บท 62: Impossible
Thirteen remained seated on the roof for some time, dissecting the words of Eudes Clarke, who had now vanished from his sight.
The man seemed quick to condescension, calling people 'lessers'. He had even shown disdain for Four, however tame it may have been.
He looked back at the sunny sky, the object of his fascination and ambition, and could only sigh.
'He ruined the mood.'
Standing, Thirteen made his way down from the roof and moved to an open area behind the estate to continue developing his new techniques. He brought his bloodbond with him, and now that he no longer needed to cultivate, he once more withdrew a drop of lifeblood to use as it's core.
Immediately, he felt a connection to the blade, and understood its malleability as if it would change at his very will. Concentrating, he did just that.
The crimson blade soon morphed into a ball that stuck itself right behind his shoulder. Then, with a wriggling others might consider grotesque, the ball of blood sprouted a new shape, an arm connected to the back of Thirteen's shoulder.
It was easier to perform feats of fine control if it was in contact with his body, and he already knew how to control an arm, so he was performing tests to replicate Four's three heads and four arms.
Unfortunately it wasn't going well.
Thirteen practiced punching with it, rocking his body and holding his normal arms in a guard, but the attacks by the fake arm were slow and clumsy. Thirteen had gone so far as to study the anatomy of the human arm and on occasion tried to replicate it in detail, but the human arm was too complex to micromanage every part of, especially in battle. So, he tried simplifying it, relying on the fact that it didn't actually need muscles to move, and tried to find a balance between a simple, easy to use system, and something that still moved like the arms he was used to.
After experimenting for a great deal, he moved onto his next project. He knew that blood could be magically condensed, like he did to create pseudo lifeblood, but did that mean that he HAD to use that as a base for lifeblood? When he magically condensed blood into his bloodbond, he was able to return it to the original volume at will. What if he could do that with the blood in his body? Slowly condense it and let his body adjust to the increased weight over time, could he one day form a spear with but a single drop of his own blood?
Better, if he could condense his own blood like he does with pseudo-lifeblood, every drop would become a greater vessel for power. Would that mean his blood could be enriched to greater extents? He already knew that the lifeblood within his heart was improving the whole volume of blood in his body with every pump, but could he increase the limit on that?
Taking a deep breath, Thirteen decided to try. He began to exert his will over every bit of blood in his body, a swift feat with his familiarity of the Sanguine Control technique. Slowly and subtly, he began to have the blood in his body merge and condense, only slightly at first, so as to not let anything go horribly wrong.
The magical condensation of blood was a strange thing. While the weight increased, it was only by a disproportionately small amount. For that reason, Thirteen's bloodbond did not become much heavier despite absorbing the blood of over a dozen men in the woods.
It was more like a refinement in which the properties of two drops were merged, the energies together forming a greater whole. Thirteen still could not figure out how it worked, and for that reason he took things incredibly slowly so as to not ruin his body in some tragic accident.
An hour later, after having merged some of his blood, Thirteen felt a bit lightheaded, but that was all. He stopped for a while and let his body recover the missing blood before continuing once more.
Even Thirteen himself was unaware of the true extent of his body's ability to heal. According to the Grand Life Tome, at the mid to high levels of the Lifeblood realm he would be capable of regenerating lost limbs at a huge expense of energy, but Thirteen had his healing attribute on top of that, which according to Nicholas would afford an exponential increase in that regard.
Thirteen continued to spend the rest of the day training in all manner of ways, all the way until two hours past sundown when dinner would be served.
He placed a hand on his stomach, feeling it grumble in protest of the lack of food today, and gave in, heading for the dining hall.
'I wonder if the others were all given tests to complete as well.'
He was pulled into the woods as soon as Mentor Fane introduced himself, so he had little chance to see what happened to his friends.
When he finally did enter the dining hall, Thirteen was shocked to find only half of the eighth generation within, already eating.
'So many are missing.'
He looked to what had become his groups regular table and found Ten, Forty-five, and Four, with Nine missing.
Collecting his dinner and making his way over to them, Thirteen sat next to Ten, across from Four and Forty-five.
"Look at that! You finally woke up!" Ten teased as she saw him approach.
"Oh? Do you really want to play this game? I believe after Nine it was you who had the longest record, unconscious for twenty whole hours." He replied with a grin.
"Careful Thirteen, you're about to embarrass yourself" Four chimed in softly.
"How long do you think you were out exactly?" Ten said, ignoring Four as her smile grew wider.
'Ah…' He realised by her smile that he'd dug himself a hole.
"*cough*, Twenty… thr–four hours?" He guessed by their expressions.
"Thirt, you were out for two days." Forty-five chimed in with a slightly worried expression. "What happened?"
"Two days?" He asked with shock.
Four gave him a long look before asking, "Did you speak with Eudes?"
"You already know? How?"
"When it happened to me I was out for a whole day. This was before your group got back."
"Oh, so Four had second place. Wait, what did Eudes do? What happened?" Ten asked.
"Remember when Four mentioned the precursor to ascendence and his talk with Eudes? Years ago now. Well, that just happened to me as well, we spoke earlier today."
Ten's eyes practically shone as her voice rose "You did? How did you do it? Was it like a surge of qi?"
He knew exactly how she felt. It was the same excitement Thirteen had felt when he heard Four speak of it. A precursor to ascendence, a sign of potential greatness. Unfortunately, he had no advice to give her.
Shaking his head, he gestured for Ten to calm down as he spoke.
"There wasn't exactly a 'how' about it, it just happened. One minute I was stressed, about to… to fail a mission, and the next I was more than ten meters away, my hand grasping the back of an assailant's neck."
Ten went to reply, but Forty-five caught a crucial point and spoke first.
"You were about to lose? A martial challenge?"
Four's face too became serious at the thought and Thirteen couldn't help but wish he had not said that part. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a prideful person. He worked hard and felt himself deserving enough to take pride in the results, but he didn't like to admit he had almost failed.
"What did they have you do? Four asked.
"I had to guard a common person, a man named Ron. I had to act as a bodyguard and follow orders, but without letting him die. In the end we were ambushed by a forest fire and two dozen assailants, two augmentors of the Foundation Establishment realm, and one daoist of Core Establishment."
"But that's…" Forty-five started before Ten interrupted.
"Did you win?"
"Of course." He said, eagre to hold onto his reputation.
Ten smiled brightly before looking to the others and leaning back.
"Well two out of four isn't bad."
Four grimaced while Thirteen felt confused.
"Two out of four?"
"I failed" Four said plainly, his discontent clear to see.
"Me too. The mission was damn near impossible." Forty-five said, exhaling as she leaned back in her chair.
"Were all our missions insanely difficult?" Thirteen asked.
"I think every mission was. For everyone." Ten said next to him. "Nine and half the others are still out doing theirs."
That answered one question, the absent half weren't done yet. But it also brought up another. If he only succeeded due to the precursor event, what about Ten?
"Did you also experience something?" He asked as he turned to his side to face her.
"No." She deflated slightly, her arms resting on the back of the chair. "Still nothing like that."
"Then what happened?"
Ten's eyes glanced at the 'losers side' consisting of Four and Forty-five, and then leaned in close to Thirteen next to her, resting her chin on his shoulder as she whispered.
"I fluked it."
With a cheeky smile, she moved back and gave him a glance.
Catching on, Thirteen smiled and spoke for the others to hear. "Very crafty, nice."
Four seemed interested, but had failed to get it out of her earlier, while Forty-five looked at Ten through squinted eyes. She knew her roommate quite well and had an idea as to what she'd said.
"What did you each have to do anyway?"
"Sabotage" Forty-five replied.
"Assassination" Ten said.
Thirteen nodded to each. It seemed that they each were given a different task based on their first assignment. He had not been directly told his assignment yet, but had a strong idea as to its nature.
Thirteen looked to Four who then spoke his part.
"I had to fight my helper at his strongest and win." He said with a grimace.
"Your helper?" He asked in astonishment.
"But the helpers are fourth stage cultivators, all of them. That should be–"
Forty-five chimed in with a defeated voice, "Impossible."
Silence reigned for a moment as they each thought the same thing.
'We weren't meant to succeed. Success wasn't the test.'
Thirteen sighed, realising he had put himself under so much stress to win for no reason.
Looking down at what resembled a pork dish before him, though most certainly of a less mundane origin, Thirteen decided to simply eat his food for now, lest it go cold.
'I suppose I achieved the impossible then' He thought with a smile.
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