Moving past the dark streets and broken houses, I finally reached a multistory apartment building.
Walking inside, past the people lying passed out in the hallways, I soon reached my room.
Entering inside, I quickly locked my door shut. In front of me was a small room with a single mattress and a wardrobe in the corner.
Sighing, I stepped over the empty liquor bottles and collapsed on the mattress. My body was too exhausted to do anything.
Lying on the mattress for a couple of minutes, I forced myself to get up and take a shower outside in the communal bathroom. I then changed into some fresh clothes. Thankfully, Siv had only used poison; otherwise, taking care of wounds would have been a real chore.
I had enough food stacked in the room, so I spent the next couple of days inside. Resting, reorganizing my memories and most importantly making the plans for future.
I needed to get strong, and I wasn't an idiot to believe that my presence wasn't going to affect the plot; Roye Valdrin was supposed to die yesterday, after all. Still, going too far to mess with the plot would completely obliterate all of my advantages.
Which is why I had come up with a plan. I had only read the first half of the first book and had no idea what the rest of the story was going to be. Herein lay my plan.
In the world of Vaeloria, once a small percentage of people reached the age of sixteen, they had a small chance of awakening mana. From there, they could do a basic bloodline transfusion ritual and gain the bloodline of one of the many monsters roaming the earth.
These bloodlines were separated into several tiers, from one star to five star, depending on the strength of the creature the bloodline belonged to.
According to the ancient texts, such people were referred to as tainted, Though the alliance called them Arcanists.
'Soren Vylar' the main character of Echoes of the Fallen had to manage to acquire an unknown bloodline, whose couldn't be deciphered.
Soren is just a commoner who hunts low-level beasts in the expanse to make ends meet. During one of his expeditions, he accidentally stumbles upon an ancient temple, from where he inherits the bloodline.
Of course, the stronger the creature whose bloodline you inherit, the stronger its remnant will be. In the story, Soren struggled with the remnant will taking over; his behavior would sometimes change, he gained weird habits, and there were also constant nightmares and visions.
All in all, it was a terrible deal. What was worse was that I was planning to cash in on something similar.
There were two reasons, the first being that I needed every last bit of power I could get. Second, Soren wasn't the only one with a similar core bloodline. And I didn't know whose side those people were on.
In the second half of the book, some 'Tainted' discovered an ancient temple near the north of the scattered sea.
A temple very similar to what Soren had found.
Those idiots ended up awakening the dead body of a slumbering necromancer, and what happened after that was brutal.
This was almost a year from now, during the second semester at the academy. The only reason they had been able to do so was that by then the wards surrounding the temple had been shattered for some reason.
This made me the perfect person to raid his temple right now. During the chapters where those idiots awakened his slumbering body, it was revealed that only someone who hadn't been told about the temple but still knew about it could find it.
The entire thing was paradoxical, and perhaps that was the point; from what I had read, these kinds of loopholes were added to advanced wards in order to strengthen them.
Still, whatever the reason might have been, I had coincidentally managed to fill in all the criteria to find that place.
I just had to go there and stab the thing in the chest before it could awaken. Not going after such an opportunity would be total stupidity.
And so I began preparing, my mind going through overdrive, remembering every single detail I could, whether it was from the book or my new memories.
Two days later I exited my room out into the hallways and left the apartment complex. I needed to buy some things if I was going to journey out into the expanse.
Leaving the building, I cautiously made my way toward the inner parts of the undercity.
There I entered a run down shop, only to be immediately greeted by the old man sitting behind the counter.
"Well, well, if it isn't the young lord. Surprised to see you are still alive."
"I am here to buy some stuff." I handed Milo the list. "Also, can I borrow a spatial storage card?"
Milo snatched the list from my hands and began reading it, scratching his bald head at the same time.
"That's a curious list you got there. Do you even know how to do the ritual?"
Of course I did, I had seen it first hand through Roye's memories and read about it in extensive detail in the book.
"Just prepare the materials and add in your best beast-repellent gear. The kind that can work for a couple of days."
"Beast repellent doesn't work on stronger beasts, boy." Milo got up from his seat."Twelve thousand, not a single credit less."
"Twelve thousand? You-" I almost cursed out loud.
"Bloodline Transfusion materials are illegal to sell to unregistered individuals boy, especially to dead ones." He pointed at the face-changing ring on my hand.
Bastard, I cursed inwardly and transferred him the credits, reducing the sum total in my bank account to a little over six thousand.
Seeing the credit transfer, Milo smiled in satisfaction before looking at me.
"Don't make that face, boy; if I was really that bad, I would have already sold you out."
"What do you mean?"
"Word on the street is some former noble kid hiding in dregs. People have started looking for him, from the noble houses to the local street gangs; everyone wants a piece of him. Let me tell you, that kid would be worth a lot more than some measly twelve thousand credits."
People had started looking for me, that was bad. I wanted to ask more but Milo had already begun packing my stuff. Plus I highly doubted he was going to give me anymore information for free.
I needed to hurry up initially I had planned to leave tomorrow, but perhaps it wouldn't be a bad idea to leave right now.
Quickly packaging my stuff into a spatial storage card, which I had to pay an extra three thousand for. I exited the shop and made my way out of the city.
Exiting the undercity, I walked to the main gate and showed my fake ID to the guards. From there, I walked on foot until I reached a sufficient distance. There, I took out the spatial storage card and quickly changed it into light armor.
I then applied some Beast repellent all over my body. All living beings had mana inside them, as one became an arcanist, this mana inside them grew as well. That's why things like Mana repellent were very useful. Although I didn't work on stronger monsters, it erased your mana signature enough to not be noticed by the weaker ones.
And if all went according to the plan, then I wouldn't encounter a stronger beast anyway.
Reaching out into the spatial storage I took out a map. This thing was supposed to display the expanse from the city all the way to the shattered seas.
Drawn on it were several areas that had been researched and deemed too dangerous for the non arcanists to go to. Although I had to take a lot more detours, if this thing was as good as it claimed, then I wouldn't be seeing any of the stronger beasts in the upcoming days.
Steeling myself, I began my journey. Trekking through the forests. Fortunately, luck was on my side; the areas I had chosen to go through were predominantly occupied by the Gloomstags, who hibernated during this part of the year. With them out of the picture, all I encountered were weaker monsters who would usually not notice me. Those who did, I was able to dispatch with the help of my old rune glove.
A rune glove was a handy device used by the non-awakened who hadn't had a Bloodline Transfusion but could still control mana. This thing had three spells engraved on it. A mana bullet spell, a silence spell, and a low-tier invisibility spell. All in all, with my current mana capacity, I was able to use it three times per day, which was more than enough for my needs.