Eldritch Horror Theatre

Not a real rose, just a briar rose passing itself off as one?

’...Is this really the fucking time for that? What next, are you going to tell her to go ask the Progenitor for a refund?’

Serana might have been the star of today’s advancement, but everyone in the room knew full well who had steered the situation to this point: the seemingly unreliable Bookstore Owner.

So the moment he put on a serious face, every single person listened intently.

Too bad the result only broadened Chief Yuan’s horizons all over again.

”Really... Why couldn’t I tell?”

After a thousand inner roars, all that came out of her mouth was flat helplessness.

”It’s noticeably thinner.”

Fu Qian actually started teaching her how to tell the difference, looking Serana up and down as he spoke.

To anyone watching, his gaze was a little impolite—hard to believe he was only looking at the flower—It was plain to see that Excellency Annalise really liked them.

He really wasn’t just looking at the flower. At that moment, Fu Qian felt he had caught another glimpse of humanity in the Progenitor of the Blood Clan. Among the traces that great being had left behind, this was the second time a fake rose had turned up.

On the flip side, it also proved Serana hadn’t been making things up.

Calling vampires a kindred race really was well deserved.

No matter how high or low your Rank, the Progenitor’s care was always with you?

And the moment the right opportunity came along, your inner potential unlocked itself automatically?

Pair that with their well-established advancement ritual, and it almost felt like leveling up with your eyes closed.

...

Still, it made sense. From his earlier work, he knew Annalise hadn’t created this kindred race just for fun—she had done it to prepare for the Long Night.

Whatever her exact goal was, she wouldn’t have deliberately planted traps in their advancement path.

And for a higher entity in her prime, bestowing a bit of good fortune was all too easy.

Even so, Annalise had clearly put real thought into it. Instead of force-feeding them power, she had designed an entire advancement process.

Compared to other paths of the Transcendent Tier, hers even included the special mechanism of the Starry Sky Rose—was that to keep the Blood Clan’s advancement firmly in her own hands? That was certainly the most obvious explanation.

The path of advancement was clear, and the core materials came built-in like a genetic lock, except she alone decided when to unlock them for you.

For a race crafted by hand, that approach undoubtedly kept control at its absolute highest, fitting right in with the picture of Annalise ”plotting something big.”

Was that also why Excellency Ambor had been so thrilled upon receiving the Progenitor’s divine oracle that he dared to make a blunder like that?

After the Long Night, a chance like that had to be rare.

”Thank you for pointing it out... All these years, I never actually examined it closely.”

Though just as startled by Fu Qian’s claim, Serana clearly felt something more.

Listening to him explain the difference, she reached out to stroke the vivid petals and let out a quiet sigh.

”Shouldn’t the two of you be getting down to business?”

Seeing them actually carry on like that, Yuan Shan—who had half a mind to just let them be—couldn’t quite shake her sense of duty and offered a friendly reminder.

...

”Fair point... Going by what you said earlier, you should have more than one on you, right?”

It was hard to say whether Professor Fu had taken the advice or not.

Giving a slight nod, he dropped the lesson on telling real roses from fake ones, only to start pressing her on the number instead.

She herself had mentioned ”accumulation,” and this was an advancement to Tier 2, after all—having just one would be a bit too stingy.

”Three. Would you like to see the others, Your Excellency?”

While Chief Yuan looked on speechlessly, Serana was completely forthright. Not only did she readily confirm Fu Qian’s guess, her hand was already resting against her chest.

”Knowing the number is enough.”

Serana’s posture made her offer unmistakable: if Fu Qian said the word, she would let him inspect the other two right then and there.

Unfortunately, he clearly had no interest in checking whether the other two were briar roses as well. All he wanted was the count.

”So as far as you can tell, there’s no pattern at all to how the three of them appeared on you?”

And their origin.

”From my own perspective, combined with the experience of the entire Blood Clan... yes, my answer is that there isn’t one.”

Though she didn’t quite understand why Professor Fu was so fixated on flowers today, Serana answered earnestly all the same.

”First, it has nothing to do with rituals or anything of the sort. Not only is any kind of prayer useless, much of the time people are simply on the road when one suddenly shows up on their body.”

”Second, it doesn’t seem tied to location either. As far as I know, more than one person has stayed in the exact same place for a long time before suddenly gaining one.”

It really did sound despair-inducing—something where personal effort counted for nothing at all.

The whole process was like having pie fall straight from the sky, except it left you with no choice but to stand there with your mouth open and wait.

Picturing the situation Serana described, Fu Qian felt he understood a bit better why the Blood Clan had such universally twisted personalities.

”When one appears, does anything unusual happen to the body?”

Still not satisfied, Fu Qian pressed on for more details.

”There is that. We call it the Embrace. In that moment, everyone can feel the Progenitor’s solace, and the higher one’s Rank, the clearer it is.”

Serana had gotten right into the flow of things, treating Blood Clan secrets like nothing and spilling them without a shred of hesitation.

The Embrace, huh... That didn’t quite match what the legends meant by it, though it did seem fitting enough here.

”What does that solace actually feel like?”

Fu Qian listened thoughtfully, even if his questions were starting to sound more and more lecherous.

”Like a burst of spirituality... Truth be told, I’ve never really agreed with calling it solace.”

”That moment really does feel special, but what you sense isn’t actually the Progenitor’s aura—it’s a restless surge of the Transcendent Tier.”

Sure enough, the Blood Clan’s habit of slapping random names on things was alive and well. Serana shook her head, making it clear the term was just there to sound alluring.

”Restless how?”

”Your very state of existence is being nourished, even reshaped, as though there are infinite possibilities ahead, yet your instincts tell you it’s terribly dangerous and that you must never lose yourself in that mutation—and it’s especially pronounced right where the rose appears.”

...

Now that really was restless.

It might have seemed a little off-topic, but these were secrets of the Blood Clan after all, and it was clear that Yuan Shan and her disciple were listening with growing fascination.

And with that last exchange, Fu Qian found himself deeply empathizing with the experience Serana described—after all, he seemed to have gone through it himself.

Was this flower... really a briar rose?

Could it possibly have a special name—like ”Vacuum”? Yes, the Vacuum Flower... something he had first seen back in the Workshop.

He wasn’t taking such a keen interest in Serana’s story because he wanted to pry into Blood Clan secrets to impersonate one of them later on.

Quite the opposite: Serana’s description of the Starry Sky Rose struck Fu Qian as not very Blood Clan at all.