Maybe not even blood is, strictly speaking, necessary, capture one of the magic-using walking dead and find out, I say. Turning thoughts/brainwaves into magic directly would certainly be an improvement but if that is possible at all it would be a most tightly guarded secret of the undead, who have a brain but not blood to fuel their magic somehow.
In the short term not cutting ourselves when openly using magic might be one way to put a bit of fear into opposing mages to trick them into thinking the mage mc is more powerful or is using Xaos magic and secrets they are not privy to. In short a useful psychological tool.
I do also wonder if it would be possible to drastically increase the output of one mage not with aetherial blood but with something like blood transfusions.
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