Time passed, and three days had gone by since Yelo’s body was burned.
In the middle of the training room, Robert stood beside Noah, with a wooden cup, a sharp knife, and a clean piece of cloth placed next to him. Noah looked at the tools, then raised his eyes to Robert.
"Have you already changed your plan and decided to kill me?"
"These are your training tools..."
Robert sat on the other side of the table, pointing at the wooden cup.
"Fill it."
"With my blood?"
"Is there anyone else in the room?"
Noah held the knife in his hand. His blood flowed red at first and began to change gradually after coming into contact with the air until it turned clear blue. Noah filled the cup silently while Robert watched him without the slightest expression on his face.
When the amount of blood reached the mark at the top of the cup, Robert grabbed his wrist.
"Enough."
Noah asked:
"What is the purpose of this? Are you trying to use me to produce potions?"
"The Charlemagne caravan passes once a year. The last caravan has already departed, so you have almost a year ahead of you."
"Didn’t you say that you would help me infiltrate the main house so I could become a direct member?"
"And the academy is the path to it."
Robert put the vial back on the table.
"The son of a small branch cannot enter the archives of the main house simply because I ask. Besides, my situation is somewhat special. But a mage who graduated from the academy is in a different position. If you prove your usefulness, Lovell will not be able to isolate you no matter how much he tries."
"And if I do not?"
"You will become the head of a silver house with an average lifespan."
What Robert said was simply the truth.
"So, from what I understand, I should focus on training for now."
Noah looked at the vial, then raised his fingers. Moisture condensed above them and turned into a small piece of ice within moments.
"What have I been doing all this time, then?"
"Training in clowning."
The piece of ice melted between his fingers.
Robert said:
"The ability of one of those of the Higher Blood to light a candle or freeze a cup does not make him a mage. For example, your use of the mana carried by your blood drains it quickly, which makes your efficiency in real battles very limited."
Noah had already noticed that. Whenever he overused magic, his limbs began to tremble and he felt his stamina decrease. It was similar to the symptoms of anemia.
"Then how do I increase my stamina?"
Robert pointed at the vial filled with Noah’s blood.
"Your blood is the source of your power, naturally. Drain the mana it carries, then let your body replace it. This will gradually increase your stamina."
"Did you draw my blood to explain these details?"
Robert stared without expression.
"I have my purpose, naturally."
"The body responds to blood loss by replacing the lost blood with new blood that carries denser mana. This naturally improves your magical power."
The method seemed primitive, but it was not without logic.
"As for what I drew, your Higher Blood has a high level of purity, which means it will be sold at extremely high prices. It helps improve blood purity, even if only slightly. You can naturally drink it to make up for a lack of mana during battle. I believe you already know these basic details."
Noah looked at the vial again.
"Some clans are unable to provide the money they need, so they sell the blood of their members to potion makers. Wealthy families buy it to supply their mages with it before wars."
"Can any noble drink the blood of another noble?"
"Naturally. A noble of lower purity can drink the blood of a purer noble, but the reverse may be harmful to the structure of your blood."
Robert ended the conversation, leaving Noah with a cold look on his face.
The training was simple and uncomplicated. While Noah continued using magic until he drained the mana carried by his blood, he drew a set amount of blood from time to time to stimulate his body to develop.
Blood was not drawn every day. Noah had to wait until his body recovered, because exceeding its regeneration capacity would lead to collapse sooner or later.
The higher the purity of the High Lineage, the faster blood and mana were replenished, which naturally made the differences between nobles large.
Noah had always wondered, since Robert possessed pure blood, why knights or nobles did not kidnap those with great talent and use them as an unlimited reservoir of blood and mana.
The answer was simple. A noble’s blood could not be drawn without his consent! By mastering some basic techniques, a noble could separate the mana from the blood, making the extracted blood red and useless.
Without this method, the wars between nobles would never have ended. If knights had found a way to develop, every noble would have become a treasure instead of the power controlling the course of the continent.
Only a few weeks passed before eating became another burden. His hunger increased to the point that it woke him at night, which kept the servants busy almost constantly. He also suffered unusual pain in different parts of his body.
Robert reassured him that this was normal.
"Your body is constantly producing blood. The pain means that the training is progressing."
"What will happen if I draw more blood before it is replenished?"
"You will spend days unable to use magic and suffering from severe exhaustion. It may even reach the point of losing some of your blood purity."
The answer did not fully convince Noah.
Blood transported oxygen and nutrients inside the body, but it did not make itself. The cells that gave it its properties were formed inside the bone marrow. At least, that was what he understood from the knowledge of his previous life.
Therefore, if the training depended on forcing the body to produce new blood, it was natural that the connection between mana and the marrow was closer than Robert thought.
Noah began recording his recovery time after every training session. He continued draining a similar amount of mana each time, then calculated how long he needed before he could create a piece of ice of the same size.
He also separated the days when he only drained mana from the days when he combined using magic with drawing blood.
A consistent result appeared after dozens of attempts.
On ordinary days, the mana returned at a slow and steady rate. After blood was drawn, recovery was slower during the first hours because of his body’s weakness, then suddenly accelerated at the same time as the pain inside his bones increased.
Perhaps blood was only a medium for transporting mana and not the place where it was stored.
Noah kept two small samples of his blood, the first from before training and the second from after draining most of the mana.
Both samples remained blue, and no difference that could be seen with the eye appeared between them. But the measuring stone reacted to the first with noticeable warmth, while it remained almost cold when it touched the second.
He left them throughout the night before repeating the test in the morning after mixing them together.
The sample did not regain any mana, and the clarity of the blood did not increase.
If blood was truly capable of improving its quality without passing through the bone marrow, the sample outside his body would have regained some of its power.
Noah waited until the training room was empty, then tied the upper part of his left arm with a piece of cloth and tightened it firmly. He used cold to lower the temperature of the limb and slow the movement of blood inside it before continuing to use magic until a headache began pounding at the back of his head.
That had been enough to make him stop on the previous days, but this time he continued.
His sense of mana disappeared from his fingertips first, then the emptiness spread to his forearm. The moment he tried to force his body to produce more, he felt a sharp pain, but not in his veins.
He immediately loosened the binding.
Blood rushed into his arm, and his fingers shook violently. He remained seated until his skin returned to its natural color, then created a small ice needle.
The needle appeared, but it shattered after a moment.
Noah smiled despite the pain.
What he had done was not safe, but it was enough to confirm a reliable conclusion.
Blood was not the source of mana, and it did not regenerate on its own, but through the bone marrow.
The next day, he found Robert waiting for him in the training room.
"I heard that you requested books about corpse dissection."
Robert looked at the marks left by the binding around his arm, but he did not ask about them.
Robert threw the book toward Noah before turning to leave.
He was not ignorant, but he had learned magic in the same way his ancestors had. Draining mana, drawing blood, then waiting for the body to replenish both. As long as the method worked, no one needed to know the real reason. Therefore, he did not think much about what Noah was doing and considered it mere nonsense.
Robert did not realize that Noah’s reason for requesting the book was to understand how advanced science was in general in this world, so he could build his plans in a way that would not cause unnecessary problems.
If the marrow of nobles absorbed mana from the world without the person feeling it and trapped it in their blood, then the power in every vial was not something the body had created from nothing.
It was a part of the world that had been taken and stored. Therefore, what nobles truly possessed was not noble blood, but the talent for sensing mana, no more and no less.
Noah took a breath, trying to relax with it. If his conclusion was correct, then with the right method, even those of mixed blood and humans had their own way to use magic.
This could threaten the throne of the nobles!