[Blood Essence: 12610]

He managed to get a lot of blood essence from this battle, but Tristan has no way of knowing whether he would have the opportunity to receive a similar amount anytime soon. Therefore, for now, he has to spend it wisely.

Now, the choices available to him are either spending 5000 for a skill upgrade, or 10000 for a body upgrade.

Thanks to what happened earlier and this skill upgrade notification, he could reasonably conclude that there was more to his [Blood Seal] ability that he has yet to figure out.

He ordered the orcs to bring him a makeshift seat and casually sat in front of the 34 captured barbarians. The current scene made not just the captured barbarians but his human companion also feel uncomfortable, they were not sure what this bloodied elf was trying to do right now.

For Tristan, he had a clear purpose, he needed them to experiment on the extent of his ability.

First, he decided to look around and choose a random, normal-looking barbarian warrior.

[Blood Seal]

[Human Battle Power: 24]

[90 blood essence required to proceed.]

He didn't proceed with the blood seal, instead he looked around and chose a relatively unscathed blue-tattooed warrior,

[Blood seal]

[Human battle power 42]

[150 blood essence required to proceed]

He concludes, the first rule of the blood seal is that the amount required changes depending on the person. The more powerful the person, the more blood essence would be needed to seal them. There might be differences between different races, but currently, battle power should give some sort of indicator.

The second rule, if there is a chance for failure and failure indeed happened, he would lose 10% of the required blood essence.

Now, about the failure rates, it would be great if he could at least see the percentage of success so he could weigh whether trying was worth the risks.

Right as he thought about it, a new notification appeared from his system.

[Human battle power: 24]

[Sealing success rate: 98%]

"Dammit, so there's such a thing?! Fuck! Why didn't you tell me before?!"

Tristan shouted to no one in particular, to the bewilderment of the orcs standing nearby.

[Human battle power 42]

[Success rate 83%]

"Ah well, at least it was a logical rule. The stronger the warrior, the higher the failure rate."

Next, Tristan decided to experiment a bit. He waved his hand and called for a bunch of orcs to beat up the unscathed blue-tattooed warrior, but before they started, he reminded them not to make the barbarian fall unconscious.

After the poor barbarian was reduced to begging for his life, Tristan used his system again.

[Human battle power 42]

[Success rate 88%]

"Aha! Now that is one mystery down."

The third rule, weakening the target's mental resistance, be it by physical beating or presumably other ways, would increase his success rate.

The more beaten up the target was, the easier it would be to influence them with the [Blood Seal] spell? Somehow, this kind of reminded him about a certain monster catching game from his world...

It would be reasonable to assume that if he upgrades his blood seal level, he could get an increased success rate as one of the perks.

Next, Tristan had reasons to believe that there are limits to his blood seal – after all, it was impossible to have an unlimited amount of something. But so far, he did not meet any kind of restriction.

For now, the only way to test this was to waste a few blood essences.

[Blood Seal]

Tristan muttered towards the direction where a blue tattooed warrior was tied up. A fine red mist seeped out from his body and circled them before entering their ears, nose, and mouth. He proceeds and continues up to the fifth of the warrior.

[820 Blood Essence used]

Tristan decided to look for another captured blue-tattooed warrior and cast another [Blood Seal] But this time, nothing happened, except a notification.

[You have reached your maximum amount of blood seal usage]

[2930/3000]

This time, he hated to be proven correct.

The fourth rule to the skill, there's a limit of how many things he could use the skill on at a given time, Though he was certainly worried about the limit, he was more curious about where the number 2930 came from.

Right as he finished thinking, as if the system could understand what he needed, a list of names appeared in his mind. Those are the people he used the blood seal on before.

"Ok this is damn useful," he said to himself, while still cursing, if this appeared before he wouldn't need to waste those blood essences just now.

Although there was no such thing as photos of the faces or anything like it. But he somehow can recognize each number on the list. This probably has something to do with the thin thread that connects them.

The list is; Borin, Astrid, the tall guy named Scrall, the 2 surviving warriors, and the 5 blue-tattooed warriors he just used the skill on. Everything was good, until…

He stared at the last two names for a moment before sighing.

[Level 50 beast – 500 blood essence]

[Human, battle power: 64 – 300 blood essence]

One was the white tiger belonging to the female elf he had to deceive, and the other seems to be one of the captains he was forced to use the skill on. The captain seemed to be alive, judging from his name being there, but it seems that he was captured by the enemy.

Tristan tried to come up with some ways to solve this problem, but although he could see their names, for now, he could neither feel them nor send orders to them. Among all the options, only one seems to work.

[Remove blood seal from Human, battle power, 64?]

There was no way to know whether it would work or not before trying.

"Yes, proceed."

[Blood Seal has been removed]

He waited for a second, but nothing happened except for the name disappearing away from the list.

So, another rule of the blood seal skill. If he tried to remove it from a distance, the 50% return rule would no longer work. Therefore, in a way, Tristan just lost another 300 blood essence. Well, at least, he managed to free a bit of the blood seal limit.

[Blood seal: 2630/3000]

The small experiments were enough to assure Tristan that if he chooses to upgrade his skill, he would most likely receive an upgrade to the maximum limit of blood essence used for the skill and also the increased chances, so probably next time he would have a better chance when he wanted to seal an orc warchief.

Therefore the question still remains.

Should he use his blood essence to upgrade his skill, or to upgrade his body?