Blood Shard

Now that I've mastered pain and healing, and I've seen little improvement in my production rate or my total volume, I'll try that attack spell.

Being able to now drain a gallon of blood a day I'll spend a couple days harvesting to enlarge my pool to practice with.

Two gallons should be enough. I open the Blood Tome to the Blood Shard spell. There was no chanting required, good in a fight that would make it a lot more difficult.

Heading out to the fishing area I found five poles with hooks and strung fish up on them and and dug them into the ground on the bank of the river.

Swimming to the other side I use my hands and imagine a shard forming in the air. Vaporized blood flows out of my hands and slowly condenses into a small seven inch long, spike of blood. Without hesitation I shoot it towards one of the hanging fish.

Missing by a foot the shard flys through a window shattering the glass.

"Bones"

I fire off a couple more, on my fourth try I hit one of the fish ripping it apart. I form another shard, this time making it longer and thinner and launch my new style of shard at the next fish.

Being thinner allows the shard to punch a hole through the fish without ripping the whole thing down. This allows me to have three successful hits per fish. By the time I've blasted all the fish down my aim has drastically increased making two out of every three shots rather then one for four.

I had now spent a little over a month in Mistglen alone and was quite lonely. I decided that at the next sunrise I would head back to that inn and see what kind of towns are nearby. I didn't want to head of in the wrong direction and get lost in the wilds.

In the morning I packed my mage bag with the Blood Tome, dagger, and fifteen silver pieces. I grabbed my travel kit from Agnars house and packed it with a second set of fishermen clothes I found, and food rations. The village seemed to have plenty of dried bread and meat and no other resources. I'd spent hours searching each house and couldn't find a single coin.

Suddenly regretting having released all the horses after the massacre I realize that the walk to the inn will take much longer then the three days it took on horseback.

"Might as well make use of the time"

I took out my dagger and ran it swiftly down the length of my forearm. Concentrating on keeping the wound open I began absorbing the blood rushing out.

I'd never kept a wound open this long it's starting to make me woozy. I allow the wound to close and use all my stored blood to increase my blood production, saving one gallon for emergencies. Even with the three additional gallons strengthening the spell it still takes thirty minutes for me to return to fully recover from the blood loss.

I make a smaller slice, only the length of half my forearm. I'm able to keep this one open until the sun is getting low and I still don't feel too weakened from the blood loss.

Three days pass with me traveling like this, occasionally nibbling on my rations. Storing all the blood rather then use it because it was taking more and more blood to have any impact on my spells.

The traveling combined with constantly losing blood is absolutely exhausting me. Despite my incredible volume of blood and how fast I can replace it.

On my third night I sit against a tree and pull out the Blood Tome in the light of my fire.

The spell of the newest page would improve my physical body in terms of strength, endurance, agility, and coordination. This would certainly help my current condition.

On the next page is a spell to condense my blood. That doesn't quite make sense until I read the description.

'A blood mages blood is certainly worth more then any other. It is said that one drop has the same value as all the blood in a soldier, or an entire army'

This spell sounds incredibly powerful, to get any noticeable results I'll likely need to use a ridiculous amount of blood.

I'll use all my blood except for one gallon to strengthen my body physically before I go to bed. The instructions said better results would come if the spell was cast during physical training.

"For what is a strong mind without a strong body to carry it"

I began chanting and willing my blood pool to feed my muscles. Continuing to chant I rolled over and starting doing pushups. I could feel the difference immediately. My body was almost skin and bone. Miners tend to be due to how little we were paid we weren't able to eat very much. At least not without resorting to stealing.

I had tried to exercise before. A couple months before I left Veoson there had been a girl I was trying to impress. But I could never do more then twenty pushups.

Doing my best to count while chanting I knew I was in the forties. But that was all I could do, my arms were starting to shake. So I rolled over and did a few sit ups. A couple minutes of those was enough so while still chanting I stood up and jogged around. My blood pool getting low so I grabbed a big rock and did a few moves I've seen at Veosons training ground.

Returning to my bed roll I was absolutely exhausted. Even more so then entire days past casting spells. If sleep does get me back to normal I won't be able to travel tomorrow.

The sun rose slowly in the woods, creeping through the tress bit by bit. I felt renewed, refreshed, but on a deeper level. I couldn't tell what it was till I scratched my arm in a casual manner.

My muscles had gone from almost non existent to toned. I wouldn't bet on me in a fight, but this was the most astonishing change I'd seen using the Blood Tome.

I decided to spend the day running instead of walking. With of coarse a bleeding forearm, the blood being directly used to further improve my body. Doing this however I had to break every ten minutes, but since I was jogging I figured I wasn't really losing time.

I did this for a whole second day, though the second day I could job for thirty minutes and then walk for five. At the end of the second day the inn came into view. I slowed my approach so I would not arrive out of breath.

Allowing my arm to heal I entered the inn. There were only a few patrons eating a late supper. Not nearly as crowded as my last time through. I'm guessing that most people had finished their travels inspired by the chaos of the mages deaths.

I slid a silver coin across the bar to the inn keeper

"I'd like a soft bed as I've been on the road for a week. I'm also looking for work if you know of any towns nearby"

"A soft bed I can guarantee, as for work, anything particular your looking for?"

"I've no formal training but guard work is always needed"

Taking into consideration my new body and the fact that I can improve it so easily along with my healing should make that safe.

"Guard work huh?" She looked me up and down. "What I heard was the kingdom is low on guards at the moment, you should be able to get a job in the capital easily enough. Especially what with the trouble brewing between the king and the Inner Circle a new set of high mages"

She slid a key towards me and I took it and thanked her. I had now interest in entering a mages academy, for I had no need of an instructor.

Remore it is, I'll leave early afternoon, I plan on sleeping until the sun is high in the sky.