Affinity: Chaos

Grey's pupils dilated at the sight of the content of the box, his eyes reflected the bright red glow of the content of the box. Not just his eyes, but even his face glowed bright red. A ferocious heatwave came alongside the bright red glow from the box. Grey instinctively wanted to close the box when he felt the heat, but he was experienced and being a Fire Elementalist too, he was able to at least deal with the heat. He was beyond shocked at the realization of this.

Inside the box contained a single item, a drop of bright red blood. At the sight of the blood, Grey felt his blood boil, but not just that, there was also a sense of dread. The energy contained in the drop of blood will be enough to kill a few Peak Sovereigns. Not knowing the full strength of a Half God Plane Elementalist, he didn't dare to assume that it might be enough to kill them.

The blood gave off a majestic aura, floating harmlessly in the center of the box. Taking a closer look, Grey realized that this was not a normal drop of blood, rather a drop of blood essence.

Grey gulped down his saliva almost choking on it after knowing that this time he had struck gold. If he could refine this blood essence, his strength will skyrocket in a short time. Even with Grey's normal calmness, his breathing increased as he could barely hold himself back from taking the blood. Understanding that he couldn't recklessly refine something like this, he calmed his nerves and his breathing slowly returned to normal.

"Senior, is this your blood essence?" Grey almost didn't want to believe that this was the blood essence of a human. Other than the tremendous energy the blood essence contained immense vitality. The lifespan of an Elementalist is shorter than that of their Magical Beast counterparts solely due to the immense vitality of the latter.

A Magical Beast on the same cultivation stage as an Elementalist can go on to live an added thirty to forty percent extra of a normal Elementalists' lifespan. For instance, a Peak Sage Plane Elementalist might live up to a thousand years or so, while a Peak Rank Six Magical Beast which was the same as a Peak Sage could live up to around four to five hundred years extra. With their increased lifespan, it'll seem like they have a better chance at having more experts, but their immense vitality came at the cost of their growth. The stronger they were, the harder it was for them to advance due to the energy needed to grow their vitality. The growth of Magical Beasts is closely connected to their high vitality.

Their high vitality is also the reason why most Magical Beasts can overpower their human counterpart in the same cultivation stage.

"Yes… I only managed to make a breakthrough at the end of my life" Jacob Vaergahl sighed.

Grey's expression turned sombre as he sensed the pain and agony in the voice of Jacob Vaergahl. After a while, a look of confusion appeared on Grey's face. Before Grey could say a word, Jacob's voice continued.

"I honestly didn't think I'd make it again. I knew I was done for, knowing that someone would come, I tried to perfect…"

Grey listened silently to the story of the dead genius from the Vaergahl Family. After getting his scales, Jacob understood why his Ancestors placed so much importance on increasing their vitalities as children. Each member of the Vaergahl Family has a higher lifespan as a regular Elementalist. Not all members from the Vaergahl Family get the opportunity to refine a Dragon blood essence, but it didn't mean that the Vaergahl Family didn't understand the impact of this.

While he was perfecting a secret technique from the Vaergahl Family, he had a burst of epiphany and was on the verge of breaking through. That was the true tragedy. This secret world's source didn't accept anything above the Peak of the Sovereign Plane. With the world's source hindering him, and his death already in front of him, he accepted his fate and instead of trying to see if he could make it out of here, he refined his blood essence with all his strength as well as the energy gained from the world energy of this place during his epiphany. According to him, he felt like he touched a vague power, unfortunately, he died shortly after condensing his life and life work into this blood essence. Before dying, all he could do was protect what was left of his spiritual consciousness. Surprisingly, the breakthrough, although halted, was still a bit of a success as he was able to use the energy from it to keep this small part of his consciousness hidden in the ring for so long.

Grey looked at the skeleton incredulously when he heard the story of how he died. Knowing that he was on the verge of dying, and after deciding to use the little time he had left to improve the strength of his Family, he actually was about to break through. Unfortunately it was in the wrong place. Dying due to breaking through to a cultivation stage you've been yearning for to survive is a bit ironic. The story of Jacob Vaergahl was a little painful, but knowing that instead of being overwhelmed with grief he focused everything into refining his blood essence and storing it in hopes of making the future of his family better.

Grey suddenly held him in an even higher regard. He didn't think that for him to create this opportunity for the latter generations, he had to go through such torture.

"There's no need to feel sad over it. Now, I wonder if you will be able to go through with this?" Jacob spoke when he noticed Grey's silence, there was even a hint of playfulness in his voice as he asked the question.

"Huh?" Grey didn't expect him to ask him such a question.