A/N: First I would like to say.
WARNING: the subject matter in this chapter does get decidedly darker than it has been so far in the second half. While it can still be very much fine for most, some people may be put off and I completely understand.
Now that that has been dealt with we have finally reached the last 2000 word and under chapters. All the chapters I have already written after this one are 3000 words or more, other than .5 chapters, and I hope to keep it that way.
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Sitting alone on the side of my bed makes me realize that this is the first time in, according to Rebbeca, three years that I have had any time alone. For the past three years starting after the day I learned to utilize my magic someone has been with me from the time I wake up to the when I pass out from mana exhaustion. The reasons for that being the education they required of me to receive, observing my magic practice, and when my fangs grew out the researchers started their experiments on me.
The compulsory education was not terrible all things considered. First, the researchers had to teach me ‘Common’ which is the spoken and written language shared between the four humanoid races. I was a little surprised when Rebecca walked in the next day and announced I had to learn to speak, read and write.
The reason for my surprise being that I had been able to understand Rebecca and the male researcher that was present when I first woke up. Rebecca then followed up her statement by explaining that the male researcher was a chosen of the God of Communication and Silence. Being a chosen of this god he had been granted magic that when cast on oneself or someone else the recipient would then be able to understand and be understood by anyone. Apparently, the god had also given him other magics, but since it was irrelevent to the matter at hand I was not told what they were.
After being taught ‘Common’ my education then proceeded into learning everything currently known about science in this world. So just like that an inordinate amount of time was spent teaching me math, physics, chemistry, biology, geology and more. Heck, they even went so far as to go into quantum mechanics because while such a theory is unsuitable for physics magic with my unique system it was decided that I may be able to make something of it.
Once the researchers got through with teaching me more about science than I could ever wish to know. My education then moved on to basic geography, lessons on how each of the races handle their seats of power and the worst of my lessons, etiquette.
My geography lessons consisted of learning how the four humanoid races were spread across the continent. During my geography lessons I really only ended up learning that the elves and beastmen races shared an enormous forest on the western side of the continent as their territory.
The dwarves territory consisted of an enormous mountain range that was situated on the eastern side of the continent. The southern portion of the continent belonged to the demons. Meanwhile the northern lands was left mostly uncharted because of the fact that the dragons had decided to take residence there.
With all that being said the center of the continent is considered a neutral zone by the four humanoid races and thanks to that no race holds more power there.
I also learned that while there are four humanoid races each of them has a multitude of sub races. For example the elves have wood elves, sun elves, moon elves, dark elves, and more. While the beastmen are subcategorized depending on the type of animal they pull characteristics from. Dwarves and demons can also be subsequently categorized into sub races.
After learning how the races were spread I was taught how they handled the seats of power in their lands. Dwarves have a system based on hereditary nobility that elects a king from one of these noble houses after the current king dies or steps down.
The elves have a council of elders that elect a ruler. Thanks to this system aside from their current ruler and their elder council nobles do not exist among the elves.
Beastmen are rather prone to battles between themselves. Due to that their ruler and nobility are chosen by physical prowess. Simply put they decide who rules using their fists. If you can defeat the current ruler in a one on one unarmed battle then you rise to rule instead. Thier nobility is decided similarly as they only allow a set amount of houses to rise to nobility and you must defeat the current head of a noble house to claim their name as your own.
Finally, demon society is similar to the beastmen in choosing their ruler however instead of unarmed combat based solely on physical power and technique demons use everything at their disposal to battle until one of the battling parties dies. That means in a battle to decide who rules between the current demon ruler and a challenger anything goes. Whether it be magic, weapons, deceit, and deception or even a clashing of armies. Demon nobility is however much less turbulent and is decided by their ruler based on the achievements of the person being raised to nobility. That, in turn, means that the nobility of a house is only kept for one generation and unless the next generation from that house can gain satisfactory achievements to retain the nobility of their house it is then revoked when the first generation dies.
Finally, the last subject they had me learn was etiquette. Now everything went quite well, for the most part. That is until the time came to correct my speech. Honestly, if things had gone how they should I would have slowly dropped the broken speech and eventually moved into using full sentences.
The problem with that plan quickly became obvious after I stopped using the broken manner of speaking. My problem was that I found myself completely incapable of speaking more than four words in a sentence. It's not like I did not want to speak more than four words either. No matter how hard I tried it was just physically impossible for me to audibly form a sentence consisting of more than four words. Now this infuriated my etiquette teacher and turned the remainder of my lessons with her into sessions of getting physically beaten for not doing something that was impossible for me accomplish.
Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.
Yesterday was the last day of those lessons and it was also the last day of experiments performed by the researchers, thankfully enough. Today I’m waiting for Rebecca to take me to where I am to receive physical training before I am deemed usable.
Thinking on it I have never really left this room other than when my fangs grew out and they started taking me to another room for their most recent experiments. These experiments consisted of testing whether or not I inherited any of the vampiric ability to heal after imbibing blood and boy did I ever. Their first test was to see if a small cut would heal after taking a blood capsule. After taking the capsule the cut closed immediately which greatly surprised all the researchers, but since I had nothing to compare it with, it was impossible for me to understand why.
This lack of understanding was quickly rectified when a pure blooded vampire researcher present for the sake of the experiment replicated it on himself. His result was that after taking the blood capsule his cut took five minutes to heal.
The fact that my healing was that strong further spurred on the bloody research too. First, they tried larger cuts which healed instantly then more cuts which again healed without any problems. Eventually, they found that I did not have to take in the blood orally and it could be absorbed through my skin.
It was also discovered that my body could sustain itself better on blood alone than with their nutrient blends and so my meals eventually shifted over to purely blood. That, however, is the best result from those damned experiments. I am not sure if it is my vampire or dragon instincts, possibly both, but blood tastes delicious to my current palette. So my meals went from something that, while I was used to it, was horrible to something quite delectable.
The rest of the blood healing experiments, on the other hand, were just horrible. Once the researchers tired of confirming that no matter how, where or how much they cut me I would heal they decided to start cutting things off. At first, it was just fingers and once it was found that they would regrow after I received blood they decided to try an entire hand. Confirming a hand had no trouble growing back they tried an arm. After one arm grew back they tried two and when that provided positive results they cut off a leg. All of this continued and escalated.
The worst part about these experiments was that I was mentally present for all of it. Unless of course, I had passed out from the pain. The pain got more tolerable as time went on, but it never stopped being horrible. My eyes were gouged out, my eardrums were pierced, my tongue was cut out and it all was healed by blood. Eventually, they decided to try removing organs and the results showed that no matter what they removed it could be healed with blood. The sick bastards even went so far as to remove my heart. Needless to say, after confirming that it actually regrew and I had survived the experiments stopped there. The one who pushed the idea of the heart removal was executed and of course, they had me be the executioner while calling it a learning experience.
As for the end result of their insane experiments? It seems that no matter the wound I can heal it using any blood other than my own. Though, depending on the wound more or less blood is needed. For cuts no matter how many or how deep and for a day's worth of nourishment one small capsules worth of blood is enough. The loss of a limb or sensory organ needs a test tubes worth of blood to heal. Anything else is a variable amount of blood depending on how important to sustaining life the lost part was.
To regrow something of utmost importance like my heart the researchers said it took about 5L of blood. I can’t really say whether or not they are telling me the truth because by their accounts I actually died after they took my heart out. So I guess that means that no matter what happens to me if someone were to soak my remains in enough blood then I would come back? Ah enough! There is no need to think about it because I have no intention of testing that theory any time soon.
Putting those thoughts to rest I am left with nothing to do except gaze around my room absentmindedly because Rebecca still hasn’t come to fetch me yet. Eventually, my line of sight focuses on the mirror in the corner of the room.
Thinking about it, I haven't gotten a chance to really see how much my body has grown these past three years. Rebecca did say once that my body is supposed to mature faster right?
Now decidedly curious I jump off the bed and make my way over to the mirror.
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A/N: I feel that maybe this one was a little too informational, but learning how the races operate will be important for later. As for the time skip, personally I am not a fan of them, but in this case, it was necessary otherwise our little MC would be stuck in said labs for much too long.
I always intended the first 10 or so chapters to be somewhat introductory to our character and the world, then I found out my writing is really long winded. I just can't make things go super fast, but I am trying really hard to keep them from slowing to a slice of life.