Thalion opened his eyes, quickly scanning his surroundings. Most of his companions had already left to test the better equipment.

First, he pulled out the scroll titled Novice's Guide to Skill Mastery. As he held it, a monotone voice echoed in his mind, "What information do you seek, traveler?"

"That was unexpected," he thought, attempting to send a telepathic message back. "Can you show me what's required to advance my class and upgrade my race?"

It probably worked as the scroll answered him: "You can upgrade your class by permanently gaining stats that align with your class. Another method is to delay your evolution and continue honing your skills through actions like achieving notable feats, hunting, training others, or further refining your abilities, even if you no longer gain experience points. The more exceptional your performance while delaying your evolution, the higher the rarity of your class will become. This second method is the most commonly used."

Okay, so it looks like he had to stay at this stage for a prolonged time. The benefits a stronger class provided were just too good, and with the purchases he had made, he was already in for the long run.

It also made so much sense now why he had gotten a rare class. They had probably killed way more grasshoppers, and instead of getting experience, the system rewarded them with a better class.

Next question. "How do I upgrade my skills?"

"You can upgrade your skills by channeling more power into them, be it mana, stamina, or health. Methods like changing the form of the skill, for example, by condensing it or letting it grow, can lead to a permanent upgrade in rarity. You can also try to pour in more resources to make the skill last longer. Another way is to mix concepts like time or space, or affinities like light or darkness, just to name a few."

This scroll was definitely worth its money. Now he was even more interested in the scroll about the Sanguine Thorn.

He stored the scroll in his spatial ring and took out the Scroll of the Sanguine Thorn. The whole thing was crimson red.

As he touched it, a voice spoke in his head in the same monotone voice, "What information do you seek, traveler?"

"Give me all the information you have on the Sanguine Thorn and advise me on how to proceed with the bud of the Sanguine Thorn."

It took a while until the scroll answered: "The Sanguine Thorn was created by the strongest vampire god, Tenebris. Its most well-known use is that buds of the Sanguine Thorn are imparted to special members of his order to strengthen them in all aspects. While it is characterized as a symbiotic relationship, it is far more than that. The plant enhances the purity of your blood with an effect better than most known body temperings. It can also function like a spirit weapon and can fight alongside you after a full awakening.

And that’s not all. It grants you access to blood skills, not only related to the plant but also to Tenebris himself.

The stronger the plant gets, the more skills you can unlock. The better the purification of your blood, and you even gain a massive stat boost in vitality, strength, intelligence, and wisdom.

The bud of the sanguine thorn will sprout after it has been fed with enough blood. The stronger the blood of the being, the faster the process. If you currently have a bud, bind it by spilling a drop of your blood on it, then hold it close to your heart. It will enter your body and start to enhance you."

This already sounded better than anything he could have hoped for.

"How do I feed the sanguine thorn, and what blood is best used?" Thalion asked the scroll.

"You feed it with a skill you will gain by bonding with the plant, called Crimson Harvest. The skill will let a vine emerge from your skin, entering the body of your victim and fully draining the blood from their veins.

The other skill you will gain is blood thorn. This enables you to shoot a thorn out of your skin with incredible speed and power. It also slows the healing of the target."

The last one was probably the attack he got hit with in the fight with the vampire. There was only one last question for the moment.

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"Can I also feed the plant with my own blood?" If that worked, this thing was even more overpowered than he first thought. Purify your blood, then feed it to the plant so it grows in power.

"Yes, that is entirely possible," the scroll answered immediately.

"Can I use it even without being a vampire?" Thalion asked the scroll. Here goes all or nothing.

"Yes, there won’t be any negative effects if you do not belong to the vampiric race," the scroll answered.

Thalion had the urge to laugh right here, right now. This was just too good to be true.

He already had some kind of plan. First, he would bind the Thorn to his glowhorn form. Since it had the most stats and healed quickly when damaged, it should be possible to feed the Thorn while munching on plants. This should level the Thorn quickly. Then there were two options: he wanted to go for the best race evolution possible, and he kind of wanted to sacrifice his glowhorn form.

The spells and abilities it had were just too good. Mana Wave would be strong for his human form, and the healing could be used on the shadowstalker.

He also hoped that it would be possible to merge the two eating skills the beast had into one more powerful ability.

One last question he asked the scroll he was still holding in his hands: "Can the Sanguine Thorn be moved from one form to another with the spell Morphic Adaptation?"

"Yes, that is possible," the scroll quickly replied.

With that, Thalion decided to partially become a blood mage.

If everything went as planned, his human and shadowstalker races should be upgraded for sure. Maybe he could even evolve into a different race when it came to the Shadowstalker. He put the scroll away. These were all things for later, when he would part ways with the buddies he had fought alongside yesterday. But first...

"Hey, mages, wanna test out some new spells? I even bought information on how to upgrade one," he loudly asked the group.

"Yes, of course!" Sylas instantly answered.

A moment later, Elara, Vex, Sylas, and Thalion were blasting apart the last remnants of their camp. They would move on soon and wanted to destroy everything they couldn’t take with them.

The hope was that Thorwald would think they got attacked again and maybe all died.

"Think you can condense it more?" Elara commented after Thalion had thrown another fireball. She was the first one who managed to upgrade a spell. "Just try to hold it longer."

Thalion did as she said and sat for the next five minutes on a wooden block with a fireball that grew hotter and hotter. After he had poured over 40 percent of his total mana into the spell, he threw it.

The fireball hit one of the last-standing huts, and the explosion was stronger than he had anticipated. The whole hut was ripped into small pieces that were flung over 50 meters into the air. The smaller pieces didn’t even land on the ground because they were completely consumed by the flames.

"Holy shit!" Elara exclaimed. "How many skill upgrades did you get?"

Thalion answered as the message popped up on his status screen. The spell had gone from common to rare in one go.

"Wait, are all of your fireballs that strong now?"

Thalion tested it by conjuring another, but it was not nearly as strong as the last one. However, it was far more intense than a normal one.

After throwing it, the explosion was only slightly better than the common version, but the flames that burned afterward were much hotter and burned longer.

"Do you think we can make our spells curve mid-flight?" she asked, deep in thought.

"Probably. It could even be a requirement when you want to upgrade to a certain point," Thalion pondered.

"Did any of you choose the spell Mana Blade?" he asked the group.

"No, I saw it, but it was too expensive, and it’s kind of a melee spell if I understand it right," Vex answered. "Did you buy it? That spell was crazy expensive."

"Yep, I did," Thalion nodded, then activated the spell. A blue curved longsword with runes on the blade appeared. He swung the blade toward a small tree trunk, and a sharp blue slash shot out from the sword, cutting the trunk clean in half.

That was so cool, he thought. Summoning the sword barely cost any mana, and the slash that cut the small tree didn’t even use 10 percent of his total mana.

"Oh wow, that spell looks so cool," Sylas exclaimed with stars in his eyes.

"Hey Kai, can you come over? I need you for an experiment," Thalion said with a smug smile on his face.

"Okay, what do you need?" Kai asked, coming over.

"Try to cut through my spell. I bet you won’t manage to," Thalion said while casting the spell.

"Oh, I bet I will," Kai said, now smiling too.

The next five minutes were spent with Kai trying to cut through the mana slash. Sometimes it cracked, but it took just a bit of mana to fully repair it. Kael and the warrior also came over and tried to cut it, but the effect was the same.

"Okay, enough testing. We need to move on and find a new spot for the night. I don’t want to encounter Thorwald anytime soon."

"Will you join us, or will we part ways?" Kai asked Thalion with a sad look in his eyes.

"I can stay until you’ve found your new spot for the night, but then I have to go off alone for a while," Thalion said, also feeling sad. He would miss the group.

With that, they set out, and after three hours of walking, they found a nice spot for their new camp. This time, their camp was not in the middle of a clearing, easy to spot, but in the middle of the jungle, and not on the ground but on the branches of the trees, making it even harder to find.

Before parting ways, Thalion told them how to upgrade their race and class. Kael tried to repay him by teaching him how to fight with a sword, but it didn’t work well. Sarah, the alchemist, gave him six healing potions and five mana potions.

Then, after a final goodbye, he disappeared into the jungle.