Goulth frowned. “You… Don’t you think this might be a step too far?”

Red shook his head. “Not at all. Of course, I’m not suggesting that we take innocent humans and experiment on them, but for the sake of knowledge, what’s the harm in experimenting on monsters we would have killed anyway?”

The blacksmith grunted. “I suppose there’s no harm in it… It’s just that we might be taking this whole blood magic thing a bit too far. I have never experimented on any living beings myself, so I don’t feel too comfortable with the practice, even if it’s a monster.”

Red nodded. “I understand your hesitation. In which case, maybe I should use my own body as an experiment.”

“Are you stupid?!” Goulth’s eyes looked like they would pop out of his head. “You don’t even know what will happen when the sigil comes into contact with your skin! What if absorbs all the blood in your body?!”

“… So we should use an animal to experiment?”

“You…” Goulth glared at him. “Look, we can try it on a monster, but it’s not the first time a cultivator tried to inscribe arcane sigils into a living being.”

Red was surprised. “Did it work in the past?”

Goulth shook his head. “There were some evident limitations in the practice that made this a very inconvenient path. First of all, was the matter of energy conductivity. These runes carved into human skin still needed Spiritual Energy to work, meaning you needed to use Spirit Stones to power them one way or the other, something that made them very inconvenient to use in the middle of combat.”

Red frowned. “Isn’t it possible to use the Spiritual Energy inside one’s own body if they have opened their Spiritual Sea?”

“It is, but unless you’re in the Spirit Core Realm and are able to condense your Spiritual Energy enough, it will almost always be less effective than just using a Spirit Stone, and even then it might not be worth it for cultivators at that level. This is not to mention the fact that having these runes in your body is likely to cause interference while you are using Spiritual Arts, as the sigil might absorb Spiritual Energy on its own. There are also other problems, such as your body rejecting the inscription inks and materials, or the fact you can’t really cover your body with equipment if you want to use the runes… This is just to name a few of them.”

Red sighed. “Well, this seems like a very impractical idea. I’m surprised you know this much about it, though.”

“It’s actually not an uncommon subject in the crafting world.” Goulth said. “Every now and then you will hear about a cultivator who has made advancements in the area, but it always ends up as a failure. In the end, Arcane Scripture is something that can only be carved in non-living and treated materials, and not on living skin and fur.”

“If the study is as fruitless as you are saying, then why do cultivators still insist on it?”

Goulth sighed. “That’s because of the theoretical benefits. You see, for a cultivator to activate a Spiritual Art, they need to circulate the Spiritual Energy through their veins in a certain way, and sometimes even visualize some special visions in their mind. This takes a lot of both mental and physical effort, so it’s obvious that a lot of cultivators would want to find ways to reduce that burden.”

“So they want these runes to do that work for them.” Red suddenly understood what the benefit of this idea was.

“Correct.” Goulth nodded. “Imagine if you could delegate the hardest part of executing a Spiritual Art to a formation, with your only responsibility being to release this technique. It would change the way cultivators fight in this world.”

Red frowned. “Is that wise? Although it might increase their combat capabilities, I thought it is important for your comprehension to execute these Spiritual Arts on your own.”

“That is indeed a valid concern. To your point, a cultivator might be able to execute a technique faster than a formation with enough practice, but a formation will always remain the same unless someone improves it.” The blacksmith shrugged. “However, that’s more of a concern for high-level cultivators. You think low-level cultivators would care about comprehension when they could increase their combat capabilities so much?”

The answer was obviously no.

Red sighed. “So, do you think this is not a worthwhile pursuit?”

The youth was starting to have doubts, so he asked his master for his opinion. When it came to matters of cultivation, Red’s knowledge was still lacking comparing to someone as old and experienced as Goulth.

Goulth hesitated. “… It’s hard to say. We still don’t know how much these infernal sigils differ from ordinary arcane sigils, so maybe they will be more suitable to inscribe in a human’s body. Either way, as long as you temper your expectations, it’s worth trying, I suppose.”

“That’s reasonable.” Red nodded. “So, do you have a testing subject in mind?”

“Ugh…” Goulth hesitated. “I suppose I could get a chicken or something.”

“Do you want me to steal one from Domeron’s coop?”

“That depends. Do you think you could take it without getting found out by Domeron?”

“… I’ll leave it up to you then.”

…

His master made good on his promise, and the next day he brought back a chicken from the market.

“Here.” Goulth handed the chicken over to Red with a disgusted expression. “Do your thing now.”

Red frowned. “How am I supposed to inscribe it while it’s still awake?”

“Just hit it on the side of the head and knock it unconscious.”

“Can you even do that without killing it?”

“Argh, just wait here for a second!”

The blacksmith walked away before returning with some powdered substance in his palm. He brought it under the chicken’s beak, and it pecked at it with interest. The next moment, its head hung limp, and it stopped struggling in Red’s grip.

Goulth stared at him. “Great, now do your thing!”

Red nodded and laid the chicken sideways on the table. He decided it would be best to inscribe the sigil directly onto the animal’s skin, so he chose to pluck away at its chest feathers, careful not to awaken it. This revealed a patch of skin large enough to inscribe the sigil on, which, all things considered, was still smaller and rougher than the material Red was used to.

“You should have brought me a bigger animal.” Red said. “A pig would have been better.”

“Well, you didn’t say anything!” Goulth glared at him.

“I might not be able to inscribe it.”

“It’s better that you don’t mess it up, or else I’m sending you to buy an animal from the market next time!”

Red sighed and didn’t say anything else before getting to work.

He used the Spiritual Ink Goulth had recently ordered, and started to draw the sigil over the chicken’s chest. The symbol they chose was the one that made blood harden into a thick shield - the safest of the batch Red and his master had researched.

The task ended up being just as hard as Red was expecting, but after almost twenty minutes of extreme focus, the youth managed to complete the sigil. He took a step back, examining the drawing on the chicken’s chest.

“It looks good to me.” Goulth nodded. “Now we just need to power it.”

“You do it.” Red said.

“Why me?!”

“I already drew the sigil. You should at least do something.”

“You… Do you not have any respect for your master?!”

Red stared at him in silence. Goulth just grunted in annoyance before grabbing a Spirit Stone from a nearby table. The man hesitated as he approached the animal, though.

“Should we wake it up before trying the sigil?” Goulth asked.

“I don’t see any reason to.” Red shook his head.

“Uh… Right. Here we go then.”

The blacksmith carefully neared the stone to the chicken’s chest. The reaction was almost immediate as the sigil started to absorb the energy.

Goulth smiled. “The sigil is working!”

His smile disappeared as the chicken suddenly woke up with a horrible noise.

“Ah, fuck!” The blacksmith dropped the stone and jumped back in fear.

The chicken got up from its sleeping position, and unlike what the two of them were expecting, it just sat there on the table as the sigil in its chest continued to glow. Suddenly, blood began to seep out of its skin, before converging into this dark plaque that covered most of its chest.

When the process was finally done, the chicken just stood there, looking around in confusion while examining this strange thing attached to its chest.

Goulth smiled, recovering from his scare. “It worked, it really did work!”

Red nodded. “It seems that way.”

They had both been expecting the worst while doing this experiment, so the fact the chicken remained alive was a pleasant surprise for them.

“We still need to examine it, though.” Goulth said as he approached the chicken. “Maybe something happened that we can’t-”

“Wait!” Red held him back.

“Huh?” The blacksmith looked at him in confusion. “What is it?”

Red frowned. “Something’s happening to it.”

He felt it through his crimson sense. The chicken’s fluctuation seemed to be undergoing an increasingly fast transformation, even though nothing was happening to it on the surface. In fact, Red felt like he recognized what was happening to the animal.

‘Could it be…’

It took just a few seconds for the transformation to manifest. The chicken’s feathers started to fall off its body one by one, and what replaced them were crimson scales. The animal’s eyes also changed in coloration, and it looked over at Red and Goulth with a murderous gaze.

“Demonification…” Goulth whispered in shock.

A moment later, the chicken charged at them with a maddened cluck. It was far faster than a normal chicken, but nowhere near fast enough to take them by surprise. Red stepped forward and grabbed the creature by its neck, holding it in his hand as the demonic chicken continued to struggle to attack them.

The youth suddenly felt something stir inside of his body.

“What are you waiting for, kid?! Kill it, before something else happens!” Goulth said.

Red didn’t respond, instead staring into the eyes of this animal with an intense expression. The chicken seemed to notice the youth’s gaze, and suddenly its aggressiveness died down, and it instead began to tremble in his grip.

Red was satisfied, and he cautiously set the chicken down. The animal didn’t do anything else, and instead it just stood by the youth’s feet like an obidient pet.

“W-What the fuck did you do to it?” Goulth asked.

“I don’t know.” Red shook his head. “I just did what felt natural.”

He was being truthful. He didn’t know what compelled him to do this, or how he had done it, but he had some ideas.

“Look, this doesn’t matter right now!” Goulth shook his head with a shocked expression. “Did you see what that sigil did?!”

Red nodded. “It seemed to induce a very quick demonification process.”

This meant that these sigils’ danger just increased tenfold.