Ascendant Path of a Lustful Vampire

Caius had kept himself to a Fourth Star Trait Acquisition from the Wyvern Blood he had to work with. The Fifth could be possible but that would reduce his already slim chances and anything past that was really impossible.

He had learned in the many hours that had passed since he got back from school that 'Ten percent chance' was being generous; This was a hellish one percent chance and even then, it wasn't likely.

But he had a process. He had used it the first day he gave Blood Alchemy a go and used it now. It just relied on him completing the whole process at least once while implementing the little tweaks here and there that he learned from all failures.

And finally, when it had to be midnight already, he raised a vial filled with dirty golden-brown liquid and gave a weary smile.

"I did it."

His Alchemical chamber was filled with vapor. The vents just could not keep up with it all and he made a mental note to ask for better/more vents. The entire process was stressful enough without him being at risk of passing out from suffocation.

Caius looked at the book of Alchemical techniques that lay open and smiled a bit at how he needed to not do things as the book had said. At least, not exactly because whoever compiled it likely didn't know what the fuck they were doing.

Caius didn't doubt they had succeeded. He didn't doubt that they had succeeded more than once even. He just knew luck had a lot to do with it. And that wasn't even him being against those who compiled those books of techniques because luck IS required for success with Blood Alchemy.

When many had tried and tried for millennia since it had existed and had failed so much that it was a widely accepted truth that you could never succeed at it more than ten percent of the time (and that was being generous), you can't dispute how much luck plays a part in any chance at success.

But Caius didn't want to rely on luck.

There was such a massive untapped market for Blood Alchemy, should he decide not to do it only for his own use, that he wanted something more than just the occasional success.

He wanted something similar to Anton Orlock.

The number of times his frustrations had caused him to remember the Vampire Lord whose title he had claimed.

Anton Orlock was a Blood Alchemist whose research simply veered into mutation and while that was ghastly, considering the result, Caius still thought it deserved praise.

For a moment, he wished he had Anton's Notes but he knew from [To Kill A Demon Lord…] that Anton kept no such thing. His mind was a steel trap despite the centuries he had lived and all he knew was locked in there. It made it harder to acquire. Made him the only source of what he knew.

'I wonder what his clients think,' Caius thought to himself.

That was what made Anton so important among Vampire Nobles. He had dared to do what they could not and he had achieved success.

It was why the Nobles had readily banded with him to get Athenodora to swear the oaths that had kept him safe for centuries until Caius became the Trojan horse to his downfall.

Caius wondered if he now had enemies among his fellow Vampire Lords who were surely all missing their supplier and they couldn't be happy he was dead and replaced.

Caius was willing to fill the void but he had to make a better Alchemical Process for something that seemed built not to be better.

He raised the vial of his refined potion to his lips and took a small sip of it.

Instantly, he felt a filling within him. And then lightness. A strange feeling of buoyancy filled him and he could have sworn he was being lifted off his feet even though he remained on it.

He could feel his strength rise from the Third Circle and settle at the Fourth but it didn't feel quite right. Compared to his actual strength, the strength of the Wyvern Trait he had acquired felt like driving a car. You get to control its direction, its speed but it's not quite you that's moving; You're just being moved. Being carried along for the ride.

It was similar to the feeling Caius had whenever he used ~Hellsong Stomp~ his unstable pseudo-Fourth Circle Movement spell. Only, the Trait acquisition was more stable than that. He was conscious enough of it.

Still, it did feel great to have that power.

With a smile, Caius watched as Mana oozed from his arm and took on the form of a beastly limb tipped with claws, and was superimposed over his own hand. He looked down at his feet and something similar was happening there—It looked like his legs were encased in a Wyvern's hind limbs.

The lack of an image of wings attached to his sides had Caius feeling he wouldn't be capable of flight. But his movement was definitely on the level of someone who had cast a Fourth Circle movement spell. A true one this time and not like ~Hellsong Stomp~.

There was something about the talons of Mana on his hands and legs that had Caius feeling they would have a physical effect should he use them on someone. But before he could try them out, the feeling within him fizzled out and he was back to the Third Circle.

"I see," Caius said in a musing tone and rubbed his jaw.

The potion's duration of effectiveness was determined by the quantity consumed. The little sip had been about a minute and Caius posited that the entire vial might be forty minutes in all. Give or take five minutes.

He decided not to waste the rest of it on tests. Not when he didn't have more of the stuff at the moment. Just thinking of the resources he had burned to get that single vial had him convinced his decision was right.

Before he got back to work, Caius brought out an empty booklet with thick covers and opened it up to fill a page with every minute detail he had observed on his way to succeeding at the refinement. If the Blood Alchemical techniques in the books he had acquired relied on luck, he was determined to discover a methodology that was truly sound.

Once he had taken down notes, he got back to refining which he kept at until well past midnight and until he could no longer resist the call of sleep.

***

Dawn the next morning, Caius was back at it. He didn't refine though, he just studied. He gave the Arcane Codex a gander as well because his spell creation attempts were not being completely ignored.

He got wrapped up in all this to such a degree that, for the first time in ever, he arrived at Lochxen well past Breakfast, when his fellow students were on their way to the first class of the day; Double period of Study of Magical Beasts.

"You're late," Kaya said, "Again."

"I am," Caius answered lightly, "Was up late. And up early."

"How studious of you," Delia said with sarcasm, and then gained a bit of seriousness in her tone as she added,

"I'm sure you spent that time brushing up on the Von Helsing Regimen."

"Hmm?" Caius asked as Eloise grabbed his arm, nuzzling her face against it, and kept pace with him. Despite her hold though, Caius still got his hand on the small of her back, right at the top of her ass.

"You know, the Von Helsing Regimen you're supposed to be teaching me today? After school?" Delia said searching his eyes,

"Gods, don't tell me you forgot."

"No, I didn't," Caius said with a smile, "And I'm glad to see you're excited."

"I'm— Well, it's certainly an interesting concept," Delia said, unable to deny his assessment despite herself.

The entire class stopped short then.

They had arrived at their usual spot for the Study of Magical Beasts but Professor Gilligan was not there.

"Where…" Kaya started to ask and then she and the rest of the class spotted Lea Gilligan standing a single foot away from the Lochxen Forest waving them over.

"Oh gods," Eloise said and most of the class shared her trepidation believing they knew what was coming.

Their first visit to the Forest had arrived.