“Well, the same way you released it, just in reverse…”

  Grem was confused. First of all, warriors learned to control their bloodlust from the very beginning, when it was like a liquid mist, not like this thing the alchemist had. And second, Valm’s bloodlust wasn’t like anything he had ever seen in his life. That meant the Battle Master could only give general advice.

  “Are you kidding me?!”

  “Not at all, Master Valm! Try to relax and think of something pleasant! Usually, bloodlust is either drawn back into the body or dissipated into the surrounding space. It should lose its power when a warrior no longer wants to kill their opponent.”

  Valm tried. He attempted both methods, but it was all in vain. The alchemist used his spiritual power, trying to pull the long red-gray tendrils back inside, but they only gathered into massive bundles. After half an hour, Valm gave up. Dozens of bloodlust tendrils sprouting from his body lay limply on the ground like giant laminaria.

  Grem and Qian dared to step closer, even smiling as they watched the alchemist’s attempts. At this moment, he didn’t seem dangerous at all.

  “Teacher, if you train every day, you’ll definitely succeed!” Qian decided to encourage him.

  Valm didn’t understand.

  “Go cook the duck, rabbit ears!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’m going!”

  The girl started backing away slowly, but with each step, the smile on her face grew wider.

  “Damn it!” the alchemist swore.

  In frustration, he began gathering up the cursed red-gray tendrils into a bundle, wrapping them around himself, and throwing the ends over his shoulders. And just like that, he went to the laboratory. The tendrils growing from his back trailed behind him like meter-long, wavy ribbons. It was so comical that Grem couldn’t hold back and snorted into his fist.

  Valm locked himself in the laboratory and released the tangled bundle onto the floor.

  “What am I supposed to do with you?” he asked rhetorically.

  The tendrils lay motionless on the floor and didn’t even seem to think about disappearing. In general, they caused almost no discomfort. Valm pulled at the collar of his shirt to peek inside and examine how they had grown from his body. Nothing unusual. At the point where they emerged, his skin was only slightly stretched in the direction of their growth. Valm completely withdrew his spiritual power and sighed. He tugged on one of the tendrils. Strong… Maybe he should conduct a few experiments?

  The alchemist went to the medical equipment section. The long red-gray ribbons trailed behind him, rustling softly against the steel floor and occasionally catching on the legs of shelves and tables. Valm sat in a chair and took one of them. He lifted the end to his eyes for a closer look. A sharp, needle-like tip flared outward into two wavy blades. The alchemist picked up a sheet of paper with his left hand, gripped the edge of the tendril firmly with his right, and ran it across the paper. The sheet split cleanly in two.

  “Sharp enough…” Valm murmured thoughtfully.

  He effortlessly twisted the tendril into a tube with his fingers, but the moment he let go, it quickly unraveled.

  “…pliable and resilient… What should I do with you?”

  A scalpel blade gleamed in the alchemist’s hands as he struck the gray edge of the bloodlust tendril. Sparks flew. Valm stared at the damaged scalpel in his hands. Then he struck the flat side of the tendril with force. Meeting no resistance, the scalpel passed through it and embedded itself into the table surface. The tendril in Valm’s hands twitched, bent, and slipped off the scalpel. The hole in its red surface vanished quickly.

  “Damn it!” the alchemist shouted, jumping up from his chair. “You’re alive?!”

  The bloodlust tendrils rustled and slowly wrapped around Valm’s body like a soft blanket. Last time, they did the same when he controlled them with his spiritual power. Were they… learning?

  Valm once again spread his spiritual energy through the red-gray tendrils and began performing various tasks—picking up items from a shelf, flipping through a book, and so on… It was so fun that he completely lost track of time and his primary work. Several hours passed before he finally snapped out of it.

  “Alright, that’s enough for today.”

  The red-gray tendrils, following the example of his spiritual energy, obediently retracted into his body and seemed to dissolve inside him. Proud of himself, Valm headed to the central control point to drag another monster into the laboratory. Ha! Training every day to learn this, she said… He was a genius who figured it out in just a few hours!

  But Valm couldn’t see the faint gray mist that began gathering around his body again as soon as he spread the monster out on the frame.

  “Master Grem, do you think the teacher will manage?” Qian asked, sitting beside the guard on the house’s steps.

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t know. You saw that freakish thing growing out of him. Have you ever seen anything like it?”

  “No.”

  “Me neither.”

  They fell silent for a moment.

  “Qian, what did you feel when it touched you?”

  The girl tried to recall. A tendril had indeed brushed against her paw when returning her clothes.

  “I don’t know. I felt absolutely nothing, even in beast form.”

  “No fear at all? Absolutely nothing?”

  “Well, I was wary when it got close to me like that, but it definitely wasn’t the fear caused by bloodlust.”

  Grem pondered this for a few minutes.

  “You know, I’m not even sure anymore if that really is bloodlust. After all, only War Gods and some Battle Ancestors can materialize it. But Master Alchemist is physiologically just an ordinary human…”

  “I agree. But I think it’s both bloodlust and not bloodlust at the same time. Or bloodlust mixed with something else, something unknown to us.”

  “You’ve completely confused me.”

  “Yeah. I confused myself too. When I came to talk to you, I hoped you’d explain it.”

  Grem sighed and got to his feet.

  “I don’t think there’s anyone in the kingdom who can explain that.”

  Qian remained sitting alone. She was worried about her teacher’s condition, not only because she had recently seen him as a stepping stone to a better life but also because, lately, she had begun to like him as a person. And yet, she had no idea how to help the alchemist.

  The next morning, for the first time, Valm was completely satisfied with the duck Qian placed before him. He slowly ate one leg first, then broke off the second.

  “At last, my apprentice, you are ready for further training.”

  The girl froze at his words, not knowing how to react. Over the past months, she had grown so accustomed to the cursed ducks that she even feared losing this daily “duty.”

  Valm set the bone on the plate, wiped his hands with a napkin, and retrieved a thick herbal compendium and a large notebook filled with his handwriting from his storage.

  “Every alchemist,” he said, “must be able to gather materials for their alchemy. Here, you will find most of the plants used to create potions and elixirs of the first, second, and third classes. And in this notebook are my notes on how to properly collect and store them.”

  He paused for a moment, carefully watching Qian, then pulled out several more sheets.

  “Here are your tasks for the next month: the herbs, berries, and mushrooms you must collect, as well as the recipes you must memorize within this time.”

  The girl even stopped breathing, her red eyes fixed on her teacher’s hands.

  “And remember—no alchemical shops or store-bought ingredients! I will be able to determine when, how, and by whom they were gathered… Qian, with your strength as a lower-tier Battle Master, it shouldn’t be a problem for you to collect everything yourself. Are you listening to me?”

  “Yes, Master!” she barked. “I can do it! I’ll gather everything myself!”

  Valm smiled at her determination.

  “You have one month. Once it’s over, I will be waiting for you to train with the alchemical cauldron. You may go…”

  “Thank you!”

  Qian jumped up, gave the alchemist a quick hug, and dashed outside.

  Valm laughed and tore off a wing. Looks like Grem would be skipping breakfast today…

  Qian, wasting no time on lengthy preparations, left the Citadel gates and headed toward the northern mountains, where adventurers had been gathering herbs for alchemists and healers for generations.

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  Grem paused his training, watching her go with a smile. He had heard every word Valm had spoken to her inside the house. That alchemist… He had effortlessly taught a stubborn and fiery beastkin patience and the ability to work long hours on something tedious. That was something not just anyone could do.

  The Battle Master picked up his daggers again and resumed practicing his strikes.

  “Master Valm,” Grem said when the alchemist stepped outside, “your uncontrollable bloodlust has surfaced again.”

  “Damn it!” Valm swore, inspecting himself from the front and back.

  The Battle Master shook his head.

  “It’s the part of it you can’t see.”

  The alchemist halted.

  “Then what should I do?”

  “Most likely, to gain full control over it, you’ll have to start training in the ways of a warrior. I have no other ideas…”

  “That’s difficult…”

  “Not easy, I agree.”

  “And with the physical capabilities of an ordinary person, it’s ten times harder.”

  “Probably. But without it, the difficulty won’t just be high—it’ll be deadly.”

  Valm sighed.

  “And you’re going to train me?”

  Grem nodded, waiting for the alchemist’s response.

  “Let’s try… But we’ll start not today, in two days—I have something to finish first.”

  “Agreed, Master Valm. I’ll be waiting for you here in the morning, two days from now!”

  The frustrated alchemist headed to his laboratory.

  A small red tongue suddenly flickered out between his ribs, beginning to blend with the gray bloodlust. Valm slapped at it a few times to make it retreat. Well… it seemed he wasn’t just bad at controlling the invisible part of it.

  The alchemist hurried. Only seven more monsters separated him from completing the largest volume of the “Encyclopedia,” as the number of first-tier monster species was the greatest. And now, he was at the final stage.

  Yes, there were already second-tier monsters in some of the Citadel’s cages, placed there by Manager Pak ahead of schedule, so Valm wouldn’t be left without work anytime soon.

  It was a little disappointing that even after uncovering all the secrets of these monsters’ existence, the alchemist still hadn’t found substances capable of killing them instantly. He was on the right track, having determined that the best method was to chemically sever or block the connection between the back of the brain and the monster’s core, but the problem was that he simply couldn’t invent the necessary compound.

  So lately, he had been dissecting creatures, creating anatomical atlases, and documenting their physical traits, identifying their weak points.

  Just as he had planned, by the evening of the second day after his promise to Grem, he stitched the final page into the thick tome with a brown cover—one he had crafted himself from the tanned hide of a horned goblin.

  “Encyclopedia: First-Tier Monsters” was embossed in gold letters on the cover.

  Satisfied, the alchemist slowly flipped through the pages, admiring the hundreds of detailed illustrations accompanied by his calligraphic notes.

  An incredible work.

  One could say that Valm was happy to hold this book in his hands.

  Just a little more left—to distribute it across the continent so that everyone could read it and find their own way to fight the creatures.

  The alchemist sighed and tucked the tome away.

  He would deal with that tomorrow.

  After training with Grem.

  The next morning, the Battle Master was already waiting at the steps when the alchemist stepped outside.

  “First,” Grem said, involuntarily taking a step back from the heavy bloodlust radiating from Valm, “we’ll warm up with a short run around the Citadel. I think ten laps should be enough for the first day.”

  The alchemist shrugged. Running it was, then.

  And he set off at a trot through the gates.

  Grem ran slightly ahead, setting the pace for Valm and encouraging him as they went.

  Running turned out to be much harder than the alchemist had expected. One lap was roughly five hundred meters, and halfway through, Valm was already sweating and gasping for breath.

  Barely making it back to the gate, he pulled off his upper garments, remaining in just his pants and light canvas shoes.

  Breathing heavily, he bent over, resting his palms on his legs.

  And this was just one lap?!

  “Grem, can I use potions during training?”

  His ears were ringing as if someone were blowing bellows in a forge.

  The Battle Master gave Valm a pitying look.

  He knew the alchemist was physically weak, but he hadn’t expected his condition to be this bad.

  Valm had a decent skeletal frame, but it was as if he had no muscles at all, his spine protruding beneath his skin. Meanwhile, despite his young age, a few fingers’ worth of fat had already accumulated on his stomach.

  “As long as it’s within reason…”

  Grem didn’t have time to finish before two vials flashed—one with a healing potion, the other with a stamina potion.

  “Let’s continue!”

  Valm threw away the vials, wiped his lips, and was the first to run forward.

  It felt like hell. His weak, atrophied heart, affected by a sedentary lifestyle, could hardly supply his organs with oxygen, barely pushing thick blood through narrow vessels. His lungs burned as if on fire. By the third lap, a sharp, cutting pain began near his diaphragm… But Valm did not give up. Ten laps… Just ten laps…

  Thin fingers flashed with vials again. By the seventh lap, he thought he had gone deaf, as he could hear nothing but the loud tolling of his pulse in his ears. Yet he stubbornly kept moving his legs to the rhythm Grem had set. On the ninth lap, nausea kicked in from the amount of potions he had consumed in that time. But even that did not stop him…

  After the tenth lap, Valm sat down, leaning his sweaty back against the cold black stone of the fence, and coughed as spasms wracked his insides. His legs trembled uncontrollably, unable to support him any longer.

  “You did well, Master Valm!”

  The alchemist looked at Grem, who was still breathing evenly, and grimaced. Yeah, “did well.” If not for the potions, he would have been sprawled under the fence long ago. And that thought was dangerously close to reality. While running, Valm’s body constantly broke down, only to be instantly restored by the healing potions.

  And it grew stronger. Each torn muscle fiber was immediately replaced by two new ones. Valm wasn’t thinking about it, but in reality, he could have kept running all day—or at least until he ran out of vials in his storage. Yes, through immense pain and suffering, but he could.

  A few minutes later, the weakness faded, and the alchemist stood up.

  “What’s next?”

  Grem estimated how much potion Valm had already downed and shook his head. Truly a golden training session, if measured by the cost of those vials at the Alchemists’ Guild. No point wasting it.

  “The second part—strength training.”

  They returned to the courtyard, and the Battle Master pulled a strange contraption from storage.

  “Here, you can do three basic strength exercises for the major muscle groups you need most. Deadlifts for your back, bench press for your chest and arms, and squats for your legs. We’ll start with the lightest weight—fifty kilograms…”

  If Valm had thought running around the Citadel was hell just a minute ago, now he felt all its circles. That damned iron tore his muscles and tendons, ground his joints to dust… But the healing potions wouldn’t let death even approach him. Grem merely collected the empty vials, stacking them in a corner.

  Mother of gods! No one could train at such an expense!

  Given how much potion the alchemist had drunk, the Battle Master decided to abandon standard beginner training. Instead, he drove Valm through round after round on the equipment.

  “Alright, Master Valm, ten minutes of rest, then we move on to the third part—weapon training!”

  Valm sat on a bench and relaxed. His entire body buzzed, as if thousands of ants were crawling under his skin. His stomach growled, and the alchemist felt the strongest hunger of his life. He could digest anything right now! Thin slices of dried beef vanished into the furnace of his gut one after another, burning away instantly.

  “Break’s over! Master Valm, you have a good build for either a rapier or long twin daggers in combat. A rapier would be better, but unfortunately, I don’t specialize in it, so…”

  “Don’t bother, Grem,” Valm waved a hand. “I won’t even reach First-Class Warrior, so none of this really matters…”

  “Well… That’s fair.” Grem pulled twin daggers from storage. “Today, I’ll show you how to perform a simple diagonal strike and block.”

  Grem set up a heavy wooden post in the middle of the courtyard, with the outline of a human body drawn on it. Slowly, he demonstrated a diagonal strike with his right hand, returned to position with a double-dagger block, then delivered another diagonal strike with his left hand.

  “Got a good look, Master Valm? Try it.” He handed the weapons to the alchemist.

  After lifting heavy iron just minutes ago, the daggers felt weightless. Their suede-wrapped handles fit comfortably in his palms. Valm executed the strike and followed with the block.

  “Excellent, Master Valm!” Grem encouraged. “Now, the main goal of our training! Each time you strike, imagine that this isn’t just a damn log—it’s your enemy! The one who will kill you if you don’t strike first!”

  Nonsense!

  Valm struck with all his might and blocked, but the solid steel barely left faint scratches on the dark, aged wood. The Battle Master silently observed this nonsense for several minutes. The thick, gray haze of bloodlust that wavered around Valm’s body merely followed his movements, showing no intention of attacking. The problem was clear—Valm had no ability to set killing as his goal.

  Grem was baffled.

  A man who had slaughtered half a hundred people so easily a few months ago… now couldn’t do something this simple?

  “Master Valm, if you don’t pull yourself together right now, the Gray Raven will stick that damned needle in your bony spine again!”

  The alchemist remembered that pain, the way he had collapsed, clutching the door of his capsule… But more than that—the fear when he realized he was about to die, and not even a miracle could save him…

  That memory changed everything.

  A wild, primal hunger for survival instantly destroyed all rational thought.

  Dozens of frenzied, twisting red ribbons erupted from Valm’s body, mingling with the gray haze, wrapping tightly around his flesh—forming something akin to the aura armor of warriors. His movements changed too—his legs bent slightly, channeling their momentum into each dagger strike. His blows became faster, no longer leaving mere scratches but deep gouges in the wood…

  “That’s not enough!” Grem shouted in shock at the transformation. “You’re not here to tickle him, Master Valm! You’re here to kill him! Kill to survive!”

  Valm began turning into a shadow—his strikes accelerating to a blur.

  “Not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough! It’s not enough!” echoed a single thought in the alchemist’s mind.

  If he couldn’t become a warrior, then he had to become a terrifying monster!

  Valm recalled hundreds of his experiments, countless theories and discoveries about how creatures’ bodies functioned—how their nervous systems issued commands, received feedback, processed signals, and sent out new orders…

  “Faster-stronger! Faster-stronger! Kill! Tear apart! Destroy! Destroy! Destroy!”

  The red-gray ribbons crept forward, slithering from Valm’s wrists onto the daggers, consuming the fragile metal—becoming indestructible steel themselves…

  Valm’s diagonal strike sliced through the cursed post like butter, and the second cleaved it mid-air.

  “Stop!” Grem’s voice barely reached through the haze.

  Valm halted, breathing heavily. Wrapped from head to toe in bright red-gray tendrils, he stood, gripping two daggers the same color as himself.

  “It’s over, you killed him, Master Valm. He’s dead. He’s gone…”

  Grem was in shock at the sheer fury the alchemist had unleashed. He had likely never seen such concentrated bloodlust in a single person before.

  “Now, use your mind and emotions to accept that you’ve slain your enemy—and dispel the bloodlust. Immediately!” the Battle Master commanded.

  Valm’s breathing steadied. Ribbon by ribbon, the raging bloodthirst retracted into his body, revealing his head, then his hands, then his gaunt torso and legs.

  The alchemist stood, unarmed.

  The twin steel daggers Grem had given him half an hour ago… were gone.

  Valm stared at the remains of the post at his feet, then at the Battle Master, waiting for his reaction.

  Grem saw no trace of gray mist around Valm.

  Just an ordinary, tall, lean young man, looking slightly lost…

  How, in all hells, had he cut that post down? And with the second strike—mid-air, no less?!

  Even Third-Class High-Tier Warriors couldn’t do that!

  And where in the blazes had his weapons gone?

  Could it be…

  “You did well, Master Valm! You dispelled your bloodlust so cleanly, I can’t even sense it. But there’s one more thing I’d like you to work on right now. Can you control your bloodlust without losing your mind? Try to do it slowly, step by step…”

  The alchemist nodded.

  “Alright, I see what you mean. A beast is always prey. Only the hunter in the pair has reason.”

  Valm exhaled and focused his thoughts.

  One by one, those bright red ribbons with dark gray edges burst forth again, wrapping around him, leaving only thin slits for his eyes in seconds.

  Grem felt the crushing weight of Valm’s bloodlust, instinctively reinforcing himself with his own aura.

  Now this—this truly felt like raw, concentrated killing intent!

  But…

  There were no weapons in Valm’s hands.

  The strange red daggers hadn’t appeared…

  A foolish suspicion swirled in Grem’s mind.

  “Master Valm, would you mind a little experiment?”

  “An experiment?” The alchemist’s voice sounded muffled beneath the ribbons wrapped around his face. “I love experiments!”

  “Good!” Grem exclaimed.

  He drew his own daggers, reinforced them with his aura, and unleashed his own bloodlust toward Valm.

  In that instant, four blades—two black, two red—clashed, echoing like thunder!