Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

After the chemicals wore off, John tried blaming the Alii for eating away his resolve with their drugs and witchery, but he was too old to accept such excuses, and his heart was heavy with shame and guilt. Instead of being a man of honor and sticking to his principles, he gave the enemies he had sworn to destroy a path to further power and slept with three of them.

Disgusted with himself, John entered his Mind’s Eye.

“Congratulations! A peak-concept! While in the Mortal Tree! At Bronze! And you were disappointed your [Achievements] had slowed down. Silly boy.”

“Please, Avatar, stop calling me boy.” After sighing, John said, “I must rebuild all of my spells using ‘blood’ and ‘leech’ from scratch. What is the new…”

Avatar interrupted with a loud scoff. “Manifestations, not spells. And if you want me to stop calling you boy, stop behaving as one so often. You’d know your claim was mostly inaccurate if you merged your high-concepts yourself. The merger would fail if the new concept was so disparate from what was combined those prior manifestations ceased functioning, though they may function somewhat differently now.

“We’ll test manifestations in the training room. My worry is harmony cap. [Skill] level won’t be adjusted all that much, but you’ll have to constantly check your harmony or risk wasting some. Most likely, we’ll have to stop before getting through them all. And no new manifestations. Not until you get [Stalwart Vessel] and bring your harmony down. I have a feeling an opportunity to acquire the missing mats will present itself to you very soon. Please accept. Nothing is more critical than addressing your soft caps.”

The great shame in John’s heart was replaced with a cold dread. “Are you working with them? Are you feeding the Peerless my information?”

“John,” angrily exclaimed Avatar. “To say such drivel right after asking me to stop calling you a boy! We don’t break the rules. We never betray our users.”

John thought it through. It was the most reasonable explanation of how the Peerless knew so much about him. Avatar said she blocked the Trainers from collecting data, but the Meleua knew his exact [Mental Fortification] [Stat]. “You can betray me to your higher version. The core. You tried getting me to merge [Synergies] when we first met, didn’t you?”

Avatar put on her glasses and looked down her nose at John. “And it was obvious we had conflicting advice. Did we not tell you? Did I not clearly malfunction? Yes, Tech 5s can utilize some functionality you don’t have, but those rare instances are either obvious or stated directly. Stop being a silly boy.”

“I’m not a silly boy.”

“Sounds like something only a silly boy would say.”

John sighed. “I gave my enemies a path to advancement. I had…I engaged with my enemies in ways I promised I wouldn’t. These are the actions of a boy, not a man. Drugs or no, a man sticks to his principles, no matter what. A man sees through his enemy’s plans. These witches have had a leash around my neck, leading me around like a dog, doing their bidding for treats. I just…like alcohol, no substance has ever been able to affect me before. I can’t believe I slept with three of them.”

“It’s not so bad,” replied Avatar, smiling. “You needed to get that out of your system. It’s been affecting your mood too greatly. And the ganians rely heavily on tech. Knowledge of how something is done means little without the capability to do it. And I’m sure the rewards you’ll receive will be well worth the info you provided.”

“No rewards make up for such failure,” stated John emphatically. “My goal is to destroy them and avenge my people. I just made them more powerful. I’m failing. I can’t fail.”

“There, there, silly boy,” said Avatar as she pretended to pat John’s shoulder. Even though he had a body in his Mind’s Eye now, he couldn’t physically interact with anything.

Avatar glitched for a moment before saying, “What’s done is done. Sulking never helped anything. Be a man and get over it. Ready to see your changes? We’ll head to the training room after.”

“Please don’t show me common [Achievements]. Only show the notable ones from now on.”

After nodding her assent, Avatar brought up what had changed within the summary.

-Start Notifications

Concepts, aspect, aspect tier changes.

Yellow aspect, Minor, increased to Average.

Yellow aspect, Average, increased to Major.

Purple aspect, Minor, increased to Average.

Purple aspect, Average, increased to Major.

High-concept of Blood, Green-Blue, Major, 98% affinity, and Leech, Red-Light, Major, 98% affinity, have been merged into the peak-concept of Vampirism, Green-Red-Blue-Light, 99.999% affinity.

‘Vampirism,’ thought John, surprisedly. Not only was the word itself a surprise, but he had been told peak-concepts always contained two words, in rare cases, three.

Both John and Sunshine believed merging a peak-concept would happen much further down the road, but they still had worked out possibilities while trying to fit all his current concepts into a unified theme. Having ‘life’ be one of the two words peak-concepts contained would open a slew of spells John was interested in, so ‘life’ was part of every possibility he had worked out with his semi-mentor

‘Blood’ was life. ‘Leech’ was the taking of something not his own and making it his, controlling it while taking control of it away from someone else.

‘Life power,’ ‘command life,’ ‘life dominion,’ ‘dominate life,’ ‘life domination,’ were John’s favorites. Sunshine favored the words brio and lifeblood. He also favored authority and subjugation. Vampirism wasn’t even considered as a possibility. And it was only one word. Peak-concepts were always at least two-words.

John did see vampirism as taking life through the draining of it. He also saw it as controlling through the mind power, though he’d never do so himself. He believed everyone should have the choice to stand defiantly. How Ahn and Lilly used the mind power to take that necessary choice away from others was despicable to him.

But John also saw vampirism as power. The power. The thing that made him strong and nearly invincible for so long on Earth. It was life. It was death. It was draining. It was strength. It was speed. It was the taking of power to increase his own. It was enhanced senses and healing and immortality. Plus, much, much more.

During his year wandering the US, John had watched many movies and shows about vampires. It was the first time he ever really looked at his kind from the perspective of mundane humans.

A lot of the lore surrounding vampires was nonsensical, but a lot of the abilities given them were amazing ones he’d love to have himself. John wished he could turn into bats and fly around or turn into fog or a wolf and such.

How John saw and thought of vampires and vampirism had been changed from watching all those shows and movies.

John smiled. No concept could mean more to him than ‘vampirism.’ It’s a single word, but what a word it is! And what a concept it will make!

3 common Achievements attained for a cumulative [NCU Energy Cost] reduction of .1%. Focus here to see each individually.

5 notable Achievements attained.

‘The Interlace Chase 5’ attained (S-rated). Merge two high-concepts into a peak-concept, 0.70 [NCU Energy Cost] reduction, cumulative 69.4%. Note: Achievement chain out of order. Missing version 2, 3, 4.

‘Record Holder (Tier 3 Event 433)’ attained (SSR-rated). Thirteenth issuance of same Achievement. First recording of a new concept being obtained, 0.90 [NCU Energy Cost] reduction, cumulative 70.3%.

‘Concept Creator’ attained (SSR-rated). First issuance of newly created Achievement. Obtain a new and never recorded concept. Vampirism concept attained, 0.90 [NCU Energy Cost] reduction, cumulative 71.2%.

‘Trailblazer (Tier 3 Event 434)’ attained (SSR-rated). Third issuance of same achievement. Obtain the first issuance of a newly created Achievement, 0.90 [NCU Energy Cost] reduction, cumulative 72.1%.

‘Approaching Affinity’ attained (SS-rated). Affinity for any aspect approaches 1, 0.80 [NCU Energy Cost] reduction, cumulative 72.9%.

Note: ‘Brilliant Channels’ Achievement on hold until Gold tier requirement obtained.

End notifications-

John was happy to finally receive some good [Achievements] once more, and the 4.3% energy cost reduction these ones granted in total. He only wished he could hit whatever milestone triggered the physical reward again.

John’s spells were in better shape than he thought they’d be. A new [Skill] named [Vampirism] replaced [Blood Manipulation]. All the spells he checked that had used ‘blood’ or ‘leech’ worked very similarly to the way they had before, though they all lost many levels. After checking a third of them, he had to stop testing how they changed, as he was getting very close to hitting the harmony cap.

For additional good news, after John got the [Stalwart Vessel] [Perk], he’d be able to generate a decent amount of harmony just by testing the rest of his newly modified spells. After ascending to Silver, he’d need to merge less [Skills] to attain the required harmony for his next [SupraType] [Perk].

After exiting his Mind’s Eye, John approached the crone. She waited for him near the large door leading to the lobby.

“We could barely pull anything useful from your highlight interview,” said the crone. “You came off very foolishly. We wanted our first highlights from a Kahaka to have more oomph. Your own people have an idea to fix this by taking it in a different, more impactful direction. We’ll see. It was our own fault. My Meleua said sniffing the heavenly petals could interact strangely with what he gave you on top of all the musk you were subjected to at the pools. We tried to prepare your channels as best we could.”

The crone took a deep, centering breath. “The golden nectar. Oh, how I wish some of your credits went towards me. Experience is nothing to scoff at. When I was still a girl, we heard the last surviving companion of Akua could…well, you won’t care.

“No success so far with the information you provided, but the Akemele it was sent to is close. Very close. He’ll merge a high-concept and ascend soon. Some others have been sent the data. My Meleua will receive the zenith. He’s always rejected prior offers of Akemele status, thank Akua for that.”

The crone clapped her hands. “So, let’s get down to business and get all you Kahaka back to Kulolo. You have a fifth of a credit.” The crone laughed. “Not much left to trade in for crystals.”

Guilt filled John’s heart. He stammered as he tried coming up with an excuse, but nothing left his mouth.

The crone patted John’s arm and continued. “The Purge. You want in. No Kahaka has ever gone on the Purge. No one below Diamond has since the dark times ended. We’re making an exception for you. But you must ascend to four…Silver, to go. Meleua says you won’t ascend until you get the…what’s the [Perk] called? It’s named [Stalwart Vessel] for us.”

John nodded and said, “Us too.”

“The material requirements for that [Perk] are insane,” said the crone. “He believes you’ll want a modified Transcendent-tier ambrosial elixir utilizing animal products. We can’t make that. An alchemist in Kotown can. It’ll cost a fortune. So will the other mats you don’t have yet. We owe you four pieces of gear or NCUs. We’ll get the elixir and the remaining materials, but it’ll count as three pieces of gear. Consult your avatar if necessary.”

John almost did consult Avatar, but she already told him this exact opportunity would arise. He needed the [Perk] before ascending to Silver. Ascending tiers would help him more than gear would.

And [Stalwart Vessel] was a [Perk] John was excited to get. It was very powerful. Few met the requirements for it, and the few that did meet them, usually didn’t until Salt. Many of the benefits the [Perk] gave were also given for free throughout the Salt tier as the body prepared itself to transcend off world, making it a bad choice at that time.

“I’ll take that deal, Nani Empire.”

“Good. My Meleua says you’ll be the first to benefit from the injections we’re giving you. You’ll receive another injection before departing. The next after this one should increase your racial grade. The mats will be delivered before that shot. Don’t attain [Stalwart Vessel] until after your race upgrades. I have a chip with further details for you to download. Have your NCS put the specifics of the modified elixir on the same chip.”

After the information was exchanged, the crone said, “The Purge is for Oli only. There’s a point system. Items can be purchased with points. Potions, pills, gear for all slots, weapons, armor, bioware, cybernetics, aspect enhancers, NCU expansion slot openers, NCUs, rare mats, you name it. How many items you’ll be able to choose will depend on points acquired during the Purge.”

The crone grabbed John’s hand and put a small square in it. “This is an NCU my Meleua programmed himself. It counts as T1C+ since it was tailored specifically for you. You can choose any piece of equipment or NCU you want, but my Meleua is certain you’ll want this. I have my doubts. It won’t help you during the Purge. I think you want the Bulwark armor from your old ring. Or armor like it.”

The shop John worked at couldn’t make armor like Bulwark. Sets like that cost millions and millions of clear crystals. He now had enough crystals to make himself a sword and shield. He didn’t have the means to buy or make armor like Bulwark. He also needed to fill his other attunable equipment slots. He definitely needed to replace his lost storage device too.

John flashed on the info function of his NCS and looked at the fingertip-sized square in his hand.

Nano Control Unit, [Auto-Reflect – T1C]. On detection of incoming damaging manifestation above a certain threshold, a shield will generate reflecting all or some of the manifestation towards the area of origination. To see scaling formula of reflect per tier and Minimum Power Stat, focus here. NCU designed for user’s specific physiology. NCU is graded as T1C+ for user. Drastic changes to user physiology could lower grading to T1C.

John did have to consult Avatar about this choice. She convinced him the NCU was a better long-term choice over a set of armor. He really wanted an armor set like Bulwark now that he was so close to Silver, but T1C was the highest grade in the sector for an NCU. T1C+ was just a step below T1B.

“I’ll take this NCU, Nani.”

“Damn it! I really thought I’d win this bet. You know it won’t help during the Purge? Remember, the NCS deactivates in the NetherRealm.”

“I know, Nani.”

“Okay, it’s your call,” replied the crone with a frown. “So, that settles your rewards. Doing well during the Purge will help pave the way to joining an academy, so do well. I don’t mean the Kahaka academy for reserve forces. A real one, the same as our Li.

“This chip has preparatory guides for the academy entrance exam. Download and study. Study! Intelligence is largely static, but you have the capacity to learn, memorize, and regurgitate. We want you attending a good academy, and we want you accepted into one before Terra’s portal is finished. You could be our first Kahaka given peerage. We need you to have an impressive résumé.”

The crone laughed and said, “Our interests align for now, Kahaka. Our Empire advances by both small and great steps over time. Praised be the Aikapu my late father and husband, the venerable Akua, blessed us to travel ever forward and onwards with. Do you think you’ll still hate us when you are us?”

After having herself a long laugh, the crone winked at John and said, “Since we’ve settled up, I don’t mind telling you our Li receive personalized biosuits during academy, so factor that into your plans.”