Charles casually picked up the diary and was about to delve into "Agmillar's Labyrinth" when suddenly he felt a surge within his heart and turned the diary over.
The other side of the cover was red as if dripping with blood, and as his fingers lightly touched it, a line of text appeared on the blood-red cover: "Vampire Secret Scrolls", Author: Charles Mecklen.
As he flipped open the cover, a wave of consciousness emerged: Charles Mecklen summoned the God of the Labyrinth Agmilas from overseas, repelled a strand of the evil intent of the Blood Clan Evil God Kahnstan, and encased it in his diary, which became a volume of the "Vampire Secret Scrolls", amounting to seventeen pages, documenting the secret technique of the Adonis Clan. If the author fails to master the Adonis Secret Scrolls proficiently within the specified time, he will lose the identity of the author and his soul will be taken away by the Blood Clan Evil God Kahnstan upon his return. Countdown: 6 days, plus 20 hours, and another twenty-three minutes and fifty-seven seconds!"
"How could it be so urgent?"
"Agmillar's Labyrinth" had nearly an eight and a half month grace period, yet the Vampire Secret Scrolls had little less than seven days, which instilled Charles with an intense sense of crisis.
He had chosen Bloody Glory at university and, by the way, had come into contact with some knowledge about Blood Clans.
On the Old Continent, there are thirty-three countries, among which the five most formidable ones are: Inglima Empire, Fars Empire, Byron Empire, Black Phoenix Dynasty, and Lionheart Dynasty, known as the Five Great Empires.
The Byron Empire was established by thirty-one Blood Clan families and is an outright Vampire Empire!
The establishment of the Byron Empire was greatly related to the Great Philosopher of the Human Race, Protagora, who created Bloody Glory.
This great human philosopher single-handedly slaughtered thousands of Vampires and even annihilated six of the thirty-seven Vampire families, reducing their number to thirty-one. His hands even bore the vengeful spirits of Vampire dukes, and at the height of his fame, he could stop the crying of Vampire children at night, which forced these Vampires to hold a summit. This summit accomplished two major matters for the Blood Clan.
The first was the assembly of a large secret scrolls compilation committee by the chieftains and elders of each clan, which compiled all the secret techniques of the thirty-seven families.
The second was to plan the establishment of a nation and decades later, they founded Byron, which withstood nearly a hundred wars from the Human Race's Allied Army of the Old Continent, establishing the new empire's foundation.
The "Vampire Secret Scrolls" is the twenty-eighth volume of the compilation, also known as the Adonis Secret Scrolls, and is the inherited secret technique of one of the six King Vampire Clans, the Adonis Clan.
Kahnstan, this Blood Clan Evil God, is the original ancestor of the Adonis Clan.
The compilation of the Vampire Secret Scrolls began decades after the human philosopher Protagora created Bloody Glory.
At that time, the philosopher was in his twilight years and, having attempted several times to seize the scrolls being compiled, he ultimately desisted for various reasons.
Until his death, the great human philosopher never saw the Vampire Secret Scrolls.
He left behind only one sentence: "Alas, I have not exhausted the mysteries of Bloody Glory; I hope future scholars can complete this technique."
Students from the four universities had discussed whether Protagora would have ascended to godhood if he had acquired the Vampire Secret Scrolls and completed Bloody Glory.
Of course, this question remained unanswered.
After the successful compilation of the Vampire Secret Scrolls, only the higher echelons of the Blood Clan and the most outstanding young talents of the Blood Clan were qualified to peruse them; there were no records of humans viewing them.
Charles sighed and thought to himself, "I really should take the time to visit the university and consult with the professors on some matters."
"I'll take a day off tomorrow!"
He had moved to a new home, which was leagues better than his previous living environment but also brought some inconveniences, such as not being able to casually ask a servant from a savings association's apartment to help him send a letter.
It was already late outside, pitch black, with only the faint light from the oil lamp in the small study.
Charles opened the first page of the "Vampire Secret Scrolls" and read it carefully for a while, he let out a slight sigh of relief. He couldn't understand "Agmillar's Labyrinth" at all, but after all, he had been exposed to some Blood Clan knowledge at university, and with the foundation of Bloody Glory, reading the Vampire Secret Scrolls wasn't an obstacle.
The foundation of the Adonis Clan's vampire secret technique is named: Blood Flame Qi!
On the first page of the "Vampire Secret Scrolls," there is a record of this secret technique.
Blood Flame Qi is also one of the thirteen unique skills of Bloody Glory.
The Blood Flame Qi created by Protagora was quite different from the vampire secret techniques of the Adonis Clan, it was more domineering and aggressive, but lacked the refinement and ruthlessness that came with a thousand hammers and hundred refinings.
As Charles read, he tried to follow the instructions in the scroll, gathering Bloody Glory in his chest to cultivate the basic foundation of Blood Flame Qi, which required the opening of the Bloody Vortex at his heart. He had originally thought this step would be very difficult, but to his surprise, it was exceedingly easy; it only took a half-hour for him to condense the second Bloody Vortex in his chest.
The formation of the second Bloody Vortex indicated that Charles Meklen had squarely stepped into the rank of Second Order Transcendent!
If one followed the normal pace of cultivation, even someone with an above-average aptitude would need at least a year of arduous training to condense a single Bloody Vortex; many apprentices with average talents often needed more than three years to do so.
For someone like Charles Meklen, whose talent was below-average, he had been unable to complete his cultivation even after four years at the university and had to rely on the Power of the Evil God to unlock his Transcendence.
When he thought of the experiences of his predecessor, and the mess that he was left with, Charles sighed incessantly.
Bloody Glory flowed from his brow into his heart and then back to his brow, creating a delicate cycle between the two Bloody Vortexes.
Originally, Charles had only intended to cultivate Bloody Glory for a short time.
He could not have imagined that it would attract the Evil God!
And two of them, at that.
Now, he had finally returned to "cultivating Bloody Glory for a short time," and had also advanced to a higher order, which made one marvel at the wondrous nature of the world.
A few hours later, Charles opened his eyes and felt that the Bloody Vortex inside his chest had stabilized; the runes forming in his brows seemed to be clearer, and his range of insight had increased slightly.
No sooner had he awakened than a thought surged from his diary: "Countdown to the Blood Clan Evil God Kahnstan's descent: 26 days, 5 more hours, and another thirteen minutes and seven seconds!"
Charles was both alarmed and delighted, privately thinking, "Condensing the second Bloody Vortex can delay Kahnstan's descent by eighteen days! If I continue to cultivate, could I possibly prevent his appearance forever?"
He knew that was unlikely to happen.
Having looked at two Evil Gods directly and survived, he had enhanced his spirituality; it was inevitable his cultivation would make rapid progress for a short time, but after reaching a certain bottleneck, it would no longer be so swift.
Nonetheless, this was still good news.
As dawn was breaking, Charles pushed down his overflowing emotions and prepared to leave the house, planning to make a trip to Kilmainham Prison first.
He had just taken on his new assignment not long ago and had already asked for leave once. Asking for leave a second time, in a brief period, wasn't ideal; it was better to ask for leave in person rather than sending a servant to do so.
Charles believed that Senior Melnirman would be an approachable person.
However, what he didn't expect was that when he arrived at Kilmainham Prison that morning, he found Melnirman hadn't come to work at all that day.
After waiting for two hours, Charles decisively took off from work early...