Closer Than I Thought
With a rekindled drive to siphon blood in order to become stronger, Bell hastily made his way back to the pack of wolves he had come across a while ago, the same pack of wolves that had just lost its leader under Bell's proboscis.
Since the wolf leader did not take that much time to search for prey to fight against and feast on, by the time Bell had arrived at the small clearing where the wolves were, most of them were still feasting on the corpses they've collected. As for those that were already finished, they decided to scout the nearby area for possible predators that might take advantage of their moment of weakness.
Unfortunately for those wolves, the predator that was about to take advantage of this was not any typical predator they had come across, but instead Bell, who was about siphon all of their blood dry in order for him to reach greater heights.
Making sure to not alert the still feasting wolves, Bell slowly landed on the back of one of the wolves, who was currently gnawing away on deer bones, trying to devour every tendon still attached to the bones as much as possible. Commanding the system to show the amount of Impure Blood Energy he could siphon from the wolf, Bell went ahead and poked his proboscis through the wolf's skin, deciding to poke directly over the wolf's spine.
Slurp…
Just like what had happened with the wolf leader, the wolf that was gnawing on bones could only realize that it was close to dying after the fact that all of the blood inside its body had been siphoned clean by Bell. Fortunately, even though the wolf had died on the inside, there was no difference on the wolf's outside appearance, making it seem like it was still gnawing on deer bones without a care in the world.
Utilizing this weird side effect from him siphoning blood, Bell then moved onto the other wolves in the clearing as he allocated all of the points of Impure Blood Energy he obtained from them towards [Lesser Blood Dimension]. Since the amount of Impure Blood Energy he siphoned from each wolf stayed the same, save for the wolf leader that had more blood due to its qi, only four wolves out of 10 in the clearing died a silent death under Bell's proboscis.
Ding!
'[Lesser Blood Dimension Lv. 9 -> Lv. MAX]'
After maxing out [Lesser Blood Dimension], he went ahead and checked the requirements needed for him to evolve [Lesser Blood Dimension] to the next tier, given how [Enhanced Blood Storage] needed [Blood Sac Proboscis] to be at Lv. 10 before being able to evolve it to [Expansive Blood Storage].
As a small holographic screen appeared in front of his field of vision, Bell could not help but let out a small sigh while reading through the skill's prerequisites.
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[Lesser Blood Dimension Lv. MAX] - Needs [Blood Sac Proboscis Lv. MAX] to evolve
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"Guess I'll focus on the new feature I unlocked for now. In any case, having over a thousand points of capacity for Impure Blood Energy definitely lets me do more things than before," Bell muttered to himself before commanding the system to show all of the Constitution skills he had obtained so far.
As the contents of the holographic screen in front of him changed into that listing all of the Constitution skills he had obtained, as well as the boost in Constitution they offered, Bell could not help but recall what just happened a few minutes ago regarding the wolf leader.
'Wait a minute…that wolf leader had qi, right?' Bell thought to himself as he stood idly on top of the fifth wolf he was about to siphon blood from. By now, the wolves that decided to scout the nearby area had returned to the clearing, instantly becoming panic-stricken as they noticed that almost half of their comrades seemed to be frozen in time.
Coming closer to these frozen comrades of theirs, these wolves instantly felt the faint aura of death surrounding them, prompting them to push their frozen comrades with their paws…only for the latter to fall down to the ground with a faint thud. Nevertheless, their fears had been realized.
Although they weren't sure how these comrades of theirs had been killed, they knew for a fact that they were being eyed by a predator.
As for Bell, even though he noticed that the wolves were about to relocate to another area in fear of having their whole pack wiped out, he couldn't care less about that at the moment as one question took over his mind.
"Since the wolf leader had qi, doesn't that mean I would be able to absorb the wolf leader's qi and use it for myself?" Bell asked himself before following up with another question. "But how come I haven't absorbed any qi?"
With that in mind, the only possible answer that came to mind was the system. After thinking about it for a bit more, he strongly felt that the system was the only reason why he wasn't able to absorb qi. And so, as the wolf pack was now in the process of relocation, with his legs tightly gripping on one of the wolves' backs, Bell asked the system, "System, how come I haven't absorbed any qi from the wolf leader?"
It did not take long for the system to reply, responding in its usual tone, "To answer the user's query, the reason why the user did not absorb qi from the wolf leader is due to the fact that the user has not unlocked the ability to cultivate yet. With that, the system has automatically barred any qi from entering the user's body before the ability to cultivate is activated."
"Well, that sucks," Bell could not help but say in response, thinking that the system was some sort of strict parent that wanted him to grow up a certain way. In any case, he couldn't be really mad at the system since, after all, it was the one that allowed him to live three times longer than a usual mosquito. And with every subsequent evolution, he knew that his lifespan was bound to become even longer.
With that question in his mind answered, Bell returned his focus to what was currently happening, which was the relocation of the wolf pack to another place. While looking at the wolves frantically dashing away from the previous clearing they were in, Bell could not help but figuratively scratch his head as he thought to himself, 'I know why they're running away from the clearing, but man. Couldn't you guys have made my job easier?'
Thinking that there was not much of a difference between him siphoning wolves that were stationary and wolves that were on the run, Bell went ahead and poked his proboscis through the skin of the wolf he was standing on all this time. At the same time, he checked the current amount of Impure Blood Energy he had, noticed that he had enough to upgrade one of his Constitution skills to Mastery Tier 1.
Since he had been looking through his Constitution skills some time ago, it did not take long for Bell to come to a decision, allocating most of the remaining Impure Blood Energy he had towards [Wolf's Agility]. As to the reason why this skill was picked, well…
It was the Constitution skill that contributed the most to his current Constitution stat.
Ding!
'[Wolf's Agility (MAX)] has been upgraded to Mastery Tier 1.'
'Constitution +0.015'
Sensing that his body had become slightly stronger in less than an instant without having to do much, Bell could not help but get hooked on the feeling. Nevertheless, he knew how much preparation he had to do in order for him to extend this satisfying feeling, so his feeling of excitement had immediately dampened as he continued to siphon more blood out of the wolf he was standing on.
Well, it did not take long for the fifth wolf to become a statue-like corpse as Bell moved onto the sixth wolf. Unsurprisingly, the sight of one of their comrades turning into a corpse out of nowhere instilled more fear into them, making them push themselves beyond their natural limits. While looking at this, Bell could not help but think how great it would be if these wolves had qi. Even though it would make the siphoning of blood more difficult, at the very least it would become more enjoyable in a way.
As he poked his proboscis through the skin of the sixth wolf, a thought surfaced in his mind, thinking about the statement he would say to the system whenever he wanted to allocate all of the blood he siphoned towards a certain skill. Feeling that he would come across more and more points of Impure Blood Energy in the long run, Bell thought it was about time for him to create a shortcut for the feature, lest he forgot to do so in the future.
While hastily sucking up all of the blood circulating inside the sixth wolf, he commanded to the system, "System, I would like to create a shortcut for a feature."
Not allowing the system to respond, he continued, "I would like to name the shortcut of instant allocation of all siphoned Impure Blood Energy towards a certain ability, 'Focused Upgrade'."
He then added, "I would also like to make this shortcut toggleable."
Ding!
Surprisingly, the system did not take long to process Bell's request, responding just as the sixth wolf had also become a corpse, "The owner's words have been taken into consideration. The shortcut 'Focused Upgrade' has been created."
Obtaining a response from the system that his shortcut had been created, Bell hastily used the shortcut as he moved onto the seventh wolf, saying, "Enable Focused Upgrade, [Wolf's Agility]."
Ding!
"All unused and obtained Impure Blood Energy shall be allocated towards upgrading [Wolf's Agility] to the maximum level," the system soon replied, prompting Bell to let out an inward sigh of relief as his shortcut had worked as he intended it to.
Slurp…
With the system automatically allocating the Impure Blood Energy he obtained from siphoning the wolves dry towards [Wolf's Agility], the strength Bell had would undergo a significant increase after every two wolves or so.
By the time he had finished siphoning the ninth wolf from the pack, a notification sound resounded throughout his mind as his body strength had undergone a massive increase once more. Briefly watching the last wolf from the pack continue to madly dash away in despair, he soon focused his attention towards the notifications he had received as he looked at the boost he had obtained in Constitution. With that, he could not help but madly cackle as he said, "This feature ain't so bad, after all."
Ding!
'[Wolf's Agility (MAX)] has been upgraded to Mastery Tier 5.'
'Constitution +0.076'
Thinking that there wasn't much of a difference between him checking his current Constitution stat right now or after siphoning the blood from the last wolf from the pack, Bell decided to go with the latter, utilizing his newly increased Constitution to catch up to the madly dashing wolf before poking through the wolf's skin once more, eventually wiping out the whole wolf pack, including its leader.
As he stood on the final wolf's corpse in satisfaction, he then remembered that the shortcut he activated was still active, prompting him to command, "Disable Focused Upgrade."
Not long after, he obtained a notification from the system that the feature was disabled, allowing Bell to be more at ease as he didn't know if the system hid a tier beyond Mastery Tier 5. In any case, he had obtained quite a lot from siphoning the blood of a whole wolf pack, upgrading [Lesser Blood Dimension] to its maximum level, as well as [Wolf's Agility] to Mastery Tier 5.
With those two achievements in mind, he then went ahead and commanded the system to show his current Constitution stat, to which the latter hastily responded through a small holographic screen appearing in front of his field of vision.
Instantly noticing that the number on the right side of the decimal was a 3 instead of a 1, Bell could not help but say with a hint of hope for the future, "It seems…achieving a Constitution stat of 0.5 is actually closer than I thought."
Ding!
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Constitution: 0.35876
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Closing the small holographic screen, Bell then retracted his proboscis from the last wolf's corpse before starting to fly through the forest once more in search of prey to siphon blood from. This time though, his target was somewhat different.
'I wonder…'
'Are there any rare species inside this forest?'