Setting things up

Lower-level vampires couldn't detect blood cores. What they could detect was the overwhelming blood-qi that exuded out of higher-level vampires. This also meant that they couldn't distinguish between a baron and viscount unless they experienced their full blood-qi.

Now that Keith revealed his blood-qi in its entirety, the man could perceive his energy and roughly assumed his level.

"So now you understand why I have that confidence. But to be honest, this is not the only reason that I'm so confident. Trust me, I know what I am doing." Keith assured him.

"If you say so. I will trust you for now. But if something happens to you, I will tell the city guards immediately." The man said.

"That will never happen," Keith said.

"Alright." The man sighed.

"Now we should get back to the surface. But before that…" Keith looked at a large rock on the side.

He rolled the large rock and covered the entrance of the cavern. This necessarily didn't make it safe, but it was to lessen the chance of corrupted blood-qi seeping out.

"Let's get out of here." Keith said.

They climbed their way up to the surface. Upon reaching, the leader briefed his men about the incident. In his version of the lie, they encountered dozens of ghouls and, while fighting, the other five lost their lives.

None of them were too upset about that. Quite the contrary, some of them were more than happy, as it meant they would get a bigger share of the rewards. Keith was standing on the side, lost in his own thoughts. This place was a good place for him to level up, but it was a risk as well. He didn't know how the runes will react next time.

'I have to learn more about advanced blood techniques. I can't just throw myself into an unknown situation without knowing anything. It's one thing to accumulate blood-qi, and it's another to actually manipulate it to your liking.'

After listening to his uncle and seeing his techniques, he was convinced that blood-qi manipulation in its four disciplines is way more important than just advancing to higher cores. The former allowed the user to direct their blood-qi whichever manner they pleased, the latter was just a reserve of blood-qi without any direction.

It lacked specialization and focus in one particular direction. A viscount with no specialization would fare terribly against a blood warrior or summoner of baron level. Their way of fighting would put the viscount in a disadvantageous position.

And if you bring blood ritualists and Espers into the picture, who could channel blood-qi way more effectively than the other two disciplines, it would be a one-sided battle. Keith got firsthand experience on this. First, it was his uncle showing a third of his power, without even using his Esper abilities.

Now, he saw the application of blood rituals. The users could invoke rituals even in their absence. They were capable of manipulating the surroundings with their runes. At a given moment, the number of attacks they could deliver entirely dependent on their knowledge of the runes.

On top of that, they all had the same physique as the rest of the vampires. The blood warriors had the upper hand in terms of physique, but ritualists could easily solve this by wearing high-grade blood artifacts. And no one is foolish enough to fight with ritualists, as they make all the artifacts for the warriors.

In a sense, blood ritualists were the hardest to deal with. Espers, on the other hand, were mysterious and unpredictable. There was not much information regarding their abilities. It was the most secretive out of all disciplines. Thanks to his uncle, he could at least get a glimpse.

Turning around after his brainstorming session, he saw the leader talking to his subordinates. From what he could infer from the expressions of the mercenaries, the leader handled the situation well. No one was acting out of the ordinary, and all of them were quite calm.

As he was looking their way, the leader also peeked at him. He dispersed his subordinates and approached Keith.

"I've done what I could, now it's all up to you." The leader said.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't have asked you that if I didn't have a plan." Keith replied.

"By the way, we still haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Jovan Catanach, leader of the Arian mercenary group." The man said.

"Drew Bryer." Keith used the name he used to have on earth.

"Bryer… hmm, I don't think I've heard that family name before. With that strength, I'm sure your family is not normal." Jovan said.

Upon hearing this, Keith shot him a cold glare.

"Alright, now that I've covered up the incident, how are we going to get the dozen or so ghoul bodies to show the city guard."

"I will take care of that. You just have to make sure this stays between the two of us." Keith said.

The rest of the team gathered and they prepared to go back to the city. They picked up the ghoul corpse and returned to the city wall. Jovan convinced his subordinates that everyone will get an equal share of the reward. He asked them to take the ghoul corpse first and come back later.

They weren't experienced mercenaries as all of them were lower than 6th level of the blood-condensing phase. No one wanted to defy his commands, as they were new.

In the meantime, Keith brought a dozen of ghoul corpses that he killed from the first encounter. He put them just at the entrance of the cave. They were relatively weak ghouls at 6th level of the blood condensing phase. But to the regular vampires, they were considered powerful.

After setting everything up, he went back to the entrance and made sure to cover the entrance of the cavern with more rocks and soil and properly buried it.

"Now that looks better. Nobody will know what's in there unless a higher viscount comes here. And uncle Brad is the only viscount in this area. Knowing him as I do, he won't come here even if there were 100 lower-level ghouls."