Chapter 8- Anomaly Detected

After dinner Jacob went upstairs into his room. He closed his door and slumped onto his bed. He looked around at the plain room with oak wooden furniture and stone walls. The decoration was simple but he liked it. He had helped his mother and father as they were preparing the room in his younger years.

After staring at the roof in silence for a while, Jacob got up and made his way over to the desk in the corner of his room which had an oval mirror attached with a simple wooden stool in front. He sat in front of the mirror and stared himself. He took a few deep breaths to compose himself and concentrated as he focused on trying to invoke the changes that he had experienced earlier in the forest.

He sat there for about five minutes staring at himself as he concentrated with no results. He tried doing various things like pinching himself or jumping as high as he could and even squatting with his hands tucked to his sides yelling silently within as though he was powering up but nothing seemed to work.

He got up and slumped back into bed. As he pondered what he was doing wrong he heard the sound of a beep in his mind.

System now operational.

Jacob stared at the words that appeared in the corner of his vision. He looked away from it and noticed that it did not distract him at all and faded when he did not focus directly on it. He wondered what system operational meant.

"How are ya kid, looks like you haven't died in the short time it took me to assimilate with you" the old man from the cave suddenly appeared hovering before Jacob's face now only the size of the palm of his hand. Jacob jumped from his bed and stared in astonishment at the mini sized old man floating in front of him. "Where did you come from, I saw you vanish in a flash of light. What's going on!?" Jacob asked in a flurry of questions.

"Calm down kid, your gonna give yourself a headache if you keep going at this rate." The old man responded. "First of all kid the names Lawrence but you can call me L for short and this old man is here to help you unlock the full potential of the DNA now coursing through your veins. Also you communicate with me via thoughts. As you are the only person that can see or hear me, you would look pretty crazy talking to yourself if someone else saw you." "But…" "But nothing" the old man continued before Jacob could interrupt.

"Moving on, if you think of the word status you will be able to see your basic information and keep a track of how you are progressing." the old man said smugly. Jacob thought of the word status and a screen popped in front of him.

Name: Jacob

Species: Human

Bloodline power: Crimson Sword

Speed: 24

Dexterity: 26

Strength: 28

Perception: 30

Focus:17

Mana:3,000

Skills (Locked)

Jacob stared at the screen before him in amazement. "Before you continue, I'll explain to you how this works. Your bloodline power represents the power that you have inherited from the Scarlet Sovereign. It is the root of the Scarlet Sovereigns power and you will have to develop your own as you grow. Every living creature that you slay that has blood will have its life essence drained and harvested by your bloodline power through its blood which you can absorb to improve and overtime condense your Crimson Sword which will be the center of your power.

Your sword will grow along side you and will be your only true partner in this world. As you get stronger there are steps you can take in the future to give life to your sword but were getting ahead of ourselves. Your stats should be pretty straightforward but I'll explain them anyway to avoid any confusion. Your speed represents how fast you can push yourself, your dexterity represents how well you will be able to use that speed effectively. Your strength is as you guessed, how strong you are. Your perception represents how well you can perceive your environment and is good to have higher than your speed. No sense in having speed you can't maximize because your eyes and mind can't keep up. Your focus represents your ability to meditate and utilize your mana and skills. Your mana which you should notice is at a whopping 3,000 is how much power you have at your disposal but be careful not to run yourself dry or you will suffer from mana depletion." L explained to Jacob.

"The average adult human typically caps in stats at 20 and 25 for the really athletic ones, so right now you are stronger than the average adult. For every increase of ten you will experience a major upgrade but you will understand when you get your first stat to 30 on your own. Your large mana pool is a direct result of the strengthening of your soul when I fused with you however, you have not learned to use your mana and thus have no access to it." L continued to smile smugly at Jacob as though the power was his own.

Jacob continued to stare for a while speechless before describing to L the change in his appearance when he first returned and how he had not been able to activate that power again. "That was simply a side effect from the strengthening of your soul after you're the process of your DNA being altered. Now that it has settled you will have to learn how to properly channel your mana and activate your bloodline in order to access that power in the future" L informed Jacob.

Little did Jacob know that while he was getting a lesson on his new powers, somewhere in the vast universe a red light blared and an ancient power swept through an old dilapidated looking castle from a man full clad in bulky golden armor who had been sitting upon a throne for the last one million years. A reptilian skinned humanoid ran into the room and bowed before the throne before saying with a shaky voice "My Lord, we have located signals from an anomaly matching the aura that you have been looking forward.".

"Good, where is it?' the golden armored man said in a guttural voice. The reptilian man gulped "The signal came through a worm hole and after extensively tracking the aura we managed to pick a ping on its location. The problem is that it is not in this universe and after running a few mock projections, we estimate it will take about one thousand years if you were to travel there alone and about 5,000 years if we were to use the ship sire." the reptilian man stopped talking as sweat dripped down his forehead but he dared not say anything further.

There was a moment of silence before the golden armored man's aura flared crushing the reptilian man's body and further crumbling the walls of the already whittled castle. He gave a snort in annoyance and teleported to the lab where he immediately asked for the coordinates of the signal. The man looked at all the other workers present in the lab from carious different species. "Prepare the ship for immediate departure" the golden man gave an order and all the workers in the lab began packing various equipment and making a number of calls.

Compared to the mottled castle this lab looked like something straight out of a science fiction movie, large holographic screens, and all kinds of strange apparatus about the place with walls that same to be made entirely of metal. The room itself looked like one big circuit or motherboard.