CHAPTER 172: BLOOD ALCHEMY

One benefit of Doran being completely out of it after his conversation with Caius, was that he didn’t ask for things in dictations to be repeated to him. Caius never really minded having to assist his Alchemically weaker classmate but he certainly enjoyed being able to just be focused on the task at hand.

Alchemy is an art of precision, after all.

When class ended, he quickly raised his hand before his classmates could stand to their feet and head off to the cafeteria.

He told Arlette he had a question and she immediately waved him over, opened the Portal Gate so they could both step directly into her office. Right before he vanished, Calus indicated to Kaya and Arlette that he’d be back soon but the two were used to these absences of his and knew that wasn’t true.

"This must be urgent," Arlette said when they had arrived in her office,

"Usually, I’d have to wait a few minutes before you make the walk over. Give you some minutes to round up conversations with those girls of yours."

"Yeah, I decided the walk was getting tiring and a little dumb when I have instant transportation thanks to you," Caius said with a little smile already wrapping an arm around the Professor’s waist to pull her against his body.

Arlette never walked into the office too far. She had been expecting this after all. She placed her hands on his shoulders, worked her fingers all over them like she was working out the tenses in his muscles.

"But there is an urgent matter to discuss," Caius said then.

"Oh? So I was right then," Arlette said.

"You were," Caius said and then his eyes became a bit more serious as he asked,

"What do you know of Blood Alchemy?"

Arlette paused.

"A branch of Alchemy believed to be exclusively for Vampires? I know a thing or two," she said.

"Of course you do," Caius said with a smile as he leaned his head forward and touched their foreheads together before highlighting a phrase he had found interesting in the answer she gave and asked,

"’Believed to be exclusively for Vampires’?"

Arlette shrugged.

"When it’s Alchemy, nothing is ever really exclusive. The existence and power of a Vampire is completely blood-related as opposed to us normal people.

But that doesn’t mean Blood isn’t important to us ’normal people’ either. Without it, we wouldn’t be living. It’s what you lot always want from us, after all. To drain us of all we have."

"Well, when what you have is so delicious..." Caius said and punctuated his words by placing his nose at her neck and taking among whiff of the scent that always excited him.

He had a hand reaching down and cupped Arlette’s ass for a delectable squeeze that he made sure didn’t distract him from the matter at hand.

"Anyway, how much of it can you teach me?" Caius asked.

Arlette sighed.

"Not much," she admitted, "Blood Alchemy is one of the most difficult forms of Alchemy. And even the most talented only have a ten percent chance of success."

"We have the wealth of the Leopold Family at our disposal," Caius said, "I think we can beat those odds."

Arlette cocked her head to the side,

"Maybe," she said slowly, "When do you want to start?"

"Now," Caius said.

"Alright," Arlette answered and stepped away from Caius to walk over to the wall opposite the one they just stepped through to arrive at the office from the classroom. With a wave of her hand, she opened another Portal Gate. This one took them to her Private residence.

She led Caius through a few doors until they arrived at a part of her home Caius had not yet had the privilege to see. It was decked with Alchemical kits and tools and there were shelves of books that Caius assumed contained recipes.

Rather than step toward any of the shelves though, Arlette simply flicked her wrist and retrieved a small booklet from her storage ring which she handed to Caius, saying,

"Everything I know about Blood Alchemy."

Caius took the book gently and began to riffle through the basics. It seemed like elementary stuff she was already teaching them in class. Just for a branch of Alchemy many didn’t care enough to give it a try.

"Sorry if it’s not much," Arlette said with a shrug, "I gave up on learning it a long time ago."

"No, this is a good start," Caius said still reading through the booklet as he continued,

"Put in a word to ’Ophiuchus’ for the acquisition of more manuals. As many and as varied as can be found."

"Right," Arlette said.

"Do you have any ingredients I can use?" Caius asked.

"Not nearly enough," Arlette said, "But yes."

"Have ’Ophiuchus’ get us more of that too. I’ll be working with it a lot in the coming weeks."

"What are you preparing for?" Arlette asked.

"The Mid-semester Tests of course," Caius answered.

"I doubt you’d be in danger enough to need any of this," Arlette said.

"Well, we can’t really be sure of that," Caius answered casually.

Now Arlette’s brows furrowed because she felt she could detect something in those words that worried her.

Blood Alchemy could be used by humans but it’s not essential for their Survival and Healing as it is for a Vampire. Because of their nature, everything a Vampire can ever use to sustain or revitalize itself, must be made with Blood. Well, technically, it’s supposed to be just Blood.

But Blood can be a slow remedy. So Alchemists decided to tinker with it a bit to create more varied and fast-acting solutions for all their Vampiric needs.

In essence, it wasn’t so out of the ordinary for Caius to be interested in creating Blood potions and pills that could heal him as no normal drink of blood can. But Arlette was starting to feel that it went beyond that.

The rudimentary steps to Blood Alchemy were very similar to those of normal Alchemy. Extractions and combinations. Use of catalysts and reductants.

"Do you want me to..." Arlette started to say and held out an arm in what was clearly a volunteer to offer her blood for the process.

"No, your blood is far too precious," Caius said, "Especially for a few Practice runs."

With a flick of his wrist, Caius retrieved a canister of high-quality Beast Blood he had stashed away in his Storage Ring. For over a week now, he had been conserving half of what he was given to sate his thirst just for this very moment.

A few drops of blood later, and he began.

Arlette stood off to the side, watching him work.

As helpful as she really wished to be, she just wasn’t adept at Blood Alchemy enough to explain the processes to him. Also, there was very little she could teach him, if at all, that wasn’t already in the booklet she had given him.

Caius sparked flames. He began the separation of the core properties of the Beast Blood before starting to extract the other ingredients required for the process. He had only just begun when he heard a sizzling sound and everything he had worked on dissipated into nothing.

The First failure of many.

"Alright," he mumbled and started the process again.

He failed again.

And again.

And again.

And again...

By the sixth attempt, the ingredients Arlette had been able to supply him were starting to dwindle to the point where only two more attempts were possible.

Caius gritted his teeth.

He had expected difficulty in completing the process. He just hadn’t considered that he wouldn’t even be able to complete the first step.

Yes, so far he had failed at simply extracting core properties and had barely even gotten started.

Arlette looked on, knowing well for herself the frustrations that were starting to set in.

Caius fired up the flames again and gave it another one of the two tries he had left for today. He dumped every bit of Beast Blood he had left in the Canister in his hand and began the separation process.

Then came the first of the ingredients and for the first time, he was able to complete the extraction. He couldn’t help the wide grin that split his face.

Alas, maybe the experiment hated that he had a moment of jubilation because, with a bang, the entire process went up in spontaneous flames and, just like the six times before, turned into nothing.