Blood Limit

The room went silent and all eyes fell upon Jessie and Aurik as the former pinned the latter down on the table. 

"Who's that?"

"He's the new guy."

"There's a new guy?"

"Yeah, Knight Horace brought him into the training room earlier."

"I see. That explains why he's behaving like that."

"Must be his first drink..."

Whispers and murmurs filled the room as everyone watched the point of interest intently. They could all remember drinking blood for the first time so none of them could judge Aurik for his actions because they were the same way. All they wanted now was to see how the events would unfold.

"Calm down, Aurik!" Jessie said with a strained voice as she fought to keep the young man in place. Even though she was in an advantageous position, Jessie found that she had to use all her strength just to keep him from moving, a clear sign that he was physically stronger than her.

Aurik was breathing heavily as he tried to break free but no matter how much force he used the strange angle his arm was being held at prevented him from applying his full strength.

The more he tried the more energy he used and after almost a full minute of effort he started to run out of stamina. His overwhelming desire to drink blood began to recede as he lost his energy, allowing his mind to clear.

The force he was applying with his arm started to lessen slowly as he regained his calm and Jessie realized that he had come back to his senses, for the most part at least. She slowly released his arm and stepped away from him, allowing Aurik to climb back onto his feet.

"I'm alright now." He said while raising a hand as a sign of apology. "I don't know what came over me."

"It's alright... We've all been there before so don't worry about it too much." Jessie said as she walked around to the other side of the table and took a seat, gesturing for Aurik to join her once again.

Her eyes flickered over to her goblet, still half full with blood, and figured it would be better to remove the source of the problem. She picked up the goblet and downed the remaining liquid in a few large gulps before placing it down on the table with a sorrowful expression.

'I really wanted to savour it...' She thought with regret as she pushed the goblet away and looked at Aurik, who had taken a seat opposite her.

The room had returned to how it was before, with everyone continuing their conversations as though nothing had happened. It would have surprised Aurik to see this if he hadn't heard what Jessie told him a few seconds ago.

"We've all been there before." Aurik repeated. "It's what you said just now." Although he didn't say it, it was clear from his tone that Aurik meant this as a question and wanted an explanation.

"Remember when I told you that you shouldn't drink too much blood too quickly or you'll go insane?" Jessie paused until Aurik nodded in confirmation. "Good, then listen well because this is important. You obviously know how enjoyable it is to drink blood and because of that it's possible for us to become addicted like it's some kind of drug.

The best way to prevent that from happening is to limit how much blood you drink and how often you drink it so that that doesn't happen. You don't have to worry about that too much though since it's all been taken care of for us." Jessie gestured to the cafeteria around them before she continued.

"As soldiers we need to drink blood once a week to survive, but if we wait that long then we'll only be sustaining ourselves and won't be able to grow stronger. At some point in the past they discovered that the sweet spot is five days, if we drink that often then we can grow stronger without risk of becoming Blood Crazed."

Although the information itself was surprising to Aurik, his real surprise came from the fact that Jessie answered his question without going on a rant about something unrelated.

"So I lost control because I drank blood yesterday and then had some more again today?" 

Jessie tapped a finger against her chin and thought for a moment before answering.

"Well, that might have made it worse but all vampires struggle to control themselves when they drink blood the first few times. It's almost like how people who take drugs start to build up a resistance to it after using it enough."

"Doesn't that mean we could start drinking more often after a certain amount of time? As our tolerance increases?"

Jessie shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. It's possible for a Soldier to drink blood once every four days for a short period of time but they can't sustain that for long without losing control. Most only attempt such a thing if they feel like they are close to evolving and want to give themselves a boost to break through."

"That's unfortunate..." Aurik had already started thinking about building up his tolerance so he could grow stronger faster but now he just felt a bit disappointed. "From what I understand these numbers only apply to Soldiers, does that mean it changes as we evolve?"

Jessie nodded with a slight smile on her face. "That's right! My mentor, Horace, told me that Knights only need to drink blood once every two weeks but they are able to drink every three days without a problem. I don't know about higher than that but it definitely changes as we evolve."

'If everything she's told me is true then it sounds like becoming a Knight is big deal. When you evolve you gain new abilities, get stronger, don't need to feed as often and can drink blood more regularly to get stronger even faster. If these are the benefits a Knight receives then surely the evolution after that must be just as amazing.'

Aurik smiled with excitement but decided it would be best to think about the later evolutions after he became a Knight. Knowing about something that's too far in the future to be of help can sometimes become a detriment, after all.