Chapter 1093 Transformation For a people whose entire existence had been one of slavery for nearly a million years, this feeling inside of them soothed the ache that had kept them bound for all these years, and they no longer called themselves Blood Bound, but Blood Blessed. Within their bloodline was not a curse but a blessing. One that was powerful enough to break the chains that the Ascendants had placed over them. This became more clear when news about what happened underground reached the surface, and the changes within the bodies of the vanguards who fought against the serpent Calamities were shown. This caused a great surge of emotion to run across the Blood Bounds and many surged underground for the chance to battle and grow strong but It did not take long for them to discover that the undergrounds were empty. All the caverns that led into the earth usually filled with serpent Calamities were gone and newer calamities were being born but these were the normal sort of monsters that could be found in any random continent. Any other time, this would have been met with celebration, but now the Blood Blessed craved power, and it was painful for them to have lost an easy method of gaining power, but soon this pain was pushed aside when they discovered that killing normal Calamities also helped in refining the Blessed Blood in their veins, although not as efficiently as the vanguard claimed them gained from killing serpent Calamities. This was still good news, and a strange scene swept through the continent where Calamities became scarce. The Blood Blessed hardly uses Aura in battle, and with the awakening of their Blood that consumes any sort of Aura generated in their bodies, it was hard for Calamities to be born in the Continent and only those spawned in the darkness underground were available. A new rationing system was created just for this reason alone so that the hunt for Calamities could be distributed among the population. It was a good thing that the Blood Blessed had a great ruling system among themselves as the Elders came together to quickly make these new laws to guide their budding society. The excitement in the air was palpable, they could all feel that great changes were coming. Every night that passed their heart beat louder and their blood flowed quicker, something was awakening inside all of them and they could not wait to discover what came next, suddenly the massive continent they had lived in for so long began to feel small. No matter how great these changes were, the Blood Blessed were still technically slaves and they had their quota to fulfill, so under the directions of the Elders they returned to mining the land, but this time their jobs were a thousand times easier and safer. Although the ore in the ground was different, no longer serving as nourishment for the fleshy body and the soul, and its effects were now somewhat weaker since they could mine a lot more than they could before, they sent double the amounts needed by the Ascendants and it was begrudgingly accepted, with many thinking that the continent was about to be stripped of its last value, they did not look too much into this changes. The Blood Bound Continent was something of a forbidden ground among Explorers and except if necessary, none would dare step their feet upon it, fearing corruption and the loss of the ability to become Ascendants forever, and the Blood Slaves their servants would inevitably inform them if anything was out of the ordinary, and so the Blood Blessed sailed through this danger for the moment. The newer calamities born underneath the earth could not match the strength and the frenzy of the previous serpent Calamities, with the strength of the Blood Bounds, even their children could tear an Enlightened Rank Calamity apart with bare hands. This brought a fresh wave of development to the Blood Bounds because their growth had been stifled by the powerful Calamities they fought and unknowingly by the Blood Slaves who made sure they were suppressed in every manner. It did not take long before the truths about the Blood Slaves were revealed when the tortured prisoners they kept in their hidden hideout escaped. With all of the Blood Slaves dead, there was no one to hide the traces of their sins under the rug, and a new round of shock and dismay swept through the continent that shook them all to the core. There had always been suspicions about the Resistance dating back thousands of years, but the loudest voices were always quickly silenced, but the true enormity of the cancerous tumor within their midst was revealed when the headquarters of the Blood Slaves were discovered, and the horrifying contents within was brought to light. The Blood Slaves were used to sickening torture and some people had been kept in grievous suffering for decades, of course when Rowan returned everyone back to their place, he had made sure all those people were free from their chains, and now that they escaped their personal hell and came to the surface the truth of what the Resistance had become for the last three hundred thousand years came to light. There was no single family that had not been affected by the actions of the Blood Slaves, and the name Jerediah became a curse word across their lips. The Slave who had tortured and enslaved his people for countless centuries. The organization of the Blood Slaves was taken apart, hidden resources, weapons, tools and so many riches they had acquired after so many years were collected, and the Elders came together and began the first formation of a hidden army. Food for the first time in millennia became available to all because they now had the time and energy to create massive farms underneath the earth, plus with their impressive constitution, they never needed much sustenance to survive. The goal of the Elders was to bring back all the Blood Blessed spread across the land back to their continent, and using the connection of the Blood Slaves, they began to slowly return their people to their homes. After three months, the powers of the majority of the Blood Blessed had reached a ceiling, even their children. Using the Deific Rank as a baseline, every Blood Blessed had reached that level, their blood was continually refined by the Calamity Auras from the beasts they slaughtered and the passive growth of their power daily ensured that even the weakest among them would get stronger just by living their day to day life. Rowan would have recognized the first Blood Blessed that discovered the method of growing stronger, it was Young Po, the boy who brought him bread and whose shape he had once taken to reach underground. The young child always had a sensitive spirit, greater than most mortals Rowan had come across, and so it was he who first discovered the seven-pointed star in his heart and began cultivating the power of his bloodline. Like all Blood Blessed his body seemed to have reached a limit to how much power it could hold, his new powerful blood had been refined countless times, and when he touched the seven-pointed star in his heart, a new world awakened inside him. It was said that the roar of Young Po was heard for miles as a child of eight years old, not more than four feet tall, transformed into a golden giant.