Draconic Vampire : Curse of the Blood

Chapter 86: Let me follow you

Chapter 86: Let me follow you

After coming back to the training facility, Keith spent the afternoon absorbing blood-qi, then he returned to his living quarters. The duo Garion and Sen stayed by his side in the hopes that he would perform the technique.

But Keith didn’t do it. He preferred to accumulate blood-qi for now and increase his warrior frame’s level. The technique was fully copied and he just needed to wait till the system decoded the structure.

His main target was a unique warrior frame user with an ability to complement his technique so he could mix them up and perfect his own technique. Helping Garion improve will make others come to him as well. 

With that, he could essentially study most of the warrior frames. If only one or two had something good, he would consider that a success. Compatibility with blood-qi techniques was a rare occurrence. The techniques had been passed down from their ancestor and over time, it adapted to a certain type.

Thousands of years of gradual modification tailored towards specific types made them foreign to each other. To study a normal blood-qi technique was hard enough, and amassing the warrior frame technique was not feasible even with money.

Most of the high-grade blood-qi techniques were heirlooms of distinguished families. No amount of money could buy that. You have to defeat their whole family and get the technique by either torturing them or if they have a written scroll, that would make things easier. 

Nowadays, most families moved away from physically storing the blood-qi technique and remembered the technique by heart. Only small parts were shared between the family members to get them off the ground and the rest were kept with the head of the family. 

Only the head of the family knew the important parts of the technique and he shared it with the next leader. Some geniuses develop their very own technique with just a fraction of the knowledge but they eventually get the full technique as nobody could compete with them in the first place.

Keith had a solution to this seemingly difficult problem. With the system to scan the techniques, he could discreetly copy and study the techniques to improve his own. The superior analytical skills of the system further optimized the techniques and made the perfect base for implementation.

Generally the warrior frames the barons create tend to be clumsy and not refined. The technique itself always has a higher level so perfectly implementing them at the lower stage is really hard, if not impossible. 

The mental power and experience needed to perfectly create the technique are beyond any baron. Geniuses could get closer to perfection, but even then it couldn’t reach 100 percent efficiency. 

Keith could perfectly replicate the blood-qi techniques If he got direct contact with the users. Sure, he needed some time to scan and copy so using it in a fight wasn’t practical. And the more complex the technique the more time is needed to scan the entire structure.

Making the vampires willingly come to him in the name of improving their skills, he could study blood-qi techniques without arousing any suspicions. He would improve their compatibility and help them fix the implementation.

In the case of high-grade blood-qi techniques, he could still optimize them. The higher the blood-qi technique, the harder it was to implement. So most of the vampires couldn’t perfectly implement them.

Now that he analyzed Garion’s warrior frame, he was surprised to find that it was a marquis-level warrior frame. Even with this warrior frame, Garion could implement it with 60 percent accuracy. 

It was great considering regular vampires could only get 30 to 40 percent of efficiency. As he analyzed further, he noticed some peculiarities in the technique. The warrior frame had several more structural elements and joints.

If he compared this warrior frame to his own, this technique had more than a dozen extra joints holding the structure together.

‘If he could improve his implementation of the technique, his output will increase significantly. I need to make it so that he could grasp some of the joints that are not properly created and the missing structures.’

He spent the rest of the afternoon and evening trying to come up with a formula for Garion.

‘System, can you try to integrate this technique into mine? Maybe add those joints and additional structures. My warrior frame could hold much more blood-qi after that. Maybe marquis level blood-qi.’

[ Not possible with this technique. Its fundamental structure is very different and you have to change your whole frame which would lessen the effectiveness. It’s like getting a slight bump up in strength for a tremendous amount of work. You would be better off learning that technique. Then, you have to start from the beginning as well.]

The system replied with a nonchalant voice.

“I guess I have to find a compatible warrior frame that can integrate with my own. I honestly don’t want to learn a technique from scratch. I accumulated so much blood-qi that giving them up will be foolish. If it was a duke, archduke… or king-level warrior frame, I would learn it in a heartbeat.” 

Kieth said with a sigh.

[ Do you think the powerful vampires will let someone else study their technique? These are students and they are naive. Most of them want to improve their strength to get the position they want. But the ones who have the position already reached their position and they are even more cunning. I doubt the ones who have the best techniques will even show up in front of us. All the weaker ones will come to you.]

“So, what do I do? Drop this whole thing. Tell me if you have a better idea.” 

[You can continue this. I think it’s a good idea as we could hit a jackpot anytime. Just because someone is weak doesn’t mean their technique is bad. In some cases, the user couldn’t implement the technique resulting in a lower output even if they have a good technique.]

“That is possible. I hope someone among my clients has a good enough technique. Now back to analyzing.” 

Keith worked with the system to fine-tune the technique and condensed his blood-qi at the same time.

The next day, when he arrived at the training facility, Garion and Sen were already present.

Keith looked at Garion and smiled.

“Good news! I have perfected the technique and you can implement it now.” Keith said.

Garion’s face bloomed instantly but he restrained himself. 

“Is it really available now? You sure, it will work.” Garion asked with a serious face.

“Yes! Yes.! I worked all night to perfect the technique. Now it’s finally complete. I know I said it could take longer, but you don’t have any major flaws, so the process was faster.” 

“Alright, show me.” Garion stood in front of Keith with a determined expression.

Keith handed him a small scroll about the size of a palm.  Garion opened the scroll, and his eyes went wide.

“Is it real?” 

In the scroll, many characters were written and many structures were designed. Garion could understand the structure as it was what he used. This model had some changes to his own frame, but it was mostly similar.

“You can test it out yourself.” Keith smiled in response.

Without wasting any time, Garion implemented the technique written in the scroll. It was nothing major, just some changes in the structure.

After absorbing the technique, Garion sat down and focused his mind to add those changes to his warrior frame.

Keith was scanning the inner structure of Garion this whole time and he could see the changes being made in his warrior frame. Garion was reassembling his joints according to the instructions.

After some time, he opened his eyes and looked at Keith with a face full of gratitude. He got up and felt his body which seemed even lighter than before. His strength increased significantly from this implementation.

‘What is his implementation rate?’ Keith asked the system.

{Around 90 percent. He hit the maximum estimated growth, not bad.]

“Now, how do you feel?” Keith asked Garion.

“I… I can’t express how grateful I am to you. Even after all the things we did, you chose to help me. I am…”Garion said with an apologetic voice.

“Whoa! Whoa! Don’t misunderstand. I did it to get more students to come to me. I am taking compensation for this, so you don’t need to be like this.” Keith replied.

Garion looked at Keith in awe as his head lowered on its own.

“I could never improve my technique even after three years of relentless practice. But you showed me a way to improve. From this day, you are my benefactor. No matter what you ask of me, I will try to fulfill it to the best of my abilities.” Garion said sincerely.

Kieth scratched his back as he was expecting such a response. He just wanted him to spread the word about his method and the improvement he had so that more students would be willing to do the same.

Garion turned his head up and looked at Keith trying to figure out the reason for his silence. 

“I see what you want now. I will do as you say, and all the students will know about this. But..”  Garion paused.

“But what?” 

“Let me follow you…” Garion said with a determined face.

“Haah!” 

Keith looked at Garion with a strange face.