Vampire Progenitor of the Immortal World

Chapter 47: Chapter 45 : Measured Strength (1)

The first thing Ethan learned was that knowing what to look for did not mean he could make it happen. He had expected that much, perhaps not consciously, but somewhere beneath his confidence, he had expected the discovery from the previous days to give him a direction. He had felt the warmth, sensed the change in his blood, and even managed to notice the conditions surrounding it. That should have been enough to begin.

It wasn’t.

He sat quietly after cultivation, letting his breathing settle before opening his eyes. Nothing felt different. His body was tired in the ordinary way, but there was no unusual warmth beneath his skin. His blood moved as it always did, his heartbeat was steady, and his limbs carried the familiar heaviness that followed a long period of cultivation. Ethan waited another moment, then lowered his eyes to his hands.

"Again."

He closed his eyes. This time, he paid attention to the sensation he remembered rather than trying to force it into existence. He followed his breathing, let his body settle, and waited for the familiar warmth to appear. Nothing happened. A few minutes passed before Ethan opened his eyes again. He was not disappointed, not yet. He simply reached for his journal, turned to a clean section, and wrote a short note.

No response after cultivation.

He paused, then added: Body rested.

That was all. He closed the journal. There was no point writing what he did not know. That became the first rule of the new stage of his investigation: do not write what he believed; write what he observed. The difference was small, but Ethan understood its value.

He had already made enough mistakes by assuming things were connected simply because they happened close together. The reddish-brown herb was one example. It supported his blood circulation and helped his body recover, but that did not make it the source of what was happening inside him. He had nearly made the same mistake with exhaustion.

Blood Tempering had appeared when he was exhausted, but that did not necessarily mean exhaustion was the cause. It could simply be the condition that allowed something already present to surface. That question bothered him, and because it bothered him, he returned to it.

Not immediately.

Ethan had learned another lesson from his earlier experiments. A body could only be pushed so far before observation became meaningless, so he ate first. The meal was simple: rice, vegetables, a little meat, and a cup of thin broth. Nothing special. He finished most of it, drank some water, rested, and only later returned to his room.

The city outside had already grown quieter. The sounds of carts and merchants had faded into scattered voices and distant footsteps. Ethan sat beside the window, his short dao resting nearby. He glanced at it briefly. The blade had become part of his daily life in a way he had never expected. Not something he understood completely, and certainly not something he considered himself skilled with, but something he could no longer imagine traveling without. He had learned enough to know how much he still lacked, and that was fine. There were things that needed years to learn.

Blood Tempering was different. It was already inside him. That meant there had to be a way to understand it. He began again, but this time he did not try to summon anything. He simply cultivated. His breathing settled into its familiar rhythm, his mind quieted, and the flow within his body gradually became smoother. Then, somewhere during the process, he noticed it.

A faint warmth.

Ethan’s attention sharpened.

There.

He did not move. He did not try to increase it. He simply watched. The warmth lasted for several breaths before fading, and Ethan opened his eyes. He remained still for a moment before reaching for his journal.

Second attempt.

He thought for a moment.

Response appeared during cultivation. Brief. Weak.

He stared at the words, then added:

Did not appear when deliberately summoned afterward.

He leaned back. That was more useful than a successful activation would have been because now there was a difference. It appeared naturally while he cultivated, but when he consciously reached for it, it vanished. That meant his problem might not be strength. It might be interference. Perhaps his conscious effort was disturbing whatever process allowed it to happen.

Ethan smiled faintly.

"Then forcing it is probably the wrong approach."

He closed the journal. He would test that later. For now, he slept. The next few days passed without anything dramatic happening, and that was exactly what Ethan needed. He continued his ordinary work in the city whenever he could find it. Some days were more profitable than others. He carried goods, helped with simple tasks, and took whatever work suited his direction without tying himself to a permanent place. He kept moving, kept cultivating, and kept observing.

The city gradually became less strange. He no longer looked at every street as if he needed to memorize it. He learned which parts became crowded in the morning, which streets quieted earlier, and which stalls stayed open late. His life was beginning to develop a rhythm, and that rhythm made his investigation easier. He did not have to stop living simply because he was trying to understand something inside his body.

He could study it while continuing everything else. When his body was tired, he noticed it. When his breathing changed, he noticed it. When the warmth appeared, he noticed that too. And sometimes, it did not appear at all. Those failures became useful.

One evening, after returning from work, Ethan sat at the edge of his bed and looked at the small supply he had purchased earlier. The reddish-brown herb was still there. He had been careful with it because he did not have enough money to waste resources simply because he was curious. He prepared a small amount and used it as he had before.

It was not dramatic. There was no sudden surge of strength and no mysterious transformation. His body simply felt a little less heavy afterward, and the circulation through his limbs seemed smoother. That was enough. Ethan nodded. The herb worked as expected: recovery and support, nothing more.

He made a note, then considered something else. If he continued testing Blood Tempering, there was another problem.

Fatigue.

He could not keep exhausting himself after every attempt. He needed something practical. The following afternoon, he found what he was looking for at a small provisions stall frequented by travelers. It was not some rare cultivation treasure. The shopkeeper called it a traveler’s strength brew. The drink was made from common herbs, grain syrup, and several dried ingredients Ethan did not recognize. It was sold mostly to laborers, escorts, and travelers who spent long hours on the road. The shopkeeper made no grand claims about it.

"It won’t make you stronger. It just helps when your legs are already complaining."

That was precisely what Ethan wanted. He bought a small number of packets. They were cheap enough to be practical, and he kept them with his other supplies. He did not plan to depend on them. They were simply another precaution. If he was going to test something that could leave him exhausted, then leaving himself with nothing afterward would be foolish.

That evening, he tested Blood Tempering again. It failed. The next morning, it failed again. Ethan accepted both results. He was beginning to understand that the phenomenon did not obey impatience.

Several days later, he found himself sitting beneath a tree outside the busier part of the city. The work he had taken that morning had been more physical than expected. His shoulders were tired, and his breathing had been heavier for some time, but he was nowhere near the condition he had been in during the forest. That difference mattered.

Ethan closed his eyes and waited. Nothing. He breathed again. Nothing. Then he noticed a faint sensation beneath his ribs.

Warmth.

His eyes opened. He immediately stopped concentrating on it, but the warmth remained. Only barely. He waited as it moved, not like fire or heat spreading through his skin, but more like something moving along with his blood. Ethan’s heartbeat quickened slightly. The sensation strengthened.

Then he felt something change. His body responded. Only for a moment, but his limbs felt lighter. The tiredness that had settled over him seemed to retreat, and his muscles tightened naturally, as if his body had suddenly remembered a reserve of strength he had forgotten. Ethan’s eyes widened.

Then he stopped.

Immediately.

The sensation disappeared. He sat there quietly, his heart beating faster now, but he was not exhausted. Not like before. He looked at his hands, then at the ground. He had done it. Not fully. Not reliably. But he had done it without reaching the edge of collapse. A laugh almost escaped him, but instead Ethan let out a slow breath.

"That’s enough."

He did not try again. That decision took more discipline than the activation itself. He reached for his journal, his hand pausing above the page before he wrote: Response appeared after moderate physical exertion.

He thought, then added:

Short duration.

Another pause.

Stopped before exhaustion.

He looked at the three lines. They were simple, but they were different from his earlier notes. He had finally found something he could repeat, at least in theory.

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