Chapter 928 — The Rebuilt Blood Grid
The return to the mansion was considerably quieter than Noctis's arrival at the Demon Academy had been. There was no council waiting for him, no god-level discussion continuing from Vaelrath's chamber, and no reason for the group to remain gathered once they crossed the grounds surrounding the residence he had taken from Kaeltharion. The servants noticed them almost immediately and began preparing the household without needing to be told that the number of returning occupants had increased again.
The older steward was among the first to approach, greeting Noctis and Nocthyrael before acknowledging the others with the practiced composure of someone who had already learned that unusual arrivals were best handled as household matters rather than occasions for alarm. Shirayuki, Fuyumi, Lilithra, and Gorath were given rooms suitable for a longer stay, while Rengar required little beyond access to the inner grounds and enough space that he would not be forced into the habits of an ordinary guest. The mansion was large enough that accommodating them required organization rather than inconvenience.
Bahamut cared far less about room arrangements than he did about food. His priorities became obvious quickly enough that the servants stopped trying to determine where a dragon of his size was supposed to sleep and instead concentrated on feeding him before the question became relevant. Once he had eaten enough to satisfy himself, he showed no interest in remaining awake merely because everyone else had returned to the Academy.
Noctis watched Bahamut settle for a short time before the familiar mark responded. Light gathered around the dragon and compressed inward until his physical form disappeared, leaving only the connection through the runic mark by which he could return to the pet world. Noctis felt the bond stabilize almost immediately afterward and already knew what Bahamut would be doing there.
Sleeping.
Rengar remained behind rather than following his brother. The lycanthrope preferred the grounds when there was no immediate reason to return to the pet world, and the servants had long since learned not to treat him as an animal requiring confinement. He could move through the inner estate without disturbing anyone so long as the household understood that his presence was intentional.
Nocthyrael accompanied Noctis toward their chambers once the arrangements were settled. She had been quiet during most of the return from the Academy, not because anything was wrong, but because the meeting with Vaelrath and Ceravath had given them both enough to consider. The possibility of Noctis eventually entering the Nine Hells Sect was important, but it was not something either of them needed to resolve that evening.
Before Noctis could turn his attention completely inward, another visitor arrived.
Vice Principal Valdred had not returned with them from the meeting and had made no attempt to attach himself to the group as they left the main Academy buildings. He arrived at the mansion separately after enough time had passed for the household to settle, which immediately told Noctis that the visit concerned something Valdred preferred to discuss outside the larger meeting.
The steward admitted him without difficulty and led him to one of the quieter reception rooms. Noctis joined him there without bringing the others, although Nocthyrael remained elsewhere in the residence rather than leaving the mansion. Valdred waited until the servant withdrew before settling into the chair opposite Noctis.
For several moments, the Vice Principal did not speak. His expression carried the fatigue of someone who had already spent too much time thinking about a problem whose consequences depended heavily upon people stronger than himself. Noctis recognized the reason before Valdred finally addressed it.
"The Royal Demons know Malgoryth is dead," Valdred said. "They do not know what you intend to do about the circumstances surrounding it."
Noctis rested one arm against the chair. "There is nothing to do at the moment."
Valdred studied him carefully. "The Royal Demon King contacted him during the battle."
"I know."
"And afterward Malgoryth turned against you."
Noctis gave a slight nod. There was no reason to reconstruct the entire battle for Valdred when the Vice Principal already understood the essential sequence. Malgoryth had entered that fight as an ally against Aurelion, received contact from the Royal Demon King during the battle, changed sides, and died because of that decision.
Valdred's concern was not whether Noctis understood what had happened. It was whether the death of a Royal Demon God was the beginning of another conflict.
"The Royal Demons lost their god-level protector on this planet," Valdred said. "Even if they do nothing immediately, they have to assume you remember who was involved."
"I do."
Valdred waited, but Noctis did not elaborate until it became clear that the Vice Principal needed something more definite than that.
"Malgoryth made his choice," Noctis said. "He turned against me, and I killed him. That ended my problem with Malgoryth."
"The Royal Demon King is a different matter."
"He is."
The answer was enough to make Valdred's expression tighten slightly, although Noctis had not intended it as a threat. The Royal Demon King's involvement had not disappeared simply because Malgoryth was dead, but neither did that involvement require Noctis to abandon everything else and begin hunting the Royal Demons immediately.
Noctis continued before Valdred could interpret the silence too broadly. "If the Royal Demons leave me and my people alone, I have no reason to move against them. If they decide otherwise, I'll deal with it when they act."
Valdred considered the answer longer than the previous ones. "So you are not planning retaliation."
"No."
"Even after the message."
Noctis's expression remained unchanged. "I said I haven't forgotten it. That doesn't mean I need to start another war tonight."
That finally eased some of the tension in Valdred's posture. He had not come to defend the Royal Demon King, nor did he possess enough authority to negotiate on behalf of the Royal Demons even if he wanted to. He had come because the Demon Academy existed in the middle of several overlapping powers, and knowing whether Noctis intended to turn his attention toward another allied demonic faction mattered to everyone responsible for keeping the Academy functioning.
Valdred nodded. "That is enough for me."
Noctis understood what he meant. Valdred did not require promises of permanent peace, assurances about hypothetical future provocations, or a detailed statement of what Noctis considered sufficient cause for retaliation. He only needed to know that no attack was currently being prepared.
The remainder of their conversation was brief. Valdred mentioned no demand from the Royal Demons and carried no message from the Royal Demon King, which confirmed that the visit had been his own attempt to understand the situation rather than the beginning of formal mediation. Noctis had nothing further to add without inventing problems that did not yet exist.
Valdred left not long afterward.
The mansion returned to its earlier quiet once the Vice Principal was gone. Noctis had spent enough time dealing with outside factions for one day, and nothing about the surviving Holy Gods, the Royal Demons, or the outer sects required another immediate conversation. He returned to the private study adjoining his chambers with a different purpose.
Nocthyrael joined him there but did not interrupt what he was doing. She selected a book from the shelves and remained nearby while Noctis settled into examining the changes that had occupied part of his attention since the flight back from the captured fortress. She could not see the Genesis Interface, and Noctis had no reason to explain an internal structure that belonged entirely to him.
During the flight to the Demon Academy, Noctis had already confirmed the broad changes created by Genesis. The old essence reserves were gone, the Blood Grid remained accessible, and several familiar systems had been reorganized beneath the larger interface. That examination had been enough to identify the major categories but not enough to determine what Genesis had actually done to the Blood Grid accumulated across the majority of his existence in this world.
Noctis began with the structure rather than the individual abilities.
The rebuilt Blood Grid retained far more of the original lattice than the simplified interface initially suggested. Its appearance had changed, its organization was cleaner, and many of the branches that had once sprawled independently through the Grid were now arranged beneath the higher structures they had eventually created. Genesis had reorganized the Blood Grid around Noctis's current state without deleting the history that produced that state.
The distinction became clearest in the portions of the lattice that had undergone repeated fusion. Many of Noctis's older doctrines no longer existed as independent active systems because they had eventually been incorporated into the Doctrine of Absolute Sovereignty. Sword, spear, shield, archer, hunter, assassin, predator, tempo, and the other doctrine paths remained part of the underlying structure, but Genesis had not separated them from the greater doctrine merely to recreate earlier stages of his development.
Their pathways remained beneath the current doctrine as completed developmental routes.
The same principle applied to his bloodlines. Royal Blood, Noble Blue Blood, Crimson Echoes, progenitor inheritances, divine and abyssal developments, dragon, titan, wraith, marrow, beast, solar, lunar, and the numerous other components integrated into the Genesis Bloodline had not been restored as competing bloodlines. Genesis preserved the routes through which those inheritances entered and changed Noctis while leaving the resulting bloodline intact.
Older skills followed the same logic. A technique that had evolved into a superior version retained its previous nodes as completed portions of the route, while abilities consumed through fusion remained visible as contributors to the resulting skill rather than returning to his active list. Genesis preserved progression without reversing it.
That mattered because the Blood Grid had never remained a simple tree.
Its earliest form had been far smaller, built around vampiric development and a relatively limited collection of abilities. As Noctis fed, Devoured, absorbed doctrines, integrated foreign powers, evolved his bloodline, encountered monsters, consumed relics, and developed entirely new forms of combat, the Grid had expanded into a network of specialized pathways that could no longer be understood as variations of one original vampire branch.
The Path of Death remained one of those specialized pathways.
Its necromantic development had not been flattened into a generic magic category. Skeleton Summoning, Death Aura, Bone Armor, Bone Prison, Life Drain, Revival, Death Grip, Death Realm, and the other death-related developments remained connected according to the progression that had produced them. Later abilities carried the benefit of what came before them without erasing the route itself.
The Beast Path remained equally distinct.
Beast Taming, Familiar Summoning, Transformation, Beast Aura, Beast Strengthening, Beast Language, and later companion-related developments continued to form their own specialization. Blood Pact Reinforcement, Shared Vital Surge, Shared Vision, and the developments concerned with maintaining and strengthening bonded companions extended that pathway rather than becoming unrelated support skills simply because their functions differed from the earliest taming abilities.
Genesis therefore preserved why abilities belonged together.
Beast Taming and Beast Strengthening shared a developmental relationship because they were part of the same specialization. Skeleton Summoning and Death Aura shared another because both belonged to the Path of Death. Their placement was based on what the abilities actually represented rather than the period in which Noctis had obtained them.
Other pathways followed the same principle. Forging-related developments remained attached to the systems responsible for creating and strengthening weapons, armor, and constructs. Wraith and spectral abilities retained their own developmental relationships, while faith-derived powers remained connected according to the changes that had allowed Noctis to use, invert, and integrate them.
Predator elemental abilities also retained their own routes.
The older Beastkin and Titan-derived developments remained identifiable even where later evolution had incorporated them into broader systems. Some had contributed to Noctis's vessel, some to his bloodline, and others to doctrines or active abilities, but Genesis retained the routes that explained how those contributions occurred.
The oldest vampiric foundation still occupied the deeper structure beneath many of these later pathways. Blood manipulation, feeding, regeneration, perception, concealment, movement, forging, and predatory abilities formed much of the original framework from which later developments extended. New systems either grew from those foundations or connected to them after Noctis acquired something the early Blood Grid had never been designed to contain.
Certain sections consequently contained several pathways intersecting without becoming the same pathway.
A necromantic development could interact with blood manipulation while remaining necromantic. A companion ability could depend upon Noctis's bloodline while continuing to belong to the Beast Path. A forging technique could use principles from his doctrines or blood control without ceasing to be part of the forging system.
Genesis preserved those relationships without reducing everything to a single universal progression line.
Previously unlocked major nodes also remained recognized as completed.
Noctis had no need to relearn abilities merely because the Grid had been rebuilt. Skills, doctrines, transformations, bloodline developments, specialized abilities, and other major nodes that had already become part of him remained part of him. Genesis did not reinterpret restructuring as loss.
Old nodes that Noctis had never chosen remained when they still represented useful developments. Some occupied side routes he had ignored in favor of more immediately valuable abilities, while others had become irrelevant because later evolutions already surpassed everything those nodes could provide. Genesis distinguished between an unused development and an obsolete one rather than treating every historical node as a choice that still deserved attention.
That prevented the rebuilt Grid from filling itself with useless options.
An old node whose function remained meaningful could still exist as part of an active route. An old node whose entire purpose had already been absorbed by a stronger skill, bloodline, doctrine, or fusion remained visible as part of the lattice's developmental record but did not present itself as something Noctis needed to acquire.
Locked nodes also survived the restructuring.
The old Blood Grid had never depended solely upon whether Noctis possessed enough essence. Certain developments required earlier skills, sufficiently advanced branches, particular forms of prey, relics, bloodline changes, doctrine integration, evolutionary events, or other qualifying circumstances. Genesis retained those requirements when they represented genuine developmental conditions rather than resource prices.
Removing Beast Essence did not eliminate a Beast Path requirement that depended upon an actual companion bond. Removing Soul Essence did not eliminate a necromantic requirement that depended upon control over a certain class of undead. A bloodline development still required the bloodline conditions that made it possible even when the numerical cost attached to its old node no longer existed.
The most obvious difference was what had disappeared.
Blood Essence was absent from the nodes.
Faith Essence was absent.
Iron, Soul, Wraith, Beast, Apex, and the other specialized essence costs that had once appeared throughout the Blood Grid were gone as well. Genesis had not converted them into a new visible currency and had not combined them into a universal reserve under another name.
The old resource economy had simply ended.
That changed the relationship between Noctis and the lattice more fundamentally than replacing one cost with another would have done. The old system frequently allowed him to kill, consume, accumulate sufficient resources, and then purchase advancement once a node's other requirements had been met. The model had worked when the scale of his progression remained manageable, but the quantities involved had become increasingly detached from meaningful development as his power increased.
The rebuilt Blood Grid preserved the nodes but removed their prices.
That applied to the minor nodes as well.
They remained spread throughout the lattice in numbers far greater than the major skills, forming the connective progression between meaningful abilities. Genesis had preserved their original function instead of turning them into minor passives, small techniques, or separate specialized powers.
Minor nodes remained structural increases.
Vitality strengthened health and the body's capacity to endure damage. Strength increased physical force, Endurance improved resilience, Speed reinforced movement and action tempo, while Intuition and Command continued to support perception, anticipation, authority, and control according to their roles in the Blood Grid. Resistance nodes remained divided according to the forms of harm they addressed, including fire, frost, lightning, holy power, shadow, poison, curses, and the other categories represented in Noctis's development.
They did not possess tiers.
A Strength node did not become Strength II or Strength III because it appeared farther into the lattice. It remained a Strength node, with the difference coming from the magnitude of the increase associated with the deeper section of the Grid.
The same applied to every other minor-node category.
Earlier portions of the lattice contained smaller improvements appropriate to the much weaker Noctis who had first reached them. Deeper regions contained larger values because they belonged to pathways that could only be reached after substantial development. Genesis retained that scaling without changing the type of node involved.
Minor nodes therefore continued to serve as the connective structure between major developments.
A Path of Death route might contain several attribute or resistance nodes between two major necromantic skills. A Beast Path route could contain its own sequence of structural increases before reaching another meaningful companion ability. Doctrine, forging, movement, elemental, bloodline, and other pathways followed the same underlying pattern.
The type of minor nodes tended to reflect the route without becoming skills belonging to that specialization. A physically demanding section could contain more Strength, Vitality, or Endurance reinforcement. A pathway concerned heavily with control or perception could contain more Command or Intuition, while a route developed through repeated exposure to particular forms of hostile energy could contain relevant resistances.
Their old costs were gone.
That left Noctis with the next question: what now determined movement through the lattice?
The answer was contained in the progression attached to the major skills.
Noctis had noticed percentage values during his first brief review but had not yet established precisely what they represented. They were not levels, resource balances, or measurements of total destructive strength. Each percentage represented the development of an individual major skill through its current section of the Blood Grid.
Every unlocked major skill possessed its own progression from zero to one hundred percent.
The values were independent. Noctis could develop Beast Taming while also improving Blood Forging, a necromantic technique, a movement skill, a perception ability, or anything else he actually used and refined. The Blood Grid no longer imposed a single active progression route.
That matched the way Noctis already fought and learned.
His abilities had become too interconnected for one-skill progression to represent reality. A single battle could involve movement, blood manipulation, weapon control, doctrine, sensory abilities, defensive reinforcement, elemental power, and other techniques simultaneously. Outside battle, companion development, forging, necromancy, cultivation-related knowledge, and other disciplines could continue independently.
The percentages did not rise merely because a skill had been activated.
Genesis distinguished between use and improvement.
Repeatedly performing the same technique in the same manner would eventually contribute nothing if Noctis was no longer learning from the repetition. A skill could be used hundreds of times without increasing if its execution remained unchanged, because the Blood Grid was measuring development rather than counting activations.
Meaningful development depended upon the nature of the ability.
Improving efficiency could count when Noctis learned to produce the same result with less energy or strain. Better control could count when he gained greater precision, stability, range management, or reliability. Shorter activation, improved accuracy, reduced waste, stronger transitions, corrected weaknesses, and genuinely useful new applications could all contribute when the skill itself became better as a result.
Greater power could also represent development, but raw output alone was insufficient.
Noctis's current body and Genesis Core allowed him to force vastly more energy through older abilities than he could when they were first acquired. That increased the result without necessarily improving the technique. Progression occurred when Noctis improved how the ability handled that power rather than simply overwhelming its old limitations through superior reserves.
An ability could develop in the opposite direction as well.
Noctis could improve a large-scale attack by learning to compress it while preserving its effectiveness. A destructive skill could advance through better control over collateral damage, a wider technique could gain usefulness through precise targeting, and a power originally suited to one situation could develop when Noctis created another reliable application from the same principles.
Genesis recognized useful versatility rather than novelty.
An inefficient variation did not qualify merely because Noctis had never attempted it before. A version that consumed more power for a worse result, reduced stability, complicated execution unnecessarily, or weakened the original function offered no meaningful development for Genesis to recognize.
Combat worked under the same rule.
A powerful enemy could create valuable opportunities for progression because pressure exposed limitations and forced adaptation, but difficulty itself did not increase a skill. Noctis could fight an opponent far stronger than himself and gain nothing in a particular ability if he merely used it in the same manner as before.
His recent battle against Aurelion and Malgoryth provided numerous examples of meaningful development because it had forced Noctis to alter timing, control output around damage, combine existing abilities in unfamiliar ways, exploit structural weaknesses, and use techniques under conditions they had never previously faced. Those changes could influence progression when the skill itself improved through them.
Other abilities used during the same battle might barely change.
The rebuilt Blood Grid evaluated each separately.
This also allowed a single action to contribute to more than one skill when the underlying development genuinely affected all of them. A refinement involving Blood Forging and weapon control could advance both if Noctis actually improved the relationship between construction and manipulation. A change to a beast bond could influence both Beast Taming and a blood-pact ability if the improvement belonged to both systems.
Simply activating several abilities together was not enough.
Genesis did not distribute progress between skills merely because their effects appeared in the same sequence. Each skill had to benefit from whatever Noctis had actually learned.
The hidden Genesis Points he had noticed during the earlier review fit into this framework without becoming another resource ledger.
No visible numerical balance existed. Individual skills did not display Genesis Point costs, and Noctis could not collect points from one activity and manually spend them on an unrelated technique. Their function remained internal to the progression system.
Genesis Points represented recognized developmental value behind the percentages.
When Noctis genuinely improved an ability, completed an applicable breakthrough, overcame a meaningful limitation, or developed a pathway in a way the Blood Grid recognized, that development contributed internally. The visible percentage was the practical information Noctis needed.
There was no reason to expose the accounting beneath it.
Replacing hundreds of millions of accumulated essence with hundreds of thousands of Genesis Points would only recreate the bookkeeping problem Genesis had removed. The rebuilt system instead showed Noctis how far a skill had progressed and allowed the lattice to record the details behind that result without requiring him to maintain another ledger.
The minor nodes were integrated directly into those percentages.
Noctis no longer purchased them separately.
Each stretch between major nodes contained a certain number of minor nodes, and those nodes activated automatically as the governing major skill progressed. The Blood Grid distributed them across the route before completion so that reaching one hundred percent remained associated with the next major junction.
A route containing three minor nodes could therefore activate them at twenty-five, fifty, and seventy-five percent. Once the skill reached one hundred percent, that section of progression was complete and the pathway reached the next major node or branching point.
A route containing four minor nodes divided the progression at twenty, forty, sixty, and eighty percent instead. Other routes could contain different numbers of minor nodes, with Genesis spacing the milestones accordingly rather than forcing every section of the Blood Grid into an identical pattern.
The minor nodes activated automatically because they did not represent strategic skill choices.
If the current path contained Strength, Vitality, and Fire Resistance, those improvements became part of Noctis as the skill progressed through the corresponding milestones. He did not decide whether to purchase the Strength node or save the progress for something more valuable, because progression was not a currency that could be stored and redirected.