Chp.24: Dragon's blood

"A better method?" Sarpa murmured. "You mean you can increase my strength faster?"

"Oh, much better. This time I won't teach you any runes or other types of magic. No, this time I'll improve your strength in the true sense of the word" Haku replied, scooping up a few drops of blood and then prodding them. "Drink it. It'll probably be a little painful, but it'll make you stronger than you've ever been"

Sarpa looked at the drops of blood the dragon was handing him, and his eyes widened in surprise. "Wait... so the legends are true!?"

Haku fell silent for a second. "What legends?"

"The legends about the miracles of dragon's blood!" Sarpa replied. "According to the stories, anyone who drinks it becomes super strong! Not only that, but forging weapons or magical items with it makes them invincible! Is that true?"

Haku glared at him very badly. "Sarpa... if you knew such a legend, why didn't you mention it to me when I told you I wanted to make you stronger?" he asked in an irritated voice.

Sarpa shrugged. "I thought you must know the properties of dragon's blood, since you are a dragon too, so if you hadn't told me about it, it must have been because you didn't want to use that method, or more simply because the legend was false" he explained. "After all, it seems absurd to me that someone didn't know such properties of his own body. It's as if I didn't know I had a stomach, or a heart..."

"It's not that simple! Anyone can know that they have a stomach or a heart, because they can sense where the things they eat go and they can feel the heartbeat! To know this property of my blood, I needed to bleed and be lucky enough that someone drank it, and I've never bled much in my life!" Haku snapped trying to find a justification for his ignorance, feeling particularly stung by his pride. "Now, do you want to drink this blood or not?"

Sarpa nodded. "I gladly accept it" he answered. Inside he was literally screaming with joy: if the miracles of dragon blood described in the legends were true, then what Haku was giving him was a real treasure!

Haku noticed the ogre's excitement. "According to legends, how much strength can a dragon's blood provide?" he asked.

Sarpa thought about it. "It may vary according to the legends, but it is generally said that anyone who drinks it can jump forward at least three levels of strength"

Haku now understood the reason for the ogre's happiness. "Mh... the last creature that drank it only increased by one level. I assume this is due to the fact that I'm still very young, while the blood spoken of in the legends belonged to adult dragons"

Sarpa seemed to feel a little disappointed, but despite this his enthusiasm wasn't extinguished: even increasing his strength by just one level would have been a huge leap forward. "Can I?" he said, putting his trembling fingers close to the drops of blood.

Haku nodded. "Take it. Get ready, I'm sure it will be a painful process"

But Sarpa didn't mind the pain. He had gone through many things during those months and by now he was used to gritting his teeth and enduring. If it served to make him stronger, he was willing to suffer the most atrocious punishments. His mouth dropped open and he nearly threw blood into it, swallowing it in seconds.

For the first few seconds nothing happened, but Sarpa clearly felt a huge flow of mana pour down his throat. It was so powerful that when he felt it he was a little afraid: it was as if the power of a giant were condensed in a drop of water. Even though it was only a drop of blood flowing down his esophagus, it seemed to Sarpa like a wave stronger than any river could generate, even during a flood. He remembered that a traveler had once told him about the ocean, and how it sometimes generated huge waves called tsunamis capable of destroying entire coasts in an instant. Sarpa had never seen a tsunami before, but that was the only thing he thought he could compare to the force of what was entering him.

Then, the dragon's blood reached his stomach. Sarpa felt a sharp pain coming from his chest: it was as if the gastric juices had become extremely hotter as soon as they had been touched by that strange substance. The dragon's blood pulsed and heated everything around it as if it were fire, and for a moment Sarpa seriously feared that the walls of his stomach would have began to burn. Then the dragon's blood began to flow through his intestines, releasing heat and pain wherever it went, as if its mere presence were enough to start a fire. And then, finally, it was absorbed into the circulatory system and merged with his blood, making its way to his heart.

Sarpa felt extremely uncomfortable. It was as if the dragon's blood was alive, acting voluntarily to burrow its way to the heart as soon as possible. It seemed to him that he had a horrendous parasite inside his body that dug into his flesh, burning and destroying everything in its path. And then, as soon as it entered the heart, something changed: the mana inside the dragon's blood left it, remaining inside the heart, while the drops of dragon's blood, now reduced to normal blood, merged with his ogre's blood and became normal blood.

Sarpa didn't know the 'mana core' that Haku and his brothers had discovered, but he was aware that the core of his mana was within his heart; he could feel it, because every time he used his mana that's where he drew for it. As soon as the mana previously contained in the dragon's blood reached the ogre's mana source, it wrapped itself around it as if it were an octopus and squeezed it tightly, penetrating deeper and deeper. The mana core heated up rapidly, releasing massive amounts of energy within Sarpa's body.

He suffered truly atrocious pains; it seemed to him that he had lava inside his heart that was shaking like a tentacled monster. His blood seemed to have turned to fire and his flesh burned. The amount of energy released was so great that soon Sarpa was unable to control his limbs, which began to tremble and flail of their own accord in a desperate attempt to release the accumulated energy. Very soon his entire body was in convulsions, and even his internal organs seemed to jump from time to time.

But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, something changed: the mana core began to expand. First very slowly, then faster and faster. The energy released from within was continually reabsorbed and the process continued more rapidly. This generated even more energy which entered his body and generated increasingly strong and violent convulsions. Sarpa was unable to stand and fell to the ground in tremors. And then, it happened.

The mana core suddenly became large enough to hold all the new mana, and expansion stopped. The sudden interruption seemed to generate a shock wave that reverberated through his body, generating a convulsion stronger than any other. Sarpa felt power coursing through his veins, greater power than he had ever seen. Suddenly, he felt able to fold mountains with one finger. It was such an amazing feeling that he couldn't help but widen his eyes and let out a cry of victory.

That feeling subsided moments later, leaving him with nothing but immense calm, but Sarpa knew that something had changed. He could feel it, the immense force that now existed within his body. He squeezed his hands and felt that the grip had become much more iron. Even though he knew this was solely due to the excess mana inside his body, he felt as if his muscles had become as hard as steel. Though he was still in pain from the horrific process he'd been subjected to, he felt euphoric like few times in his life.

He couldn't calculate his actual strength. It had to be at least in the middle stage of the level gold… maybe even in the final stage! Now, Sarpa felt he could stand up to Dharon without using runes, and maybe even defeat him! If indeed he had reached the peak stage of the level gold, then only a few chieftains would have been stronger than him now!

It was an extraordinary feeling. He had never imagined he could feel so powerful! His blood boiled and he was almost tempted to rush to the army camp and challenge all the chieftains to test his newfound strength, and only common sense stopped him from doing so.

Suddenly Haku's head appeared in his field of vision. "Are you done?" he asked him.

"I… I think so" Sarpa replied, looking around. Judging by the broken branches and uprooted bushes around him, he must have been very agitated during the convulsions. Then he noticed with surprise that the position of the sun in the sky had changed. "How much time...?"

"Three hours. You did well. The last one who drank my blood took almost a day to stabilize. Well, that was probably due to the fact that she was highly debilitated" Haku said. "How do you feel now?"

Sarpa got to his feet, flexing his muscles and feeling his new strength with every move. "I've never felt so... so..."

"Extraordinarily powerful? I guess it feels good" Haku said with a hint of envy in his voice. If he could use his mana he would have surely been much stronger than Sarpa and any other living being in the whole forest, instead he had to struggle to stay alive. "Let's test your strength. Knock down that tree"

Haku pointed to a large tree about fifteen meters high and with a trunk so large that three ogres wouldn't have been enough to hug it. Sarpa came up and started pushing it. Normally, he would have had to make a lot of effort just to get the trunk moving, but from the moment he touched it the plant began to lean and the roots split the ground. Sarpa applied a little more force and the mast fell completely with a loud thud.

Sarpa was thrilled. Knocking down a tree that size so easily could only be done by an ogre at the final stage of the level gold!

"It seems that you have reached considerable strength" Haku said. "If we add to it the runes that you already know and that I will continue to teach you, you should be able to push yourself up to the level diamond"

Sarpa's eyes widened. He hadn't thought of that possibility! When he was still a level silver, the runes had allowed him to build his strength up to the level gold. But now that he was a level gold, he could have reached the level diamond using the runes! At that point, the only ones able to stand up to him would have been Volgor, Hoortar and Ostar!

Suddenly Haku cut his paw again and dripped a few more drops of blood. "Here. Drink again"

Sarpa didn't need that the dragon repeated it: he swallowed the blood quickly, expecting to grow stronger again. He was willing to endure the intense pain if it meant gaining more power. However, to his surprise, it was different this time. He could feel the large amount of mana flowing through his body, but when he reached his mana core, this time it was immediately absorbed.

Haku sighed. He had expected it: he had begun to suspect it after Sarpa had revealed to him that the fact that dragon's blood increased strength was known to newcomers. If dragon's blood could increase in strength every time it was drunk, then all newcomers should have to be invincible, since it would have been enough to kill a single dragon to get a huge amount of blood. It was clear that there had to be limits to that miracle. Haku suspected that the mana core strengthened as it absorbed mana and became more efficient at absorbing it, thus preventing uncontrolled growth. This would have explained why as the newcomers leveled up it became more difficult for them to move forward; otherwise, a lot of training would have been enough for any newcomer to reach the top of power.

Therefore, even if he continued to give his blood to Sarpa, it would not have had increased his strength by much. Maybe if he increased the amount he could see new results, but he wasn't willing to bleed out. "It seems that this is the maximum limit I can push you to. It doesn't matter; with the runes, very soon you will be the strongest of your people anyway"

Sarpa looked disappointed to know he couldn't improve any further, but he was glad that he'd reached a sizeable level of strength anyway, so he couldn't complain. "Thank you for your gift" he said respectfully. 

"I'm just fulfilling our deal" Haku replied. "At this time tomorrow, you will be the chieftain of your tribe, Sarpa. And in less than a week, you will be the king of all the ogres in this forest"