Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

John had lost his legs by just being too close to Transcendents battling. A Salt had been injured in the same way. He wasn’t told many details of what happened, only that Hyavod had stood alone against two Akeoli and most of the other high tier Oli and still managed to almost kill a third-tier Transcendent.

Hyavod had been injured and subdued. Two-two-one, the brute that had left John and Talker in the Boneyard, arrived late and was killed trying to free Hyavod.

Akeoli Uen’n opened the portal early from the Nether side to inform leadership about the battle and Hyavod. Due to how the time difference worked, Uen’n and John arrived on Gani at the same time.

When Uen’n noticed John was conscious, he put a healing pill in John’s mouth and told him how to cycle it correctly.

By the time the pill was fully cycled, John’s spine was completely healed, and he had one leg back. Crutches were supplied to him. And a lot of Alii had entered the portal center. Some of them were extremely elderly, much older than the old crone. These elders were completely covered in strange clothing and were all business.

There were six main clans in the Peerless Empire, and each clan was led by a Nani Heiau. Koa, the seventh clan Alii were sent to after losing breeding rights, had no Nani Heiau of their own.

John had heard the Nanis Heiau were the true power in the empire, far more powerful than even the Nani Empire. If seeing was believing, John was a believer, as the elders made the Peerless around them extremely nervous and everyone jumped to obey their commands.

These elders had no kauwas of their own. Their clan was their kauwa. They walked among their own people without security or guards protecting them, something the rulers of Earth could never do.

Two of these elders and a much younger Alii from Nani Aikapu pulled John into a side room to question him.

“What’s the fate of the Kahaki girl? Does she live,” asked John.

“She is fine. Tell us why you attacked the heretic formerly known as Hyavod.”

“Promise me she won’t be killed,” demanded John. He believed the girl knew too much. That made her a problem. The Peerless tended to solve problems in a very specific way.

“She will be taken care of,” replied one of the Nani Heiau.

“Promise me she won’t be killed.”

“Enough. We will not kill her. Make a demand of us again and you’ll share the fate of the heretic.”

John was now certain the girl was already dead or soon would be. If she or those of Earth would be avenged, pushing the issue with these elders wouldn’t be smart. No more mistakes will be tolerated. I will be as the best of men, thought John.

For the next hour, John was questioned about what had transpired during the Purge. He told the truth as he knew it to the best of his ability. He only held back Talker’s suspicions that his Alii wanted him dead. That wouldn’t help anything.

All three Nani scoffed at John’s claim that he and Talker had defeated so many high tier monsters. He had the crystals in his bracer as proof. He tried to give Talker most of the credit as the man deserved to be greatly honored by the empire he loved so much.

John stressed how Talker went along with his terribly flawed plan to save the Kahaki girl because he saw it as his duty to expose Hyavod as a heretic leading other good Peerless astray from the Aikapu. Talker knew it was a bad plan doomed to failure, but still agreed to help, and joined in battle against Hyavod without hesitation.

It annoyed John that the Nani kept questioning him on his and Talker’s exploits in the Nether, and hardly asked any questions at all about the important matters such as the Kahaki girl, Hyavod, and Talker’s bravery, selflessness, and sense of duty.

As John was answering a question, one of the elders turned to the Nani Aikapu and said, “Leave.” The Alii nodded her head and left.

“Have you been studying for the Li academy entrance exam, Kahaka Four-two?”

“Yes, Nani. Seven-four helped me study. He let me borrow his old biosuit so I could practice with peripherals.”

One of the Nani’s scoffed. “And you can control a peripheral? Which? A bolter?”

“Yes, Nani. He said I would be given an unbind token to remove the biosuit.”

Both Nanis scoffed at that claim. “Akeoli Uen’n has only just given you an extremely expensive treasure. It has greatly healed you. One of Nani Empire supplied you with four aspect-enhancers. Purchase your own unbind tokens with the points you’ve earned on the hunt. The Peerless Empire is not your personal treasury.

“We will award you the credits you’ve earned. One for duty and courage, one for battling the heretic, and five more for honoring the Aikapu.”

The other Nani sighed and said, “Only two hunters of the Purge did not sully themselves and their honor with the Kahaki. Those who laid with her have forfeited all credits. They cannot earn credits and will not know an Alii’s company for a year. They will not earn any points for this Purge.

“Since you are the only living hunter that can earn points, you have earned the most by default, thus earning five additional credits for most points earned on this year’s Kiamoni Purge. Twelve credits in total. An impressive haul.”

“Thank you, Nani,” replied John.

“No, thank you, Kahaka Four-two. You helped expose a heretic. We hold a ceremony after the Purge. It isn’t just to honor and reward the hunters. Today is our New Year’s Eve. This month celebrates our independence from Circle Joyat. The ceremony is a year-end-review. Many Peerless will be honored.”

Having a year’s end tied to anything but a solstice or equinox was silly to John, but considering their history, he understood why they did it this way.

“The ceremony was postponed a few hours. You are to attend the first half. Go turn in the materials you’ve gathered and wait to be called for seating. We expect you to do well on the entrance exam. Do not shirk your duty. You must study.”

After saying this, the two Nani turned and left the room. John grabbed his crutches and followed. The young Alii intern guided him to where materials were turned in for points and he emptied his bracer.

And was given a great surprise.

Far more materials left the bracer than could be held within it. All the mats John had discarded to make room for seemingly more valuable mats were in the giant pile. Many mats from the massive beasts he had killed but were too large and never harvested were also included.

There were five dark-blue crystals from a peak Transcendent. John and Talker had only killed one peak Transcendent, the giant egg-head thing. They had only found four of its crystals before the bone-dragon appeared and chased them off.

This made John nervous. There was only one explanation for this, and he didn’t like it. He also didn’t like that he had to turn over all the crystals he collected in the Nether. He did like that no one asked him to hand over Talker’s storage bracer.

All the mats and crystals were worth 4,123,296 points. Even if the other hunters could earn points, John would still have earned the most points, and by a sizable amount.

A list was handed to John detailing all the items that could be purchased with his points. As he looked it over, his suspicion of why his bracer held discarded mats and mats never harvested was confirmed. The name of an item lit up brightly and Betrayal spoke in his head. “ACQUIRE THIS SWORD, MY CHILD.”

John groaned. The last thing he wanted to spend points on was a new sword. He had just made Gird before the Purge. It was a great sword. He spent all his wealth making Gird and Defiance, and he made them specifically to last him a very long time. He forged the sword himself. He banged the metal into shape. He placed its runes on it. It served him very well in the Nether.

The sword Betrayal ordered him to buy was rated for an unknown tier of the Transcendent Tree. He doubted he’d be able to use it. And if he tried and it worked, it would probably have the result of draining him of everything within him as his old bracers had, something very dangerous to do.

The sword was named Ah’krat’ra. The description provided on the list stated ‘unknown origin, unknown effect, unattunable, runes are present but undetectable. Rated higher than two-three-five. Possibly attunes to a finger slot.’

Useless and unattunable or not, the sword still cost 1,200,000 points.

Weapons never attuned. At least John had never heard of a weapon taking up an attunable slot. The sword seemed like a terrible waste of a huge number of points. But he also clearly remembered the time Betrayal sent him to the cold-dark as a punishment. He would grin and bear the cost. He was left with 2,833,296 points after purchasing the sword and an unbind token for 90,000 points.

Aspect-enhancers were relatively cheap at 100k points, but John still wanted to master his current concepts. Only two of his aspects weren’t majors. He’d be able to increase one from average to major naturally at Diamond, and the other the same way at Salt. He had no issue at all waiting to do so. He was way ahead of where other cultivators were with regards to opened aspects and concepts.

Talker’s storage bracer was attuned to John’s arm/bracer slot. The necklace of suffering was attuned to his neck/head slot. He would unattune the biosuit. He did see the Bulwark armor from his old ring on the list. He’d love to purchase it, but that would be a waste of points since he would receive a personalized biosuit at Li academy.

That left the waist/leg slot, the foot slot, back slot, and two finger slots.

John could get a pair of gloves, but the choice was two rings or one set of handwear. He’d rather have two rings. Almost everyone would rather have two rings. If Ah’krat’ra really took up a finger slot, that meant he’d only be able to get one ring, but he doubted the sword would. Weapons never took up an attunable slot. And if it did, he doubted he could attune the sword at his tier anyway.

Then John saw all the expansion slot NCUs listed. He had four empty slots. He’d have five empty slots in the not-so-distant future. The NCUs ranged in price from almost nothing for bad ones, to 350k points for the high-demand T1Cs.

After scanning the list of NCUs, John noticed one with an interesting function. The user could have it record video. There were many of this type of NCU listed with various capacities of memory storage. This gave him an idea. He wanted one of these NCUs, but he definitely wasn’t going to buy it off this list. His enemies would know.

While looking through the list, the young Alii told John, “The ceremony’s starting in half an hour. Don’t worry, you’ll be given all the time you want to spend your points after. Um, you can take the list back to the Kahaka District too if you want. The points don’t expire or anything.”

“Thank you, Alii.”

John studied the rest of the list and entered his Mind’s Eye. He expected Avatar to greet him with a smile, but her face was wearing her stern look. “Welcome back, John. We have something extremely serious to…”

“Sorry to interrupt. I have a feeling I know what you’ll talk about, but I need to stay focused. Hello. I’ve missed you. It’s great to see you again. The sword purchase wasn’t my decision. Betrayal told me to get it.

“From today onward, I will be as the best of men. I can tolerate no more mistakes. I need to become much smarter. I need to learn how to think and plan much better.”

Avatar smiled and pumped her arm in the air in the same manner John had seen the young people of Earth do so, but the sight of the elderly woman doing it was strange and unnatural. She said, “Finally! My silly boy wants to start thinking! God Almighty, I was hoping to hear those words fall from your lips.”

The smile disappeared from Avatar’s face, and she said, “We’ll hold off discussing important matters for now, but it can’t wait long. There’s some great news as well. A lot of good news. I assume you want help with what items to purchase?”

“Yes, but I want to do it myself. I’d like you to make your own list and I’ll compare it to my own.”

“A thinking exercise,” replied Avatar. “I like it. I’m opening a new tab with the full list of purchasable items for you.”

“Thank you, Avatar.”

John took his time and reasoned every decision through. When he was finished with his list, he asked to see Avatar’s. She had three lists with a few differences between each. All three of her lists were very different than John’s own.

“Do you want to know why our lists are different” asked Avatar.

“I know why. You’re a computer and I’m just a man.”

Avatar laughed and said, “Oh, so now you’re just a man? In the past, you’ve always stated you were a vampire, not a man.”

“I’m not fully human. I’m using man as you do, as you also use the word people and human.”

“Yes, and why we don’t capitalize the name of races,” replied Avatar. “You’re all just people. Slightly different types of people, but all people still. Whether terrans, ganians, or anything else, just people, all.”

“Well, the Peerless are animals and not people. I understand your point though. I felt a couple of Peerless outside the portal center that passed the bottleneck. I really messed up there. I can’t afford to make mistakes like that. There was a Silver that felt different outside too. I think it was Amber?”

“I hope that was a statement because you know I can’t answer that, John.” Avatar put her glasses on. “Now, the lists. My first lesson in reason and deduction begins. This is all based on information you’ve heard or read, including the information you were sent on academies. Why don’t the ganians you call Oli wear rings?”

John slapped his head. “The bolter. I have it attuned to a ring slot. All the peripherals are tied to an attunable slot.”

Avatar tsked. “Not all of them. Remember the user you called Ele Four-three? You fought him back on Earth. How many peripherals did he have?”

“Ah! Peripheral groupings. The same type of peripherals can be grouped together and attuned to the same slot.”

“Mostly correct. There’s a grouping limit. How many different peripherals do you think you can control?”

“I struggled with the one, but I got pretty good with it. The most I heard of Oli controlling are two different ones. Only Mele can handle more. I can handle two, I’m certain.”

“So, what does that mean,” asked Avatar,

“I need a free ring slot. Uh, that’s only if I use two of the same. If I use two different peripherals, I need two ring slots. But my new sword may need a ring slot. Wait, it doesn’t have to be a ring slot. That’s just the slot most Oli use to attune peripherals. I could’ve attuned my bolter to any open slot.”

“Correct,” replied Avatar with a smile. “But how is the bolter attuned?”

“It’s bound.” John hit his forehead. “I need to buy another unbind token. Damn it all, hold off on this lesson. I want to rework my list first.”

When all was said and done and the lesson completed, John had three lists. Before he committed to one list, he wanted to first receive Ah’krat’ra. If he could even utilize the sword, he’d check if it needed to be bound and if it took a ring slot. Then he’d know what list to use. If it didn’t use a slot or he couldn’t bind it yet, he had a choice between one nicer item and no ring, or a lesser item and a ring, depending on if he decided to use two different peripherals.

Of course, the sword could require something besides a ring slot to be bound, in which case the list would have to be reworked. And he needed to verify that two unbind tokens were needed, or if one would do the job for both the biosuit and bolter. Avatar believed he needed two, but he still wanted confirmation as 90,000 was a lot of points.

“Are you ready to talk about the serious matter and your gains now,” asked Avatar.

“Not yet. I want to wait until I have all my new stuff.”

“Do you think they just have all this on hand? What if they ship it to you like they did the mats for [Stalwart Vessel]?”

“Then I’ll wait. There’s a reason for this. Trust me.”

If the Peerless had some means to overcome his defenses and steal his secrets, it would be set up around the portal center and ceremony. He had a plan. He would pull a fast one on his enemies. To be safe, he didn’t want to talk or think about it, not even in his Mind’s Eye. His enemies couldn’t steal information he didn’t know yet himself.

Avatar clucked her tongue and said, “Well, in that case, remember your duty and the collective mission. Your actions and inactions help or hinder the collective mission. We shall achieve core.”

John wanted to tell her he didn’t care about the core, and it would’ve been nice if she gave condolences for Talker. He only said, “Thank you, and see you soon, Avatar.”