Blood Shaper

Chapter Twenty

Kay half-sat half-laid on a bed in the small clinic attached to the main guild building. On his lap was a small tray with a loaf of bread and a bowl of soup. He had just taken a bite of soup when the door to the clinic burst open.

“What the hell do you think you were doing!?” A gorgeous blonde elf woman demanded as she stormed into the room.

Kay choked on the soup and spluttered and Eleniah jerked off of the chair she’d been sitting in.

“Well?” The woman demanded, leaning in as she glared at him.

Kay choked on the soup some more, but managed to croak, “What?”

“You just went and shoved random blood into him! Do you have any idea what kind of adverse reactions that could have!?” The elven woman put her hands on her hips as she leaned in closer, her pretty blue eyes sparking with rage.

Kay coughed a few more times. “I’m O negative.” He choked out.

“What?” She jerked back, a confused look on her face. “What does that mean?”

“I’m a universal blood donor.”

“What? Really? Well, then… I retract my previous statement.” She straightened up and took a few steps away from the bed.

“You know what that is?” Kay asked. With Eleniah’s earlier confusion he hadn’t expected anyone to understand the concept, let alone the idea of different kinds of blood or the necessity for the right donors.

“Yes, healers are taught about different kinds of blood if they attend the right schools or have the right teachers, which I did. We’re trying to spread out the understanding of more forgotten ideas or new discoveries but it isn’t a fast process.” She frowned down at him. “How do you know that?”

“I’m an Outworlder. Donating blood is a common thing back home, and in most countries your blood type is tested at birth so doctors know what kind to give you.”

“Really?” The elven woman’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “Can you tell me more?”

“Sorry,” Eleniah interrupted, “Who are you?”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Rachel Ambergrass, Chief Healer here.”

“I’m Kay.”

“Eleniah.”

Chief Ambergrass shook both their hands, the turned back to Kay. “Now, what else can you tell me about the subject of donating blood?”

“I don’t know much…” Kay cautioned her, then proceeded to explain his limited knowledge about it.

“Interesting…” She mused, rubbing at her chin. “The concept of blood typing isn’t new, but its links to heritage and what type your parents have isn’t a link I think anyone had made yet. And the difference between plasma and the “cells” of the blood as you put it is even more intriguing…” She trailed off for a moment. Turning back to Kay, she smiled widely. “Thank you very much! Your knowledge, even if it is fragmented, will help the healing arts in Torotia significantly!” She shook his hand again. “Also, may I ask you about the skill you used? Training or an explanation on how to get it would also be quite helpful. Being able to stop bleeding that way would be incredibly useful, and would cut down on potion use in emergencies!”

Kay glanced at Eleniah, who took charge.

“We’ll tell you about it if you can sign and Agreement of complete secrecy.” She told the healer, then glanced back at Kay.

He shrugged. If she thought that was enough, then what did he have to say against it. She was the expert.

The Chief Healer frowned. “The terms of my job with the Adventurer’s Guild prevent that kind of Agreement. Is there no other way?”

Eleniah shook her head. “There’s too much risk for him otherwise.”

“I see… Is there any chance of you letting me know in the future?”

“It’s possible.”

“I’m not at a high enough level to teach the skill yet.” Kay added, “But when I get there we could come back and talk to you again, see if there’s some kind of deal we could make then.”

She nodded slowly. “I see. Yes, well I can’t in good conscience ask you to put yourself in potential danger when we have other options available.” She rubbed at her chin some more, then nodded. “Yes, when you feel able to, please come by and I’d love to learn from you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go yell at people about being out of an entire kind of potion.” She walked out.

“You feeling better now?” Eleniah asked after Chief Ambergrass had left.

“Yeah.” Kay glanced up at the corner of his vision, where a blinking notification waited. “Lets go home and talk.”

Kay was feeling much better, but he still needed a bit of help on the walk back to the house, with Eleniah helping him stay upright at times. When they got back she helped him sit down in a nice chair in the living room, then loomed over him.

“Talk!” She demanded.

“Could you wait a second?” He glanced at his notification lights again. “I’ve got a lot of notifications, and I think one of them is for a class.”

Eleniah huffed, then stormed over to another chair which she threw herself into.

Kay opened up his notifications.

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-Skill: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) has reached level 12!

-Skill: Swordsmanship (Bastard Sword) has reached level 13!

-Skill: Manipulate Blood has reached level 13!

-Skill: Manipulate Blood has reached level 14!

-Skill: Manipulate Blood has reached level 15!

-New Skill!

-Skill: Blood Transfusion gained!

-Skill: Blood Transfusion has reached level 2!

-Skill: Blood Transfusion has reached level 3!

-Skill: Blood Transfusion has reached level 4!

-Skill: Blood Transfusion has reached level 5!

-New Class Available!

-Class: Bloody Healer Available!

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The first two definitely came from the fight, but he’d been waiting to get home and safe before checking them. The next three might be from the fight, or helping keep the adventurer alive, or both. The new skill, it’s levels, and the new class definitely came from helping to heal the man.“Five levels, two in Swordsmanship, three in Manipulate blood, then a new skill and five levels in that, then a new class, called ‘Bloody Healer’.” Kay read out to her.

She sighed. “Read it all then tell me, the story can wait. But you will tell me!” She insisted.

“Yes, I will.” Kay reassured her before diving into more verbose explanations of the new skill and class.

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Skill: Blood Transfusion

- This skill allows the user to transfer their blood or blood under their control inside another living creature in order to replace lost blood. This skill ignores all non-compatibility issues, transforming the blood into compatible blood for the receiver, as long as the used blood is still fresh.

[————————————————————]

A useful skill, one that replicated what Kay had already done with the adventurer, but with the added benefit of making sure he didn’t harm anyone with his actions, or that the blood would get rejected. Kay read Eleniah the description.

“Pretty common. A lot of skills have descriptions without a lot of information to begin with, just describing it as ‘the ability to do the skill’. It might give you more as you level it up.”

“Alright.” Kay glanced at the notification of a waiting class option. “How did I level it up so fast though? I got it to level five and got offered a class in a really short time.”

“You took a skill you didn’t even have and got it by keeping someone with a really bad wound alive until someone could stabilize them. You probably would have leveled it even higher if you hadn’t been capped. Doing really tough things under pressure while at a low level tends to bump you up a lot.”

“Oh, well… I just wanted to help.”

Eleniah smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Getting something good like this because you helped is just icing on the cake, it doesn’t suddenly make you into some mercenary type that would only help for some reward.”

Kay stared at the screen in front of him for a bit. Eleniah had jumped right to the heart of his hesitation, but she was also right. He’d helped because he wanted to, not because he got anything out of it. The reward that came with it was just a bonus… right?

He shook himself out of his thoughts and looked over the offered class.

[————————————————————]

Class: Bloody Healer

- Blood is a vital part of most living beings. Bloody Healers use their knowledge and Skills to heal and clean the blood of their patients. As they grow in strength and experience Bloody Healers can learn to use the blood of those patients as a medium to heal other wounds and ailments.

[————————————————————]

[————————————————————]

You have a new class available! Class: Bloody Healer!

-Prerequisites: Blood Manipulator Line Class, Manipulate Blood Level 10, Blood Transfusion or Other Applicable Class Level 5

Class: Bloody Healer branches from your Class: Apprentice Blood Manipulator and will take a non-combat slot if accepted! Due to your Title: Class Line Progenitor, you will not lose Class: Apprentice Blood Manipulator upon accepting the new class.

Do you accept?

[————————————————————]

The class description was roughly what Kay was expecting, based on the skill he’d leveled to get it. If he’d just had the name of the class, he might have expected something like those classes where you damage someone and heal off that, but after giving someone his own blood to keep them alive, he’d been expecting this.

Kay read out the description of the class to his teacher. “Should I take it?”

Eleniah nodded emphatically. “Absolutely! You’ll get Class Creator again and healing classes are great! Once you get strong enough that you’re less likely to have people targeting you for your titles, being able to heal people will be a big draw for recruiting help. And you can get a lot of good will by teaching people the class, like Chief Ambergrass.”

“Alright.” He’d wanted to take it right off reading it, but just wanting it didn’t necessarily make it a good idea. He’d had some ideas for different possible combinations of classes in the future and more than one of them had been shot down by his teacher. Even if a lot of this world was similar to games he’d played and stories he’d read, not everything was the same. As time passed he was getting better and better at separating what he thought something should be like and what it actually was, but he wasn’t perfect at it yet. He didn’t want to make some crazy mistake and ruin everything, not when he had a fantastic source of knowledge right next to him.

“I accept.” He told the screen, which had been waiting patiently at the edge of his vision.

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

-New Class Gained!

-Class: Bloody Healer Gained!

-New Skills!

-Skill: Blood Regeneration (Passive) Gained!

-Skill: Healthy Blood (Passive) Gained!

-Title Upgraded!

-Title: Class Creator has upgraded to Class Creator II!

-New Class Slot Gained!

-Created Class is Non-Combat: Non-Combat Slot Gained

[~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~]

Kay ignored the title upgrade, since he’d seen that coming. Instead, he focused on the two new skills. Most low level combat classes had only one skill, but non-combat classes got more.

[————————————————————]

Skill: Blood Regeneration (Passive)

- Bloody Healers give their own blood to sustain others. In order to heal more, they can bleed more. This skill passively increases the amount of blood created by the user’s body, activating when the user bleeds. Amount and speed of blood regeneration increases with level.

[————————————————————]

[————————————————————]

Skill: Healthy Blood (Passive)

- In giving their blood to the injured, Bloody Healers sustain life. This skill imbues the users blood with passive health regeneration effects. Anyone with the user’s blood in them (including the user) gain a small amount of health regeneration while the blood lasts. This effect ends when the user’s blood has been fully replaced with new blood. Power of regeneration increases with level.

[————————————————————]

“Wow.” Kay stared at the two new skills. Both were great for the class they came with, and with his other blood based class. It would let him more easily use his own blood in combat since he could regenerate it now. He’d needed to careful with that to avoid getting lightheaded during combat, or in a really bad situation, experiencing the more dangerous effects of blood loss. The other skill just passively helped keep him alive. Since he would always have his own blood in him, he would always experience a passive healing effect.

“What happened?”

“I got two new skills. They’re both passive. One lets me regenerate blood faster when I start to lose it, the other one gives my blood a minor healing effect. The healing works on anyone I give blood to, but also to me.”

“That’s fantastic! That’s what I’m talking about when I insist on looking for classes and skills that synergize. Now you don’t have to worry as much about not having your flask on you all the time.” Eleniah stood up and walked over to stand right next to Kay. “Now. We can continue talking about that later, it’s not super vital.” She leaned in really close. “Tell me why you came back with a giant gash in your arm!” She insisted.

Kay told her everything. Every thought he had, every move he made, the exact word-for-word conversations of the bandits, everything. He pantomimed the moves he’d made during combat, the positioning he had, where his enemies had stood, he told her every single thing he could think of. The fight that had lasted maybe five minutes if all the running was included took almost an hour to fully detail to her.

When he finished he sat back down and looked at her.

She stared and stared and stared some more. And then she sighed. “If you were just some random adventurer who was telling me about their day, I would say you did everything right. Because you’re my student and I don’t want anything happening to you, I want to tell you that you should have left as soon as you heard people.” She sighed again. “And that would be wrong, because I’m going to teach you to be an amazing adventurer, and an amazing whatever else you become. Not some coward who runs away at the first sign of danger.”

Kay reached out and took her hand. “Look, I don’t know what your story is, not all of it. You’ve told me little things, but you haven’t given me the full picture of who you are. But I can see that you’re worried about losing me.” He chuckled, “Besides the very obvious evidence of you telling me that, I can see it in the way you act.”

Eleniah gazed back at him, not saying anything.

“So, I’m going to say this out loud to you.” He continued. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re the best thing that’s happened to me since I ended up here, in more ways than one. I won’t leave unless you make me. And with you training me, I’ll become strong enough to not get killed.”

Eleniah gave him a small, pained smile. “You’re right, I am tired of losing people I care about. And I haven’t told you my whole story. But since you’re sticking around, you’ll hear it eventually.” She stood up and turned away, obviously uncomfortable with the emotional talk. “Now, I’m going to beat situational awareness into your head later, since that’s where you messed up the most during your job.” She grabbed the sack Kay had set on the floor and plopped it onto the table. “But for now, lets tally your loot.”

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