Vile Evil Hides Under The Veil

Eren resumed reading further into Edgar's journal.

"Heh! This House of Samael was made up of a bunch of visionary rankers. Research into mutagens seems to drive it a great deal. It looks like they were preparing to create a dummy mutagen that in itself did not hold any bloodline-related innate spell.

The document I have with me conjectures that the Samaels were aiming to create a blank mutagen. Something that would act as the master key to unlock the pre-established spells obtained by other bloodlines.

Documents also state that the house of Samael did not announce whether their research was successful or not. The documents also speculate that it was a failure.

Still, that was a pretty ambitious project. The sheer efforts they must have taken along with the number of human experiments they must have performed might have made them evil in normal rankers' eyes.

If only… if only I could get my hands on some of their research documents! What a day it would be."

'If only I could get my hands on YOUR journals. Guess we don't always get what we want buddy.'

Eren shook his head in denial and sighed. Then he continued to smoke and read the journal. There was a lot of vague talk about mutagen and the supposed master key along with the most prominent half-blood clans of the bygone era.

Eren also found some brief theories Edgar had penned down regarding someone named Witch of the Enderflame. He had found a personal note from a bunch of normal rankers of that time that said she was akin to a god among rankers.

Edgar claimed that Witch of the Enderflame was an urban legend at the time. Because he had found a couple of documents that described her deeds and found them too ludicrous to be true. So he didn't mention them in his journal.

'My man, Edgar. You had one job!'

Eren sighed as he kept on speed reading Edgar's journal. Soon the journal started talking about a discovery that interested him.

"This is HUGE! I have to write it down to curb my excitement.

The half-bloods still exist on the continent of Anfang! So some of my predictions were true after all. They've gone into hiding though, for some reason.

I had to sign a strict binding contract and had to perform so many tasks to win their confidence. But just yesterday, I was contacted by one of them who told me he'd be willing to maintain contact with me if I did a few things for him. He is a member of a very secretive cultist organization called the Ancients. An organization that I believe to contain the majority of half-blood rankers if not all.

He wants me to be part of a small cultist organization that walks on the path of therianthropy. I'll be leading one of their core projects based on my ranking status and my knowledge in the field. I told him I'd think about it. But the benefits of being part of such an organization are huge. I'd get to dabble in live human experiments while maintaining a link with their contact.

I'll be running an organization named Beast Bloods. Hehehe! The name is enough to hint at the path that the organization has set out on. I don't mind that the Ancients have set up everything about the organization themselves. It seems they had already planned a few things about this stuff a long time ago before contacting me.

All of a sudden, I have so many things to do now. Plus, I have been provided with some research material as well as plenty of funds by my half-blood contact to do a few things for him as well.

Lehan Duchy is just the beginning. I've been encouraged to open branches in other duchies too starting from the duchy of Lionheart. And find trusted colleagues I can count on to run those branches before repeating the same process in another region.

It looks like Beast Bloods won't just be limited to Edinburgh. I guess that the Ancients are gathering more people like me who are interested in the old paths of power and using them to create branches of Beast Bloods.

Maybe they are planning something big. Maybe they just want to create more chaos. Why should I care? I'm just a man on the path to knowledge.

So basically, the coming years are bound to be interesting. I'll just have to make sure I keep the contact in the loop regarding my progress so far using…"

Eren processed all the information he had read so far and his eyes seemed to have shined with a cunning glint. It sounded as if the Beast Bloods were closely linked to the Ancients, which in turn could lead him to the existing half-bloods. If all of Edgar's conjectures and his experiences were true that is.

Eren kept on reading the journal and found out a few things he could use to start his search. He finally finished speed-reading the entire journal before lighting another smoke.

'Maybe I'd have better luck in the Duchy of Lehan. But that is secondary. Contacting the Ancients is not my priority right now. It's more like I shouldn't contact them too quickly due to my artificial half-blood status. The living and breathing master key they think doesn't exist.

I need more information. Everything about the Ancients and the Lost History. Maybe I can blackmail Arizihana again?

Then again, I created a mess last time I came into contact with those guys. I guess I should wait until the dust settles.'

Eren kept on thinking of many things before discarding most of his ideas. The trip to the city of Laurel is more urgent than thinking about these things for him at this point. He needed to start preparing for a lot of things. Therefore, meeting Agatha had to be the top priority.

***********************

The city of Laurel.

Eren was looking at the report handed to him by Agatha while sitting down on a comfy sofa placed inside Agatha's living space. She had opened another shop in the city of Laurel under Eren's guidance and had reserved a well-lit room for herself upstairs in the shop.

The city of Laurel was the focal point for a lot of potioners, herbalists, and merchants. Eren's elementary products were immediately popular when they hit the market. Even his black market products were sold for higher prices.

Agatha had come to realize that opening a potion shop in this city was a very lucrative idea. She had wondered why a thrifty man like Eren was willing to spend so much money to plant his roots here. But now it all made sense to her.

"Tell me how things are coming along, Agatha?"