Chapter 245: Yggdrasil’s Blessing (Part.II)

Victor ran a hand over his face.

"My mother really needs to start explaining better what the hell she used to make me."

Rowena immediately nodded.

"Finally, you said something intelligent."

"Thanks for the confidence."

"You’re welcome."

Victor looked at his own hands and remained thoughtful for a few seconds before pointing out an obvious flaw in that theory.

"There’s a problem."

"What?"

"I can’t use Natural Energy."

"You’ve never tried."

"I’ve felt that energy several times. My body has never produced any."

"Feeling and manipulating are two completely different things."

Rowena moved closer again.

"And before you try blaming everything on your blood’s adaptation... that isn’t it."

Victor opened his mouth.

"Don’t even start," Rowena said, pointing at him.

"You don’t even know what I was going to say."

"I know exactly what you were going to say."

Victor sighed.

"Fine. Then explain."

"Your blood can adapt properties," Rowena began. "I already figured that out from watching you. But Natural Energy doesn’t possess some separate property that can simply be copied. It remains Natural Energy."

"Then what happened inside me?"

"You manipulated it."

"No."

"Yes."

"I was standing still."

"Manipulation doesn’t necessarily mean doing something consciously."

Rowena took Victor’s hand and turned his palm upward.

"When I put Natural Energy into your body, your body recognized that essence. Your blood made room for it, allowed it to circulate, and then began moving it together with your own energy."

"Automatically."

"Because you never learned how to do it consciously."

Victor stared at his empty palm.

Rowena smiled faintly.

"It’s like someone having arms since birth and spending their entire life without discovering they can lift them."

Victor looked at her.

"That comparison was offensive."

"But good."

"Unfortunately."

Victor continued staring at his empty palm.

"So..."

It took him several seconds before he asked:

"What would happen if I actually learned to manipulate Natural Energy?"

Rowena did not answer immediately.

All humor disappeared from her expression.

"You would become extremely strong."

Victor looked up.

"That was generic."

"Because I’m still trying to imagine the size of the problem."

Rowena stood and started walking again.

"Your body has already been refined through that monstrous method of Rakshasa’s. Natural Energy is exceptional when used for physical enhancement. Werewolves can use that energy to strengthen muscles, bones, circulation, senses, regeneration, and even certain instincts."

"My body already does that using blood."

"Exactly."

Rowena pointed at him.

"Now imagine both working together."

Victor went quiet.

"Your blood strengthens your body using an essence that belongs to the negative side of the balance," Rowena continued. "Natural Energy would do the same using the positive side. If your body can truly keep both in harmony..."

She stopped.

"I have no idea what the limit would be."

Victor smiled faintly.

"This is starting to get interesting."

"That’s only physical enhancement."

His smile disappeared.

"There’s more?"

"Of course there is."

Rowena opened one hand and made a small green sphere appear above her palm.

"Natural Perception."

"What does it do?"

"You would feel life."

Victor raised an eyebrow.

"I can already sense people through blood."

"I’m not talking about that."

Rowena closed her eyes.

"Mana detects energy. Blood senses blood and compatible organisms. Natural Energy senses existence. Plants, animals, movement through the ground, air currents, changes in water, environmental distortions, and even alterations produced by something trying to hide."

Victor immediately understood.

"The werewolves’ camouflage."

"Yes."

Rowena opened her eyes.

"If you develop Natural Perception, the technique used by those infiltrators probably will never work against you again."

Victor smiled.

"Now you’re doing a very good job of selling this."

"Idiot."

Rowena dispersed the sphere.

"And there are still techniques for natural regeneration, sensory enhancement, interaction with territory, and transformation."

Victor frowned.

"Transformation?"

"You’re not going to turn into a wolf."

"What a shame."

"It isn’t as fun as it looks."

Victor watched her hair for a moment.

"You had pretty ears."

Rowena turned red almost immediately.

"Focus."

"I am focused."

"You’re not."

She took a deep breath and returned to the explanation.

"I’m talking about using Natural Energy to temporarily modify your own organism. Elves developed their own ways of doing it. Werewolves developed others. You would probably create something completely different because your primary structure remains vampiric."

Victor became thoughtful.

A body at the sixth stage of Body Refinement, strengthened further by Natural Energy.

A new form of perception capable of detecting even the camouflage techniques used during the attack on the Palace.

An essence that theoretically should reject him, yet entered his body without any resistance.

"Can this kill me?" Victor asked.

Rowena laughed.

"Very likely."

"Great."

"I knew you would say that."

Victor shrugged.

"What would the risk be?"

"Balance."

She became serious again.

"Your blood is already something I cannot fully understand. One thing is injecting a small amount of Natural Energy and watching your body accept it. Another thing entirely is trying to absorb or produce that energy consciously while maintaining an extremely powerful vampiric essence inside the same organism."

Victor looked down at his own chest.

"My blood seems to like difficult things."

"That is exactly the kind of sentence that makes your masters want to hit you."

"Rakshasa would probably say the same thing."

"Then she’s right."

Victor sat back down in the lotus position.

"How do we start?"

Rowena blinked.

"Now?"

"I’m in a coma. I have time."

"You’ve only recovered a tiny fraction of the energy you lost."

"We’re inside the ring."

"Victor, do you really not know how to rest?"

He closed his eyes.

"You just told me there is an energy vampires theoretically shouldn’t even be able to accept, that my body can already use without knowing how, and you expect me to simply take a nap?"

Rowena stared at him for several seconds.

Then sighed.

"I hate admitting it, but I would do the same thing."

Victor smiled.

"I knew we were alike."

"Don’t push it."

Rowena sat behind him again, but this time she did not immediately begin transmitting energy.

"First, you’re not going to try controlling anything."

Victor nodded.

"I want you to only feel."

She placed her hands between his shoulder blades.

"Don’t use your blood to grab my energy. Don’t try to devour it. Don’t try to adapt. Don’t try to transform it."

"Then what do I do?"

"Listen."

Victor opened one eye.

"Listen to energy?"

"Close your eye."

He obeyed.

Rowena breathed slowly as Natural Energy began appearing between her hands again.

"Elves say Natural Energy is not a tool," she explained as the first current entered Victor’s body. "It is not a weapon either."

Another current entered.

"It is not food."

More energy traveled through his circulation.

"It is already everywhere before any creature decides to use it."

Victor relaxed.

This time, he did not try to analyze.

He did not search for an explanation of how his blood reacted.

He did not try to control the flow.

He only felt.

For several seconds, nothing happened.

Then something came.

Very distant.

So distant that Victor initially thought he was imagining it.

A pulse.

He frowned slightly.

It did not come from Rowena.

Nor did it come from his own body.

It seemed to exist beyond that white world, somewhere so far away that distance did not even seem like the correct word.

A colossal presence.

Too ancient.

Too vast to possess a form his mind could understand.

Rowena noticed the change in his face.

"What did you feel?"

Victor did not answer.

The pulse came again.

Thump.

It was not exactly a heart.

But his blood reacted.

A thin green line appeared beneath the skin of his arm.

Rowena’s eyes widened.

The line slowly traveled along a vein, reached his wrist, and disappeared a few seconds later.

Victor opened his eyes.

"What was that?"

Rowena did not answer.

She was completely serious now.

"Rowena."

She swallowed.

"You answered."

Victor turned his head.

"To your energy?"

"No."

Rowena looked around the white world before returning her gaze to him.

"To Yggdrasil."

Victor went still.

Neither of them made a joke this time.

He stared at his own hand for several seconds, remembering the green line that had just traveled along his arm.

"My mother has a lot to explain," he murmured.

"A lot," Rowena agreed.

Victor slowly closed his hand.

If that was true, then his blood was not the only part of his existence hiding something.

The strange ability to adapt.

The way incompatible essences were accepted.

His possible status as a Progenitor.

And now that connection to the World Tree.

Together, they were beginning to form a much larger problem than he had imagined.

Perhaps the answer did not lie only with Serafall.

Perhaps there was something in the genetic material she had described far too casually as belonging to "some random man."

Victor had never cared about discovering who his biological father was.

There was no emotional bond.

No longing.

Not even any real curiosity.

Now, however, the situation had changed.

Discovering where half of his blood truly came from might no longer be a family matter.

It might be the answer to understanding what Victor Valentine truly was.