"I think the most important thing is to have the stronger elite fighters in battle. They have the most impact," Thalion thought out loud.

"I agree," Kael nodded while waving his beer bottle around. "There are pentagrams called war arrays that gather the power of many into one person, boosting the individual to crazy degrees, but I ignored them for now and only went for the normal mgic circles."

"What is the difference?" Thalion asked interested. This must have been the same Michael had used.

"It's a magic circle that slowly gathers mana from the environment and gives the person who uses it the ability to pool on those deep resources," Kai explained. "When we first arrived on this stage, we let everyone who had some mana to spare infuse it into the circles in case we were attacked."

"You need to stay within the magic circle to use it. With the battle arrays, only the supporting individuals need to be in the pentagram," Kael finished the explanation.

"This would come in very handy, but don't forget the undead probably have the same tools," Thalion said after thinking it all over. "I would be surprised if they aren’t using something similar."

"Last night, I saw some people who attacked one of the cities use some item to completely destroy the wall in one go," Thalion explained. "They had some kind of mobile shield around them that was strong enough to block arrows and magic attacks until they arrived at the wall."

"Yeah, I saw those items in the system shop too," Kael said, "but the shield is only this stable because it is not a round shield and can only be moved slowly. So if a troop intercepts them, their group under the shield is done for."

"The item is also not that good; it drains the runes on the wall of mana so it could be destroyed like a normal wall," Kael explained. "One of those under the shield must have thrown an attack at the wall when it was weakened enough."

Interesting, so it was way harder to break the walls, even with good equipment, than Thalion first thought.

"You mentioned body tempering before. What is that?" Kai asked. "Is it the reason why you are so fast?"

"My speed should also be improved after I cultivated them, but I haven't had a chance to use them," Thalion said. "The way I think it works is that you use mana or special materials and integrate them with your body, making it stronger."

"Okay, we definitely need something like that. Can we both use yours, or is it soulbound?" Kai asked interested.

"Maybe, but I'm pretty sure that my bodytempering method wouldn't work on you," Thalion said after a pause. There was no way he would show them the crimson codex.

"Well, probably best this way. Hopefully my patron will give me some good advice on the matter," Kael sighed.

"I have something similar. It’s called soul tempering, and it’s mostly used by mages, my patron said," Sylas announced.

"Good to know. Another thing we should get done as fast as possible," Kael added while finishing his next beer in one go.

"So what are your plans for the future? Is anyone going out hunting tonight?" Kael asked the group.

"I would go for a round of hunting," Kai said, with Sylas, Annie, and Jakob nodding along.

"I will try some of the bodytempering methods, and I want to visit the mountains soon to acquire a good flying form, and after that, travel to the ocean for something that can swim," Thalion explained now also feeling the alcohol.

"I need to visit the blue robes anyway," Annie said, looking down. "My patron said that I will progress much faster there."

"Wait, to be enslaved or what?" Thalion asked in confusion. What was up with her patron to send her there?

"No, my patron had blessed many of the blue robes, which made me an ally," Annie explained, also not liking it one bit.

"That’s pretty good. Let's go together. I could use some water mages to help me slay one of the stronger beasts lurking in the ocean," Thalion said, already making up his mind how he could force the blue robes to assist him.

"Sure, just don’t take too long with your travel to the mountains," Annie said now a bit more happy. "I probably need to go after the next system shop at the latest."

"That should be fine," Thalion nodded. There was no way he would miss such an opportunity.

They talked for a while longer. Kargul and Evelyn were already sleeping in the chairs. Kargul because he had passed out and Evelyn probably because she was tired. The girl wasn't drunk at all and had constantly healed herself to keep up with the orc. Then the nice evening ended and Kai showed him his room. It was a guest room that was also gigantic, like Kael's chamber they had spent the last hours in.

They gave him a few more crystals for communication so he would be informed if they were under attack.

He sat down before his fireplace and tried to use the body tempering method for his human form, the Crimson Vein Codex. At first, the method provided a way to drain blood from a fallen enemy, but that was irrelevant for him since he could already do that. With that out of the way, he could start with the first stage, which was called the refinement stage.

This proved to be very difficult since he only had the information in his head but he needed to feel his blood and then use it to slowly push all the imperfections out. He would notice those imperfections in things that slowed his blood down, making it less powerful. To do that, there was a meditation method where he would blend his surroundings out and fully focus his attention inside. It was kind of weird that this was not a skill but just pure information, but it worked pretty much the same.

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It took him the better part of an hour to fully focus all of his attention on his blood. His blood was like a red river flowing through his body, and everywhere it came by, his cells hummed with power and recognition. This was something he had experienced before. How was it possible for him to feel his body like that?

You can say all you want about the system. The kill quests were not nice, but the rest was so damn awesome. He could jump higher than any human being back on Earth. No, way more than that. He could basically fly and cast spells, and now he could even see inside his body and perfect it like a mechanic.

He dove into the bloody river and his consciousness was washed through his body. Now he could feel how the branches of the sanguine thorn were connected to his veins. The sanguine thorn had started growing around his veins, but it was far from finished, and everywhere it touched, his blood was infused with power... truly magnificent.

He tried to stay by the sanguine thorn and watched what changed in his blood that made it more powerful. Simplified, he would say that the blood got hotter or more potent. Maybe denser was the right word. It was hard for him to grasp. Thalion didn’t know how much time had passed as he sank deeper and deeper. Then he felt something that made the blood kind of sticky. It was like a stone in his blood cells, and he tried to push it. It worked slowly. It was pushed out and left his body. He immediately felt a very small, almost unnoticeable power-up that rushed through his body. He probably needed to repeat that feat many more times.

Then he was thrown out of his meditation when someone touched his shoulders.

"Hey, can you hear me?" Sylas said loudly and slowly in his ear.

"Yeah, yeah, I can hear you," Thalion answered a bit annoyed to get interrupted right when he had his first breakthrough. "Did something happen?"

"Not really. It's just the next day and I wanted to take a look at what you were doing. Why are you sweating so much?" Sylas asked, looking down on him.

Then Thalion noticed it too. He had sweat all over his right forearm, which was the place where he had purified his blood. "Was he pushing out the water?" Thalion thought for a moment, but that probably couldn’t be it. Otherwise, his blood would become a powder. Well, it didn’t matter at the moment. It had worked, which was good enough for him. He felt that he was stronger now, not by much, but he noticed the improvement. He felt like after having a good sleep following a hard training session in the gym.

"Yeah, I tried out something new," he answered, still enjoying his newfound power. "What are your plans for the day?"

"First, I will spar a bit with Lisa. She is a mage too, and then we will go hunting for a bit. We found this new wasp hive. It can be dangerous, but they die almost instantly from fire spells, so it should be fine if not too many stings hit you before you kill them. After we kill half of them, we’ll leave. They regenerate super fast and are still growing, even when we kill so many almost every day."

"Sounds like a good hunting spot. I will check on the plants with dark affinity. After that, I don’t know yet. Maybe work on the body tempering or leave for the mountains," Thalion said, deep in thought.

"Are you not worried that you are getting too far behind in levels?" Sylas asked, worried.

"Nah, it’s actually pretty good to be a bit lower," Thalion explained his theory. "The beasts are getting stronger every day, which gives me more experience when I kill them."

"But it’s also more dangerous to fight those beasts at a higher level," Sylas said, still worried.

"I think I will be fine," Thalion said with confidence. He truly believed that this was the way for maximum progress.

"Okay, but don’t cry too much when I am stronger than you," Sylas said with a grin on his face.

"Sure, I will keep it down," Thalion answered while Sylas was leaving the room.

Shortly after, he also left and went for the place with all the delicious plants. He entered the hall that was used for the storage of those plants and saw ten spatial rings on top of an altar in the middle.

A big smile spread across his face when he saw the mountains of plants with an obvious dark affinity in the rings. In this new reality, it was truly funny how there was literally no fear of using too much space. You could just put the stuff into your spatial ring, and then you could put that ring into another one. The only drawback was that you would lose all the items if that one got destroyed.

Thalion placed the two rings filled to the brink with plants into his spatial ring and made his way back to his room. Those spatial rings had a lot less storage room than his own, but it still was a lot of plants. He didn’t want to transform in that hall. The chance that someone would see him was just too high. Back in his room, he locked the door and filled almost one quarter of it with the plants in the spatial ring. All were around Level 29.

Next, he pulled out the shadowforge doctrine and transformed into the Umbral Predator. He didn’t know how it would work when he used the item in his human form. As the umbral predator, he hadn’t lost anything, as he could remember every detail about the crimson codex. He still didn’t understand anything about how this transformation worked. All his items he wore were gone. They were not in his spatial ring, which was weird because he could check what was in his spatial ring but not put anything out unless he was wearing the ring.

Maybe it was an item from the system and was kind of soulbound since no one could take something out of a spatial ring if the wearer still lived. Anyway, he activated the shadowforge doctrine in his hand and was rushed by an influx of information.

In the first stage, he had to absorb the darkness from his surroundings into his skin to connect his cells to the darkness. He hoped that eating the plants would be enough. This tempering method had five stages, and the last one was called the Master of Darkness, which looked truly scary, but it was a long way until he would reach such levels of power.

So next, he started devouring the plants. After finishing almost all the plants, he felt full and started the meditation. He managed to enter meditation much faster than before and looked inside. Thalion saw how the darkness from the plants was passing through his body. His skin had already absorbed a lot. Now his job was to push even more into it.

He could even feel motes of light still lingering and purified it by pushing them out. Next, he did the opposite of what he did with his blood and pushed the darkness into his skin, waiting until it had fully absorbed the first part. Then he took the next mote of darkness and repeated the process.

After two an hour, he had used all the darkness he ate before and started his feeding frenzy again. His skin was already mostly purified, probably through his early eating frenzies in G-grade. Thalion still managed to push more darkness into it, and now dark mist was slowly rising from his skin. With this technique, he was able to digest much faster and push it exactly where he wanted. Now he truly realized how strong the abyssal devourer really was by turning everything he ate into the essence of darkness. This effect was amplified when the stuff he consumed already had a strong affinity for darkness.

After four more hours, he was finished and made his way down to get the other spatial rings. He changed the two for the remaining eight, even if the last two were only half full. Back in his room, he continued his work. It got harder and harder to push the darkness into his skin. It felt full, like it couldn’t hold more darkness. It was already dark outside when he finished his body tempering—the last darkness coursed through his body into his flesh, which was the beginning of the second stage.

He was about to continue his blood tempering in his human form when he got a mental message from Kael: “We need you. orcs are in the jungle surrounding the base.”