Chapter 28: How Vampires Rise Through the Ranks

However, Bobr cannot die just yet. Lady Aldos needs him to secure more of the family's power and resources.

Celiad needs blood, and it must be provided within these next few days.

Whom should he choose?

There is more than one person in the Aldos family who deserves to die; a suitable candidate can always be found.

Zohan now has a new idea: can Celiad feed on the blood of magical beasts?

This thought stems primarily from his knowledge of blood thralls. As far as he knows, a newly created blood thrall is a fifth-tier magical beast—an incredibly powerful entity. For many ordinary mages, controlling a fifth-tier magical beast is enough to elevate them into the ranks of the powerful, bringing both fame and fortune.

The fifth tier is not the limit for a blood thrall; it can be nurtured and grown further. As for how, Zohan does not know... but he can experiment.

For instance, Mahait leads a large pack of magic wolves. If their blood were provided to Celiad, would it allow her to evolve more effectively?

Zohan pondered the feasibility of this and opened the book he had brought with him. It was his teacher’s travelogue, which contained a section on "vampires."

"Vampires" are the advanced form of blood thralls. Once a blood thrall evolves to the seventh tier, it is classified as a vampire. Vampires can continue to advance even further.

Zohan found his teacher’s notes:

[Ordinary women experience a "red tide" once a month, lasting two to eight days—averaging four to six—with a total blood loss of about 20 to 60 milliliters. This blood is often regarded as dirty, impure, and filthy, but in the eyes of a vampire, this is not the case at all. Of course, vampires, who pride themselves on elegance and nobility and consider themselves the race closest to myth—on par with dragons and elves—merely tolerate it; they do not actually prey on the red tide of common women.]

[However, there are outliers among vampires, such as Alia Wallenstein. After hundreds of years of research, she determined that the red tide of certain powerful female mages possesses an extraordinary amplifying effect on vampires.]

[Certain ones? How are they screened? I used various magical effects to disguise myself as a handsome and charming male vampire, successfully drawing close to Alia and making her infatuated with me. She then revealed this research result to me. Firstly, the subject must be a powerful female mage—there is no doubt about that, as men do not have a red tide. Secondly, the female mage must be pure—I, Jormungandr, am purer than the sacred springs in the Divine Kingdom that are said to cleanse all sins and evils. Finally, such a female mage must have a lifespan of over a thousand years, possess enough magical power to solidify into substance, and the more types of magic she practices, the greater the effect her red tide has on a vampire.]

Reading this, Zohan understood why the vampires in his teacher's travelogue had endlessly hunted her or issued warrants for her capture. The reason Alia was the most fanatical was that the teacher had eventually revealed she was a woman. Alia felt her emotions had been deceived, and the object of her obsession—the source of the red tide she craved—was, in fact, the one who had played her.

Even when Jormungandr retired to the island of Ye-Lantis with her companions after establishing the Sakura-Orland Empire, Alia was still hunting for news of her.

Zohan also realized that it wasn't that his teacher was stingy; rather, how could a powerful being like her possibly have a monthly red tide like an ordinary woman? Jormungandr’s cycle was completely irregular, with the shortest interval being a century, and sometimes it would take several hundred years. In the sixteen years they spent on Ye-Lantis, Jormungandr never once showed the symptoms of cold limbs, abdominal pain, or fatigue that women typically experienced during their red tide. Naturally, this left no opportunity for Zohan to be attentive—to offer hot water, use hot water bottles, or massage her stomach—those little tricks were never put to use!

Sigh, women who are too powerful always make men feel like mere ornaments by their side. This is likely one of the reasons Zohan is willing to help Lady Aldos; she makes him feel completely different—fulfilling his vanity, his need to be needed, and the sense of accomplishment that comes with being worshipped.

"Based on this text, it is certain that if there were a female mage who met the criteria, her red tide could accelerate Celiad's growth," Zohan concluded. "But is it truly just the red tide? Ultimately, isn't it because these bodily fluids contain immense magical energy?"

Zohan mused that his teacher's travelogue merely recorded the facts, and the key was to deduce the underlying principles and laws from the phenomena.

Corresponding to the female red tide would be the male "spontaneous emission" phenomenon. Could the substance emitted by powerful male mages also possess the efficacy to promote the growth of blood thralls?

He could conduct an experiment. Zohan nodded solemnly; he had always made it a habit to verify his ideas through experimentation. Do not assume that clinical medicine does not require experiments and research—it is the same! Becoming a mage later only furthered Zohan's passion for experimentation.

But the critical issue now is that Lady Aldos is by his side, and she is rather clingy. Zohan has no objective conditions to produce another "spontaneous emission." Furthermore, this is the Aldos estate, and Lady Aldos is Celiad's mother; he should not be conducting such experiments.

Both medicine and magic require normal ethical and legal systems for regulation; otherwise, it is easy to give birth to events that corrupt moral standards and shake the stable order of human society. On the Roland Continent, there are countless examples of inhumane tragedies and endless disasters caused by mages who did as they pleased.

"Celiad, the truth is that breaking through the blood thrall levels to become a vampire also requires luck. Just like Alia—she met a powerful, pure female mage like my teacher, yet she never had the chance to obtain the teacher's red tide."

Zohan would be willing to help Celiad, but his teacher would likely be unwilling, so what good would that do? The key is that this method of using the red tide for advancement isn't the disgusting act of drinking that most people imagine. It is not made into a potion to be consumed, but requires an extremely intimate state, transitioning from one person's abdomen to another's. It is somewhat akin to the little games played by lonely noblewomen and socialites when they are bored—that kind of thing between women—you know what I mean, right?

His teacher probably wrote all of this in her travelogue without ever considering that she would take on a student like Zohan who would eventually see it.

Zohan read for a while, but