After concluding the bandit raid incident and reorganizing the caravan, they soon continued their way forward.

Avian and Cornelia stayed with the mercenaries by the request of the mercenary leader Avrid.

Believing him to be a very interesting boy, Avrid for some reason liked to talk to Avian a lot, Avian didn’t refuse the conversation and actually found it also very useful to him as Avian continued to ask Avrid anything he knew about [Aura] so that he could better understand his own blessing.

Avrid turned out to be a very good source of information in that department as he easily told Avian everything he knew, unfortunately he couldn’t demonstrate any of it since he had yet to martial technique or get to rank 3, but through Avian’s sense he immediately realized that Avrid wasn’t actually too far off from being able to use [Aura] himself.

After encountering Bennet and seeing him use his [Aura], Avian became better at identifying it, after the fight with Bennet, Avrid must have gotten some kind of inspiration or spurt of growth as his [Aura] was very faintly present on his body.

Compared to Bennet who only had it glowing through his arm towards his sword making only one area filled with [Aura], Avrid actually had his [Aura] spread all over his body evenly to the point it was barely noticeable.

Avian didn’t know if Avrid even realized this himself, but he wasn’t about to tell him as instead Avian himself gained an inspiration upon seeing this use of [Aura].

This entire time, Avian had been basically using his [Aura] or his [Blood Reinforcement] just like Bennet by covering it on specific places or parts of his weapon, it was already a very lethal use of the ability, but after meeting Avrid and seeing his unconscious use of it Avian quickly decided to test if he could do the same and what the results of it would be.

Unfortunately, he failed as he realized this was incredibly difficult.

When Avian first tried to do this, instead of activating his blood abilities he directly tapped into his BP, Avian had felt many times how the BP flowed through his body whenever he used his blood abilities which is why he was familiar with the initial step, but as soon as he tried to lead and control it, the BP he held felt like sand going through his fingers as he couldn’t get a clear grasp of it, he never had this problem before as he would usually just leave everything to his blood abilities while he controlled the ability itself, which is where Avian realized the true problem.

So far he always used his BP in conjunction with his blood to activate abilities like [Blood Sense], [Blood Control] and [Blood Reinforcement], this fusion seemed to cause his [Aura] or BP to be hidden and unrecognizable as even Avrid who recognized Bennet’s use of elementary [Aura] didn’t even notice Avian’s short spear head being covered by it, Avian had never once attempted to use his pure BP without his blood abilities, which is why it was so difficult as he had no experience with it.

Avian came to the conclusion that this was likely the reason why a person needed a high mastery over their martial art or be on rank 3 to be able to use [Aura] as those were the bare minimum requirements to effectively control [Aura] or BP.

Avian had [Aura] from the start, but he did not have the requirements to use it as is which is why he needed to use them through his blood abilities.

If Avian wanted to directly use BP without using his blood for his blood abilities, he understood that he needed to practice, but then he wondered why he didn’t improve when he had been practicing his blood abilities as that should have somewhat improved his ability to use BP since he was in a way using it through his blood abilities.

Fortunately, this line of questioning was not difficult as Avian quickly understood that what he had been doing for the past few weeks wasn’t understanding how his blood abilities operated but how to use them, he never once attempted to dissect the inner workings of his blood abilities and how they used his BP, this in fact gave him a very good idea as to how to practice in the future as Avian instantly realized that he could not only practice his blood abilities but also practice his usage of BP through observing his blood abilities in detail as he practiced them.

-This…this is also one of the pros of the [Hemomancer] blessing, since I can use BP from the start, I don’t need to train in martial art to be able to invoke and perceive it. Instead I can directly skip this step entirely and start practicing it.

This perk the blessing provided was actually very powerful as it cut the time required to master martial art, but then Avian also noticed something completely different, that he had thought of before that made him wonder once more.

-Magic power…

As stated before, the [Hemomancer] blessing could not use any magic power or MP as all its skills didn’t require magic power to be used but biological power or BP.

Every blessing in fact used MP to activate their abilities, MP was the foundation of almost all blessings other than his [Hemomancer] blessing and something everyone was exposed to, again he didn’t need to worry about this since he had a second blessing or rather his first blessing the [Monster Tamer] blessing that used MP like most common blessings.

Avian wondered what the difference between MP and BP was as he felt both whenever he used his abilities on both blessings, so far the only difference he gleamed from a surface level observation was that BP had a small pool but regenerated quickly while MP had a much bigger pool but recovered slower.

At this moment Avian felt like a scientist making some important research, but quickly enough he stopped thinking about this as he simply wrote it all down in his book for later.

Asking advanced questions like these when he hadn’t even comprehended the beginner level questions was like trying to aim for the stars, Avian knew the importance of gradual improvement which is why he didn’t hurry and simply took it slow and steady.

His current aim was to understand BP more than MP and improving his blood abilities, since all of his power came from the [Hemomancer] blessing it, it was the utmost importance for him to focus on the blessing that made him stronger.

-Cornelia, I think it’s about time I ask you this, but who are you, where did you come from and why are you here?

Avian asked, sitting near a campfire as the caravan had decided to stop for the night and rest.

6 days had passed since the bandit raid incident, since then they had passed many villages and small towns, the original travelers, merchants and even mercenaries had all separated from the caravan once they reached their destination with now not many new travelers to come along making the caravan extremely small as they were coming closer to Alimdal which was not a place most people went to for obvious reasons.

The people who left included Avrid’s mercenary crew who had accomplished their commissioned request and had basically decided to rest in a town until they found another request.

Avrid, felt a bit regretful with parting with Avian as he actually had a lot of fun talking with Avian who was good at conversations and had many topics to talk about, he told Avian that if he ever needed a place to belong, he could always call up on him in a city called Witham where his headquarters were and join his mercenary crew, Avian simply gave a neutral response not accepting or refusing it while wishing him good luck, with Avrid doing the same as they parted casually.

Markus also told Avian to look for him if he ever visits Witham, he promised that he would treat Avian to a drink for saving his life.

And just like that there were only Avian and Cornelia who still followed the caravan heading towards Alimdal.

-Eh? You want to know? Why now?

Cornelia asked puzzled, sitting near the campfire just like Avian with her blonde hair tied behind her back while wearing the deceased Marco’s long coat and his backpack.

Her face looked a lot better than it did 6 days ago as most of the bruises inflicted by Avian had healed since then, Cornelia had a lot to think about ever since Marco died and she started to follow Avian who Marco entrusted her to.

She still talked in a very noble like manner, but her behavior toned down as she started to be quieter and less intrusive, slowly she was getting to terms with her reality, Avian too contributed by keeping her busy at all times by giving her a lot of things to do for the past 6 days like teaching her how to make camp, how to make a fire and how to forage for food.

Basic survival stuff, but admittedly Avian himself wasn’t exactly an expert on these things either, he knew how to do them but didn’t have a lot of experience as this was his first time leaving the castle, of course Cornelia didn’t know this and simply following along without a second thought as they both learned together.

Recently Avian also started teaching Cornelia how to fight and build her body, because of this Cornelia started to get slightly more rebellious because Avian hadn’t been hitting her after the first time because of how obedient she was, but this didn’t last long as after the first time she asked for a break Avian immediately showed her the palm of his hand which put her back in line as she continued to run next to the caravan while carrying rocks and looking like she was about to cry.

To motivate her he didn’t let her do it all by herself either and joined along to not only motivate her but also train for himself, unfortunately she would always collapse after 20 or 30 minutes and fall unconscious after each exercise session where he drove her to her absolute limits, but at least that was better than the first time she did it where she almost always puked whenever she ran like this.

But that was the least of her problems, fighting was an even worse disaster as she knew next to nothing about fighting being a young women of high social standing, basically useless.

Avian decided to give her the tools that played with her strengths as he noticed how fast and dexterous she was, coupled with her strange stealth ability, he gave her a short sword and a couple of daggers for throwing and a short bow with 10 arrows all which he took from the dead bandits which he commanded her to carry at all times even when she slept.

Cornelia had no idea what to do with these weapons, but as instructed by Avian she did as he told her, carrying and practicing how to use each weapon every day before fighting Avian himself in which she would get totally floored and collapse on the ground while holding her stomach in pain and get teary eyed as she panted and coughed.

While the mercenaries were still here, they actually saw everything Avian was doing to the poor girl, normally they would have been a bit upset for a man to do something like this to a pretty girl like that, but Avrid ordered his men to stay down as this was Avian’s matters and not their problem.

The men listened but they still couldn’t bear to see how Cornelia was always beaten up every day whenever they sparred, even the mercenaries weren’t that brutal towards their juniors when they trained them, Avrid too kept an eye out, but seeing that Avian wasn’t actually injuring her but simply inflicting pain, he figured that he knew what he was doing which is why he gave it no mind.

Eventually the men started to give Cornelia some advice whenever she was on break or practicing by herself to better her fighting skills, Cornelia quite wary of these men she perceived as dirty, barbaric and honestly no different from the bandits because of the common perception people had against mercenaries, kept a distance between herself and them whenever she could by staying near Avian or staying in the passenger carriage.

She didn’t expect for them to actually want to help her, and quickly she started to listen to their advice as she realized that she was improving the more she listened.

Those dirty, manner less and barbaric middle aged men slowly started to look less convulsive to Cornelia the more they taught her on how to use her weapons, her getting beaten by Avian never changed, but even Cornelia understood that was indeed improving as she started to pant less and ignore the pain more.

Though once the mercenaries had to leave, she couldn’t receive any more advice which was a bummer to her as he progress quickly slowed with that.

-Hoh? Does this mean that Lukas finally took an interest to the elegant me?!

-…

-AHH! STOP! I AM JOKING I AM JOKING!

Cornelia cried, jumping from her seat in fright as she saw how Avian raised his fist at her with a cold look in his eyes, even though Cornelia started to get used to the physical pain, it didn’t mean she was completely over her trauma of getting hit or even liked the pain, having spent merely 6 days with Avian, she started to understand what he is really like, really Avian was the sort of person who didn’t condone nonsense most of the time, only rarely he would crack a smile and even then it wasn’t a good thing.

Avian smiled, making Cornelia feel extremely cold as this was exactly what she meant, for a moment she thought about escaping with her stealth ability, but quickly gave up the idea as Avian had never once fallen for that for the past 6 days somehow always catching her and delivering brutal punishment.

Cornelia already knew it was better to accept whatever was coming then to increase her sentence, luckily this wasn’t it.

-Haha, yes I too was joking, now sit down, the food is about to finish.

-hehe…Oh! I can’t wait!

Cornelia immediately stopped looking scared as her eyes suddenly shone with a bright luster before looking at the camp fire that had a pot hanging above it, the aroma that came out of the pot as it hung above the campfire was simply mouth water inducingly delicious, from her experience all of Avian’s dishes were the same as they were simply superb, they were even better than the food her personal chef back in her old home made and he had the blessing of the [Chef] which produced the best food.

Before Marco died, she was a very picky eater and wouldn’t touch those preserved rations that hard and extremely salty forcing Marco to cook each time which still didn’t satisfy the lady’s rich palate but had to eat as there wasn’t anything better, after Marco died, she still was a picky eater, but under the threat of Avian fist which she could do nothing about, she started to eat anything he made, surprisingly becoming addicted as his food was simply too good.

Sometimes Cornelia wondered if Avian had the blessing of the [Chef] to make such delicious food, but that couldn’t be right as that wouldn’t explain his other strange abilities and power, she figured while recalling the conversation her passed butler Marco had with Avian that he may have figured out Avian’s blessing since he was a rare [Investigator], unfortunately she was not smart enough to put the pieces together, and wasn’t about to ask Avian and earn another bump on her head before being ordered to run for 10 rounds around the caravan.

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