Quies sat on the soft grass of the spire. He stared into the distant cover of night, towards Etris. From afar, only the faint dots of scattered lamps could be seen.
"How long is Valerie going to take…"
After Valerie had left, he had followed her orders to stand guard. He stood at a ready stance, his zweihander rested on his shoulder so as to not fatigue too fast. However, the urge to sit down and rest had overtaken him.
So now, here he was sitting cross legged with his zweihander resting beside him.
The bloodrending book sat in his lap.
Of course, he had not been wasting this precious moment of respite. Along with reading and studying the passages of the book, he had also been meditating with his blood enhancement.
Over the course of the past few days, he had sort of invented a process of training his bloodrend through blood enhancement. The process in and of itself was rather simple, but the execution of it takes hours of practice.
First, he would focus on his body. He felt his blood flowing smoothly through his veins, following the beat of his heart as they traveled throughout. It was exactly how he had first discovered this ability in the first place.
Then, he would find a smaller region to focus on. For example, he had recently been experimenting with how blood enhancement would affect strength based on how he utilized it, and he had used his arm to test it out. He focused on his arm as a whole, noticing which muscles were contracted and which ones were relaxed. How his blood cycled through and replenished them.
Then, he would focus even smaller. Maybe, down to a single muscle. If he had to do a 'pull' exercise with his arms, he would focus on his biceps. By doing this, he was able to optimize where the enhancements were being directed to. There was little to no waste of energy.
After that, Quies figured that he would then try to focus on smaller sections of the muscle. That… he had not yet mastered or even attempted. It was complicated since, currently, he did not have much muscle mass. He wasn't as thin as before, but still thin nonetheless. So, he would either have to do some weightlifting to get some gains, or use some sort of external device that could control the amount of blood flowing to a certain part of his body. With a smaller amount to work with, he could focus it much better.
'What's this?'
He had finished reading… skimming the first section of the book. Quies, to be fair, wasn't much of a reader, so he had only glided his gaze across the pages. He was now onto the second section.
- Mastery and Training
As stated previously, Bloodrend…
'Yeah, yeah, I get it. Bloodrend isn't like other attunements since it was most likely discovered in the current ages.'
He skimmed across the opening paragraph of the section. Most of it was stuff that, currently, he didn't need to know. If he had more time, he would obviously read much more thoroughly. Who knows, he might be able to pick up on some history here and there throughout the book. However, he didn't have that freedom.
'To train bloodrend, one must consciously focus on the flow of their blood, and how it affects the body parts which it runs through.'
'Yeah… did that already.'
'To further extend one's training, they may take advantage of devices which are able to restrict blood flow. For example, a tourniquet is a preferred tool of use to train bloodrend.'
'Huh. Didn't think of that'
Now that he thought about it, using a tourniquet actually brought with it some much needed advantages when it comes to training bloodrend. Obviously, he wouldn't rely on it to improve his bloodrending skills, but at a point in his progression like this, where he felt like he had plateaued, it was a much needed tool.
With a lesser amount of blood, he would be able to control it much better, maybe even being able to hone in on finer and finer scales. He could truly have control over his body.
He skimmed through a couple of more pages. Mostly, they described what he had already been doing, which was manipulating the blood within one's own body. That was the first step a bloodrender had to master before being able to effectively manipulate blood outside of their body. Quies still needed to build confidence for that. He had rarely gotten any chances to use his new mantra.
'I mean… I guess I could use-'
The sound of sparks crackling through the thin air scrawled through the air. In instinct, Quies closed his book.
"Hey… remember how I said you were fat earlier?"
It was Valerie.
"Yeah. That was a while ago. Emphasis on the while."
"I really take that back. Carrying this guy was much… much harder."
Quies turned to look at Valerie, who he had assumed had just returned after obtaining a subject for her mission.
On her back, she carried a sizeable man, seemingly on the older end of age. His stature was short, but rather built, which was typical of Etrean soldiers. Speaking of which, he had the uniform of an Etris guard. A metal plate which covered a leather-like underskin.
He didn't exactly know what Valerie would do to him, but surely it couldn't be anything that bad. At least nothing worse than what she put him through on her schooner.
With a thud, Valerie put down the poor guard onto the soft grass.
"Alright, close your eyes. We have to do this quick."
"Right. Don't want him waking up."
"Hey! You're starting to get it!"
Quies stood up and closed his eyes, picking up his zweihander and resting it on his shoulder.
He welcomed the white suffused light of Valerie's Illusory Realm.