My body couldn’t help but freeze up after seeing Shefra’s pitch-black veins…

After a couple of seconds of gawking at Shefra, I carefully treaded towards Shefra’s body, as if any sudden movement would make the body blow up. After entering a 3-meter radius of her body, I felt powerful mana that was oppressing me exuding from her. I knew something was wrong, as this occurrence sent off many death flags, both for me and Shefra. I continued walking towards her, barely coping with the horrible pressure. After reaching her body, I activated my certificate, using the array to process what I was seeing. While observing her body, I began to notice a very weird occurrence. Different parts of her body would be labeled with different species by the array, such as her back being labeled as draconic, while her heart was demonic, her mind was angelic, and her legs were gigantic. After observing for a while longer, I consulted Drafold on what I believed was happening.

“Drafold, is i-it possible that she is going through c-cellular metamorphosis?”

“Yes, it is normal for someone who has unnatural blood like her to go through cellular metamorphosis.”

“Drafold, then why the hell d-does she seem to b-be made from different s-species?”

“I don’t know…”

“Could it b-be a result f-from the blood n-not completely combining?”

“Could be.”

“D-Drafold, does that means s-she’ll never be a single species f-for her entire life?”

“Yes, Maxwell.”

“T-Then that means s-she’s currently b-becoming a c-chimera!”

“W-Wait a minute… You’re right! Oh, this isn’t good…”

“Is there a-any way to prevent this from h-happening?”

“I-I don’t know!”

I turned to look at Shefra as she began to quiver and flail. I began processing everything that I knew about the situation.

‘Well, it seems she’s turning into a chimera because of the fact that the blood in her body isn’t mixed. Or could there be another reason?’

I instantly grabbed the syringe nearby and found a vein near the skin and poked it into Shefra. I extracted some blood and began analyzing its properties.

‘The blood is giving off a purple haze, meaning the gigantic blessings have been mixed thoroughly, and it seems that blood has a yellow tint to it, meaning the draconic blessings have also mixed…’

“Um, D-Drafold, can you check this b-blood’s blessings?”

“Sure Maxwell.”

Drafold took the syringe from me and held it up to the moonlight. After looking at the blood for a couple of minutes, he came to a conclusion.

“Maxwell, this blood has gigantic, draconic, demonic, and angelic blessings in it.”

“S-So that means the blood h-has completely c-combined in her body.”

“Yes. So what of it?”

“That m-means that she i-isn’t turning i-into a chimera because o-of the b-blood not mixing!”

“Oh, yeah! B-But then what is the reason?”

“D-Drafold, could you check the genetic make-up of the blood?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea!”

After Drafold sloshed and shook the blood for a couple of minutes, the blood began to separate into 4 different colors; Black, White, Yellow, and Purple.

“All done!”

“So what’re t-the results?”

“Well, we have 24.8% Draconic blood, 32.1% Angelic blood, 32.1% Demonic blood, and 11% Gigantic blood.”

“And h-human?”

“One sec- Huh?!”

“W-What’s the m-matter?”

“T-There’s no human blood!”

“I-Impossible!”

“So t-the reason Shefra’s turning into a chimera is that she isn’t technically human!”

“Well, i-is there a way t-to cure her, Drafold?!”

“U-Unless you have human blood that can stand up to 4 different blessings, then no!”

‘Damn it! What do I do? If she becomes a chimera, then she’ll be cursed with insanity! Is there human blood that strong? Think, Maxwell, Think!’

I continued going through multiple probabilities, when I reached one conclusion.

“The Duke…”

“What? Are you insane?! W-What do you think he’ll do if he sees his daughter like this?!”

“I don’t c-care! James!”

“Huh? Yes, Maxwe- W-What the hell is that?!”

James walked in and almost fell over.

“James, call for the Duke! H-His daughter’s life d-depends on it!”

“Uh, um-! Sure!”

James turned around and began running off somewhere. I turned to face the Duke’s daughter, when I saw that she was floating above the pedestal she was lying on. She opened her mouth and began speaking a weird language.

“[email protected]#! *^! !&[email protected]? [email protected]+-)&*”

I felt my mental array begin to react to the words, just like it did when I was looking at The Zmaragdos Tablets. I then felt the mana around me strengthen as the atmosphere began to crumble due to the pressure. I, though, managed to somehow push through and grabbed a needle that hasn’t been used yet and attached it to a tube, which I attached to another needle. I rubbed both needles with healing elixir and stood upon the pedestal to poke the needle into one of Shefra’s veins. After successfully doing so, I closed the needle, making it so that it could only accept blood. Then stepped down and did the opposite to the other one, making it so it could only give out blood. After preparing everything, I waited for the Duke to arrive.

As I was waiting, I began to feel the entire castle shaking. I got up and began looking around, when I felt the tremor again, except it was closer. This continued until dust began falling from the ceiling. Then, in an instant, the ceiling began to crack and pieces of debris fell down, barely missing my head. Then a powerful tremor landed in front of me, pushing me back off my feet. I luckily landed in a bush, or things would’ve been terrible for me. I got up, squinting to see what had happened through the dust, when I began to see a silhouette forming through the dust. After the dust fully settled, I was able to see a towering figure standing in the clearing. The Duke was standing right next to the pedestal.

“Maxwell, you said you needed me?”

“Y-Yes, your grace. We need a large quantity of your blood, is that fine?”

“Hmm? That’s all? What for?”

“Your d-daughter, sir. She needs s-some of your blood.”

“What?! You turned my daughter into a vampire?!”

“N-No, sir. It’s j-just a simple b-blood transfusion.”

“What’s that?”

“Uhm, w-we take some of y-your blood and put it i-into your daughter’s v-veins so she c-can live.”

“Oh… Wait, what?!”

“Sir, we d-don’t have much t-time. Let’s begin right a-away!”

I grabbed the Duke’s hand and led him to a chair. I then rolled up his sleeve and looked for a vein. After finding one, I grabbed the needle and poked it into the Duke. I then gave the Duke a mana stone and instructed him to turn the mana into vitality, which would, in turn, create a lot of blood. I then turned on a mana generator that began to pump the blood quickly into Shefra. The blood transfusion had begun, and whether Shefra would get to live or die would soon be known.

While the blood was flowing into her, I began working on a small pill that would delay the chimera-turning process and allow the blood to properly fuse in her. I combined the final result with some mango flavoring, because who doesn’t like mango, and used a ladder to give her the pill. After a few minutes, everything calmed down. Shefra was lying peacefully on the pedestal, while the Duke was waiting for me. I was checking Shefra’s condition before deciding to declare,

“The Duke’s daughter has been cured and will soon exit a comatose state!”

The servants and guards all broke down, either crying tears of joy or laughing. I nervously walked over to the Duke and sat down in front of him.

“Thank you, Maxwell.”

“O-Of course, your g-grace. I am happy to help.”

“I just wanted to ask, but what had happened?”

“Oh, nothing b-big. Just the cells in her b-body were about t-to lose control d-due to the amount o-of blessings. It was r-really due to a lack of balance in h-her body. But s-she’s cured now, and I know it isn’t my p-place to talk, but I r-recommend teaching her how t-to fight.”

“What do you mean?”

“Now that s-she has overcome this, she h-has numerous blessings r-residing in her, so I s-suggest utilizing those blessings.”

“Oh, I understand. Thank you for the suggestion.”

“W-Well, I must excuse myself. I-I must leave home as soon as p-possible.”

“Wait for a moment… I can’t let you get away without a reward.”

“I d-do not need anything, s-sir.”

“Do not refuse my goodwill.”

“Ah. Then i-if that’s that case, t-then I humbly accept.”

“Hahaha! Good! Guards, lead him to my personal vault, and if anything catches his eye, allow him to take what he wants!”

“Understood!”

The guards marched up to me, signaling to me to follow them.

We arrived at a set of doors that were studded with mana stones and had thousands of spell circles drawn on them. A guard walked up to the door and placed his hand on it. A couple of seconds later, the mana stones began to shine brightly as the doors began to open, revealing nothing but a dark room with no light. The guards ushered me inside, so I walked into the vault. Then the guards closed the door, leaving me in the dark room alone. I blindly walked around the room, nervous and wondering what the hell was going on, when the lights came on. Blinded by the sudden bright light, I slowly was able to see everything around me clearly. I was surrounded by gold, treasures, books, artifacts, etc. I began walking around, checking out the items that were in this vault. I decided to grab something for James, and since he was training, I thought that a martial arts manual would be good. I activated my array and began to observe every book there was, when I remembered Drafold. I decided to call Drafold to help me to choose a book.

“Hello, Maxwell~.”

“Hello, D-Drafold. Could you help me pick out a book f-for James?”

“Hmm, sure. Let’s see.”

Drafold flew around, grabbing every book and flipping through it. Eventually, he had read every book in the library. Then he flew over to one, very shabby-looking book. Its front page was torn off from how old and musty it was.

“This one. This is it.”

“A-Are you sure, Drafold?”

“Yes. This is the best book for James.”

“Okay, thank y-you.”

“And now the best book for you.”

Drafold flew to another book, that, somehow, was worse off than the book in my hands. It was covered in dust, had blotches all over its pages, and was missing a cover. Drafold walked up to me and handed me the book while I gazed at him with a puzzled look. After a bit, I decided to trust Drafold on this one. I then saw him grab a bag and place a normal-looking scepter, similar to James’ scepter, into the bag. He then grabbed a sword that had a beautiful purple jewel as a blade and placed it into the bag. He continued to place a black scroll, a book half my size, and a small staff with a black, spherical mana stone on one end into the bag. It was a spatial bag, it seem

“Alright, that’s all, Maxwell.”

“T-Thanks, Drafold.”

We began to walk out, when I felt the array in my mind begin to stir. I decided to activate my certificate, activating the array. The array began to work quickly, sending me information about every artifact in the room. I began looking around the room, looking for what made the array awake, when I noticed something highlighted by the array. I walked closer to the item to check out what it was. It was a small, grey box. Oh, wait, it wasn’t grey. That was just dust. It was just a very old box. I grabbed the box and opened it. Inside was a scroll 2 cm wide, but 5 cm thick. I immediately felt the array in my head suddenly begin to whirr faster and faster. I suddenly felt excitement rush up to my head as I felt a desire to unroll the scroll. The moment I opened the scroll, I began to see letters, if that was what you could call them. They were horrific symbols, no, nothing could describe them. They were just there. They almost gave off the same feeling The Professor did, except they felt just a bit more fathomable. Their powers were rendering the universe incapable of showing them. That was when it happened. The Letters, for the lack of a better name, began to float off the scroll and edged slowly towards me. All 313 of them (Told you I have a good memory). They began to close in on me from all sides, edging closer and closer, until they had formed an airtight barrier around. All the while, I could hear Drafold, calling out my name. Then the letters rushed at me. I shut my eyes tight, anticipating pain, when I felt an amazing feeling spreading through my body. It wasn’t a relaxing, nor calming feeling. It was as if someone had purified every atom of my being. It wasn’t a feeling that was refreshing, but rather it was the feeling one feels when they’re almost done with the world’s longest puzzle, with only one or two pieces left. It made me feel as if I had inched closer to completion. I opened my eyes as that feeling continued to flow through my body, and what met my eyes was a bizarre, yet beautiful sight. The Letters had turned into different colors, ranging from a beautiful gold, to a simple pitch-black, and The Letters were flowing into my array, attaching themselves to my array, allowing themselves to be interpreted by me. After a few minutes, The Letters had flowed into me completely. I opened my eyes, feeling joy spreading throughout me. Drafold had calmed down by now and was waiting for me.

“A-Are you alright, Maxwell?”

“Yes, I am f-fine.”

“Well then, let’s get going. It’s been an hour and a half since you came in here.”

“Really?!”

“Yeah, James has been calling your names for a long time now.”

I then noticed the yelling occurring outside, which I noticed mostly consisted of James’ voice. I walked towards the door and simply knocked on it. Then the yelling stopped, as the door began to creak open by itself. Outside, I saw James and The Duke staring at each other with hostility when I walked out.

“J-James, Your grace. What’s going on?” (M)

“Your younger brother here wanted to enter the vault to get you out, and I can’t allow that!” (Duke Renild)

“Why?!” (J)

“Because it’s my personal vault!” (DR)

“Well, what if-” (J)

“James, it’s okay. I’m f-fine. Calm down. Each of you had his own circumstance, but it’s over. L-Let’s go home. And Your Grace, I apologize for my brother’s behaviour.” (M)

“O-Oh, it’s alright. I would’ve gone in myself, but the vault only allows one person at a time.” (DR)

“Huh? Really?” (J)

“Yeah, that’s why I couldn’t allow you to enter.” (DR)

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know.” (J)

“Well if you had let me explain, you would’ve known!” (DR)

“You should’ve started with that first, not that you wouldn’t let me in!” (J)

“P-Please calm down, guys.” (M)

(They continued to argue for another hour)

“Well, Maxwell, I bid you farewell.”

The Duke, after he and James had calmed, checked what I got from the vault, and showed us out. James had already entered the carriage ahead of me, while I decided to bid the Duke goodbye. After shaking his hand, I entered the carriage and sat down in my personal room. I felt the carriage jerk as we began to leave to Mr. Sjorn’s estate. I sat down in my room, thinking about what The Duke had said when I showed him the old box. He had said,

“There was no such box or scroll in my vault. It’s not even on the list of items. Weird. How’d it get there?”

I decided to leave the topic alone and laid down, slowly entering a deep sleep.

(To Be Continued…)