Chapter Forty-Nine: Bloodline Mark

The potion in Professor Liu’s hand was not, strictly speaking, a potion at all, but a purified extract from a mutated plant. In terms of effect, however, it was probably no inferior to the medicine made from those illusion mushrooms.

Shen Lie named it the Red Fruit Potion, because the raw material used to make it had been brought back by him. During one of his excursions, he had accidentally discovered a mutated tree. There were more than ten birds roosting in its branches, and every one of them was mutated. Immediately, he thought of the mutated crows near the illusion mushroom field, so he killed all the birds and picked every fruit from the tree.

After taking the fruit, he did not dare eat it directly. Although he suspected it might have the same effects as the illusion mushrooms, it had not been tested, so he brought it back to the group and asked Professor Liu to analyze it.

After Professor Liu’s research confirmed that the fruit contained no toxins, Shen Lie began to eat it, but the result still did not satisfy him.

By then, after a long period of uninterrupted cultivation of the Boiling Blood Art, Shen Lie’s own bloodline power had already reached the brink of opening the second node. Ordinary growth in energy could no longer benefit him. What he needed was an aid that could erupt in an instant and contain enormous power. Otherwise, if he relied on slow grinding effort alone, who knew how many years it would take to ignite that node.

Thus this potion came into being.

It was the finished product obtained after Professor Liu extracted and purified all the useful substances from the fruits and then carried out simple processing. Since nothing else had been added, there was no need to worry about toxicity.

“Thank you, Professor. Zhang Jing, come with me for a moment.” Shen Lie took the potion, unable to restrain the urge in his heart, and called to Zhang Jing as he stepped down from the armored vehicle. Little Tao Tao followed closely behind. The three of them left the group and came to a secluded place.

“Here will do. You two protect me.” Shen Lie said with a smile, then found a smooth patch of ground, sat down with his knees bent, and began preparing to use the potion.

He was completely at ease with Zhang Jing and Tao Tao. Both had stood the test of time and were utterly loyal to him. What was more, after using the evolution potion, little Tao Tao’s strength had risen by a huge margin, making her more than sufficient for guard duty.

After adjusting his physical condition, Shen Lie took a deep breath, then without the slightest hesitation opened the mouth of the bottle and tipped back his head, pouring all of the potion into his mouth.

A surge of heat formed in his abdomen. Shen Lie once again felt the same sensation he had experienced when using the white petals: every part of his body was brimming with energy. He immediately began circulating the Boiling Blood Art, guiding that energy toward the second node.

The second node was not far from the first. It had already begun to reveal itself. Under the infusion of this surging energy, it gradually formed a small vortex. There was no difference from the formation of the first node. Since the energy was abundant, Shen Lie intended to press the advantage and light up this vortex in one stroke.

But just as the vortex was about to take shape and release a scattering of starlight, an abrupt change suddenly occurred!

“Ah!”

Shen Lie let out a faint cry. He discovered that after the second vortex lit up, the first vortex had also suddenly begun to stir. The two vortices seemed to enter resonance, trembling at the same frequency. Then a golden line appeared between them!

This development was completely beyond Shen Lie’s expectations, yet he could do nothing to stop it. He could only stare as the two vortices inside his body trembled faster and faster. Then a second golden thread appeared.

When the two golden threads had grown to the same thickness, they suddenly began to draw together, entwining into a single mass.

It seemed that a faint sound arose, and then the two golden threads fell away from the vortices, contracting sharply like cut rubber bands. Immediately afterward, both vortices simultaneously released their pure bloodline power upon this mass of gold.

The golden mass seemed like a bottomless abyss, greedily devouring the energy without pause. It drank so voraciously that Shen Lie’s face turned pale, yet he did not dare make the slightest attempt to stop it. He feared that if he made the wrong move, he might blow his own body apart.

The process lasted a full several minutes. Just when the two vortices were growing more and more faint, and looked as though they might collapse at any moment, the golden mass finally ceased its absorption. Then the swollen orb of golden thread suddenly burst with dazzling light. Under Shen Lie’s anxious gaze, it shattered with a pop and transformed into even more brilliant starlight!

“Damn it, am I about to meet God or what?” That golden mass contained all the energy of both vortices. That explosion was almost comparable to several super-power explosives. Wouldn’t this blow him into meat paste?

Just as Shen Lie was about to do something in a desperate attempt to remedy the situation, he discovered that the starlight released by the blast did not spread outward. Instead, it formed a band of brilliance within the space between the two vortices, then began to contract at a terrifying speed. In the blink of an eye it took shape as a golden mark, which gradually stabilized.

“This... could it be a bloodline mark?” Seeing this mark, Shen Lie was not alarmed but delighted, his face revealing an eager expression.

The notion of a bloodline mark had come from Du Lili. Over these past days, he and Du Lili had discussed their respective conditions at great length, including the immensely powerful Fire Dragon Art that Du Lili used.

At first Shen Lie had thought that Du Lili, like him, could use the Fire Dragon Art because she had obtained that strange skill book. But after their discussions, he learned that things were not that simple.

According to Du Lili, from the moment she awakened, there had already been a mark within her body. At that time the mark was extremely faint, but through it she was able to use the Fire Dragon Art skill. However, this blurry imprint could only summon a very weak Fire Dragon Art, with little more power than a normal fireball spell.

But after she ignited her first vortex node, the mark became brighter. Then, when she used the vortex to activate that ability, its power increased dramatically. After igniting the second node, the power of her Fire Dragon Art rose yet another level, and it could split into two, allowing her to control two fire dragons at once.

Yes, Du Lili had already ignited her second node. Its power was terrifying. Once, while out searching for supplies, she had run into Gu Chengfang and several of the military’s awakened experts. The three sides each displayed their strength, and all were shocked by one another’s power. From that day on, Du Lili had become the undisputed top expert in the entire group, causing those who had designs on their armored-vehicle unit to retreat on their own.

Although she had awakened with a talent mark, while his own mark had only appeared after he ignited the second node, Shen Lie was still overjoyed. The appearance of this mark meant that he was about to grasp a new bloodline skill. Moreover, he already had the World-Destroying Hammer, so now he was a concealed master with two skills!

Du Lili and the others had always assumed that the World-Destroying Hammer was his bloodline skill, while he was simply an awakened wielder of lightning powers. No one knew that his lightning ability was merely an appendage. His true principal ability was strength, and now he was about to obtain a strength-type bloodline skill!

The mark finally took shape. Shen Lie remembered Du Lili telling him that her own mark was dragon-shaped, while Professor Liu had also formed a mark when he ignited his first node. According to the professor, it was in the shape of some peculiar bead, though no one knew what it was. After discussing it together and combining information gathered from elsewhere, they concluded that the mark formed within one’s body basically represented the bloodline to which one’s awakening belonged.

Professor Liu’s could not be inferred, but Du Lili’s was undoubtedly the bloodline of a dragon. No wonder that woman was so formidable. Among all the awakened members of the group, there was basically a consensus: the higher the level of the bloodline one awakened, the more powerful one’s abilities would be.

In other words, even if two people awakened the same fire-type power, the abilities displayed by a dragon-bloodline awakener and a fire-serpent-bloodline awakener would certainly not be the same. This was a constraint imposed by the bloodline’s own level, an inescapable shackle. This could be seen clearly in Du Lili and Ma Zhanlin. The two were at the same level, yet Du Lili could easily crush Ma Zhanlin ten times over.

What bloodline had he awakened? Shen Lie was extremely curious, and at the same time, full of anticipation.