Chapter 372: Blood Bath

All evening, Rae soaked in her bath, periodically scrubbing herself against the walls of the tub that she had lined with ground gems and moss. She was polishing off the outer layer of her chitin and sharpening her legs.

That was general maintenance for a bloodbath spider, and she had been neglecting it for some time, but now that she was about to advance, she had to look her very best. She couldn't have flaws and imperfections marring her beauty when she made her first appearance as a Royal Rank beast.

She was pulling in the blood from the pool and holding it in her mouth to let the nutrients soak through the membranes of her cheeks, pulling the energy and essence from it, then spitting the drained blood to the side of her pool so she didn't have to swallow it and feel all bloated from overeating.

The absorbed blood infusion was slowly transforming the energy in her body, following the instincts of a Bloodbath Spider, and while Karl was sleeping, she was making great progress.

Her size wasn't changing, she was already full-grown, but the density of her chitin had skyrocketed, and the energy of her body was taking on aspects of the primarily Hill Giant blood she had used. There wasn't much of a choice, for Royal Rank, she only had blood from one Frost Giant and a bunch of humans other than what she had gotten from the Hill Giants. The humans didn't hold much, and the Frost Giant blood was cold and blue. That did not sound like a pleasant bath at all, so she had skipped it.

However, a Bloodbath Spider held significantly less blood than a Hill Giant did, so she had plenty left over even after her bath was done, and she had polished herself clean again, ready to present her advancement to the others.

Karl's mental spaces were shifting their power as he slept, spreading the focused energy from all the spaces into Rae's on their own to adapt to the standard that her body now demanded.

Nobody minded, Karl could fix it in the morning, and it was giving them all ideas on how their own advancement was supposed to go.

Hawk was pretty certain that Rae had the right idea. Even if you feel the pull to advance, as he was beginning to, you needed to find a cool new skill to learn. Advancement made it much easier to learn a new ability, and he didn't want to leave it to chance, he wanted the demoted Commander's Flame Golem things, but as birds.

That shouldn't be hard. He already knew how to make fireballs of many kinds, and Rae could make golems, which he had been watching constantly. If he combined them, he should be able to have firebirds.

But actually making Golems out of the flames was proving elusive. He should understand it, he had seen it so many times. But no matter what he was trying, they just weren't sticking around as birds.

He could make very effective self targeting bombs, but not proper Golems.

So, Hawk changed his tactic. If his fiery creations didn't want to stick around, he just needed to make them more effective while they were present.

Instead of flying around the Elites looking for ideas, he headed to the artillery lines, looking for clues on how more effective explosions should work.

That was all the Artillery did, it flew over and blew up. That was what he wanted out of his dive bombers, so Hawk spent most of the night watching them work. It proved mostly useless, as the artillery projectiles weren't as impressive as his fire, but he did get some insights into the ways that the dive bombers should explode for maximum effect.

The sense that something was wrong within his mind as Rae's space tried to pull more than the other spaces had to spare woke Karl up before dawn.

With few other options, he began to meditate, focusing on the flame in the void of his mind to pull as much energy into his body as he could, feeding it all to Rae. While he drew energy from outside, the Vampiric blade was donating some of its stored energy, though most of it had already been used to bolster the spaces during the past few days.

The changing beast space was happily drawing everything that Karl could give it, and Rae's sleeping form was beginning to shimmer with black energy as her progression finished, and she fully integrated the power she had absorbed.

Normally, she would have been in the equivalent of a food coma for a few days after her advancement, but with Karl's help, she was beginning to stir before the sun was fully over the horizon.

[How is your day going, Rae?] Karl asked as the spider began to move about, shaking her web to ensure everything was where she left it.

[Did you realize that Hill Giants can make their own portable shadows?] She replied.

Karl thought about that for a moment, but had no idea what she was talking about.

[I will show everyone when they're awake. We've got a shift on the line this morning, right?] Rae asked.

[Yeah, right after breakfast. I'm sure they'll all be super excited to see your new abilities. Congratulations on the advancement.]

[You found out this fast?] Rae pouted.

[It woke me up so that I could add energy, instead letting you sleep for days to finish the process.] Karl explained.

Rae nodded her head. [It would never do to sleep for days. What if something happened? I could miss a chance to show off.

But that Hill Giant blood was a great bath, we should find a Monarch Rank Hill Giant, so I can have one even better. I learned all sorts of things from advancing that way.]

Karl wondered how much you could learn by bathing in blood, but given her name, there might actually be some connection between that and her ability to gain new skills.

Karl was the first one up, so he changed into his Commander Rank suit with the new set of armour underneath, then headed to make the first pot of morning coffee and wait in the living room for the others.

The first ones up were Doug and Morgana, who both stopped to stare at Karl as they entered the room.

"There's still most of a fresh pot on the counter." He greeted the early risers.

"There's something off about you this morning." Doug noted.

Morgana inspected Karl, and gave Doug a suspicious look when she couldn't detect what it was that he was noticing.

Doug poured two coffees and passed one to Morgana before lighting a smoke. "Have you figured out what it is yet? Is it bothering you that you don't know?" He asked.

"I swear you just like my annoyed expression. I will figure it out soon. There is something, but I just can't tell what has changed about his presence. He's still a Commander, so it's not an advancement." Morgana replied as she sipped her coffee.

One by one, the others filed in, and Doug shushed them when they wanted to ask what was going on, but he directed them all to the fresh pot of coffee brewing in the kitchen to replace the nearly empty one.

Finally, Lotus couldn't take it anymore.

"Are we just going to wait for it, or can I just tell them now?" She pleaded.

"Alright, you can tell them. We've had our fun."