Chapter 28: Knighthood

　　Over the next few days, Edward and the others worked out a detailed plan for the "deception".

　　By this time, most of the vampires had woken up and found themselves in a dungeon, guarded by heavily armed elite hunters.

　　Baldwin stepped in, told them the situation at hand, and told them that if they wanted to live, they would have to be good enough to cooperate with the guild.

　　At first, the newborn vampires, naturally, don't behave; they swear at the Baldwin brothers and even try to escape.

　　But after the hunters decapitated several vampires who tried to resist with their silver swords, the survivors wimped out and said they were willing to cooperate with the hunters.

　　Unfortunately, among the rebels was Baldwin's best friend - the old knight.

　　Baldwin couldn't care less about what motivated his old friend to resist, but he knew that violence was necessary at the moment to make the vampires realize the severity of the situation.

　　This is the basis of what Edward calls "power" and "duty". If we show mercy now, we won't be able to control these vampires.

　　So he had to kill the old knight, which was to avoid more killing.

　　After the vampires were put in their place, the hunters uniformly used holy water to cauterize a hexagram spell down the back of the vampire's left hand, which was really only a single [Fatigue] rune, and had the effect of making the vampires fatigue more easily.

　　But the hunters told the vampires that the spell was able to track their location, eavesdrop on their conversations, and remotely erupt with high level holy magic that could kill vampires.

　　For this reason, Edward also drew a huge magic formation on the dungeon wall, on which the two tracking and eavesdropping runes, [Chase] and [Smell], as well as a complete set of [Demon Breaking Arrow] runes were inscribed in detail.

　　In fact, if this spell formation could be engraved on a vampire's body, it would indeed be able to accomplish those functions that the hunters had mentioned. But for one thing, Edward hadn't been able to shrink such a large magic formation to the point where it could be drawn onto a human hand, and for another, the hunters wouldn't be able to learn how to draw this spell.

　　Therefore, the only thing that was actually drawn onto the vampire was a [Fatigue] spell that looked a bit similar to the giant spell, but was very simple.

　　But the trick did bluff the vampires, and there were some among them who knew a little bit about spells and were convinced of the function of the spells on their hands.

　　This, coupled with the fact that Edward had already secretly inscribed a [Smell] spell in the dungeon while they were unconscious, eavesdropping on some of their conversations and repeating them in front of them, made the vampires even less skeptical.

　　Once the vampires were convinced, Baldwin explained the task to them: pretend to be human for a while, go back to their jobs, and find a suitable successor as soon as possible.

　　In addition, these men must support Baldwin's succession to the dead Edmund's title and help Baldwin ascend to the lordship.

　　"Instead of going to the trouble of convincing them that we're saving him, it's better to make it unabashedly obvious that we're going to use them so they won't question our motives." That's how Edward convinced Baldwin.

　　After explaining their mission to the vampires, the hunters explained the rules they had to follow, such as not attacking humans, not revealing their transformation to their families, not transforming others, not colluding with each other, not running away, and so on.

　　Then the hunters also taught them some basic vampire survival techniques, such as the method of mixing the "holy oil" that protects vampires from being burned by the sun. Some of this knowledge came from the Guild's materials, while others were recorded in Edmund's secret letters.

　　Finally, the Guild tells these vampires that while they cannot attack humans, they can pay to store blood slaves.

　　After explaining this, the hunters released the group of vampires in small groups.

　　For the next few hours, the hunters spent a tremendous amount of energy staking out these vampires to make sure they were following the rules.

　　The vast majority of the vampires had obediently returned to their posts, as the hunters had requested, while the few that had broken the rules had been decapitated by the hunters, who had informed the rest of the vampires of the deaths of those who had disobeyed the rules.

　　Meanwhile, Edward and Chief Hector seek out skilled craftsmen to build mechanical shackles to further control the vampires.

　　During this time, Ray-Ray had come to Edward a couple of times as if he wanted to report something significant, but on several occasions Edward just happened to be out of town.

　　Baldwin, on the other hand, is acting like a usurper, enlisting forces, faking his brother's death, and preparing for his own knighting ceremony.

　　These things, in turn, had the full cooperation of his sister-in-law, the former Duchess. Because the Duchess didn't escape being turned into a vampire.

　　When his knighthood ceremony was about to be prepared, and even the nominal sovereign of the Duchy of Constantine, the Royal Family of the Holy Cross Empire, had issued a formal letter of appointment, a serious problem arose.

　　"When I am knighted, the Archbishop will apply holy water to my forehead. My identity will surely be revealed at that time." Baldwin said as he gathered the crowd together.

　　"Can we skip the ceremony?" Edward asked.

　　"It can't be, and it's a test to see if the future lord is a real human."

　　"Can we replace the holy water then?"

　　"It's also impossible, the holy water would be prepared by the church itself. It would be placed in a prominent place while the ceremony is going on, and there would be no chance to take it away and replace it."

　　"Is there any way to replace the holy water without taking it away?"

　　"To replace the holy water, you would have to pour out the original holy water and fill it with ordinary water, right? This is simply not possible. The only chance for other people to get access to the holy water is when the Archbishop announces the beginning of the baptism, he will have the attendants carry the holy water to the Bishop, and at this time basically everyone is staring at the attendant carrying the water, and there is no way to get at it."

　　Edward frowned for a moment, then suddenly said, "What if instead of pouring out the original holy water, we turned it into ordinary water?"

　　Now that he knew the holy water was actually saline, he figured out a way to remove the salt from the water.

　　Electrolysis.

　　He knew that electrolysis of saturated concentrated saline water could electrolyze table salt into sodium hydroxide and release chlorine gas. Theoretically, electrolysis of only saline with a concentration of only 0.9% could achieve a similar effect.

　　I wonder if casting lightning magic on holy water would achieve the electrolysis effect.

　　"I need to experiment." Edward said, "It will require the Master's cooperation, and I expect to suffer some pain."

　　He doesn't explain how electrolysis works, but simply tells Baldwin that it's possible for thunder magic to nullify holy water.

　　Holding on to the dead horse, the Master agreed to Edward's request and cooperated with him to start the experiment.

　　The test is simple, Edward inserts the thumbs of his right and left hands into the holy water to act as the positive and negative electrolysis poles, and then casts thunder magic to create an electric current between the two fingers.

　　Then take the electrolyzed solution and drop it on Baldwin's body to see if it will burn the master.

　　And so it was that after a dozen or so trials, and a dozen or so burns on the Master, Edward finally tried something that would nullify the holy water.

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