Reaching down and grabbing one of the paws of the beast, I lifted it up and began dragging it into the bushes off to the side. Once in the bushes, I chose to keep dragging it even farther to make sure what I was about to do would not be seen.

  I was not entirely sure how far I dragged it, but I kept going for a solid few minutes before stopping and dropping the beast's paw. During this trip, I tried to make sure that the beasts bled as little as possible so that would not be much waste. Because of that, I was already using some of my power to manipute its blood to clot at the wound. Now I had to undo that and instead pull all the blood out of its body while making sure none of it touched the ground, or anything else for that matter.

  This was also something I have done multiple times in the past, so it would normally be very easy for me to do. However, the moment I tried to control all the blood in the thing's body, I felt a greater amount of resistance than normal. It was not that much compared to what I was used to, but it was still an added strain that I was not expecting.

  This meant that when I broke apart the clot in the wound, some of the blood spilled on the ground before I could catch it.

  Thankfully, it was not much, and I had already found enough in the beast's body not to care about this small amount.

  Pulling on the rest of the blood, I drained all of it that I could from the beast's body and used it to create a floating red orb above my open hand. It was not the most convenient thing to drink from, but I did not see any gss I could readily use.

  I also did not need to drink this much, so I broke off a few smaller orbs that could fit in my mouth before using my power to squeeze the remaining sphere of blood. This was not something I had a lot of practice with, as I rarely needed to do this, but my mother would not let me go more than a few days without practicing this skill. Because of that, I had the confidence to keep the sphere’s shape as it compressed into a smaller, gell-like ball.

  This was still rger than I wanted it to be, so I kept compressing it until it turned into a small round gem that could fit in the palm of my hand. It was almost like those small bouncy balls my brother would buy me.

  Gosh, I was such a menace to my parents.

  Throwing that thought to the back of my mind, I put the small blood gem into the pocket of my dress, which I specifically asked the tailor to make, and started eating the small blood spheres I left floating in the air.

  This did not take very long, and I was soon full, so I did not need anything else at this moment.

  I did not want to let all of this beast go to waste, however, so I decided to at least take some of the meat for a short meal tonight. This was not because I was hungry, as I already stated that I was full from the blood, but I still needed to keep up some appearances in front of the old man. It was also something that was not that difficult, as my father always had me go hunting with him to fill out his tag limit during hunting season. That, of course, included skinning the kills we got.

  Getting only a few small cuts of meat took about another twenty minutes, so I was gone for quite some time. However, the meat should have given me an easy excuse.

  Walking back to camp was a simple affair, and I was soon walking back through the bushes that I had left the campsite from earlier. The old man was still sitting beside the fire with his sword next to him in his meditative posture.

  When I walked into the clearing, he opened his eyes and looked at me for a few seconds before saying, “You were gone for a while.”

  Hearing that, I was not phased much and lifted up a few strips of meat while saying, “I decided not to let all of the beast go to waste and brought us some dinner.”

  After that, I grabbed some sticks to stab the meat with before staking them in the ground near the fire so I would not have to hold them. The man looked confused as I did this, which was throwing me off for some odd reason. He then asked me, “Did you take the beast’s core?”

  It was now my turn to be confused, as I did not know what he was talking about. Choosing to voice my confusion, I asked, “What is this beast core you’re talking about?”

  This elicited a look of surprise on his face as he asked, “Do you know what Qi is, child?”

  Being referred to as a child made me slightly angry, but I forced it down as I thought about his question. It was not like I had never heard about it. However, I had only ever read about it in cultivation novels, and given how the old man was dressed and the strangeness of what happened, I did not like the theories I was coming up with. Regardless, I still needed to give the man an answer, so I said, “I have not heard of such a thing.”

  The man looked fairly incredulous at my words, but he did not express his thoughts and instead asked, “Do you want to know what it is?”

  I didn't pn on asking him to expin anything, but since he was offering, I countered, “Not if you expect something in return.”

  That resulted in a staring contest between the two of us for a few minutes as the meat cooked. Eventually, I got tired of it and looked back at the meat cooking to make sure that it did not become tire rubber.

  This sted for a few more minutes until I chose this point to check the meat.

  From what I saw, it looked cooked, so I took a bite to check. This got another incredulous look from the old man, but I did not care about this at the moment as I was more concerned about cheeking the meat.

  Sadly, I should have remembered that I drained all the blood from the beast’s body, including the pieces I cooked. This meant that the meat cooked slightly faster than I was expecting and still ended up overcooked.

  Picking up the other sticks of meat that I did not check, I handed them over to the old man while saying, “Well, the meat is cooked. But I would not say it is good unless you like chewing on tire rubber.”

  The old man gave me that incredulous look for a third time and looked like he was going to say something, but he held his tongue and grabbed one of the sticks. I was still holding the other stick towards him when he bit into the meat.

  At that point, his incredulous look disappeared, and he looked at me with a strange mix of emotions I could not figure out. Even if I was not able to decipher what was in that look, I still felt like I would not like what it implied, so I threw the st stick at him before walking towards one of the trees at the edge of the camp.

  Sitting down with my back to the tree I chose, I finished the meat before chucking the stick away and watching the fire for a bit.

  The old man did not say anything more and simply finished his meat before going back into that meditation pose. It seems he did not want to expin what Qi was. Since that was the case, I chose to get some shut-eye.

  Closing my eyes, I calmed my breathing and tried to enter a calm state where my mind was bnk, and I was not thinking about anything.

  It was not that difficult as I had done it many times before as sleep was very elusive for vampires, and this state helped for time to pass at what felt like an accelerated pace.

  For some reason, this also heightened all of my senses. So I could feel as my legs, which were stretched out in front of me, went sck, along with my arms and neck.

  I was told by multiple people that this made it look like I died, as I would always forget to breathe. Stupid Vampirism making me no longer need oxygen.

  Vulthurtoor