A blood red flash appears before my eyes right before I close them and grit my teeth preparing for impact. A loud splashing sound makes me open my eyes before I am grazed by a small number of the crystal spears. A pungent smell of iron pierces my nose and a dark mist hovers in the air for a few moments before falling down like raindrops into a puddle.

"Blood?" The barrier that protected me was a dark red fluid with a strong scent, in other words blood. The blood seemed to negate much of the force of the jagged crystal spikes. After some time of bewilderment a thought suddenly occurs to me. "Ahh the blood sabre!"

The blood sabre, the growth weapon I obtained from the armory in Heaven's Workshop. I only used in for a bit before I put it away and completely forgot about it. My focus was on magic rather than physical combat, so I didn't put much thought into the nature of the blade. It's also limited to growing by killing creatures that have blood, so in the red forest and the undead cavern it was completely useless. The real question is why it created a barrier to defend me without my command, and why hadn't it done so when I was in danger earlier? I reach into my bag and with a thought I bring out the blood sabre. It's size is much smaller than it was when I first looked at it, if I had to guess it probably expended it's strength to create the barrier. I also realize after looking around that i had bled quite heavily from my previous wounds. While they were just grazing wounds they still removed quite a bit of flesh and could easily cause quite heavy bleeding.

I wave the blood sabre over the puddle of blood and activate it's absorption skill. "[Absorb]". The pool of blood in front of me and the blood covering my body all turn into a mist and the mist flows like a river into the sabre. I change my focus from the sabre to my wounds. Though the pain settings are drastically reduced from real life my body is still covered in stinging wounds. I dig through my bag and drink two of my experimental health potions, the strength varies wildly with my experimental potions, but they should still work quite easily. Thinking about this I should probably learn some sort of healing spell in the future.

I sit down and begin meditation. The wind manipulation I used to split the damage from the crystal spikes used up most of my spiritual energy. I previously believed mana to be diluted spiritual energy, but if that were the case then it should be easy for magic users to harness spiritual energy, so from what I have gathered mana must actually be something slightly different.

Rather than heading further down the crystal cavern I spend a fair bit of time investigating the mystical item that protected my life. The weapon was previously usable by me, but I never knew it had such an ability to create a barrier. It's ability might have sprung from my blood dropping onto it, and I am not completely sure how bags work in this game so it's not completely unthinkable. Blood binding is not an uncommon idea and appears quite frequently in the translated Chinese fantasy novels I had read. With this in mind I take the sabre and bring it across my hand creating a large cut. After a few seconds the blood is absorbed by the sabre and a system window pops up.

Stolen novel; please report.

Commands

Absorb

Stray blood in the area

is absorbed by the

weapon.

Withdraw

The weapon is

absorbed into the

owner of the contract.

Transform

The owner of the

contract can freely

control the weapon's

shape and size.

Blood

Barrier

At the cost of portion

of the absorbed blood

a barrier is created to

protect the owner of

the contract.

"I see, so this weapon isn't so simple as I first believed. [Withdraw]." The weapon loses it's shape and turns into a flowing river of blood which flows into the open wound on my hand. After my hand absorbs the mass of blood the wound instantly closes up and a blood red circumscribed pentagram appears on my hand with the bottom two points pointing to my wrist. In the center of the pentagram is an upside down triangle with a dot in the center and a line near the bottom. Based on my research into alchemy the symbol should be the alchemical symbol for blood, and with my knowledge of magic the pentagram should be some sort of representation of the contract.

New Quest

Start Requirement

Contract of by Blood

Rank

Unknown

Investigate the mystery of the blood contract.

Rewards

Unknown

Do you accept?

Yes/Yes

"A quest! Quests are good, but I don't seem to have a choice in accepting or not. Plus this is just way too vague." I scratch my head in disbelief at how vague this quest that has been forced on me is. The previous masters of Heaven's Workshop probably overlooked this item due to their initial understanding. I will begin investigating once I am finally able to leave this strange cavern. Tower return doesn't work thanks to a strange teleportation jamming, so it seems the only way out is to find the exit.

I stand up and begin heading further down the path. I continue extending my spiritual sense so I won't be caught off guard by any more traps or whatever is causing those strange crystal spears. The earlier I notice the attack the faster and more easily I can negate damage from it. I am also unable to rely on the blood sabre as the amount of blood it has is running rather low.

Thankfully no further attacks are sprung on me and I reach the end of this path with ease. I grab another crystal sitting on a pedestal and head back to the fork in the road. The travel back takes much less time, I initially thought it to be because of the caution I was taking, but it may be a mechanic similar to Heaven's Workshop.

After exiting I enter into the next path rather than take a break. The faster I get out of here the faster I can continue experiencing other parts of the game outside of this strange cave.