Later that night, Thalion sat in a chair with a beer in his hand and talked with the others about how the blue robes were and what had happened in the last two days. He was sure now that something was going on with Kael, Kai, Zyra, and Sylas, but the strongest danger he felt came from Kael. He told them a story about how the oceans looked now but left out how much he had hunted, and he lied about his new form. In his story, he didn't manage to find a good form, so he had to go for a shark that was just of uncommon rarity.
What surprised him was that Vorlok was completely tamed and was even hunting together with Eve and Kargul, but Eve sometimes looked at the turtle with maybe disgust, he wasn't sure. Vorlok had grown a lot and was eating throughout the whole meeting. The only thing he noticed was that every time Vorlok looked at Evelyn, she always smiled until the turtle looked away, then her smile turned into a relieved expression. The elite fighters from last time were also there. To his dismay, Thalion saw how everyone in this room was over level 53, which was at least ten levels above him. Thankfully, no one noticed, or if they did, they did not mention it. Thalion left early to further progress in his soul cultivation. Of course, that was not what he told them. He said something like he was really tired from the flight. Good, they didn't know that he couldn't be tired anymore.
Back in his room, he continued with his soul cultivation. To say he was driven was an understatement, since he knew that Kael was planning something, his desire to become powerful burned like a hot flame in his heart, pushing him to squeeze the maximum progress out of every minute. In the meantime, he was listening in on the conversation through his spy crystal, but he had to fully stop his soul cultivation when Zyra said, "Did you see how weak he is?" after all the others had left and only Kael, Sylas, Kai, and Zyra were left in the chamber.
"Yes, he had barely progressed at all," Kael said, deep in thought.
"So what are we waiting for? Did you forget what treasures lie within his body?" Zyra said.
"He still is strong, but he will be focused on body tempering in the next few days. That gives us more time to advance in levels," Kael said with determination. "And I want to wait for more shapeshifters to join us so they can take the form of the umbral predator after his death. I bought information on that creature. Its rarity is mythic."
"No wonder he was that strong," Sylas exclaimed in surprise.
"So when will we do it?" Zyra said with expectation.
"I want to wait as long as possible. He saved my life once, and if my patron hadn't provided an item to mutate the sanguine thorn so that I can make full use of it, I wouldn't kill him at all," Kael explained.
"But getting that plant and my blessing upgraded to legendary is worth it. With a legendary blessing, I can baptize the people living here, rising their survival chances in the coming war against the undead," Kael said.
"We already knew that, but what if he finds an opportunity and gets a lot of levels?" Sylas argued clearly not a fan of letting him live. "It will be very difficult to kill him then."
"We will do it in two days. Any plans on where and what we tell the people? Everyone likes him at the moment," Kael asked in the round.
"The training hall should be perfect. We can lock him in there. An escape is impossible then. The walls were designed to withstand much more power than that of a mere F-grade," Sylas explained with anticipation of what to come.
"When we kill him, we could say that his mind was consumed by the umbral predator and we had to put him down," Kai spun the story. "I don't want anyone to speak badly about him. It's so sad we have to sacrifice him for the greater good."
"So it is sealed. In two days, I take his body after the shapeshifters take his beast form," Zyra said with greed.
"Yes, in two days," Kael sighed.
Thalion had a hard time controlling himself. He had never felt such hate. They wanted to kill him for the greater good. He didn't believe that for one second. It took him a while to calm down and focus, so he had two days to get away or kill them. They didn't know that he knew. A surprise attack would be their end for sure, but then there were still the undead on the next stage and he couldn't make a big difference since he was at such a low level, which could lead to the death of everyone in the base, and it wasn't their fault that Kael messed up. "Calm down, focus on your dream. Wasn't it normal that the ride to eternity was a bumpy one?" Thalion spoke to himself.
So he would just run and let Kael and the others take care of the people in the base. But what else would they do for the so-called greater good? One who didn't need to survive was Zyra. There were enough alchemists, and she had some information on that item Kael had got from his god. Kael would probably never stop hunting him since he would get a massive upgrade if he managed to steal Thalion's opportunities. This item was probably the reason the voice was allowed to help him, and maybe it was even worth for him. He got rewarded with the amazing soul cultivation manual that no one in the tutorial could afford.
What if he asked Thalion to send people out to gather more blood so he could upgrade the plant in his body? An upgraded sanguine thorn would no doubt be greatly appreciated by Kael, so why shouldn't he wait to kill him when he had the assurance that he wouldn't level? It also gave Kael the possibility to get even more ahead in levels. It was definitely something he should try. They had already agreed that they would meet again tomorrow because Lars had a new meal he wanted them all to test before he served it in his inn. If he informed Kael before the meeting, he might tell the others after the meeting, and Thalion could listen in. Otherwise, he could use the communication crystal, and they would never find out if he had some extra time. So what to do with the time he had left? Definitely press the alchemists for more potions, elixirs, and materials. The whole body tempering he could although do in the jungle. The most important thing was working on his sword with Lucan. Maybe he could even finish it with some extra time. With that, he stopped his soul cultivation and made his way to the smithy. He had to break open the locked door, but time was running short; he couldn't wait for Lucan to return, and a door was easy to fix.
Thalion saw his masterpiece leaning against the wall. It was time to hammer more essence into it. The smith looked surprised when he saw Thalion working on his sword but said nothing out of the ordinary. At first, when he wanted to build a sword, he just wanted a cool, super powerful weapon like Excalibur. But why slowly integrate the essence of other weak materials when he could use his purified blood? His blood was surpassing the lingering essence in the materials by far, and since he was a sanguine archon, it was fitting to have a weapon attuned to blood. With that, he started to use the same process he had used on the other materials, but instead of only using aspects of the materials, he just used his blood instead. At midday, his sword was crimson red and hummed with power, and he hadn't even used much of his blood. He felt a bit weaker, purifying his blood was not a big deal for him anymore. It was only a temporary weakness that would be fixed very soon. Since it was midday, he had to stop his work for a bit to press the alchemists for good stuff, but after that, he would be back at work. He worked the whole day on the sword, but he still hadn't finished it. The moment he would start the last process, the sword could be identified, and with that, he could check the rarity of his craft. At the moment, it was just material for the system, but he hoped to change that in the coming days. The progress he made was so great that he changed his mind. He would skip the meeting tonight. Why should he waste his time sitting around when he could use the communication crystal instead?
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Thalion watched Kael laughing with the others when he messaged him, "Hi Kael, do you have time to talk? It's important."
He saw how Kael took out one of his crystals, and then he heard the reply in his head, "Sure, go ahead."
"Do you remember when we spoke about the gods? I mentioned that I had something from a vampire god," Thalion asked trying to keep calm.
"Yes, I do," Kael responded quickly.
"I am very close to breaking through. This is why I am not leveling that much. If you could order the people of this base to gather additional blood, I think I can break through in three days from now on, but the breakthrough will damage my body, and I will be very weak for a few days and can't help if someone attacks. But since it wasn't a problem the last few days, I thought I could go for it," Thalion lied.
"I will arrange everything. You will get that blood, and you don't have to worry about anything. We will take care of you. Do you need something else?" Kael answered quickly.
"Yes, I need a giant magic circle in my room. If Zyra has the time, that would be very helpful. And I need as many elixirs as you can provide," Thalion answered, hoping that it wasn't too much.
"Of course, I will inform the alchemist. Why do you need so many elixirs? I thought blood was the only thing needed," Kael asked.
"I also don't know why it works. They don't have an effect in the sense of stats, but it speeds up the process a lot," Thalion kept lying.
Elexiers didn’t help him at the moment but maybe they will become very important in the near future.
"Very interesting, sad you are not here today," Kael said and ended the connection.
Thalion grinned, he got three more days to build his sword. He had his own forge if it took longer than expected, but Lucan's insights were so helpful that he would rather finish it in his smithy. He saw how Kael was pulling out multiple communication crystals, probably telling everyone to gather blood. This had gone better than he anticipated. The conversation between the four later that night would be very interesting. He continued to work on his sword until only Kael, Kai, Sylas, and Zyra were left in the room.
"So, are we doing it tomorrow?" Sylas asked the group.
"No, we will wait another three days from now on," Kael said. He will try to break through and will be weakened after this. This is perfect for us.
"At least we can make it quick then," Sylas said but without any sorrow in his voice.
"So I guess we will level as fast as we can the next three days?" Kai asked calmly.
"Exactly. He also needs more blood. I already instructed all of our hunters to work overtime and to really drain everything of its blood. Until now, only a few people had done that, and we will help them," Kael said.
"Zyra, he also needs a bigger magic circle in his room. Could you do that today?" Kael asked.
"Of course, but it will take around two days. Is it even worth it then?" Zyra questioned.
"Probably not, but I don't want to raise suspicion," Kael said after some time.
"He also needs all the elixirs. Could you inform the other alchemists to not give out any elixirs to other people than him for the next three days?" Kael asked.
"Sure, it will be done, but many will be unhappy about this," Zyra said.
"Doesn't matter, it's worth it," Kael said.
They kept on talking about how they would ambush him in his room and how they could keep the other shapeshifters close since there was only a window of one minute for them to take his form after he died. Those three days should be good enough, but then they talked about the wind crystals and buying a flying ship to travel there, and that gave him an idea. He could maybe turn the wind crystal into a blood crystal with the help of the concept of essence transfer. It was worth a try; Lucan had even told him that he had bought a formation that could be used to shrink the physical body of energy resources like crystals. He had mostly used it on the crystals the ants had used to help their brute, but the wind crystals were much more powerful. If he managed to shrink an over-one-meter-wide crystal down in size and integrate it into his sword, he wondered how powerful his weapon would be. Yeah, he definitely had to try it out. Tomorrow he would get a bit more when he gathered the promised elixirs from the alchemist.
<--
Seraphina sat in her throne room, deep in thought. The girl her patron had forced on her was growing fast in power and would be very helpful in the coming war. That Thalion would also make a good ally. The question was whether she could trust him. Normally she wouldn't want to have anything to do with a common-born; after all, she was nobility, but in this tutorial, she had no other choice but to play along for now.
It wouldn't take long until they teleported to the fourth stage; then chaos would rule. They only had two more months to get to the fifth stage to fight Ankhet Sekhmara. In the fourth stage, she should be safe on the ocean since most undead were bad in underwater fights, but in the fifth stage, she couldn't stay on the safe water—at least not if she didn't want to be killed by Ankhet or her patron later. The other humans couldn't be trusted, and the orcs had mostly helped the vampires, and no one really knew what the elves were up to. Even her patron couldn't guess, but chances were they had already teleported onto the fifth stage of the tutorial. She didn't like it one bit, and now that little girl Nerissa was scheming against her, which was quite normal for a noble, but in the current situation, why couldn't she just kill the girl? But an assignment to the more dangerous duties would hopefully do it. Then there were Steven and Thorwald. From what her spies reported, both were respected and very powerful, with no one in their camp coming close. Even when they managed to defeat Ankhet Sekhmara, a bloodbath would definitely happen afterward, and she needed to be ready for it.