Born in Blood

Chapter 157 Contingency

Liam's pale face turned dark.

In the worst of ways, he overdid it.

He was too absorbed into the clash and honed everything on winning, brutally maiming the heir of one of the largest noble families in Echoria.

Though, if he went any easier, he definitely would have lost.

To add salt on the wound, he did it in front of an audience!

The best course of action was to use the Surge Burst spell on Rishe's body, not his face. He would've won either way… but Liam chose the more lethal route in the spur of the moment.

'If his family patriarch is what I think he is, there's no doubt in my mind... he would want revenge.'

'Not to mention, if the Royce family hasn't found me yet, they will raise more than a few brows hearing about a darkness cultivator inside the academy.'

In the back of Liam's mind, a contingency plan was already being made.

'Looks like I'll have to make use of Revel's organization much faster than I thought.'

The Headmaster coughed into his fist, making sure he wouldn't stutter. Approaching the field with crisp footsteps, he said two loud words.

"Lawrence wins."

Reye made a few gestures, and the academy token in Liam's pocket began to glow fervently.

"You now hold the House of Honor."

Liam nodded, stored the ring, then made his way towards the exit, the awestruck students creating a spacious path for him to walk through.

Liam casually strolled through and left, thousands of eyes piercing holes in his back.

Instead of entering his house straight away, Liam first entered the Armory and bought the third Psionic Rune.

It had only mild differences compared to the first two. This time, three runes covered its surface, and the number of sides multiplied by three, too.

Behn was there and gave Liam blank stares, but he quickly left before a conversation began.

Then, he made his way to the Storage and bought himself enough Rank 3 magical beasts to last a month of constant forgings.

///

Liam arrived at the Hole.

The huge House of Honor was floating 20 meters away from him, like a lone island above sea.

Dense 'Ora' freely floated around him, naturally healing his body and vitalizing his strength.

Liam stepped on the special teleportation matrix that connected the two together, then tapped his token against the small compartment on the side.

As soon as he did, the matrix glowed, and his surroundings switched.

Liam found himself in a vast hall, the entrance to his mansion. The floor was made of marble, with chandeliers made from crystal hanging from above.

Compared to the luxurious accommodations Liam had been in, they resembled a candle flame compared to his current mansion.

Though, Liam honestly couldn't care less.

Spreading his senses to map out the space, there were too many rooms for him to make use of in one lifetime.

An inscription room, an alchemy lab, a vast underground, a formation space, including countless other spaces for the most trivial things.

The first thing Liam did was enter the underground, heaving an excited breath.

'I can finally begin working on my specializations!'

Classes would resume in a few more days, and Liam had plenty of time to take his tests.

'My focus should be on forging and inscribing a set of blades at least around the second Rank. I should expand my horizons, too. Maybe add meanings to both the beast will and blood.'

'Just making the same blades over and over with a little bit more sharpness sounds dumb. Rin threw exploding daggers at those Blood Bats…'

Though, the deaf girl's element was fire, and everything that had to do with it was destructive and explosive.

'Then I'll focus on the Blood Arts and the King's Eye's abilities.'

Any form of escape or deception was made massively easier with the King's Eye, and Liam stopped underestimating its usage.

///

Liam did the beginning steps of the forging like usual.

His precision and control was lightyears better compared to when he was still a Rank 1 Magus.

He could now afford to add little intricacies that helped bolster the material's endurance, appearance and sharpness – in line with his speed oriented martial arts.

After absorbing the Rank 3 beast will into his mental sphere and defeating it with relative ease, he simply let it "cook".

There was still pressure – the usual for his eye to get bloodshot – but bearable.

'I'll leave it for two days. Any more would be overkill. I feel like I can add another one… best to hold that off for now.'

Right after the beast will fully cooked, he would begin inscribing.

With that, Liam began with the Blood Arts.

Of course, Liam gave up most of them, but hid the two best to himself – the Blooder's and Niveh's.

Kalia didn't bother to thoroughly inspect him since he had already given her nearly everything from the trip.

'Although the Arts are made for vampires, I just have to remove those aspects and attune it to my body.'

Liam divided his day between studying the diagrams, martial arts, cultivation, the King's Eye, and the Psionic Rune.

Not a second was wasted.

Amazingly, Liam's limit with the third rune was only half an hour.

The pressure applied to his sea of consciousness was enough to drain him of half his mental energy in one session, even without the influence from the Rank 3 beast will.

On the other hand, the 'Ora' density did wonders for his steady progress, both for his body and core.

Most of his shattered bones and grievous wounds had already healed up by then.

Two days passed.

Liam was ready for his forging session.

He didn't enter the forgery, since Primordial Forging didn't really require any heat or special tools.

They helped, but weren't necessary.

Liam held out the katana and wakizashi. Single-edged and clean. It was already a lower-tier item, even without the beast will.

Forcing out the bestial energies from his mind, he directed them into the shortsword first, starting with the center blade and spreading it evenly to both sides.

By the end, half of the beast will had entered the blade!