A day's experimentation later, Iota was seated in his cell, staring at the scroll brought by Norda. All he did was spare a glance before asking him to take it back.
"Can…I get one more dosage?" Norda asked hesitantly, addiction oozing out from him.
"You'll get one if you perform well to hide your addiction," Iota stated nonchalantly, taking another scroll as he read through it. With his photographic memory, seeing things once was enough for him to recall the information in detail.
He then picked up a blank scroll and began to write the alphabet of the native language. Beside them was their pronunciation in English. Following the alphabet were words and sentences, accompanied by their English counterpart, adding in notes to take care regarding the accent and slang used.
It took him a few hours of effort to complete it, totalling to a few thousand words. That's the vocabulary an average native used, which was enough for him to get by for the time being.
Once he was done, he read through it, smiled, and furled it, giving it to Norda, "Burn it up."
"As you command," Norda stated submissively as he performed the task impeccably, leaving no traces behind as he dumped the ashes in the nearby canal.
"Now," He stared at the two underlings, Norda and Yakone, asking, "Explain everything regarding that summoning circle."
"Yes," Yakone took the lead this time, saying, "It all started with Lord Dullip's wish to gain enough power to rival his eldest sibling, Lord Keyn, who is an Apostle."
Dullip's thoughts, goals, the materials used, the purpose of the summoning circle, Yakone relayed everything of relevance, taking his sweet time to go into detail.
'I see, everything makes sense now.' Iota thought as he stared at his syringe. 'The core power behind the creation of my syringe is that summoning circle, whose intention was to make the summoned Devil submit to Dullip. So, that golden substance mixing into the extracted blood in the syringe is the essence of that summoning circle. That's why they displayed signs of submission when I injected them with it.'
'Why a syringe though? Is that related to me?' Iota thought, unable to fully make sense of this part, 'The other part that I swallowed was the spatial crack leading to my home world. I did kill people by extracting their blood using a syringe there. Did that translate into this somehow?'
"I still need to experiment regarding this part." He muttered. Another thing that he found out was that when he extracted someone's blood, part of their power was contained within it.
Once he injected that into someone, they gained that power for a short duration. Injecting a regular's person's blood simply resulted in a minor gain in body function. Strength, agility, senses, metabolism, and even natural recovery, all experienced a minor increase.
Injecting two syringes worth of blood led to a sharper increase in power, but the side effects were stronger. There was intense exhaustion, body aches, and a weakened metabolism that followed suit. If the syringes were used at regular intervals, it also resulted in a loss of appetite.
Iota couldn't fully experiment regarding the extent of side effects, unwilling to lose the two subordinates he gained. After all, he didn't wish to alert Dullip yet.
Along the vein of power, the syringes with Yohra's blood were very valuable. By using them, Iota would be able to exhibit the powers of a Merit Shaman. He didn't have the time to find out the powers a Merit Shaman or Priest possessed, but he determined based on the underlings' recount that a Merit was at least equivalent to a dozen people in terms of combat strength.
Iota had three syringes of Yohra's blood still on him. He was able to revert a syringe—filled with blood—into a tattoo and store it on himself. And if he so wished, the tattoos vanished, which was the perfect way to hide his trump card.
Iota injected three syringes worth of the underlings' blood into himself, feeling a tad nauseous in response, but the boost in power caused his injuries to heal at a faster pace. Patches of his peeled skin had begun to regrow already.
But to avoid revealing that to Dullip, Iota made the underlings bandage him from head to toe, almost turning him into a mummy. For the remaining day until Dullip's return, Iota lazed around in the house that formed Dullip's hideout, eating his fill while being served by the two underlings.
He didn't rush with an escape or anything, intending to steadily grow in safety while giving Dullip the illusion that he was fully under the latter's control.
Other than three syringes with Yohra's blood, Iota also stored six syringes with the underlings' blood on him. They did give him a boost of power, which would prove useful for a variety of situations.
Or even best, he could inject that into an opponent and temporarily force the latter into submission. It would allow him to best the opponent. Though of course, he wasn't sure if that would work on someone like Dullip, a Spirit through whom a Deity's power flowed.
'There's plenty I don't know regarding this world yet. Even Spring seems equipped with a couple of tricks of her own. Sir must have taught it to Winter I guess, since she seldom surfaces.' He thought, realising that it was about time he returned to his cell and was bound to the chair by Norda.
It was evening when Dullip arrived, displaying hints of exhaustion, heaving a troubled sigh as he entered the hideout and stared at the two underlings, "How's the captive?"
"He hasn't shown any resistance until now. But he's strangely cooperative." Norda said, acting as usual, "We patched him up, so he won't fall ill from an infection."
"Good work," Nodding in relief, Dullip entered the cell and stared at Iota, observing that the latter was bound exactly as he remembered.
Flinch!
For a moment, when the two made eye contact, Dullip felt a chill, feeling a droplet of sweat trickle down his forehead, 'What was that?'
"Yo, Dullip, my friend." Iota revealed a happy expression, "I missed you, man."
"Where have you been all along?"