Transmutation

With those words said, Tristan completely forgot about what had transpired earlier, his attention fully focused towards the spear that had been placed on the floor beside him. After that, he focused his gaze towards the vial of blood Valyr held, watching as the latter pulled out the stopper before tilting it downward, pouring out the contents all over the surface of the wooden spear.

Although a small amount of it had gotten on the stone floor of the smithy, Tristan did not mind it at all. Or better yet, he ignored the fact that the floor of the smithy had been sullied, his gaze fixated towards what might happen when the blood from the Lesser Tidemother came into contact with Valyr's wooden spear.

Even though Tristan had utilized the Lesser Tidemother's blood in some of the equipment he had forged in the past, this was the first time he was going to see what the Lesser Tidemother's blood would do to a weapon with a weapon bond attached. He knew that the blood would either give the equipment a small bonus to its stats, or either change its appearance to have a motif related to the Lesser Tidemother, but he did not know how a weapon bond would affect that.

'It would have been nice if I could have experimented with Damian's sword in the past and poured it with the Tidemother's blood. In any case, better late than never.' With rapt attention, he watched as the wooden spear gradually absorbed the blood poured all over its surface. Naturally, Valyr was watching as well, his eyes slightly widening in surprise as he felt that the connection between him and the spear was gradually strengthening the more blood it absorbed.

Eventually, the blood of the Lesser Tidemother that stuck onto the wooden spear's surface had been all siphoned by the spear itself. Soon, it started to tremble, slightly moving to and fro on the floor as the two watched it intently, thinking of the spear as something with life in it rather than something inanimate.

Fortunately, this phenomenon did not last for longer, gradually waning a couple minutes in before fully ceasing around five minutes later. With that, the wooden spear laid there on the ground, seemingly waiting for either of the two to pick it up. Seeing as it did not move any further, Valyr bent down and picked up the spear, examining if there were any changes to the spear whatsoever.

"Wait… what the hell?" After looking at it for a short while, a change soon became apparent to Valyr, prompting him to raise an eyebrow as he noticed that the wood of the spear had taken on a tinge of light red. Though it was a subtle change if one looked at it from afar, with how closely he examined it, it was more or less inevitable for him to discover it.

"What's wrong?" Naturally, Tristan could not help but become curious, wondering what Valyr had seen on the spear. In response to the question, Valyr handed his spear over to Tristan, with the latter eventually noticing the slight change as well. "Huh… it's slightly red."

"Do you think it's because of the dried blood on the surface?" Valyr could not help but ask, recalling how he had not washed the spear clean after using it, nor had he done maintenance on it.

"We could wash it down with a bit of water if you want." Tristan shrugged his shoulders as he suggested, to which Valyr nodded in agreement. With that, Tristan headed to the back of the smithy for a bit, returning with a bucket of water and a dirty washcloth a couple minutes later.

Pouring the water all over the spear, Tristan then wiped off the dried blood on its surface, putting a bit of force into it to make sure every bit of dried blood was removed from it. Surprisingly, even after he had wiped off the dried blood from the spear, the wood making up the spear still had a light red tinge to it. "With this, we've confirmed that it wasn't the dried blood on the spear making it red."

"The wood has really turned light red?" Making a mental note to routinely wash his spear clean every so often, Valyr had a slightly incredulous expression on his face. After that, he checked the connection between him and the spear, wondering if there were any changes to it aside from the strengthening.

Thankfully, after sensing it for a bit, he noticed that the spear seemed to be telling him that it desired even more of the blood he had poured all over it. Slightly fearful yet at the same time curious as to how many vials of the Lesser Tidemother's blood it could absorb until it was satisfied, he told Tristan to put the spear down on the floor once more before pouring another vial of the blood on its surface.

"You're…pouring another vial?" Satisfied with the information he had found out from the experiment, Tristan was left at a slight loss for words after seeing Valyr poured yet another vial on his spear. At first, he thought that nothing was going to happen to the spear. After all, he had also experimented pouring a second vial on other pieces of equipment in the first, with the end result him having to mop the floor clean.

However, his skepticism quickly turned into stupefaction as the wooden spear started to absorb the blood once more, the wood turning more and more red as the blood on its surface gradually disappeared. With his expression slightly aghast, he looked at Valyr with confusion. "Did you know this would happen?"

"I'm as clueless as you are." Valyr shrugged his shoulders. "All I did was sense the connection between me and the weapon. It told me that it wanted more of the blood, so I gave it more."

"Speaking of which, we might need more of those vials." Hearing those words come out of Valyr's mouth, Tristan quickly stood up and headed to another part of the smithy, placing the box of vials he had brought last night to the inn near the wooden spear a few minutes later. At this moment, his attention was fully on the wooden spear, fascinated that a spear could absorb so much blood just because of a single weapon bond.

With that, more and more vials of the Lesser Tidemother's blood were dumped onto the spear, with the spear greedily gobbling it up as if it were its last meal. While that was happening, the wood making up the spear eventually turned a bright red, then gradually darkened as it became more and more crimson.

Eventually, by the time Valyr had poured the 20th vial of Lesser Tidemother Blood on the wooden spear, the connection between him and the spear seemed to have reached its limit for strengthening, with the spear telling him that it could not handle any more blood. With that, Valyr told Tristan that the spear had reached its limit, prompting the latter to place the box of blood vials to the side as the two watched the spear undergo its final transformation.

Thump!

At the very instant the spear had absorbed the final bits of blood from the Lesser Tidemother on its surface, a loud thump resounded from within the spear, echoing throughout the entire smithy as both Tristan and Valyr watched as the spear's outermost layer flaked off, as if it were a creature shedding its skin.

Little by little, the new appearance of the spear was shown to the two, with the spear's surface becoming smooth as the entire spear was a dark yet elegant deep crimson. Surprisingly, a few intricate-looking tendrils extended out of the spear tip's base, which looked quite similar to the legs of the Lesser Tidemother.

Though, aside from the visual change to the spear, the connection between Valyr and the spear had also changed as well, giving Valyr the feeling that he could understand more of the spear's thoughts, as if the two had gotten closer in an instant. However, there still existed a big chasm between him and the two, though Valyr did not mind that at all. After all, the chasm between him and the spear had gotten smaller because of this transformation, which meant that their bond was getting closer to reaching a higher level.

Seeing that the spear was completely saturated with the Lesser Tidemother's blood, Valyr went ahead and slowly picked it up, feeling that the spear had gained a bit more heft to it after absorbing all of those blood. Soon after, a notification sound resounded in his mind, prompting him to take a look at the notification that had appeared, only for his eyes to widen in surprise.

"What?!"

Ding!

[Your 'Wooden Spear' has undergone a transmutation.]

[Due to its transmutation, its name has changed to 'Tideblood Spear'.]