Usually, transcendentals who met the requirements and consumed the advancement elixir had nothing to worry about.
But misfortune had always taken a liking to Maria.
When the mad, meaningless murmurs thundered through her mind like a runaway train, a violent urge surged up inside her—an overwhelming, primal fury that made her want to rip everything apart! It was as though a decade's worth of suppressed rage had exploded all at once!
‘It’s the true blood of [Cainhurst]...’
Maria collapsed to her knees, knocking over the flask. Her ten fingers clawed deep into the stone floor, nails cracking and nearly ripping off under the pressure. It was as if only by digging her hands into the ground could she endure the torment wracking her body.
She caught sight of her hands through her blurred vision. Her fingernails shimmered with a silver-white metallic sheen, eerily beautiful, and had gouged deep claw marks into the stone floor. A craving welled up within her—a maddening thirst for sweet, warm blood to calm the storm inside her.
‘No! This isn’t right!’
The black-robed nun, still capable of thought despite the agony, suddenly realized something terrifying.
‘Chaos... Cainhurst is of Sumeru descent... carries the mark of a Higher Being. And I... I died in my past life to a Chaos Archfiend... Corruption... contamination... feedback loop...!’
The pain made it almost impossible to think. She could hear countless voices whispering in her ears, yet every time she tried to listen, they vanished like illusions. The scorching, bloodthirsty desire clashed wildly with her cold, rational pursuit of knowledge. The two urges spiraled together senselessly, each fighting to dominate Maria's fragile consciousness.
Just when she was about to be swallowed by that maelstrom of madness—
A roar tore through the void.
A thunderous war cry, like a drumbeat of fury and steel, slammed her awareness back into her skull.
All noise, all temptation, all chaos—gone.
Maria sat on the floor, stunned. A vivid image lingered in her mind: within an abstract space brimming with infinite, forbidden knowledge, an explosion of blood-red light surged forward, filled with slaughter. Her instincts told her this vision meant something important, but the trauma of what she’d just experienced made her too afraid to examine it closely. She dared not tempt the attention of those malicious gazes again.
She had thought that the chaotic contamination she carried from her transmigration had faded.
It had merely been... balanced. For eight years, Chaos and Cainhurst's true blood had coexisted in an unknown harmony. Today, with her first step into the transcendent path and the influence of the advancement elixir, that balance wavered. The resulting clash nearly turned her into either a beautiful beast driven by bloodlust, or a multi-eyed horror obsessed with forbidden knowledge.
The more you know, the easier it is to go mad.
Maria clutched her chest. Her heart was still pounding furiously. Only now did she notice the taste in her mouth—a sweet, metallic tang that made her throat reflexively swallow.
Name: [Maria von Cainhurst]
Bloodline: [Half-Human (?)]
Class: [Bloodbound Scholar]
(A scholar who has survived both a Higher Being's mark and the madness of Chaos. You have gained insights beyond the realm of mortal minds, giving you a unique edge in your research. But having tasted the bliss of blood, how could you ever let go of that intoxicating sweetness?)
Chilling Insight: You see what others miss—subtle details about people, beasts, and monsters leap out at you.
Relentless Hunter: Your practice and knowledge fuse into lethal precision. Every strike is surgical.
Bloodsense: Your thirst sharpens your senses. Even the faintest scent of blood cannot escape you. But your noble bloodline demands only the finest.
Minor Regeneration: You may rapidly heal by consuming blood, though doing so leaves you temporarily weakened. Avoid use in unsafe situations.
Noble Descendant (As a descendant of Cainhurst...)
Aristocratic Education (You were raised in refinement, trained in many arts...)
Unshakable Mind (Your inner prayers grant you formidable willpower...)
(The beautiful daughter of a priestly household, skilled in several crafts. You joined the Church's forces under pretense, but before the last ember fades, doesn’t even a false fire offer some warmth? Now stepping into the supernatural, you’ve begun to realize the deadly equilibrium within you. Whether your future stands with humanity or something else entirely remains unknown.)
Maria stared at her radiant status screen and decided to selectively forget all the pain she had just endured.
Honestly? Even if she had to bleed for it, this was worth it.
Her base class, [Apprentice], had mutated into [Bloodbound Scholar] due to the unusual interaction between the elixir, her bloodline, and the influence of Chaos. Every stat had increased, even her weakest—Strength—which now sat at 15.5. Her Willpower had skyrocketed to 25! Some of that came from the elixir, but the spillover from bloodline and Chaos energy made a huge impact.
The four skills were all practical, and the ominous talents? Maria simply pretended she hadn't seen them. Being marked by an Eldritch being or chosen by Chaos wasn’t exactly a badge of honor in a world where zealots hunted anything abnormal.
With all this power...
Maria couldn't help but feel a bit of sympathy for the future 3.0 patch players. Here she was, just [Iron]-ranked, yet her talents and skills were already this absurd. Once she eventually became the guardian of the [Star Clocktower], with her mindscape-generated dueling arena, she could probably wipe the floor with any elite squad like they were tutorial mobs.
But for now, with these newfound strengths, Maria knew one thing for certain:
In the coming cat-and-mouse game with the [Kasath Reclamation Army], she would no longer be the prey.