34 Vampire?!
Zevien didn’t roam much after that and instead learned the Flash Curtain spell that he got from Touma.
Flash Curtain is a vision impairment magic spell. Upon casting, a thumb-sized white orb from the user conjures, which expanded into a square wall that releases intense bright light from its front side, affecting whoever is looking at it and in close vicinity and blinding them for a few seconds.
After weaving this spell into his magic eidos body, Zevien started practicing it.
…
AWOOOO…
After almost two hours of practice, Zevien was startled and woke up from his trance due to a wolf’s howl.
‘Hmm? That wolf arrived here?’ Zevien was surprised and peeked outside of the cave.
‘Oh, although it’s a grade-5 magic beast, it’s not the same wolf that was chasing me earlier.’
He wanted to fight, but fighting a wolf was a bad idea as he didn’t know if the wolf was in a pack or alone. If it were in a pack, then he would be courting death by going out of the cave.
Suddenly, Zevien’s eyes straightened as he hurriedly went back inside the cave and stopped peeking because…
The wolf was actually walking towards the cave.
Zevien looked around before quietly but hurriedly moving towards a relatively big rock and hiding behind it.
The wolf came inside the cave and walked towards the blood pond before smelling it. The wolf had blood-red claws with black patterns, yet its body was pitch black, while its eyes were a mix of red and black.
After seeing the wolf lower its guards a little while drinking from the blood pond, Zevien made a plan to kill it.
Before moving towards the wolf, he internally cast Somatic Happiness to increase his spell potency. Then he jumped out while casting Somatic Anger as a purple orb got released towards the wolf while Zevien stood on the rock he was using to hide previously.
The purple orb hit the unsuspecting wolf as even though it noticed the attack, it was not fast enough to dodge. Poor wolf barely took a sip from the pond before it was hit.
BOOM!
The wolf was hit and was blown back as a hole appeared in its stomach where the orb hit.
The purple orb took about half of the wolf’s health since it was enhanced by Somatic Happiness’ spell potency buff. Somatic Happiness increases the next spell’s potency a lot. So it was a one-time boost for the next spell.
AWOOO!
The wolf was injured, but instead of running, it became angry and pounced toward Zevien despite blood oozing out from a hole in its stomach.
But Zevien was prepared as he dodged by jumping over the wolf from the big rock, and right after landing, he used Flash Curtain.
A white orb materialized in front of Zevien’s palm as it shot towards the ground in front of him.
The wolf wanted to return to Zevien, but it couldn’t as it suddenly saw a three-meter-tall and four-meter-long wall releasing intense bright light for two seconds, causing it to squint its eyes from the light’s intensity.
The wolf winced as it couldn’t see anything.
Taking this chance, Zevien internally cast Somatic Happiness again and then cast Somatic Anger as he aimed the purple orb towards the already injured part of the wolf.
BOOM!
The attack was on-point, killing the wolf instantly.
Zevien hurriedly dashed towards the wolf and used Blood Morphing Art.
After absorbing a few drops of the wolf’s blood, Zevien initiated partial-morphing and turned his hands into sharp wolf claws.
Interestingly, the claws adjusted to his human form and were bigger.
‘Oh, this is nice…,’ Zevien was surprised looking at the big claws, and then he also decided to transform his legs.
His legs also transformed differently from those of a wolf’s; they looked more like a werewolf’s legs.
On the other hand, he suddenly felt a bit of pain in his entire body as the wolf started decaying and turning into motes before entering inside him.
The pain increased every second as Zevien’s body trembled, “damn….”
He fell to the ground and twitched as the motes entered him and strengthened his body. This time, the decaying was slow and gradual, unlike the previous times where it was instantaneous.
After a while, the wolf entirely decayed and disappeared as Zevien stayed on the ground for five minutes before finally standing up.
“So powerful….,” Zevien muttered as he moved his limbs and felt way stronger than before.
He went out of the cave and started running to see how fast he could move with his current physique and check his strength.
It took some time to adjust to this moving posture, like with the deer, but he picked up the speed quickly.
‘These legs feel very springy,’ Zevien thought as he jumped with his full power while running and was shocked to see that he actually jumped ten meters high.
“Holy! These werewolf legs are awesome,” Zevien muttered as he jumped again after descending and landed on a tree’s branch.
Afterward, he tried using his claws as he consumed some mana to activate them. His claws glowed with a dark red hue, exuding power.
Zevien hit trees and rocks with his claws as they went through them like a knife cutting through butter.
“Too bad I won’t be able to use this form after going out of the magic labyrinth,” Zevien muttered and released a small sigh.
He then started moving back but suddenly saw a dead magic beast; it was a monkey with a blood-red star pattern on its head.
Zevien arrived near it, expecting that it would decay and turn into motes before entering him, but nothing like that happened.
“I see, so this only works on magic beasts that I kill myself,” Zevien muttered, “that too, only in the magic labyrinth as it doesn’t work outside.”
Zevien touched the monkey and checked its physical strength, “hmm, it looks like it only recently became a grade-5 magic beast.”
Magic beasts can’t refine their bodies like humans, but their body strengthening process still happens, albeit automatically. Their mana automatically circulates around inside their bodies all the time, so as their magic power increases, their physical body also gets stronger gradually.
He didn’t bother taking the blood of the monkey magic beast and returned to the cave before walking in front of the blood pond.
‘This should be the blood of some creature, right?’ Zevien thought as he was curious and decided to absorb it.
Blood Morphing Art.
A few drops of blood from the pond were absorbed into the whirlpool before Zevien’s face changed.
When he absorbs blood using his skill, Blood Morphing Art, he gets information about whose blood it belonged to; he could see the creature in his mind, like a vision of sort.
‘Full-Morph,’ Zevien willed as the blood particles enveloped him for two seconds before he entirely transformed…
And what appeared from that transformation was a vampire.
He grew fangs and a pair of bat wings, and he felt his physical body getting stronger a lot and also….
“Blood Manipulation?” Zevien was dumbfounded. In this form, he could actually feel some sort of connection with the blood in his own body and even the blood on the pond.
He tried to manipulate the blood of the pond with the strange connection he was feeling.
But he couldn’t even pull out one drop of blood from the pond.
“I guess this blood manipulation is not that powerful due to my own magic power,” Zevien muttered and guessed that as his magic power increases, so will this blood manipulation power in this vampire form.
“I have to secure this place,” Zevien uttered with a glint in his eyes as he looked at the pond, “I am feeling my strongest in this vampire form, and it’s a whole pond of blood. Hehe, I can use it all the time.”
“Wait, since I am here in my physical body, then the next time I come here, can I put a vial in my pocket before coming here to store the blood? Damn, that would be awesome!”
Suddenly, Zevien started feeling the pressure; this pressure indicated that it was time to leave.
However, this time, Zevien decided to stay as long as he could by enduring. He returned to his human form and sat cross-legged before closing his eyes.
After who knows how long, Zevien disappeared and arrived in the glass chamber.
“So you are finally here! Damn, how come you managed to stay for the whole two hours and thirty minutes there?”
Zevien heard a voice beside him and saw Lopaz talking to him with an amazed expression.
“Seriously…,” Raven wryly shook her head, “I don’t think any classless magician had stayed for more than two hours inside magic labyrinths. You are the first one.”