As it turned out, I shouldn’t have been able to crack the rock just yet.Clearly, this was my Will at play, hidden behind the scenes of this world’s Blood. I had a qualitative strength to my Blood use from the get-go, but I lacked quantity. Unfortunately, the only way I knew of to gain more was through ritual killing, which I wasn’t planning on seeking out myself.My father all but guaranteed that challengers would eventually be coming for me, no matter what my wishes were on the matter. Uli, like any people, often had a short memory, and soon enough people would come to see me as a potential target again. Perhaps after enough demonstrations, that would slow or stop, but at the moment I was just a kid who probably got lucky in his First Blood match-up.Surprisingly, Daru wasn’t upset when I expressed no desire to seek out more challenges on my own. Perhaps after losing so many sons to the First Blood ritual, he saw it as a necessary evil, rather than something to be celebrated. Or he was just relieved I wasn’t going to rush to my death.“Focus on your Blood control and skill growth for now,” was what he said on the topic of my progress.Unfortunately, the single [Blood-Empowered Blow] used up my Blood, so I couldn’t continue training until I ate and slept a bit. Devastating power for my age and “level” was great, but not if I used it up in one quick shot. [Blood Augmentation] would tank some powerful hits, but again, it would rapidly run out. I had a high Brawn to back that up, but my “magical stamina” would remain low until I was forced to increase it by surviving my challengers attempts to kill me and claim my Blood as their own.If there was another way to increase the quantity without ritual killing, no one seemed to have any idea. It was clear that additional quantity alone didn’t cause the growth in power for adults, though; that was at least partly the skill level rising, but also probably direct training to Blood causing (...)