Drake

We were all ecstatic. The process had hurt obviously but it made us at least 50% more powerful, all in a couple of hours. It was quite mind blowing.

But what I really wanted to do was to test how it affected my forms, and to see if I could make any more. I had gotten quite proficient at switching through the forms quickly, making me an annoying opponent to fight against because my attack style would change rapidly, not giving them room to prepare for the next set of attacks.

But there were definitely drawbacks. I had to train myself in multiple different fighting styles so that I could get the most out of each form. In consulting my forms I had gotten tips from Brock for my Brute form, Minya for my Rogue form, Emily for my Blood Mage form and even gotten some pointers from Kent on how to fight and cast spells at the same time.

It wasn’t like they were all professionals of their craft, but they were certainly better than me. The only way I could rival them in my normal form was with sheer cunning. They were just too skilled and powerful, I could only keep up by using my forms. But that was why I made them.

The forms were very versatile and I could switch between them with a thought, making my fighting techniques revolve around versatility. I also had my Ultimate form, but I could only keep it up for a couple of seconds, it was just too blood hungry. When using it my blood reserves dropped by an 8th every second, and that was when I was at my max.

I would need to upgrade my Bloody Strength trait so that I could have more blood and absorb it more easily. With even just a slight boost in capacity I would become so much more powerful. My blood pool could currently hold up to 10 pints, about as much as I had in my body.

I used Brute form and suddenly my upper body bulked up and my legs grew visibly weaker. Brock had suggested putting slightly more power into the legs but I decided against it. Brute form was me preparing to hit as hard as possible, not be flexible and fast. I wanted to crush my opponents so utterly that they couldn’t get back up again.

I had updated Brute form and used a tweak of blood magic to make the fists have bone spikes on them. I had gotten the inspiration after watching Kent use his Dragon scales in a similar manner. My Brute form also now had a form of armor, only covering the upper body. It was made of a mix of bone and cartilage to make it both strong but still have joints.

Next up, we had my Rogue form. I had learned a lot from Minya but she could still out run me even when I was in Rogue form. I had added cleat like spikes to the bottoms of my feet, also made of bone. After learning I could manipulate bone by using Yin Yang dao I had added it to all of my forms. Alongside the cleats, my Rogue form also no longer had hands; instead they were long slender blades that extended from the fingers, fusing them together. I still had a thumb but the other fingers had combined to create a blade.

My Blood Mage had undergone the least addition, with a simple bone wand being the only difference. Emily had shown me the difference between a normal spell and a wand casted spell. The difference was almost 2x better. After seeing this I immediately added a wand and played around with it. My spells were far better and allowed my to even manipulate them a little more. I had changed blood slash into blood spear and blood bolt and other projectiles made of blood, I spent over 2 hours playing with my spells and skills.

My Ultimate form had undergone the most change. It now had full bone armor, two bone longswords, which had wand-like functions, making them even more efficient when casting spells, and I had enforced all of the blood channels making them keep more of the blood mana contained.

Overall my power had risen by a lot. My forms were more durable and my… wait! More durable? I think I had an idea of what my next form would look like.

Sitting down I turned my eyes inwards. I carefully took my blood dao and started to make everything stronger and denser making it as tough as possible. After I did my skin I moved deeper, making my blood denser and making all of my soft tissue more stretchy and tough. Moving even deeper I made my heart and other major organs tougher and more powerful, making my regenerative properties stronger.

After I made my body strong enough, I started to use my Yinyang dao. Duplicating my bones and then forming it around my entire body forming a suit of armor for myself. I paid extra attention to my joints making hard cartilage that gave me room to move while also remaining durable. I continued to improve my armor until I could find no flaws. It was all a single piece of bone that stretched to cover my entire body.

I stood up and looked down at myself doing a quick once over. My body looked great, I was a little wider and had lost a couple inches but other than that my body was much the same on the outside.

I present to you… The Tank form! It was designed to take as many hits as it could while also keeping me in top condition. I ‘saved’ the form so that I could make it whenever I wanted and stood up, stretching. I wanted to create another new form but I didn’t have any ideas.

I watched as everyone slowly returned, groaning and soaking wet. They still smelled pretty bad but it was considerably better than me. I had tried my best to scrub myself off, but the muck stuck to me like mud and I wasn’t able to get it all off.

I watched as some of them sat down and started to meditate on the dao. With a jolt I remembered that the quest was still active! I needed to get two daos in 3-4 days! I didn’t know the exact date but I didn’t really care. I will get it done today or tomorrow. Most likely tomorrow.

That got me thinking, though. Was it possible to create a form that made it easier to meditate? Was that even possible? I was willing to try. I sat down in a classic lotus position, hands resting on my legs.

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I used blood dao to look deeper in me watching as my brain fired and the connections that it formed. I was going to start messing around with it before I realized this was my brain we were talking about, I shouldn’t just mess with it without any knowledge beforehand.

Time to get Emily. Both for medical knowledge and healing if things turned… fun.

****

I sat back down, Emily sitting right across from me. She waves her hand and a diagram of the human brain appears. She briefly looks at my head and nods, shifting the diagram slightly as she makes it look exactly like my real brain, same size, same shape, same everything.

She looks at me and a grim expression haunts her face. “Before we begin I just want you to know that there is a chance that I will not be able to reverse the damage that your brain receives if you mess up.” She told me seriously, watching my face closely.

I took a deep breath and steadied myself, nodding my head, equally as serious.

She looked deep into my eyes and just sighs. “Okay, let's start. This part is called your frontal lobe. This part is called your-” she starts to go full nerd on me, showing me the different parts of the brain and what they do. I try to pay attention but most of the information glosses over my head.

What I do catch is what she wants me to enhance. “You are trying to make meditation easier right? Then I would advise you to upgrade your cerebrum, it helps with your conscious thinking and making it stronger would most likely help you to understand the dao. On the other hand though, what you are doing has never been done before so we really don’t know what will happen. You could explode, or you could become some sort of super genius, and since this is the part that affects your personality, you could change drastically. Anything is possible.” She told me, starting to rant.

I stopped her. “Just help me with the theory and healing and I will do the rest.” I told her trying to get her back on track.

She nodded again and went to show me all of the parts of the brain that made connections, helped with quick thinking, and many other bits and pieces that made up the human brain. It was really quite fascinating, learning about how things worked and why we did things the way we did. I loved learning about it.

Now it was time to leave the theory and actually do it, not just sit and talk about it.

Taking a deep breath I delved into my brain. I tweaked and poked, strengthened the things I wanted more of and weakened the things I didn’t want as much, of course I had talked at length with Emily about what I should change and what I should not change.

I occasionally left my brainspace and talked to Emily so that she could check up on me before letting me go on. As I got closer and closer to being done, I realized that I was taking in more information faster and easier as time went on. My brain was slowly becoming more powerful!

I told Emily and she was ecstatic. Running some tests on me she found my cognitive capabilities to be roughly 60% better than before. That was insane!

She ran more and more tests but the results were always the same.

I did some more tinkering with my brain before I decided to ‘save’ the form.

I saved it and changed back to my original. Everything felt… off somehow. Like the world was moving faster and I was more sluggish. I didn’t like it, it felt like everything was muffled and my senses were far worse. I couldn’t see, hear, smell, or feel anything nearly as good as before.

The feeling of my clothes rubbing against me felt like I wasn’t even touching it, while before I had to block it out to focus. My senses were just inferior in this state.

As I continued to realize just how great the ability to change my brain was, I suddenly felt my vision closing in. It wasn’t natural either, it felt like I was losing my vision overtime, and I was becoming blind. As I struggled to focus my brain felt weaker, and I crumpled to the ground, blacking out.

Drakes stat sheet

Drake O. Level: 28 (F-Grade) Race: Human-Vampire Bloodline: Human 9 pints, Vampire 1 pint Class: Bloodletter Stats: Body: 256 (Endurance & Vitality Body Upgrade) Mind: 134 Spirit: 96 Traits: Evolution(Human), Bloody Strength(Vampire) Skills: Sword Mastery(Human+Vampire), Vampiric Touch(Vampire) Spells: Weak Blood Siphon, Weak Blood Slash, Weak Hemorrage Path: Path of Crimson Blood Dao: Dao Seed of Blood, Dao Seed of YinYang

Drakes forms (newer additions are bolded)

Brute: A lot of added strength to the hands, forearms and biceps. A decent amount of strength added to pecs and abs. A lot of strength taken from the calves and thighs, with a little strength taken from the feet. It's harder to think clearly in this form. Very low energy consumption but you can hit harder by adding more energy to the arms, resulting in far harder hits. Bone armor on the upper body, Bone club.

Rogue: A lot of added strength to the feet, calves and thighs. A decent amount of strength added to the skull and eyes, enhancing reflexes and eyesight. A lot of strength taken from the hands and forearms, with a little strength taken from the biceps. The entire body becomes more aerodynamic but the body also becomes more brittle and bones are more likely to crack. the faster you go the faster energy is consumed. Bone Daggers and minimal bone armor around legs and face.

Blood mage: A lot of added strength to the brain, bloodstream and eyes. A decent amount of strength to fingers and joints, enhancing flexibility. A lot of strength taken from the hands, feet, forearms, calves, biceps and thighs. A little strength taken from the pecs and abs, lowering durability. Spells and skills in relation to blood are 10x easier to cast and you recover far faster in this state. Body is all around weak. Slight strain on the body and requires more energy to cast spells and skills. Bone wand.

Ultimate. A ton of added strength to the upper body, lower body and skull. A decent amount of strength is added to the circulatory system and the skeletal system, enhancing recovery speed and durability. A small amount of speed taken from joints, reducing flexibility. Power is consumed at a very large rate but blood state is almost 20x more effective in this state. Induces massive strain on the body and will even shut down if held for too long. Bone armor and twin bone swords.

Normal: all strength is evenly distributed with slightly more emphasis on the upper body. Blood flows quite easily slightly enhancing spells and skills. No energy consumption required.

Tank: All strength is focused on durability with bone armor around the entire body. Is used to take hard hits.

Daoist: The brain is enhanced to a large degree. All of the brain's cognitive capabilities are enhanced making for an easier meditation session. Very good for meditation and thinking things out. All senses are also enhanced to a large degree.