Mage Manual

Chapter 136: Chapter 124: The Disgrace of the Blood Saint Clan

Shattered Lake Prison, Medical Practitioner’s activity hall.

The prison treatment group’s 25 Medical Practitioners were all gathered here, sitting around a large table.

They all wore crow masks and black robes, so no one could see each other’s expressions. But from the air that was so heavy it almost solidified, it was evident that their moods were far from calm.

“Leader,” Medical Practitioner [201] broke the silence, “you can’t do anything either?”

Although it was unknown who the leader was, generally speaking, each group leader of the Kingdom of Blood Moon’s medical team at the prison was a Two-winged Golden Mage who had exhausted their potential, while the Medical Practitioners who came to the prison for the Initial Embrace ritual were basically One-winged Silver Mages, so the group leader was the most powerful person here.

“I can’t,” the leader said bitterly, “Inside the ‘Black Coffin’ there is a Three-winged Saint, whose bloodline strength and power far exceed mine. The ‘Blood Lock’ he initiated is simply not something I can contend with.”

Some Medical Practitioners couldn’t help but laugh bitterly, “Who would have thought that the Blood Lock, which our Blood Saint Clan used to bind the lower species, would one day be used against us?”

Miracle·Blood Lock was originally a binding miracle only applicable within the Blood Saint Clan.

At that time, the Blood Saint Clan was not under the current ‘research institution system’ but operated under the very ineffective and crude ‘clan system’, where high-ranked Blood Saints would seek suitable candidates to carry out the ‘Initial Embrace’ with an unclear success rate, to transform the other party into a low-level blood descendant.

The clan system had significant drawbacks. Not only did the concentration of each generation of blood descendants’ bloodlines significantly decrease, but the ‘Initial Embrace ritual’ required the ‘True Blood’ of a high-ranked Blood Saint, and what’s more important was—the recipient of the Initial Embrace had to be in love with the high-ranked Blood Saint.

To become part of the Blood Saint Clan, you needed to truly fall in love with a Blood Saint.

As one can imagine, how scarce and, at the same time, united the Blood Saint Clan was during that era.

Even if the Blood Saints had long lives, their numbers would only decrease over time, their strength would weaken, and this ‘family bond’ based on love often led to the Blood Saints going into a frenzy over the injury or death of a clan member—they would be willing to come out in full force for one member, ceaselessly fighting any enemy.

Unlike their love for clan members, the Blood Saints were utterly indifferent and merciless towards other species. Thus, the approach of the Blood Saints to the world was either that the Blood Saints destroy all enemies, turning the entire region into a paradise for Blood Saints and a purgatory for other species; or the enemies destroy all the Blood Saints, completely eradicating this monster species bound by love.

It wasn’t until the Extreme Master of Blood Moon took control of Blood Saint Moon Shadow and transformed the past way of living that the two clans accepted the ‘research institution system’ and ‘Church system’, and developed vastly within a mere thousand years.

Under the research institution system, the Blood Saint Clan no longer needed to find suitable descendants themselves, as the top talents from all species aspired to join the research institutions to gain eternal life.

The ‘Blood Exchange Ceremony’ that replaced the ‘Initial Embrace’ only transformed these lucky ones into preparatory blood descendants. To become a true Blood Saint, they still needed to come to the prison for the ‘Blood Embrace ritual’, drawing sustenance from death, so the Blood Saint Clan didn’t have to pay any price for procreation—because the dead had already paid it.

The initial Blood Lock, as the low-level blood descendants had ‘True Blood’ of the high-level Blood Saints coursing through their veins, enabled the high-level Blood Saints to trigger the Blood Lock and sense the location of the blood descendants, even to control their actions.

If the high-level Blood Saint died, they could even be reborn within the body of the blood descendants!

After shedding the shackles of love, the clan system crumbled, naturally eliminating the ‘Initial Embrace.’ Hence, the Blood Lock, which had branched from the Initial Embrace, should have been thrown onto the trash heap of history to mold.

However, after being perfected by the Extreme Master of Blood Moon, the Blood Lock became the most important miracle of the Blood Saint Clan because its binding range was not limited to the Blood Saint Clan but extended to everyone within the Kingdom of Blood Moon!

Every baby, after being admitted to foster care, had to be implanted with a Miracle Chip containing a drop of ‘True Blood.’ As the babies grew into adults, the True Blood would integrate into their blood, bone marrow, bodily fluids, and even the germ cells, spreading throughout their bodies!

It can be said that any child who grew up in foster care in the Kingdom of Blood Moon is a potential blood descendant!

The modern Blood Lock miracle is a Three-winged miracle, allowing any Three-winged Blood Saint who initiates the ‘Blood Lock’ miracle to control any citizen of the Kingdom of Blood Moon with weaker power than them, whether they are human, Elf, Beastman, or Blood Saint Moon Shadow!

Although there is no evidence, many within the Blood Saint Clan believe that if a Legendary Blood Saint initiates the Blood Lock, they could even control everyone in a whole City, even if it means ordering them to their death!

Yet, compared to the terrifying power they held, the Blood Saint Clan was quite reserved.

The outside world knew of the Blood Saint Clan’s existence but only knew that the Blood Saint Clan was immortal. To become a Blood Saint, one had to take the postgraduate examination and, after passing, could join the research institutions, and so on. Some from the Blood Saint Clan would become legislators, but they would not hold any official positions, leaving most people with only two impressions of the Blood Saint Clan: doctors and scholars.

As for acting recklessly with the Blood Lock, such an event hadn’t occurred in thousands of years.

The application of Blood Lock was limited to prisons and war zones; only criminals and adventurers were restricted.

Even for Blood Frenzy Hunters like Gerard, while on a Task, they were not allowed to use Blood Lock to control prisoners. Theoretically, the only people who could legally use the Blood Lock miracle were the ‘Saints’ lying inside the ‘Black Coffin’, and the living could only trigger the Blood Lock indirectly through the ‘Black Coffin’.

There were many reasons to prohibit Blood Saints from exposing their powers, not to allow arrogance to take root within the Blood Saint Clan, not to incite rebellion in the lower species, to maintain social stability… but the fundamental reason was that the Extreme Master of Blood Moon did not permit it.

The social maintenance system, institute system, Church system… These rules, personally established by the Extreme Master of Blood Moon, were absolutely not to be violated, not even testing the limits was allowed.

If the death-row inmates’ “Blood Locks” were tangible, they could test them to know what they were not allowed to do; then the “Blood Locks” of the Blood Saint Clan were intangible, and they wouldn’t even conceive the thought to test them!

That’s why the medical practitioners were so furious—after all, even they were unclear about the Black Coffin’s exact location; how did outsiders control the “Saints” inside the “Black Coffin”?

“Necromancer!” someone said through clenched teeth, “Only this possibility… those despicable lowlifes used necromancy to control the Saints… Are we not able to use necromancy to fight for the Saints’ control authority?”

“We are forbidden from outputting magic power, forbidden from attacking, how do we initiate necromancy?”

“Wait, I remember that entering the Black Coffin requires a secret key, how could an outsider possibly know the secret key? Could there be an insider traitor?”

“Yes, the only ones who knew the keys were the group leader, the warden, and the head of the Crime Hunting Hall, could it be…”

As everyone looked at him, the group leader suddenly became anxious, “The keys are sealed with a Miracle, there’s no way I could have leaked them by any means!”

“But the warden is always away from the prison, and the hall head is far away in the city district, how else could a death-row inmate obtain the key?” another unsparing medical practitioner questioned.

[201] suddenly said, “Speaking of which, a few years ago there appeared an assassin called ‘control master’ in Kaimon City, responsible for multiple murders. Since the murders seemed to involve Blood Locks, my boss was requested by the Crime Hunting Hall to conduct an internal investigation. Although in the end, nothing came of it, it was confirmed that the key did not leak from the Secret Keeper.”

After the expulsion of [176], it was vaguely guessed that [201]’s boss was probably that Saint of the Spirit Faction. Different from Memory Masters who might be deceived, Spirit Saints examined the soul itself; even if a suspect turned themselves mad, a Spirit Saint could shatter their soul and find the desired information from the fragments, just as easily as dismantling and reassembling a Rubik’s cube.

In front of a Spirit Saint, forgetting was unable to keep secrets.

“Even our senior says there was no leak, then it’s true there was no leak.”

Everyone looked toward medical practitioner Siflin, tagged with number [222], who calmly said, “So there is only one possibility left—the death-row inmates found a way to retrieve the real Black Coffin key. With such a big incident, the key system is no longer secure, but that’s none of our business. Speaking of which, I have bad news and good news, which would you like to hear?”

“What’s the bad news?”

“The bad news is our humiliation is set in stone, by tomorrow all thirty-six research institutes will know we, the descendants of blood, have been captured by a few prison inmates.”

“And the good news?”

“The good news is we’re wearing masks; no one knows who we are, you all can be disgraced to your heart’s content, no one will know the Blood Saint Clan was humiliated.”

Everyone fell silent, not expecting this young lady to still be in the mood for jokes. But the opponent was a descendant of the four major research institutes; she had her own prideful capital. What might be a stain on their record that couldn’t be washed off or even affect their future prospects, for the young lady, was nothing more than a trivial interlude.

“Really no other way?” someone asked unwillingly.

“Bloodline Resonance.” The group leader said, “The Saint inside the Black Coffin should retain a bit of consciousness; if we can connect with him through Bloodline Resonance, we can unlock our Blood Locks.”

“How do we create Bloodline Resonance?”

“I don’t know—strong emotion? Burning desire? Praying to the Extreme Master of Blood Moon? Even though the success rate is extremely low, this is all we can do now.”

Everyone exchanged glances and felt this was the only option out of desperation. So, someone was drawing circles and cursing the death-row inmates, someone else lay on the ground trying to contact the Black Coffin through the vibrations of the floor, and what almost made Siflin laugh was someone hanging upside down from a chandelier like a bat—saying it was an imitation of the ancient Blood Saint Clan’s meditation pose, to increase the chance of Bloodline Resonance.

Just then, the door to the break room was pushed open forcefully, and a prison guard poked his head in.

“Excuse me, everyone, [222], please come with me to the treatment room.”

“Ash Heath?” Siflin asked in surprise, “What do you need me for?”

“There’s something I need you to do.”

“Can’t it be done here?” [201] stood up and blocked in front of Siflin, “Besides, if it’s work that needs doing, I can do it.”

Ash shook his head firmly, “No, I only need [222]. And this place doesn’t even have a bed, it’s not convenient to do it here.”

Medical practitioners: “Hmm?”

Oh no, the Blood Saint Clan was about to be humiliated!