Chapter 373: Dark Demon One-Pot Cooking (4k)
Facing Lia’s decisive statement, Dark casually asked, “Why is that?”
Lia shook her head, “The Luo Luo Tree Frog is a specialty of the Vampire Lord’s territory. Vampires often use its skin to make spell books for blood magic. Blood magic is very dangerous; those without the innate talent should not touch it.”
“Blood magic?”
Dark’s mind stirred slightly, and his gaze towards Lia took on a different nuance.
He naturally knew about blood magic.
Blood magic was part of the higher-tier magic category, akin to astrology, requiring innate talent as a foundation.
Vampires, and their subordinate creatures, were born with the ability to master blood magic.
Apart from vampires, there were also rare races with innate talent for blood magic.
Among humans, only the “Blood Clan” possessed blood magic.
They were known as the nemesis of vampires.
However, the remaining members of the Blood Clan, such as the mysterious “Blood Princess” Ophelia Brad, were uncertain to be alive!
Dark and the professors deduced the possibility of “Blood Princess” being alive and overlapped her with the escaped prisoner from Bustedia Prison—Olivia Copernicus.
Thus, when mentioning blood magic, Dark immediately thought of “Blood Princess” Ophelia Brad.
“Lia… Ophelia?”
Dark muttered out loud.
But Lia Goethe’s expression remained unchanged, still gentle and warm, like… a fake face!
This thought arose in him.
Dark couldn’t control his gaze upon Lia’s face anymore.
Lia Goethe seemed to sense his stare and softly said, “To retreat when danger is clear, to think more, is indeed cautious. Of course, this is just my personal opinion. If you insist on contacting them, you must be even more cautious.”
She winked at Dark, her orange-red pupils showing a hint of mischief.
Then she walked away to browse other books.
Dark loosened his grip on the book “Blood Sacrifice,” took a deep breath.
Although he felt that Lia Goethe was somehow related to Ophelia Brad, there was no sign that she had any connection to the Blood Princess.
Moreover, the reason they believed the Blood Princess might be in the academy was due to Robert’s divination.
Now it has been confirmed that Robert’s divination was because of Vlad’s presence, which overturned the previous assumption.
Without support for the theory that the Blood Princess was in the academy.
Furthermore, regardless of whether his intuition was accurate, it wasn’t suitable to pursue it too directly.
Dark wouldn’t be so arrogant as to believe he could compete with wartime heroes.
He lowered his head to look at “Blood Sacrifice,” pursed his lips, then looked in the direction of Lia Goethe, considering whether to continue observing or follow her.
But during this brief moment of looking up and down, the gentle lady standing by the bookshelf unexpectedly vanished!
Dark’s eyes flashed, he stepped forward quickly, and then rushed out, looking left and right, only to find that Lia Goethe had truly disappeared.
“Who is she?”
Dark couldn’t help but stop.
His expression changed slightly…
…
In the end, Dark bought “Blood Sacrifice.”
On the way back to the castle, he recalled Lia Goethe’s appearance.
Her orange-red hair was different from past photos of the Blood Princess and Olivia’s self-surrender photo.
Her facial features were somewhat similar.
But there were countless people in this world with similar appearances.
Her features were clearly different.
“Is this due to a disguise spell?”
Dark touched his temple, where a wind elemental’s blessing wrapped around his finger, bringing a slight coolness.
Unfortunately, he didn’t have the corresponding talent; otherwise, he could use this breeze to communicate with Professor Shylph.
“I should say something.”
Dark placed “Blood Sacrifice” in his bag and quickly headed toward Professor Shylph’s classroom.
Despite it being Saturday, the Easter Duel Festival was tomorrow, so he guessed Professor Shylph must be busy in the office.
As expected, nothing was out of place.
After entering the office and knocking, Dark immediately told Professor Shylph about his encounter with Lia Goethe and mentioned Professor Metia’s “reminder,” hoping Professor Shylph would be alert.
“Don’t worry about safety.”
Professor Shylph nodded seriously, “At that time, the professors will patrol various locations.”
The professors of St. Maryan were undoubtedly a guarantee of safety.
Dark felt slightly relieved and then said, “Although it’s just speculation, I feel that person is the Blood Princess. Even if she may be disguised, her gentle demeanor matches your previous description very well.
If she has some reason to disguise herself, and if I were in her position, I certainly wouldn’t risk exposing myself to remind a student I don’t know.”
Professor Shylph’s stern face softened slightly as she looked upward, as if recalling something, “Brad is just like that, gentle and kind, making it hard to imagine she could be a member of the Blood Clan. If it really is her, there’s no need to worry. She won’t do anything harmful to the students.”
“Let’s hope so.” Dark interlaced his fingers, contemplating, “But everyone has two sides, especially after years in prison.”
When this was mentioned, Professor Shylph became somewhat agitated.
She knocked on the desk and said, “I always believe she has her reasons.”
Dark raised an eyebrow and said, “Professor, I have other things to do, so I’ll leave now.”
Professor Shylph nodded, “See you tomorrow, wish you good luck.”
Dark smiled, “My goal is the Outbound Selection.”
…
Indeed, the chances of a slip-up in the Outbound Selection were quite high.
Fortunately, the preliminary rounds for both groups were separate; otherwise, there wouldn’t be much chance.
Returning to the dormitory, Dark quickly put aside thoughts of the Blood Princess and turned to studying “Blood Sacrifice.”
He didn’t doubt what Lia Goethe said, but he lacked the talent for blood magic, though his family had someone knowledgeable in it.
Besides…
Since he had already bought it, he couldn’t let this opportunity go unexplored.
“According to Miss Goethe, all you need is to soak it in water.”
After greeting the mana golems, Dark picked a suitable basin, placed it under the faucet, and filled it with water.
While waiting for the basin to fill, he picked up the book again, shook it vigorously, and confirmed there was nothing inside before turning off the faucet and slowly placing the book in the basin.
Almost immediately, the pages began to absorb water visibly.
The originally thin paper gradually gained texture.
And on the surface, small text gradually appeared.
This concealment method was relatively basic, far less advanced than the ancient script in “Into the Abyss.”
Once the paper absorbed enough water, it stopped.
Dark directly opened the book in the water and started flipping through from the first page.
The book seemed thick, but the text was surprisingly sparse.
Soon, Dark understood the general content.
Then he sighed, took the entire book out of the basin, and hung it on a nearby rack.
It wasn’t that this book was useless.
It just wasn’t useful to him.
…
“Blood Sacrifice” spoke of a method called “Blood Sacrifice.”
Using animal blood, monster blood, human blood, and other types of blood as energy, it converted these into powerful force through blood magic, which could then be used for casting spells, summoning, and even crafting weapons!
The bloodthirsty giant axe Dark seized from the Dual-headed Demonic Man was likely created using the Blood Sacrifice method.
“Blood Sacrifice” did not fall under mana technology but rather belonged to the realm of blood magic.
It couldn’t be used to turn the “bloodthirsty giant axe” into a mana card, and it held no value for Dark.
If the Imp Beast or Deoxys could master this method, they could more efficiently utilize the absorbed blood energy after fusing and evolving into Bastemon.
But given that Deoxys had only learned how to sense and output mana, this book “Blood Sacrifice” was temporarily shelved.
Thinking this, Dark’s gaze towards “Blood Sacrifice” carried a hint of regret.
“Hold on…”
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck him.
“Think about it differently. Are the pages of this book made entirely from Luo Luo Tree Frog skin? Although processed, it clearly retains the properties of the tree frog skin. Could this be used for conjuring?”
“Speaking of which, what exactly is this Luo Luo Tree Frog?”
Dark’s mind stirred, and he immediately pulled out the book “Avian-beast Kin Secret Records – Unknown Strange Ecology” from the shelf and carefully searched through it.
Frogs belong to amphibians, not reptiles.
In this world, they are classified as “Avian-beast Kin.”
The “Avian-beast Kin Secret Records” given by Claire contained numerous avian-beast records, and Dark had only read a small portion of it.
“Sure enough, this Luo Luo Tree Frog, with its special purpose, is indeed recorded in this ‘Avian-beast Kin Secret Records.'”
Ten minutes later, Dark finally found “Luo Luo Tree Frog” in the dense directory.
Following the page number, he flipped to the content page, where the first thing that caught his eye was a colored illustration of the Luo Luo Tree Frog.
Different from his imagination of a “tree frog,” this “Luo Luo Tree Frog” had skin that was slightly grayish white, very similar to a regular tree frog, without any spots.
It could absorb moisture and store it in its skin pouch, keeping itself hydrated even under intense sunlight.
On top of the Luo Luo Tree Frog’s head, there was a small protrusion, which was actually a seed.
When the Luo Luo Tree Frog died, this seed, absorbing all its essence, would sprout and grow into a “Luo Luo” swamp tree.
The Luo Luo Tree Frog usually lived in the hollows of Luo Luo trees, forming a symbiotic relationship with them.
In summary, this was a rather rare tree frog.
But in terms of monster level… it was clearly not impressive.
This meant that if used as a core material for conjuring a mana golem, it could only produce a one or two-star cute golem.
Even the processing might cause the conjuring to fail.
But Dark didn’t particularly value this “Blood Sacrifice” book; he had only spent less than 100 credits on it, so even if it were scrapped, it wouldn’t hurt too much.
So he decided to give it a try.
But before the experiment, he needed to transcribe the contents of “Blood Sacrifice.”
Each page of “Blood Sacrifice” contained only a few hundred words, with a total of several thousand words.
Dark simply tore the book apart page by page and asked the mana golems to help transcribe it.
In this way, he completed the transcription of the entire text in just half an hour.
Finally, he kept the page with the Blood Sacrifice spell circle and began the conjuring.
This time, he used the most common Basic Conjure Array, with the core material being the skin paper of the Luo Luo Tree Frog and auxiliary materials obtained from the dungeon.
In short, it was a mix-and-match approach.
When he first learned the Basic Conjure Method, Dark was also this casual, and he conjured his first gold card—”Huhu!”
Subsequent conjurations like “Wrestler Eagle” and “Piplup” were also done similarly.
Though these mana golems weren’t particularly powerful, they had potential for the future.
“Tree frog, let me think, are there any mana golems with attributes or races close to tree frogs?”
“Grass attribute, water attribute, frog-type…”
“Maybe Bulbasaur or Poliwag?”
“Bulbasaur is grass and poison, Poliwag is pure water, especially Poliwag evolving into Poliwhirl, which looks quite similar to the Luo Luo Tree Frog.”
“If it’s a Digimon, maybe Gabumon or Garurumon? What else…”
“Or perhaps a frog-themed Yu-Gi-Oh! monster?”
“Forget it!”
Dark picked up a cup of Huhu brand apple juice and drained it, instantly feeling revitalized.
Now, the brewing of apple juice didn’t require his intervention; the warm-hearted Huhu could generate power independently, preparing a cup every night.
Dark glanced at the wall clock.
It was 8:45 PM, plenty of time.
Starting preparations from this moment, he completed everything in just half an hour.
Then, in another half-hour, he finished creating a semi-finished mana card.
After drawing and activating the No. 1 conjuring array, he could begin placing materials into the array!
Dark always felt that the greatest joy in conjuring experiments lay in placing materials into the array.
It was akin to cooking; different ingredients and seasonings could create diverse flavors.
The process of cutting open the light cocoon was like opening a prize.
No matter how bizarre the materials, they might conjure powerful mana golems, making the process endlessly engaging.
This time, in addition to the grass-type materials obtained from the dungeon, he didn’t forget to add his usual catalyst—saliva.
Finally, he deliberately reassembled the missing-page “Blood Sacrifice” and threw it into the conjuring array along with the other materials.
But after adding so many materials, the brightness of the conjuring array hadn’t reached its limit.
So he continued to add more materials…
