Red and Goulth were both thrown backwards by the force of the explosion. Tools and other materials were sent flying, and the detonation echoed through their entire sect.

Red laid on the ground, swiping his hand around as he tried to clear the dust in the air and see what was going on. He heard the blacksmith curse by his side.

“Fucking hells!” Goulth coughed into his own hand. “What was th- Shit! There’s a fire!”

As the dust cleared, Red saw it too. The area where the explosion happened was caught in a blaze, and the papers and wooden appliances were all caught in flames.

“Shit, shit, shit!” Goulth got up in a hurry. “Get the inflammable stuff out of the room, kid!”

Red nodded and did as his master told. Suffice it to say, his master’s workshop had a fair amount of inflammable material, including alchemical ingredients which would also cause quite an explosion when exposed to open flames.

While the youth was occupied with moving these materials, Goulth was trying to extinguish the fire using cool water. He was finding little success, though.

“What in the blazes is going on here?!” Hector’s angered voice came from outside the workshop.

“Uh, we had an accident!” Goulth said. “Help us put out the fire, elder!”

The elder didn’t respond, but Red could imagine him gritting his teeth outside the house. All of a sudden, the windows around the house swung open, and a small torrent of floating water flew towards the fire, crashing into it in a sizzling steam. The fire was extinguished in almost an instant, far faster than normal water should have been able to accomplish.

Goulth let out a sigh of relief once he saw this. He looked out the window of his workshop and smiled. “Thank the gods you were here, Hector!”

The elder snorted. “Will you tell me what happened?”

“Uh, yeah, we were-”

“Come outside first!” Hector interjected. “I won’t have a conversation through a window!”

Both Red and Goulth walked out, finding Domeron, Hector, and Allen waiting for them.

“What happened to your face?” Allen asked with a smile.

“There was an explosion.” Red said, wiping the soot off his face.

“We know that!” Hector glared at him. “What caused the explosion?!”

“We were just experimenting with something new.” Goulth said.

The elder frowned. “Experimenting?! You’ve been in this sect for more than ten years and I’ve never seen an accident like this!”

The blacksmith shrugged. “Accidents happen when you’re experimenting.”

Hector still didn’t look convinced, and he looked between Goulth and Red with a suspicious gaze. “What the hell were you experimenting with to cause this?!”

Before Red could respond, his master spoke up.

“We were trying to concoct a new medicine.” Goulth said with an embarrassed expression. “I asked the kid for help, but I didn’t expect him to mess up the ingredient mixing.”

Red was taken by surprise by his master’s lies, but none of it showed in his expression.

Hector frowned and stared at Red. “I thought you were the kind to be more careful about these things.”

The youth shrugged. “I was too tired.”

The elder snorted and looked back at Goulth. “I don’t care what you were doing inside that workshop, but I just want to ask you one thing - are your experiments going to kill us all?”

The blacksmith smiled and shook his head. “They won’t, but if something goes out of control, I’m sure we can count on you to help us.”

Hector grunted and turned around to leave. “Next time, I’ll let your house burn down!”

Domeron shook his head with a helpless expression and also left without speaking a word. This only left Allen, who was staring at the two of them with curiosity.

“What kind of experiments are you guys doing?” the young master asked.

“The dangerous, secret ones that are none of your concern! Now leave and stop being nosy!” Goulth glared at Allen with an angry expression.

“Fine, fine!” Allen turned around with a smile. “Just make sure to show me what you have cooked up when you’re done!”

With those words, the young master left Goulth and Red alone.

The blacksmith sighed. “Let’s go inside first.”

Red nodded and followed his master into the workshop.

Goulth stared at the chaos caused by the explosion with a resigned expression. “Gods, what a mess! Help me clean this up, kid!”

Red hesitated. “… Why did you lie to-”

“Shush!” The blacksmith cut him off. “Help me clean this place first and we can talk after!”

Red sighed and did as his master asked. It took them a little over half an hour to get the place in order and assess the damage. A lot of the wooden appliances and furniture around the fire were completely ruined, but Goulth was not too worried about them. These were easily replaced.

What made the blacksmith angry was the inscribing material that was right next to the explosion and was completely destroyed by the fire.

“Fuck, the Spiritual ink is gone!” Goulth stared at the ruined bottle with pain in his heart.

Red frowned. “Was that the only one you had?”

The blacksmith shook his head. “No, we have another bottle. It’s just that these are expensive, and every bottle takes weeks to arrive from the capital.”

“I could help you with the costs.”

Goulth snorted. “I don’t lack for money, kid! Besides, it’s not like this is your fault. We were both too reckless to experiment with this inside the workshop.”

“Maybe that is so, but there is no way we could have foreseen that kind of reaction from a single rune.” Red said.

A single arcane rune alone had limited power and could only do the simplest of things. It was only when they were drawn into a formation or a talisman that they were able to display their true strength. As such, none of them were expecting such a violent reaction from this single sigil, which was why they got complacent about their safety amidst their great curiosity.

Goulth shook his head. “We are dealing with something completely foreign here. We should be prepared for everything the next time we try it.”

Red raised his eyebrows in surprise. “There’s going to be a next time?”

The blacksmith laughed. “That depends on you!”

“Is that why you lied to Hector?” Red asked.

“Well, he isn’t stupid. He knows we are up to something, but he probably couldn’t guess what we are researching, even in his wildest dreams.” Goulth said. “Either way, don’t you feel excited, kid?! Researching into a completely foreign practice, being the pioneer of a possible new field of Arcane Scripture! Doesn’t that send your blood pumping?!”

Red hesitated. “… I’m just copying some drawings.”

“Bah, don’t be modest! You still have to figure out what each sigil does and how to connect them on your own, right? That’s already enough work on its own!”

The youth sighed. “When you put it like that, I suppose you’re right.”

Goulth smiled. “Of course I am! In any case, let’s sit down and think before we rush ahead. What have we learned from this experiment?”

Red pondered to himself for a few seconds. “These runes still work in our world, and it seems like blood is required to activate them.”

“It’s a reasonable conclusion to make considering what happened and its origins, even if we still have many more experiments to conduct. However, if blood is really the fuel for these runes, you know what that means, right?” Goulth’s tone changed.

“… Blood magic.”

There was no such thing as an accepted demonic practice in the cultivation world, but amidst all these evil arts, there was one that stood above all others in term of wickedness. This was none other than blood magic.

The practice had its roots at the very dawn of cultivation history when humans noticed that the deciding factor behind a monster’s power was its bloodline. It would dictate how strong that creature would grow at maturity, and it was something that was passed to its descendents, permitting these beasts to grow stronger without ever cultivating.

This process had its limitations, of course, such as providing the monsters with a ceiling in power that was almost impossible to surpass, but such downsides were insignificant compared to the benefit it provided to the beasts at the time. That being, absolute dominance over all other lifeforms in the world that didn’t have such an ability.

This bloodline power was something that humans sought to cultivate inside their own bodies, and they went about it in various ways. Some of them tried to infuse these monsters’ bloodlines into their own body, while others tried to elevate the power of human blood itself. All of them had their drawbacks, and with time and development of cultivation, they mostly became obsolete.

This was until thousands of years later, when the first contact between humans and the demons from the infernal realm happened. Humans were then enlightened to the true power, and horror, of blood magic, and these once antiquated methods came to light once more.

To consume and assimilate. To kill and become stronger.

These were the basic tenets of this demonic blood magic. It allowed the person that cultivated its methods to become stronger by killing other living beings and absorbing their blood essence. Such a method of increasing in strength was, and still is, unmatched in pure cultivation speed, and suffice it to say that when it came to light, an era of chaos and slaughter began as blood practitioners spread through the world.

There were also enormous drawbacks to the method, of course, but the benefits outweighed the risk in the minds of many cultivators. It was why, even after the downfall of the demonic sects, this was still one of the most popular demonic practices in the world, and considered to be the most dangerous for human existence.

Suffice it to say, this wasn’t the first time Red came into contact with this kind of blood magic, and it was why he even thought to use it with the sigil in the first place.

Goulth sighed. “Look, I’m a very open-minded individual. I believe demonic magic is incredibly dangerous and inherently evil, but in the hands of a strong-minded individual, this corruption can be resisted and be used for a better purpose. It’s why I decided to not tell the truth to Hector, not only because I am curious, but because I also trust you and I think this kind of knowledge can benefit you a lot in the long run. That being said, there are other dangers to this than just corruption.”

Red frowned. “What dangers?”

“Kid, think about what you have here.” the blacksmith said. “A completely new Arcane Scripture system powered entirely by blood magic. Not to mention that judging by that explosion from earlier, the sigils might be even more powerful than the basic Arcane Scripture! Can you imagine what would happen if this was spread to the world? Can you imagine if demonic cultivators got their hands into these sigils?”

Red shuddered just thinking about it.

Goulth continued. “This is why you need to think about what could happen if you were to continue researching these. It’s not just about you anymore, but humanity at large!”

Red was silent for a long while, unsure of what to even think. “… I didn’t expect this kind of responsibility to fall into my lap.”

The blacksmith laughed. “Of course you didn’t! Still, you are the one who has to decide. That information will always be in your head, and even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop from researching it. To be honest, there’s obviously a part of me that still wants to experiment and study these sigils, but to put the entire world at risk while doing it? That makes the decision a bit harder…”

Red frowned. “A bit?”

Goulth smiled. “Of course. I’m not the one that has to make the final decision in the first place.”

The youth went silent in thought.

“… I need time to think.”

On one hand, he had a completely new and exclusive scripture system that could benefit him immensely in the long run. On the other hand, there was always the possibility this system could leak and empower demonic cultivators like never before.

Even if Red was never one to care about the prosperity of humans at large, this was still not the kind of decision he could make lightly. He needed to think.

To think and consider what was most important to him.