When one thinks of a criminal organization (especially one that makes its base in the sewers.), one expects them to be like the shadows. Silent and efficient in their work, with a certain amount of creepiness added to the boot.

  What one does not expect is for people to be screaming at each other at the top of their lungs like this. I am supposed to be focussing right now but in this infernal racket I can't even hear myself think. Well, I can't blame the organization for this though. They seem to be the quiet sort. (You could call them pretty creepy too, if the atmosphere was right.)

  It is the people that they are rescuing who are not able to keep control of themselves. You see, the organization has been smuggling the many merchants that are in the city out of it. Naturally, they are doing it to save the people from the Bloodfire gang.

  The Bloodfire gang is a pirate gang. That means they are going to be looting the city. There is nobody to stop them also. The Bloodfire gang makes the organization seem way cheaper right now. The organization is naturally charging quite a bit for smuggling a person out. I guess losing a majority of your wealth is still better than losing all of your wealth.

  That is why it seems that all the merchants that have spatial storage are already down here. More are making their way here each day. They have made this place into a market with how they are haggling with each other.

  The people here are essentially swapping their positions on the line to leave this place. A person who is closer to being extracted can charge a king's ransom to swap it with a person farther along the line.

  At this moment there are so many people here that the organization is struggling to smuggle them all out. The more frequently that you smuggle someone out, the quicker that you are going to get that route discovered.

  That is why everybody is waiting here. With nothing else to do, the people here have reverted to their usual work. That is, trading with each other. Just like a normal market, the people here have been making bargains with each other. With every deal struck the arguments just seem to be growing in this place.

  Well, putting them all in one massive room is going to do something like that. Maybe that even was the purpose of putting them here.

  My bad luck is that my room is pretty close to this storage room, which is why all of it is so audible. Now, I am not one to care much about noise or chaos, (I can tune it out usually.) but it is undesirable when I am about to do something so vital.

  Today is going to be the first time that I am going to be making use of the fusion spell. I would have preferred to have done it at a better and more peaceful time. I have a feeling that I am going to need every iota of my strength to be able to survive in the coming days. Already the strength of our enemy seems so great and they haven't even revealed themselves fully. The blood moon means that somebody from the court is involved. Who and how is a question for later though.

  Today I am going to achieve the primary linkage to the core. The process of linking a foundation slab to the mana core has three stages.

  The first stage is the primary linkage. In this, a bond is formed between the primary formation and the foundation slab. This is supposed to be the weakest connection. This link is supposed to break quite easily.

  This primary linkage will then act as the foundation for creating stronger bonds. These are known as the minor bond and the major bond respectively. The minor bond will make sure that even if I am far away from the formation, the bond won't break. The major bond should be unbreakable by most means. My master claims that even he won't be able to break it.

  For now, I have to achieve the primary linkage with my mana core. If my master's notes are to be believed. Doing this will result in a bunch of benefits. Which exact benefit is something even he is unsure of. He has after all never seen a bloodline formation used as a core like this.

  Well, I have procrastinated on the matter for long enough. The further that I delay on the matter, the harder it is going to be.

  (After about a day.)

  I have finally done it, though I would rather not speak about it. Screw it, it feels like somebody was pulling all of the bones in my body out of me, while still connected to my nerves. Then the person was using those bones to play a drum.

  Even now, when my second foundation slab is settling, it pains. It is kind of like that pain that you get when somebody is pulling out a tooth of yours, just that this is all over your body.

  Well, at least my master was correct about the benefits of this spell. Already I can feel the cycle form in my body. Well, how do I explain to you what exactly the cycle is?

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  To explain it first I will have to explain what exactly this fusion spell was supposed to do. The spell essentially creates a channel between my mana core and my core. The only thing that will be able to travel through this connection is my mana.

  In my master's case (at least as he explains it.) this connection is supposed to be one way. His ninth class formation, called the wolf's skin allows him to cover himself in a storm wolf's skin.

  All he can do is send the mana from his mana core to the formation. Without having to do it through the usual process. The only benefit that it gives him is that it is way more efficient than the usual process. It also allows him to control the formation with a precision impossible with any spell. Even the best user of formation control will never be able to achieve such control it seems.

  In my case, this bond formed is a two-way connection. Even now, I can feel the vital mana in my mana core flow into the formation that I have built into the bloody fang. It is not a pleasant sense to have your vital mana moving like that. It kind of feels like my teeth are wiggling whenever I focus on something else, only to stop when I focus on it.

  The only reason that I am not panicking at this moment, is because the mana is also flowing back into me. Through the same connection, the sword is sending the same mana back to me. The only thing is that there is a little trace of blood mana in the mana that is being returned to me. A blood vital mana if you will.

  Do not ask me the exact theory behind this, but it seems like the formation is now passively active all the time. It makes use of my bond to the sword to create a cycle. The sword is acting as an extension to my mana core, converting my mana to blood mana at a steady rate. It is not a particularly high conversion rate, though. It will take a year just to convert one percent of mana stored into blood mana.

  Now you might ask me why that is such a wonderful thing. This is going to allow me to adapt to blood mana. The biggest disadvantage of using my sword is the fact that the blood mana is a foreign mana. Using it puts a strain on my mana core.

  With the sword always active and blood mana always present in my core, blood mana is going to cause less strain on me. It is still not going to be pleasant, but I will be able to use it way more, maybe even permanently after long enough.

  This is going to do wonders for my tolerance of blood mana. If before I could use my sword for fifteen minutes each day (it is not the correct amount, but a random number used as an example. You never know who is reading after all.), now I will be able to use it for sixteen minutes. It might seem a bit less, but within a couple of months, this is going to reach thirty minutes. Within the year it will become two hours.

  The second benefit is that my physical strength is going to be enhanced from now on. A vampire grunt has ten times the strength they had pre-transformation. While my strength won't be enhanced that drastically it is still going to be nothing to sneeze at.

  Well, now that I have spoken about all the benefits of this formation, I might as well describe the costs of it.

  The first cost is going to be the fact that I cannot have the sword physically far away from me. Having it on my body at all times would be the best-case scenario. Even after the major bond, I don't know just how far I can have it from me.

  The farther that the sword is from me the harder the cycle will be to maintain. If it is far enough away from me the cycle is going to collapse. Right now, neither I nor my master know what is going to be the consequence of breaking the cycle.

  The best-case scenario is going to have me lose all of the enhancements that would have happened to my body. The worst-case scenario is going to be that my mana core might rupture. I might even become a blood-addicted idiot. You see, this is the major disadvantage of using blood mana. All of the benefits that it provides come at the cost of a dependence on blood.

  When you have seen vampire grunts begging, threatening and selling themselves for just a little bit of blood. You tend to realize just how dangerous such dependence can become when you hunt vampire grunts. Those in the court claim that such base desires don't affect them. When you have seen a count beg for blood you realize it is all lies, though.

  This is something that I have too much experience with actually. The general strategy while dealing with a vampire (especially the grunts.) is to lock them up someplace. They will starve to death pretty quickly. It is better than trying to fight them. Fighting even a barely fed vampire is considered very hard.

  After all, we also have to deal with the few grunts that manage to escape their prisons. Every time that has happened, it has been a hard and drawn-out fight that took an entire team.

  I have seen gentle men that cannot hurt an ant become like mad dogs in their pursuit of blood. It is a dangerous sort of dependence.

  The other disadvantage is that I have to keep using my power regularly from now on. My master estimates that I have to use the sword once every year at least. While it might not sound like much, this time is going to decrease the more I link to the core.

  If I don't use the sword there is a chance that my sword might cannibalize my blood to keep itself running. Well, If I am honest, that still puts me in a better situation than most grunts.

  Vampire grunts have to drink blood every few days. Otherwise, their body will empty itself of blood, trying to stay alive. That is one of the reasons that vampire grunts are so easy to find. A vampire grunt might be able to control his instinct. He might be able to keep himself from attacking a person and draining them.

  Still, How is the grunt then going to hide it when the physical effect of such deprivation will hit him? How will he explain going from a physically fit person to a living skeleton in a matter of weeks? Thinking of all this causes a chill to travel through my spine.

  Whatever happens, my side effects are not going to be that extreme at the very least. After all, a vampire produces way more blood mana than I will be ever able to produce.

  At least that is what I am telling myself, as I feel panic take over. Fuck it, I am shutting this record. This should have been a moment of victory. How the hell did I manage to convert it into another worrying session?