As my skin burned and the pressure in my skull increased, Elder Ravenkin began guiding me through the processes of converting the life essence in my Nexus points into Vi, which the pills were already doing, but he wanted me to analyze and feel it happening so I could do it myself naturally.
Once I had accomplished that task, he had me become aware of all 729 of my Nexus points filling with Vi simultaneously. Then, with all the points in my awareness, we started creating Vi filled pathways between each Nexus point. Once completed, I had a functioning Vi circulation network.
Then we focused on infusing Vi into the Nexus points in my various sensory organs and then releasing Vi directly into the organs from there. These organs were my eyes, ears, mouth and tongue, olfactory organs, and my skin.
My senses were already heightened just from the transformation into a vampire. Now, I could see into the dark corners of the studio, indicating that I had acquired night vision. I could hear Elder Ravenkin's breath and the beating of his heart.
That was weird. My heart hadn't beat since my transformation. Why was his beating? Was that a byproduct of a higher level of vampiric cultivation? That was the only conclusion I could come to with the limited information I had.
My taste, touch, and smell senses heightened as well. I suddenly could taste the inside of my mouth. I could smell the dust in the air. I could even feel the slight circulation of air in the room on my skin.
We went through harmonizing Vi circulation with the flow of my blood and the pumping of my heart. Wait, my heart was pumping blood! This had to be a side effect of the Vi Condensation Stage. I had stolen life essence from other life forms and was using their life essence to simulate life in my unliving body.
Next, I expanded the Vi pathways I had created between my Nexus points to increase my body's capacity to hold Vi. It also increased the speed of Vi circulation throughout my body.
With that, we had finished the levels that could risk harm and serious injury. Now he walked me through the rest of the Vi Condensation Stage. He figured we might as well finish it since I was taking to it so quickly, which he was deeply impressed by.
I, on the other hand, noted my aptitude for vampiric cultivation, but since everything had gone well so far, I wasn't particularly surprised. I was thankful for it and gladdened by it, but certainly not shocked.
The next step was using my Vi activated Nexus points to sense life essence in the surrounding environment. Immediately, I was able to sense the life essence emanating from a small potted plant in the corner of the room.
I could also sense Elder Ravenkin's life essence, but it felt different, stale somehow. That's probably what mine felt like too. The downside of being undead, I guess.
Then we went through the process of using outwardly facing Nexus points, such as Nexus points in the skin, to absorb the ambient life essence in the air and convert it to Vi.
That wasn't too hard. The potted plant in the corner of the room and throughout the house provided enough ambient life essence to convert to Vi to sustain my full capacity of Vi.
It didn't take large quantities of life essence to create large quantities of Vi. Even the tiniest amount of life essence could fill all my Nexus points and pathways with Vi.
Ravenkin explained that maintaining Vi this way negated the need to feed from humans or any other living organisms directly. Just the ambient life essence put out into the air by living organisms was enough to sustain a healthy unliving existence.
The next step was to compress the existing Vi within the Nexus points and pathways to increase the potency of the stored Vi. This took a bit more effort than the other steps. It was like trying to compress a spring without it flying out of your grasp.
Then I infused my blood with the compressed Vi from my Nexus points. This would drastically empower my body and increase my physical strength and speed.
It took a little longer than compressing the Vi in the first place because I had to focus on maintaining the compression, but after a while it became second nature, and I stopped thinking about it.
Now came the hard part, external Vi manipulation. Projecting Vi outside the body through my Nexus points. This was the part that would take days to practice, train, and master. The point of it was to perform basic Vi-based attacks and defenses.
So instead of practicing basic attacks and defense with Vi, Ravenkin wanted to have a fight. He said that fights were where true learning and innovation happened.
I took a boxing stance with my hands up to protect my face. I layered Vi over the outside of my forearms and fists to not only empower my punches but also my blocks. I sharpened the layering over my forearms to form blades. I also layered Vi over the sides of my ribs.
Ravenkin formed a sword with Vi and came down on me with an overhand strike. I put my forearm up to block it. His Vi sword clashed with my Vi covered forearm. I had made the layering as strong as I could.
I was pleasantly surprised when it held up against his sword. I kind of assumed a sword would be inherently stronger than a bladed forearm, but apparently I had done a good enough job at constructing the blades.
Now that I was blocking his sword and effectively preventing him from doing anything, I punched him in the side a few times with my other arm. The first punch sounded like a dull thud, but I heard the next one crack his ribs, and the third one shattered them.
This made him lean to one side, throwing off his balance. I swung my right arm that was holding his sword at bay so that I caught his sword between my Vi layered ribs and my Vi covered forearm under my arm pit.
I did this so I could get an open shot at his face with his arms and hands out of the way. I slammed my left fist into his face three times. It was the same as with the ribs. The first hit was a dull thud, the next cracked bones, and the third shattered his cheek and his orbital bone.
"I yield! I yield!" He said. I let his Vi sword go and dropped my Vi empowerments. I watched as his shattered cheek and orbital bones reformed and healed, making his face symmetrical again.
"That was impressive," Elder Ravenkin said. "I didn't expect you to be such an experienced fighter."
"I've been in a few rumbles. I'm a lot better with my fists than with a sword though. I've played around with one on my own, but up until yesterday, I had no experience actually fighting someone with one," I said.
"I had planned to go easy on you, but you were so fast, I found out a little too late that I didn't have to," he said. "I should take you through some formal training with a sword eventually, but with the empowerments you used, you could go up against nearly any opponent with just your fists."
"Thanks. I would like to learn the sword for real someday, but I'm glad I don't have to learn an entirely new fighting discipline, before I go up against the dragons," I said.
"We'll hopefully get to it before then, but if we have to skip it, I'll feel confident doing so," he said.
"What's next?" I said.
"Basic blood control," he said. "Now that you've infused your blood with Vi, you can manipulate your blood in many different ways. There are a lot of internal benefits you can derive from it, such as faster blood flow, thus increasing oxygen delivery to the muscles."
"Also, faster blood clotting, speeding up healing. You can also manipulate blood pressure, density, temperature, oxygenation, purification, and redirection. There's also blood sensing, but I always like to start with the fun part, external blood control."
"What's that? Like forming blades with your own blood?" I said. "Can't I already do that with Vi?
"Yes, but it's so much more than that. With Vi, you can create rudimentary shapes. With blood, you can form any shape you can think of. With enough practice, you can even form blood string, rope, and webbing, but that's getting into advanced control. We're going to stick with the basics today," he said.
"I don't want to say anymore shapes you can make because that will restrict and influence your creativity. Just make a small cut in your skin to pull some blood out, and see what you can make."
"Ok," I said.
I formed a small blade with Vi at the end of my fingertip and made a cut on the outside of my forearm. I imagined pulling blood from the cut and I was able to pull a fist-sized ball of blood—which was probably too much—out of the wound before it closed up and healed over.
With the ball of blood suspended in mid-air, I tried to reform it into different shapes. I made a flat disc, then a plate, then a bowl, and then a goblet. Then I made the shape of private parts because I'm a child.
Then I started splitting the mass into multiple parts. First, it became two balls, then four, then sixteen, then thirty-two. Once the balls got that small, it made me think of bullets, so of course I tried to shoot one into my foot.
I imagined it flying at high speed at my foot, but when it hit my boot, the blood bullet just splattered against it.
"Blood bullet, right?" Ravenkin said. "Those are actually much harder to do than you'd think. Blood bullets are an extremely advanced form of blood control. Melee weapons like knives and hammers are much easier."
"Not only do you have to project the blood at an extremely high speed, but you also have to maintain its shape and density continuously the farther it gets away from you. Otherwise, it just turns into a red paintball. And as you would probably assume, it is harder to control blood the farther it gets away from you."
"And don't even get me started on controlling someone else's blood. That's an entirely different beast altogether. It's hard enough to tune into your own blood, let alone someone else's."
"Hmm. Good to know. I'll stay away from blood bullets for now then. What's next?" I said.
"Sleep," he said.