Now is my Fourth birthday. Why is this important? The fourth birthday is important because it is the age that most races choose to test their children for their talents. What talents you say? Well that depends on the race.

  Human, for example, test for both knight's affinity and magic affinity. Knights would correspond to most melee based professions and involve physical combat (and ranged for archers). They use an internal energy known as Fighting spirit to create a rge avatar of themselves or their bloodline that boosts their physical capabilities to an inhuman level.

  Magic affinity correspond to most magic based professions like wizards and priests. First they would test for whether there was any magic affinity before testing for specific elemental affinities. Then, the specific profession would be chosen based on the elemental affinity shown.

  Unlike humans, vampires mostly test for bloodline concentration and the blood technique that is activated. Bloodline concentration is just what it is. It is how much of a vampires blood matches the blood of the ancestor of blood. Blood techniques are abilities hidden in the blood of the blood ancestor and makes it easy to develop the specific ability granted by your bloodline.

  From my parents, I can expect my ability to be from either of my parent's sides. Blood Oath is great as it can let me contract familiars that can help with various means of combat on the fly. In contrast, Blood Equipment makes it so fights that I can prepare beforehand easier as I can tailor-make various equipment based on the circumstances.

  With expectations high, the time had finally arrived. I arrived here on a rge lounge like room on a sofa with a crystal ball on a table in front of me. Here with me were both of my parents as well as Mifune and the older maid.

  Warren: Ok Celine, what you have to do right now is to hover your hand over the crystal and close your eyes.

  He, as well as all of the others, look at me with their eyes full of expectations. All of this attention might have gotten on my nerves in the past, but my time as a baby has me used to the sensation.

  I hover my hand atop the crystal as instructed and close my eyes. I suddenly felt the energy in my body suddenly make contact with an unknown energy. The foreign energy stays in contact for about a minute and I wait patiently for someone to signal for my eyes to be open.

  Warren:... You can open your eyes.

  My eyes flutter open as I see the crystal ball under my hand glow a vibrant red. In the center of the crystal id an unknown mark. I then look up to see the confused expressions on my parents and Mifune's faces.

  Warren: This mark... Dear do you recognize it?

  Melissa: This... I don't remember this mark among the family's blood directory. So It is either an ancient Blood Technique with information not recorded upon the directory or is a mutated technique.

  Mifune: So is it good or bad? Will it affect her in any way?

  Mutated and ancient techniques? I don't think that I have heard these phrases although I can guess the rough definition from them.

  Probably sensing my confusion, the older maid began to expin the two.

  Older maid: Ancient Blood Techniques are techniques that were originally passed down a lineage, but one day the lineage was cut off before the current directory was created. Most of these techniques were from either weaker households that died off early or it came from one of the frontline families that were eventually wiped out among the many wars that our race have survived. In contrast, Mutated techniques are just as it is called. They are mutations based on one or both parent's blood technique. For example, our Volod Family bears the technique of the Blood Oath that creates marks to control creatures and objects. An example of a mutation was from your grandfather's generation that had him create marks that did not strengthen the target and instead weakened it.

  After the expnation, I could somewhat understand the confusion of my technique to my parents. After some time passed, my parents finally snapped from their contemption.

  Warren: Thinking here will lead us nowhere. Let's let her use her technique on the training ground to test it out.

  Melissa: Good idea, maybe we will understand what the technique is when it is used.

  Mifune: Mmm let's go!

  They then lead me to the training ground. They dismiss the guards practicing on the grounds and stand a distance away from me.

  Warren: Celine baby, try your technique. Just close your eyes and let your energy flow on it's own.

  I do as my dad says and close my eyes. I then sense the flow of my energy. For a minute I sat there waiting for any changes. After some more time I get a little impatient.

  Out of annoyance I think out in my heart 'Just move according to my technique already.'

  It was then I felt the energy in my body flow abnormally. I shook in excitement and open my eyes.

  The scene in front of me was suddenly changed to another appearance. On a field dyed red with blood I see a vast expanse with only the bones of many creatures before me. Then, I instinctively turn behind me and see a strange object.

  Before me was a blood soaked throne with the skulls of various sized creatures lined all around them. The throne looked like it was made with an obsidian bck crystalline material along with a flowing golden blood like fluid flowing across it.

  I then feel a strange sensation. After a moment of sensation, I walk up to the throne and touch the armrest of the throne. Suddenly a voice echoed in my mind.

  ???: Oh, inheritor. May the flow of blood ever flow through our bodies and may our wills st forever.

  Then around me I heard the sound of moving and saw all the remains on the field slowly reattach together with a chorus of voices from every direction resonating with that first voice.

  ???: May the flow of Blood ever flow through our bodies and may our wills st forever. In the scorched nd may we find soce and our hearts find peace from our sacrifice. May ______ st eternal as the eternal zenith of life itself.

  The chorus kept resonating as I felt my energy flow out on their third chant. The energy suddenly exploded outwards and my eyes unconsciously closed again.

  When they reopened I saw the shocked faces on my parents, mifune and even the old maid. I look around and felt something different. I could sense that my thinking has sped up from normal. I looked around and saw a red circle around me. Before I could think further, a strange flow of information slipped into my mind. I suddenly looked up and shouted.

  Celine: Sanctuary of Blood.

  As I said that, the red circle around me glowed an incredible red. with that glow I felt that I became another being. My eyes glowed and eerie mix of Bck and red. The zone around me became blood red like the field I was in before. Almost instinctually I reached out my hand and a corpse suddenly emerged from the ground in front of me. The corpse was like the remains from the field I was in before.

  It was the cssic image of a human skeleton with armor from a time long past with even the emblem on the armor being worn down to nothingness. The skeleton stood straight and I could feel that I could manipute the skeleton with just my thoughts.

  I do just that as the skeleton swiftly jumps back and unsheathes the sword by its waist. It swings with determination and speed unbefitting that of a mere corpse.

  Although it didn't release anything like a flying sword ssh or fighting spirit, just from the swordsmanship shown it was comparable to even the elite guards from my families guards.

  After a while, I stopped pying around with the skeleton and instinctually send it back. Afterwards, I gave a look towards my parents. My father was pondering while watching the skeleton while my mom called me over to her. I walk over and quietly to my mom's side while awaiting my father's final judgement.

  A while passes and I see my father's face suddenly brighten as he rushes back in the house. My mom confusedly walks me over to my dad who ran off to his office and pulled out a rge encyclopedia-like book. The title read as The Tome of Blood.

  He then scrambles over to the bottom half of the book and suddenly points at a certain section.

  Warren: Sanctuary of Blood! No wonder I felt familiar with the name. It's one of the lost ancient Blood Techniques that haven't appeared for tens of thousands of years! Let's see the ancestor of the technique is an unknown vampire who had fallen nearly 300,000 years ago. The technique allows for the summoning of the sanctuary of blood which is an area with countless dormant creatures who fight for the owner of the sanctuary of blood. Only one user of the Sanctuary of Blood can be active at a time. The remaining information is bnk as it has been lost to time.

  He looked a little puzzled as he handed the tome over to mom to look at. I got the time st and started to look through the whole tome.

  Throughout the first section revealed all of the basic blood abilities, some of them I recognized as the techniques the guards were using before. Not only did the tome contain all of the basic abilities that the techniques entails, it also contained multiple development paths for the user to follow. It also says specifically at what levels of strength that you would earn each ability.

  Only now seeing this did I finally have an understanding of the power system of this world. No matter the methods used, strength is divided into: Unrated, Bck Iron, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Ptinum, Diamond and King ranks. Each rank is according to the amount of energy that your body can release at one time. The tome only describes the ranks up to Gold rank though.

  Unrated means that the energy that you use can only be internally circuted and can’t be released as an attack externally effectively.

  Bronze rank is known as the first extraordinary rank according to the human races as reaching this rank means that it is possible to release the bodies energy outwards to affect the outside environment.

  Above them is Silver that is distinguished by a significant increase in the amount of energy both stored and able to be released.

  Finally, Gold marks a significant in the quality of the energy produced by the body leading to a massive increase in combat power overall.

  Any higher rank is not talked about in the tome and only specialized higher level tomes would talk about the features of higher levels.

  I looked through the first section and finally reached the second section of the tome. This section held exclusive techniques of specific families and bloodlines of the vampire cn.

  Blood Astrology, Blood Anthem, Blood Echo... it even holds official records of the Blood Oath and Blood Equipment that both of my parents hold.

  Blood Oath is the ability of the Vodol Family and consists of the ability to create and manipute a soul mark. The soul mark is made by splitting off a section of your soul and molding it into a unique form. This form makes a connection between both the creator of the soul mark and those connected to the soul mark. Known techniques of the Soul Mark are Soul Contract, Soul Communication, Soul Boost, Soul Protection, Soul Repositioning, Soul Recovery and Soul Space.

  The specifics of each ability is unknown, but the names give a good enough idea of how the ability works.

  Blood Equipment is an ability shared by multiple families and is the ability to create temporary or permanent equipment that can boost various abilities. The specific abilities are only Blood Enchantment to boost premade equipment and Blood Imbuement that gives a connection between a certain material and the user that boosts the overall abilities of an equipment while binding the equipment to the soul of the user. Both can be used on the same equipment.

  After reading through the various other abilities, it finally lead to the third section which were mostly hearsay of various abilities that are either mutations or lost ancient techniques that haven't reappeared for at least a thousand years including my Sanctuary of Blood.

  In the final Fourth section, it mainly spoke about the legendary Absolute Blood Control that the true ancestor of Blood was theorized to have. Theoretically, every ability in our bloodlines was created from this technique and passed down through our bloodlines till today. This theory is ultimately just a theory, but is widely accepted by most vampires as likely true.

  After looking through all of it, I was quite shocked at the diversity of abilities and all of the various family techniques that our vampire cn had in total.

  I finally looked up and noticed that my father and the old maid were missing from the room. Was I so engrossed in reading that I didn't realize that they had left?

  Mifune: Are you done reading? Let's go on a walk to wake up your legs!

  My mother nodded in agreement and I was forced to walk around and py with the two of them until they were satisfied.

  The next day I walked out to the training ground on my own in order to try out my own ability.

  I walk to the training ground and find that there are fewer people at the grounds today. Seeing this, I go towards one of the further corners to start practicing the use of my technique.

  Celine: Sanctuary of Blood!

  I call out my technique and the familiar red field appears around me once again. I start walking around with the field and find out that I can either pnt the field on the spot and keep it there or I could make a mark on me that lets the field always circle around where I am. That might be a little useful to keep in mind.

  I then decide to summon the skeleton back to see how far I could manipute it. From the ground a bony arm suddenly thrusts upwards. After a second the rest of the body pulls itself up. The skeleton has now appeared in front of me again. Although the rise was fairly quick, it still took about two seconds to pull itself up.

  Two seconds may not sound like much, but in close quarters combat two seconds is enough for a melee fighter to close in on someone like me. Maybe I could speed it up with practice? Until then, this rising time may need to be calcuted in any potential combat situation.

  Maybe I could create a blood weapon and be able to hold back enemies for enough time that the skeletons can rise? Tests like those can be tested at a ter time. Firstly, I started seeing how fast and strong the skeleton I summoned would be.

  After some short tests I found that the skeletons can peak at going about 20mph I calcuted this from the speed it goes around my field and since skeletons don't really get tired I can assume it can stay at this speed steadily.

  Offense wise, I tested the swings of his sword while stationary and while in a moving state and found that while stationary, its swings can easily cut through the air in front of it and swing about three times a second. Running and swinging is a different story as it can only stay at a pace of about two a second while keeping the swings at a simir strength.

  The skeleton can only stay in the field around me and I haven't tested whether the skeleton can persist outside of my field as I can't outpace the skeleton and even if I order them to stay put, the skeleton automatically keeps up in the field.

  Now the time has come for the most critical test. How good could my summon fare against an actual opponent? I looked around the ground to see any guard that I could test its strength on.