Blood Shaper

Chapter Seventy

Kay had managed to meet most of the new people after finishing the discussion with David, but there were a few he still hadn’t met. Eventually, the settlement could become large enough that there were people Kay didn’t know working under him, but while there were less than fifty people living there, Kay would feel bad never meeting them.

He took some time to track people down and talk with them. All of them had similar stories. They had some kind of problem, and then all of a sudden, Cindy swooped in and convinced them to try heading off to a random, unknown, newly-started place to live there instead of wherever they’d been. The only children were Cayden and Kaitlyn, coming with their dad, but the rest ranged from young to old. There were four combatants, Claudia the tier four fire mage, Stephen the Defender, who’d been the man wearing armor during the fight with the hydra, Chitel the healer, and Leaf the Druid, who’d summoned all the vines and roots that had saved Kay’s ass.

“I’m sorry,” Kay leaned forward, putting his elbows on the table they were eating lunch at, “Your name is ‘Leaf’? And you have a druid class.”

The young elven man sighed. “Yes, my name is Leaf, and yes, I’m a Forestspeaker Druid.”

“Sorry, but would Leaf happen to be your full name?” Eleniah asked as she set down her bowl.

“No, it’s Gorgeous Leaf Dancing in the Wind of a Glorious Spring Day.” Leaf told her in a monotone, scowling as he did.

Eleniah winced. “That is old.”

Leaf shrugged. “Yeah, my mom’s a traditionalist.” He saw the confusion on Kay’s face, “Older elves would name their children after something they saw on the day of their child’s birth that touched them, but that tradition faded a long time ago. My mom decided she liked it, so now I’m named what I’m named.”

Kay sat back and grabbed his spoon. “You never changed your name?” He took a bit and watched Leaf as he waited for a reply. This is good stew.

“No, my mom would be really mad.” He pointed his spoon around at everyone sitting in earshot, “And yes, I knew that if I picked a druid Class, I’d end up hearing a lot of puns and bullshit. I’ve heard them all at this point, so do your worst.”

A few other people started trying their best to think of jokes that Leaf hadn’t heard, and Kay went back to his meal. While he ate, he pulled up his status page.

[————————————————————]

Name: Kenneth “Kay” Davis

Race: Outworlder Human

Age: 24

Highest Tier: III

Total Tiers: 16

Class Slots: 9 Combat Class Slots/5 Non-Combat Class Slots

4 Combat Class Slot Used/3 Non-Combat Class Slots Used

Classes:

Combat:

- Blood Manipulator: Tier III -

Skills: Manipulate Blood - Level 26

- Swordsman (Bastard Sword): Tier III -

Skills: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) - Level 23

- Polearm Wielder (Halberd): Tier III -

Skills: Polearms (Halberd) - Level 22

- Blood Shaper: Tier III -

Skills: Shape Blood - Level 16

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Combat

- Bloody Healer: Tier II -

Skills: Blood Transfusion - Level 11

Healthy Blood - Level 18

Blood Regeneration - Level 20

Purify Blood - Level 6

-Novice Cartographer: Tier I

Skills: Spatial Determination - Level 5

Expanded Sight - Level 6

Sharpened Memory - Level 3

Stable Footing - Level 3

Drawing - Level 7

Cartography - Level 7

-Novice Mapmaker: Tier I

Skills: Effective Communication (Drawing) - Level 1

Drawing - Level 7

Cartography - Level 7

-Empty-

-Empty-

Non-Class Skills: Identify - Level 3, Appraisal - Level 4, Inspect - Level 4, Punch Daggers - Level 5, Writing - Level 5, Reading - Level 5, Running - Level 5, Sprinting - Level 5, Domain of Blood - Level 1, Leadership - Level 4

Titles: Class Line Progenitor, Class Creator III

[————————————————————]

It was starting to get pretty long. Of course, with Class Line Progenitor, he’d probably make it even longer, but it was a big difference from the first time he opened his status to now.

During the fight with the hydra, he’d managed to get his Polearms (Halberd) Skill up past level twenty, which had let him tier up the Class to tier three. He’d also gotten Novice Mapmaker earlier. Which had given him the Effective Communication (Drawing) Skill, which made it easier to convey information through whatever media the Skill affected, whether that was drawing in his case, spoken word, writing, sculpture, or whatever. It apparently helped make maps he made easier to understand. Kay wasn’t really sure why there was a Skill like that when you could just put a key on the map, but he wasn’t in charge of the skill system.

The other thing he’d received from the hydra fight was the Skill Purify Blood that got added to his Bloody Healer Class. That made it harder to tier up since he now had another Skill to level to twenty, but he felt the Skill itself was worth the extra effort.

[————————————————————]

Skill: Purify Blood (Level 6)

- Born in battle against a deadly venom coursing through you, this skill purifies that which would kill you through your blood. This skill gives you a passive purifying effect to your blood that helps you resist poisons, venoms, and diseases in your body. The active effect of this skill uses magic to combat venoms, poisons, and diseases in your blood. Giving your blood to another person through Blood Transfusion gives the receiver a weakened version of the passive purifying effect with less power that only targets blood-based venoms, poisons, and diseases. Using the active effect of Purify Blood while transferring blood via Blood Transfusion gives the same effect you receive from active use of the skill, but at a higher mana drain.

[————————————————————]

From what he could tell, just having the Skill helped him resist all poisons, venoms, and diseases passively, while the active effect and giving it to others through Blood Transfusion only worked against blood-borne pathogens and the like, but it was still really useful. He’d leveled it up like crazy through fighting the hydra’s venom, along with Blood Regeneration and Healthy Blood, which was probably how he was still alive after literally pushing most of his blood out of his body. With only two levels left on one of those Skills to hit twenty, Kay decided to focus on getting the Class to tier three. He’d just have to find someone willing to get poisoned or envenomed to clean it out of them. Or wait, no. I can use the active effect on myself and level Purify Blood that way. I’ll just need to team up with Chitel and heal everyone’s cuts and scrapes as much as possible to level Blood Transfusion. Healing my own wounds isn’t leveling me up as fast as it was.

As he cleaned the last of his food out of his bowl and stood to put it in the dish bin, he had another thought. Wait. Chitel is a healer. If she’s willing to help, I can start experimenting with my blood doping idea! Grinning, Kay strode out of the door, looking for the drow woman.

He found her looking out over the lake. She glanced at him as he stepped up next to her.

“How’s your head?” She asked, giving him an appraising look.

“Headache’s gone, so pretty good.”

“Good, good. Were you looking for me?”

“I was actually, I have an idea, and I was thinking I’d need a healer’s help with it.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “That’s always a bad sign. What’s the idea?”

“Back in my original world, there was this thing called ‘blood doping’. Basically, it’s adding extra blood into someone’s system, which helps carry more oxygen to the body and makes you faster and stronger for a little while. I was thinking I could do something similar with my class to make me stronger during fights.” Kay pulled some blood from his flask and mimed pumping it into himself. “I was also thinking about making my blood flow faster, but that’s a little riskier. Either way, I didn’t want to try messing around with my body like that without a healer on hand. But now you’re here!”

Chitel stared at him dubiously. “People actually do this?”

“Mostly to cheat in athletic competitions, but yeah.”

She stared at him as she thought. Eventually, she made a face and slowly nodded. “I can monitor your health without touching you with a spell, I know, so I’d be able to know if anything went wrong…” She shrugged, “Alright, I’m in, but let's get a second opinion before we do anything.”

“Who are we going to ask? You’re the only healer here. Besides me, I guess.”

“We go ask the most experienced person we have.” Chitel started walking back towards the center of the settlement.

“It’s interesting how often I end up asking her about things,” Kay muttered as he followed.

“Isn’t she literally your mentor?”

“Well yeah, but she’s transitioning to more of an adviser position.”

“So she’s going from a position where it makes sense for you to ask her opinion on things to a different position where it makes sense to ask her opinion on things?” She glanced back at Kay with a smirk, “Just to clarify.”

Kay rolled his eyes and passed her. He heard him laughing from behind him as he started hunting down Eleniah.

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