Blood Magic Notes

Darrell's Hunting Gear Shop.

Before he was crippled, Old Darryl had been the finest hunter in Driftwood Town and the Hunter's Guild's only official member in this little town on the Falaro Continent.

Though he no longer ventured into the mountains and forests, the hunting gear shop he ran remained very prosperous, sometimes even drawing customers from outside town.

"Mr. Darrell, is my order ready?"

"Little Gagnor, is that you? You came at just the right time. I finished all of these yesterday." Old Darryl smiled as he limped over to a wooden chest.

He opened it and took out several items one after another. "A set of Wolfskin Armor, a Wolf-Sinew Bow, and twelve Fletched Arrows... But don't mind me asking—are feathers that long really useful?"

The Fire Wolf's corpse had not been damaged too badly by the blaze, so Gagnor had asked Old Darryl to turn it into this hunting gear. The quality was naturally excellent; both the materials and craftsmanship were the best Driftwood Town had to offer.

Gagnor took the gear. "I'm experimenting with some unusual archery techniques."

"Ah, youth. Never short on wild ideas." Old Darryl chuckled and did not press further, then suddenly remembered something. "Oh, right. There's this too—a Flint Fang."

He handed Gagnor a severed Fire Wolf canine. "This thing is much more useful than flint, though naturally, it's much more dangerous too."

"Thank you for your trouble."

Gagnor gave Old Darryl four Silver Coins for the workmanship.

In truth, the workmanship cost far more than four Silver Coins, but most of it had been offset by the remaining materials from the Fire Wolf's corpse—mainly the Flint Fangs. As an exceptionally convenient fire-starting tool, the teeth of low-level fire magical beasts were usually the most valuable part of their bodies.

After returning to the church, Gagnor immediately put on the Wolfskin Armor.

Winter had arrived, and the armor was both sturdy and warm, leaving him quite satisfied.

He then tested the Wolf-Sinew Bow and Fletched Arrows. Combined with Swift Breeze, their performance was also outstanding.

Once he was done, he headed alone into Driftwood Forest and made his way to the spot where he had buried the book, digging up the nameless volume.

Holding the book in his hand, Gagnor took out the key, inserted it into the lock, and gave it a gentle turn. With a soft click, the lock sprang open.

He opened the cover, and a line of unfamiliar large characters came into view.

He could not recognize the writing at all, but fortunately, Priest Green had already translated and annotated it for him.

Through Priest Green's translation, Gagnor learned the meaning of the opening line.

Blood Magic Notes!

Gagnor continued turning the pages and gradually understood the book's origins and contents.

No wonder he could not recognize the writing. This Blood Magic Notes was actually a relic of the Blood Elves, who were said to have vanished completely more than a century ago. People of the present could only understand their writing by consulting documents and ancient texts.

Generally speaking, elves were considered a beautiful and peace-loving intelligent race, but the Blood Elves were an exception.

Just as their name suggested, the Blood Elves were a bloodthirsty race.

Every member of this race possessed a gruesome ability: by consuming corpses, they could obtain the memories those corpses had possessed in life.

Through large-scale corpse-eating and tomb robbing, the Blood Elf Empire acquired vast amounts of ancient knowledge that had otherwise been lost. This brought their magical achievements to unprecedented heights, making them the most glorious magical empire in Falaro's history.

But every empire had its day of ruin, and the Blood Elf Empire was no exception.

Their corpse-eating ability was both a blessing and a curse. It caused a culture of mutual slaughter to flourish throughout the empire, ultimately leading to its collapse.

After the empire fell apart, all the races of the Falaro Continent hunted down and purged the Blood Elves.

By now, Blood Elves existed only in distant legends—so distant that people had forgotten their brutal past and instead developed romantic fantasies about them. Several love stories widely sung by bards featured so-called "Blood Elf princes" as their protagonists.

The author of Blood Magic Notes was a Blood Elf alchemist. Its contents were extensive, covering magic, magic patterns, alchemy, and more, though most of it was related to blood.

For instance, the ritual Priest Green had performed was a sacrifice to the Blood Moon Goddess. A successful living sacrifice could grant the sacrificer tremendous power.

Of course, according to Blood Elf records, the offerings in the Blood Moon Ritual were enemies defeated by the empire—at least in theory.

For someone like Priest Green to sacrifice his own people was a little too extreme even by Blood Elf standards.

Much as Gagnor had previously guessed, aside from extreme and cruel magic like human sacrifice, Blood Magic Notes actually contained some relatively normal material.

For example, it described using magical beast blood as an ingredient for making potions.

Gagnor was very interested in this, not only because the approach was unusual, but more importantly because the notes also recorded several high-level formulas—and high-level formulas were usually extremely expensive.

He felt that, if the risks were ignored, auctioning off the formulas for these "blood potions" could fetch at least a hundred gold coins.

Moreover, Priest Green had translated only half of Blood Magic Notes. The other half remained untranslated, and who knew what other treasures it contained.

What a treasure!

I have to hide it well!

Gagnor locked the notes, stored them in his leather bag, and returned to Driftwood Town by the same route.

Along the way, he spotted a wild deer. The Wolf-Sinew Bow got a small taste of action and took it down easily.

Unfortunately, he did not have Raymond's strength. By the time he dragged the deer's corpse back to town, he was nearly exhausted.

Once in town, Gagnor sold the deer directly to the tavern and ordered some food for himself to replenish his strength.

As he ate, a sudden commotion broke out in the tavern. Then came the owner's enthusiastic booming voice. "Good news, everyone! A bard has come to the tavern today. Let's give a warm welcome to Kalkulo, from the Liebrand Kingdom!"

Before his words had even faded, a man in loose robes walked to the center of the tavern under the diners' gazes.

He looked very young, perhaps not even twenty. He was tall and slender, with long, slightly curly hair and fair skin—the very image people had of a bard.

"Hey, pretty boy, are you really from the Liebrand Kingdom?" one diner called out.

Perhaps Kalkulo had a good temper, or perhaps he was already used to the impolite form of address. He did not get angry, merely smiling faintly. "Of course. I'm a genuine Libland native."

His accent was vastly different from the local one, and the listeners immediately began murmuring among themselves.

"That really is a northern accent."

"In that case, can you tell us something new? At least don't tell us another saint's tale or some Blood Elf prince's romance like other bards do," someone suggested.

Kalkulo looked completely confident. "Of course. The story I'm going to tell is one you definitely haven't heard before!"

At once, everyone in the tavern grew curious. "What is it?"

Kalkulo said, "The story of Yemen's Ascension!"