“Incredible,” I whispered.It was hard to tell for sure, but the strength Nupeol had just shown had likely been in the triple digits. He could have easily crushed a Roba, probably even two at once, and presumably had held back since he wouldn’t have wanted to blow all his Blood on a simple demonstration when I was still potentially a threat.Sure, split four ways, it was somewhat less impressive. I wasn’t sure any single one of them could take down a mammoth or fend off a group of mantises, but it depended on how much they were hiding. These were also the elders, which means they had the most experience and stood at the top of the village, so they were likely the strongest ones here; Ushem and his group were likely much weaker.But, like the Uli, they would never actually fight alone. As long as they were together, well trained Sheowon were plenty powerful enough for this world, and most importantly, they could all be this strong, with no sacrifice necessary.The Blood Bond was what I had been looking for since I first learned about the First Blood ritual: a way to grow the stat without killing.Uli progressed by co-opting what the Sheowon called “Blood retaliation”. By killing in a safe space, they could be guided through the retaliation—the Blood Fever—and would come out the other side of it with their baseline raised, leveraging the remains of the victim’s Blood inside of them. Since Uli simply kept on killing to raise their Blood, that baseline was practically always growing faster than their ability to wield it. My advantage in this life had been my Will, which gave me a lot more power with which to wield whatever Blood I had. As far as I could tell, though, my Will couldn’t grow until I could push myself hard enough to make it grow, which required as much Blood as Will, which I had yet to achieve.The main issue I had—and what the Uli also had—was that Blood recovery time was horrendous. It was much (...)