment the book was pin sized, instead of exploding outwards, it just dissipated from the world.
At barely adult stats, he could only absorb something palm-sized, and it couldn't weight more than what he could pick up. So his absorption increased, but as you would imagine, there is no rocks in a palace, or stuff that if taken in big quantities would go unnoticed. It was mainly some smaller books and small tools used around the palace. It still made his existence points build at more than 1.5 per day, as the tool were not pure iron and didn't weight too much.
And finally he was at the goal, 1000 points. He still waited to be night time, and pretended to fall asleep, before going into the Crimson World with his mind.
The floating rock was still there, the Full Moon was shining crimson. The only change was a bunch of books floating freely around the space. There would be more books or materials, but Lucien converted everything he finished reading to existence points, and the materials he didn't need at all so, not saving any was natural.
'I have though long on the path I want to take, the Vampire Path has a lot of advantages, for example drinking the blood would be much faster, than having to chew meat, but I don't really have ways to get human blood right now. As for animal blood it would probably be like 1 point per liter, which was not much different to sticking to normal diet. And it might be taken the wrong way if he starts requesting for animal blood, as there are some fanatics that do rituals for evil gods using blood.'
'I think Soul Devour Path is also amazing, but I have to be where people die to use it and that might be just as difficult as getting blood. I heard there is an arena in the city, so that might be a place to look into, but Alice wouldn't let me go there before I grow up.
'As for Ghoul Path, it should be the best possible option for now, I could ask for a sword or a spear trainer and use the harsh training as an excuse to request meat from beasts comparable to humans, as they are more nutritious. Ghoul would erase the beast will on the meat and then I can convert it to points, since it was quite a lot of trouble to get the path, I hope it's worth it.'
'I also read the Darkness Path can absorb small amount of stats from enemies after defeating them and they are defenseless.'
'Even though I did practice some martial arts in my previous life, to try to keep my vitality strong even at old age, I don't think I'm a master, especially in a world where martial art are much more developed.'
'So I guess, the best way would be to have them all, then I don't waste anything and have faster existence point gathering system.'
'Let's start with Ghoul then.'
"I want to exchange."
-State your desire-
"I want the Ghoul Path."
-Unlocking Ghoul Path-
-Integrating Ghoul Path-
-Does host wish to change features to match the Ghoul Path-
"No."
'I don't wanna look like a zombie, it's practically a suicide.'
-Integrating internal features-
There was pain, but nothing like the soul pain. It was more like ants chewing on his organs and bones. Lucien still grunted, even with his willpower.
'At least I can make a sound now, when the initialization transfer was happening, I was completely paralyzed.'
-Integration completed-
-Showing stats-
-Lucien BloodMoon-
-Age: 3 years-
-Race: Human-
-Path: Iron Ghoul(Rank 0)-
-Strength: 5.00-
-Agility: 1.00-
-Vitality: 3.00-
-Soul: 2.30-