Sanguine Paradise

∼ Day 45 ∼

Sitting on the cold and rough sandstone tiles of my cell in the dead of night, steam rising from the panting of my breath as it met the cold night air, I truly looked like someone who had just stepped out of a gore scene of some horror movie. Blood covered almost every inch of my body; but if you looked closely, no wounds could actually be found marring it.

Smiling happily to myself, immensely pleased with the results of my newly acquired skill, I laid my sore body down onto some covers. For a while now, I had been cutting myself up and leaving various types of wounds to see what exactly the limits of Lesser Eldritch Vitality were. From what I had found out, the skill could practically heal any wound with frightening speed.

While I hadn't gone too far, such as heavily injuring my organs and seeing if they could still be healed, but I had inflicted minor nicks and blunt injures to a few and saw that they just seemed to be healed slower than my carapace and muscle. Although I very much doubted that it would be able to heal a seriously injured organ like my heart, or my lungs, it was good to know that the skill affected my entire body.

But even with these absolutely amazing effects, the skill did have some drawbacks to keep it in check. The mending of my flesh and carapace didn't simply cost nothing and was rebuilt out of thin air. Instead, Lesser Eldritch Vitality drew upon my stamina and my body's nutrients to rebuild itself.

So by now, I was both pretty damn exhausted and hungry. Luckily the skill synergized with my blood, as it held extreme amounts of vigor and vitality, allowing the skill to have another place to draw upon. If anybody else at my level of power had this skill and had been inflicted with the kind of damage I had upon myself, then they would've been very much dead, to say the least. No ordinary body could possibly support such a skill, making it very convenient that I definitely wasn't normal in any sense of the word.

Also, the reason as to why I could do such a masochistic feat of literally carving myself up without alerting the guards stationed close by was due to a certain spiteful and disgusting greenskin. The pain of cutting myself up hundreds of times didn't even compare to a sliver of the pain inflicted by the sadistic gremlin whenever he decided to visit, so I didn't even flinch or make a sound when I cut deep into my own flesh.

Each pang of pain simply increased my desire for ripping apart the little fucker instead of causing any apprehension. Now very tired, I couldn't care less about the absolute mess I've made, and promptly fell into a dreamless sleep.

***

"-Nrgh.... stop it Sif, give me five more minutes..." - Me

Slowly coming to, I couldn't help but feel like something was wrong. My cat, Sif, waking me in the morning wasn't something unusual, but there was something... off. I could hear the sound of her purring, and feel her coarse sandpaper-like tongue licking the back of my head. Ever so slowly, everything came back to me and I realized what was wrong. I wasn't on earth anymore, and my cat sure as hell wasn't here.

-Uhhh, what the hell is licking me then?!

With my eyes suddenly opening wide, I turned around in a show of extreme speed, only to meet the gaze of Meala's predatory eyes, happily staring into my own. Jolting to my feet, I shouted out to the invasive cat girl, feeling rather violated.

"What the hell are you doing?!" - Me

Completely ignoring my alarmed demeanor, she simply stretched and did a few rolls on my futon, while also contently licking her hands free of my blood.

"Mmm, your blood is yummy." - Meala

Well, no shit, my blood is essentially liquid treasure.

I wasn't actually sure how my own blood tasted. I had tried, but to my surprise, I couldn't taste anything whenever it hit my tongue. It was actually even more tasteless than water to me, but obviously, my blood wasn't stale as other creatures seemed to almost revel in the taste of my blood.

"Meala, what did I tell you about privacy?" - Me

Utterly ignoring my question as if I had even voiced it, she simply asked one of her own.

"Sooo, who ya fighting tomorrow?" - Meala

I groaned inwardly as I simply had no way, what-so-ever, to control or manage the boisterous beastkin before me. Walking over to my cell door, I opened it and motioned for her to leave.

"I don't know. Rangore maybe, I'm not sure." - Me

To my great relief, it seemed that she had gotten what she wanted, and began sauntering lazily towards the entrance.

"Okay! Don't die now, else I have to find a new snuggly guy. (Sigh) Too much work." - Meala

As the happy-go-lucky cat girl stepped out of my cell, something suddenly struck me like a freight train, and I hastily appraised Meala's retreating form.

-Appraisal!-

[Appraisal: Meala]

Name: "Meala"

Race: Fealas

Sex: Female

Rank: E+

Level: 35/35

Health: 110/110

Stamina: 75/75

Mana: 0/0

[Attributes]

STR - ???

VIT - 15

AGI - 58

DEX - 52

INT - 14

CHR - ???

WILL - ???

MAG - ???

[Trait, Titles, and Skills].

Skills - ???

Traits - ???

Titles - ???

[Resistances]

Phy. Resistance - ???

Mag. Resistance - ???

Men. Resistance - ???

[Afflicted]

Damn... I had actually afflicted her with Blood Plague.

Checking her body with my instinctual senses over my own blood, I could also easily see that no small amount had entered her body. Looking at my own body, I saw that she had practically licked me completely clean, simply another testament to her unsettling ability to circumvent my notice.

I had originally felt a bit of apprehension of afflicting stronger targets as of late since I wasn't sure if they would be able to detect it or not. But to my relief, it seemed that she hadn't noticed at all. While I wasn't sure if I could even take control over the catgirl with only the amount of mana I could conjure from Blood Conversion, but it was nice to know that if anything went south, I had another option available to me.

Before I could even lay back down on my futon, just as I had closed the door, two weak knocks could be heard. I couldn't help but let a small growl of annoyance since the midnightroot had already begun to lose most of its effects over the night. But I soon came to my senses and realized just who was standing outside my cell.

A small smile adorning my face, I called out.

"Come in Mika." - Me

Upon hearing my words, I could hear the hurried movements of someone diminutive moving to hastily open the door. The sight that met my eyes as the door opened was the bedraggled and small frame of Mika. His figure was unusually gaunt and thin, as if he rarely ever ate, and coupled with his marred body and face, you would've thought that he was some poor kid pulled straight out from the harshest of flea bottoms.

If not for the fact that his clothes were all very fine and in a practically pristine condition, and the fact that he gets more than enough to eat, you would think that he actually was from the slums. But in truth, his appearance was actually due to the Mistress. Mika was a servant of the Mistress, and it wasn't hard for me to guess that he had been a subject of her experiments.

His scarred face and body, coupled with his extremely pale complexion, like that of a vampire's, it was easy to see that he had gone through endless hardship in the hands of the Mistress. But what really had confirmed my suspicions of him being one of the Mistress' test subject was the potent magic that literally radiated off him.

It was both the same as the Mistress' magic and not. What I meant by that, was that it wasn't actually the Mistress' own magic that suffused him, but most likely just it being the magic of the school instead. I still hadn't exactly confirmed what kind of magic the Mistress' used, but I strongly believed it to be 'shadow magic', simply gathered from what I've observed so far.

Well, the first time I had met Mika, I was immediately surprised by not only the mana I sensed in his body but also the fact that he was a Drow, just like what Mia had become. I immediately both appraised and inspected him with my senses when I realized those facts.

To my immense surprise, he was actually harboring a mana source within, also known as a core. But there was something very much off about it, mostly due to the fact that while it resided within his body, it seemingly hadn't actually fused or assimilated with him. Another thing that gave pause, was his odd status, especially the mana displayed.

-Appraisal!-

[Appraisal: Mika]

Name: "Mika"

Race: Drow

Sex: Male

Rank: H+

Level: 4/35

Health: 35/35

Stamina: 20/22

Mana: 0/0 (12)

[Attributes]

STR - 8

VIT - 8

AGI - 12

DEX - 11

INT - 8

CHR - 6

WILL - 8

MAG - 22

[Trait, Titles, and Skills].

Skills - 7

Traits - 3

Titles - 0

[Resistances]

Phy. Resistance - 5

Mag. Resistance - 8

Men. Resistance - 2

He didn't actually have access to his mana, his core being completely dormant within his body. It was almost as if he was a living and breathing incubator... Well, for some reason Mika had been assigned to me as a servant to take care of my needs, even though I had expected him to be a valuable test subject for the Mistress herself.

I had no real idea what her intentions were by assigning him to me, other than it might have something to do with the fact that she herself was obviously fascinated by my magic, or at least the type of magic I wielded. I also realized that he might be some kind of spy of the Mistress herself or simply someone who reported to her about me, so I still hadn't let my guard down completely around the kid.