Bloodline Sacrifice, I'm Calling My Family / Xia State's Visitor from Beyond the Stars

Unwilling to die for such an absurd reason, Chen Mo tried to save himself.

He approached Aili in front of several apprentices and tactfully expressed his resolve.

Study hard and improve every day. No dating while I'm cultivating!

Aili's large, watery eyes fluttered as she said softly, "Big brother, you're amazing. Keep it up! I believe you'll become the best summoning mage someday!"

Chen Mo felt a chill run down his back. Without even looking, he could feel that bastard's gaze cutting into him like a knife.

He sighed deeply in his heart.

I can't live like this anymore!

Then I won't!

Chapter 2: Bloodline Sacrifice, I'm Calling My Family

Heavy footsteps approached through the passage overhead. Chen Mo counted down in his head. Three, two, one, zero!

Right on cue, a voice like a battered gong rang out above the dugout. "Time for cleaning your personal pets is over. Come out and get to work!"

A few minutes later, more than a dozen ragged, emaciated youths crawled out of the dugout. From a distance, they were indistinguishable from skeletons. Like sheep driven by a shepherd, they crowded into the central hall of Black Raven Castle.

The castle's central hall was spacious, an important place where vassal mages taught classes and apprentices practiced and exchanged knowledge.

On a stone platform on the eastern side of the hall, the summons of the official mages and students were on "display": skeleton scythe soldiers, zombie cleaver wielders, flame golems... and the eye-catching black warrior on the central platform.

It radiated explosive power. Damn, it was beautiful!

The girls lived aboveground, so a few of them had arrived earlier and already started cleaning.

When she saw Chen Mo enter, Aili gave him a shy smile, then lowered her head with a faint blush.

Chen Mo felt a chill all over.

If looks could take physical form, Chen Mo would have been riddled with holes by now.

She really won't be satisfied until I'm dead...

Chen Mo lowered his head and approached the stone platform. The student assigning work pointed him toward a zombie, his face expressionless.

This was the ringleader's summon. Unlike an ordinary zombie, it wore a helmet, so Chen Mo called the thing the buckethead zombie.

Low laughter came from around him. These guys were doing it on purpose, seemingly just to humiliate him.

Seeing the guy the girl was involved with doing menial work for him probably gave that kid a special thrill.

Without a word, Chen Mo picked up a piece of black fur and vigorously scrubbed the buckethead zombie's taut, shriveled skin.

Does this count as doing it in front of the summoner?

Chen Mo scrubbed carefully. In a few days, that bucket might well come crashing down on his head.

With everyone watching, Chen Mo didn't dare tamper with it. Still, getting more familiar with the thing's structure might come in handy.

Angry? Chen Mo wasn't angry at all.

In Black Raven Castle's rigid hierarchy, it was only natural for preparatory apprentices to work for their senior apprentices, just as official apprentices worked for mages. There was nothing to be angry about.

Even if Chen Mo wanted to get his hands on the golems and black knights in the hall, he wouldn't have had the chance. Those were reserved for the good students.

Several preparatory apprentices had even less mental power than Chen Mo, but their summons were stronger, so they held a higher status than he did.

There was nothing to be done. The saying that life's greatest dividing line was drawn in the womb applied in this other world, too.

A necromancer's summons came from a spell called [Sacrificial Altar]. At first, young Chen had taken it for his golden finger, only to learn later that his could be called a dirt finger at best.

The golden fingers belonged to the children of great families.

[Sacrificial Altar] worked by offering a certain sacrifice to request aid from the great being at the other end of the altar.

It could be an evil god from another world, a death overlord, or an abyss lord.

What the altar produced depended on three factors.

The first was the mage's mental power. The stronger it was, the greater the amount that could be transported at one time. An apprentice could bring over one skeleton at a time, while an archmage could bring over a reinforced company.

The second key was the summoning incantation. The most important part was the true-name incantation, which called out a death overlord's true name.

Why was a true name so important?

Think of the altar as a pager: the true name was the lord's private phone number. If you wanted to borrow troops from a boss, you first had to be able to contact them.

But having the true name didn't mean the other party would necessarily pay attention to you.

Without some connection, your request would be intercepted by the lord's vassals. The death overlords were busy dealing with countless corpses every day; if you weren't on the whitelist, they wouldn't give you the time of day!

And to get on the whitelist, you needed connections.

True-name incantations, marking incantations, bloodline imprints, soul imprints-where did those come from? They had to be taught by a mentor or inherited through a family bloodline.

They were roughly equivalent to a letter of recommendation from a teacher or parent to the person in charge of the summoning system on the other side.

Anyone with a bit of common sense knew just how enormous the difference was.

They called: Dark Erosion Empire-Wangchuan Rift Valley-Eternal Slumber Hall-Netherworld King.

You called: Headless Community-Ghostfire Alley-Number 404-Village Chief White Bones.

There was no way the summon you called could win.

To put it bluntly, even if a scion of a great family had only four plus four in mental power and mana, they could still beat you senseless after more than a decade of arduous cultivation.

Finally, even without a letter of recommendation, offering a valuable sacrifice might earn the favor of an unfamiliar lord.

But that was another vicious circle.

Without a background, where would you get the resources to start? Without resources, where would you get strength? Without strength, how would you earn resources?

And without a background, resources, or strength, what was the damn point?

Fall behind once, and you'd fall behind at every step!

That was the reality of the laws of this other world.

It was also a hurdle Chen Mo couldn't get past at his current stage, no matter what he did.

Peerless talent might have been enough to overcome it, but Chen Mo was only moderately gifted.

So Chen Mo could only choose to take a risk.

After thoroughly scrubbing the "buckethead zombie," Chen Mo bowed respectfully to the mage supervising the hall.

"Honored Mage Jiuwei, I'm about to go to the Dark Forest on a mission. To better serve our esteemed mentor, I request a mental power pill and some summoning materials."

The mage called Jiuwei was one of Archmage Black Crow's three official mages. As today's supervisor, he had been sitting upright at the observation post with his eyes half closed, as though in meditation.

Hearing Chen Mo's words, he opened his eyes a sliver.

Tsk, poor little fellow!

Chen Mo had decent talent, learned quickly, and had excellent comprehension. He had the makings of at least a third-tier mage.

Moreover, Chen Mo was quick to react. After Chen Mo realized his predicament, Mage Jiuwei had seen him struggle to save himself more than once.

Unfortunately, the one he had offended was the young master of the Gaoshi family.

With a gap in status like that, comprehension and the like really weren't worth considering.

A top student in the lower grades wasn't worth a teacher offending a noble's child.

According to Black Raven Castle's rules, a junior apprentice was entitled to one mental power pill upon successfully obtaining their first summon. Apprentices generally used it for their second, advancement summoning.

It seems this child fully understands his situation and is preparing to make one last desperate attempt.

Mage Jiuwei turned to look at Gaoshi.

The young master nodded without a care. A lock of golden hair fluttered over his forehead, revealing his handsome, gloomy face.

"You may. Follow me!"

Chen Mo got the pale blue pill he wanted and swallowed it without hesitation, cutting off all the covetous gazes.

A mental power pill could temporarily raise the user's maximum mental power, greatly increasing the chances of successfully activating Sacrificial Altar. It could also help a summoner bear a stronger summon or transport more resources.

The side effects were considerable too. The severe strain on the mind required a long period of rest and recovery.

Chen Mo was prepared to risk his life. If he failed, he would most likely have to delete his account and reincarnate, so he didn't even consider such a minor side effect.

Back in the cellar, Chen Mo held his breath and focused. He took out a magic brush and swiftly wrote a long sacrificial prayer.

A sacrifice? What a joke. He couldn't afford one at all.

What evil god or overlord would take an interest in Chen Mo's meager possessions?

Chen Mo could only pin his hopes on the legendary Bloodline Sacrifice.

Before dawn, Chen Mo gazed at the sky through the cellar's skylight. The stars were slowly fading, and another dawn was approaching.

At this hour, the mental power pill was at its most effective. Chen Mo formed hand seals and recited an incantation, summoning his summoning altar from his sea of consciousness.

A faint blue glow appeared in the void. Chen Mo slowly scattered magic dust before him in the proper sequence and placed a positioning beacon. Finally, he recalled the method for Bloodline Sacrifice once more and activated Soul Summoning.

The altar's beacon spun rapidly.

Chen Mo began entering the true-name incantation one element at a time.

[Observable Universe-Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall-KBC Void-Sloan Great Wall-Pisces-Cetus Supercluster Complex-Laniakea Supercluster-Virgo Supercluster-Local Group-Milky Way Subgroup-Milky Way-Orion Arm-Gould Belt-Local Stellar Group-Local Bubble-Local Interstellar Cloud-Oort Cloud-Solar System-Heliosphere-Inner Solar System-Blue Moon System-Blue Star-Republic of Eastern Xia]

[Beginning cross-realm connection...]

[Be... be... beginning... trans... trans... trans-trans-trans-trans-transmission...]

Chen Mo felt waves of tingling in his sea of consciousness.

The summoning altar seemed to have frozen...

Chapter 3: Xia State's Visitor from Beyond the Stars

Chang'an Prefecture, Changle Palace, Yongning Hall.

The magnificent palace complex stood quietly in the morning light. Golden glazed tiles shimmered in the rising sun, while vermilion palace walls stretched like a dragon's spine, proclaiming Eastern Xia's supreme authority and its enduring civilizational heritage.

A small internal meeting was underway. Today's topic carried considerable weight: how to respond to the aggressive pressure from the Bald Eagle Federation across the Sea of Tranquility.