Mercenary Wars

Chapter 82 Blood Brand
Although the name has been confirmed, the level of this thing—or rather, the hilt of the Blood Summoning Sword—remains "unknown," but it is clearly at least level nine.

This is not surprising.

The hilt is the most important part of the Blood Summoning Sword, almost the main body of it; in comparison, the blade is not so crucial.

The reason is simple: the blade of the Blood Summoning Sword is forged from blood. As long as there is blood, a blade can grow from the hilt and remain sharp forever. If it absorbs high-level blood, the blade can be further strengthened.

As for why this Blood-Summoning Sword has no blade, Gaucano now understands.

For its wielder, the Blood Summoning Sword is both a weapon and a "blood pack." A dying Blood Blade Mage will almost certainly choose to consume all of the blade's contents in order to prolong their life as much as possible.

Therefore, most Bloodblade mages only leave behind the hilt of their swords after they die in battle, without the blade.

To make the blade grow back, just soak it in blood.

But there's a prerequisite—Gaucano must first become the true wielder of this Blood-Summoning Sword.

In other words, he needs to brand the hilt of his sword with his own blood. For this reason, Bloodblade mages are sometimes called "branded warriors".

Gao Jiano immediately began studying the "blood brand".

"Blood Brand" is a second-level spell, which is much more difficult than a first-level spell, so it took him several dozen days to master it.

This put him under some pressure.

Comparing the speed at which he learns magic tricks and first-circle spells, Gaucano roughly estimated that, based on his learning efficiency, he would probably only be able to learn to the level of seventh-circle spells at most in his lifetime.

To be fair, this efficiency is already quite astonishing. After all, for ordinary people, limited by talent and resources, second-ring spells are an unattainable goal. Being able to master a second-ring spell is almost like being one in a hundred among people, let alone seventh-ring spells.

But Gaucano's ideal was never to be someone who was satisfied with being superior to ordinary people. His expectation of himself was to become an immortal being, to be a "namer" rather than a "named person".

Compared to such an ambitious goal, this efficiency is hardly encouraging.

This reminded him of a Blood Elf proverb he had seen in both "Funeral Overture" and "Blood Magic Notes": "Life is short" is the fate of mortals.

Having successfully mastered the blood brand, Gaucano, while contemplating these thoughts in his mind, used magic to collect blood, allowing a little blood to overflow from his fingertips.

This is certainly not intended for the Blood-Summoning Sword.

The Blood-Summoning Sword has an extremely high demand for blood, and the amount that seeps from the fingertips is far from enough.

Gao Jiano extracted this blood only to brand the "Blood Magic Notebook" with blood.

Once the text is branded with blood, it gains an effect similar to the first-circle spell "Illusory Manuscript," which can only be read correctly by the caster, appearing as a meaningless pile of text to others.

In this way, the chances of "The Blood Magic Notebook," a book of dark magic, being discovered are greatly reduced.

After branding the Blood Magic Notes with blood, Gao Jiano immediately branded his storage ring with it as well.

The two bloody branding marks only used up a small bottle of blood.

Then Gao Jiano turned his gaze to the hilt of the Blood Summoning Sword, and a serious expression appeared on his face.

The blood brand on the Blood Summoning Sword hilt requires a huge amount of blood, and its level is related to the hilt's level.

Gao Jiano didn't know what level the sword was, so he couldn't be sure how much blood would be needed to imprint it with the Blood Brand.

Even if we only consider the ninth level, the hilt of the Blood-Summoning Sword could very well cause him to fall into a coma due to excessive blood loss.

During the casting of the blood brand spell, the blood supply cannot be interrupted once it begins; otherwise, not only will all previous efforts be wasted, but the item may even be damaged.

Therefore, Gaucano must make thorough preparations.

After a brief thought.

He took out the three bottles of nourishing potions given to him by Cardinal Fabian. This was his only option; the nourishing potions could quickly replenish his lost blood. The three bottles would give him roughly the extra blood needed for two more bodies, enough to deal with the Blood Summoning Sword.

"Hoo..." Gao Jiano took a deep breath and then exhaled.

He then chanted an incantation, and a moment later a crimson light flew from his fingertips and disappeared into the hilt of the Blood-Summoning Sword.

Then comes the trick of collecting blood.

Strands of blood seeped from his palm and seeped into the hilt of the Blood-Summoning Sword.

As the blood seeped in, the originally pure white, bone-like hilt gradually became stained with blood, and the mysterious patterns revealed a bright scarlet color, slowly extending upwards from the bottom.

Before long, with the loss of a lot of blood, Gao Jiano began to feel dizzy, palpitations and shortness of breath, and gradually his consciousness became blurred.

But the crimson patterns on the hilt of the Bloodcalling Sword had only spread to a small portion of the surface.

Upon seeing this, Gao Jiano gritted his teeth, swung his sword and slashed his wrist. As blood gushed out, he tilted his head back and drank a bottle of nourishing medicine.

The tonic worked, rapidly restoring his lost blood and instantly repairing the wound on his wrist.

This startled Gao Jiano, who quickly made several more cuts, managing to keep the bleeding flowing.

After a while.

The dizziness returned, but the crimson patterns on the Blood Summoning Sword hilt were about to spread to the top.

Gao Jiano did not consume another bottle of nourishing potion, but instead endured until the spell ended.

Finally, just when he felt he couldn't hold on any longer, a sharp, light sound suddenly rang out: "Clang!"

However, the sword guard suddenly emerged from both sides of the top of the Blood Summoning Sword hilt, shining with a bright blood-red luster.

It’s finally done!

Gao Jiano quickly tore open a healing scroll for himself and drank a bottle of "blood-regenerating potion".

The blood-regenerating medicine was far less effective than the tonic medicine; it took several days to fully restore his lost blood and could not immediately alleviate his weakness.

So he lay on the ground panting for a while until his condition improved slightly before sitting up again and picking up the hilt of the Blood Summoning Sword to examine it carefully.

After being branded with his blood, the Blood-Calling Sword hilt has established a close connection with him, feeling as if it were part of his own body.

Now, all it takes is for the Blood-Summoning Sword to absorb the blood of other creatures to become a real weapon.

Gaugano stored a lot of blood.

However, most of these bloods have specific uses. For example, human blood is used for disguise, while animal blood is used to make potions and magic ink.

There is only one type that can be absorbed by the Blood Summoning Sword.

—The blood of Rosier's incarnation.

Gao Jiano immediately took out dozens of bottles of black blood and poured them onto the hilt of the Blood Summoning Sword.

As this black blood seeped in, the blade of the Blood-Summoning Sword gradually grew...

……

P.S.: I'm so busy I'm exhausted, so I can only update once a week. I'll try to update more on Monday and Tuesday next week, and see if I can get it onto the Three Rivers list. I hope everyone can stay a little longer and read to the end of the chapters, so that this book can get more readers. Thank you all.

(End of this chapter)