Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

When John was living in his warehouse-prison in DC and being visited by historians and scholars, many of them had a hard time understanding why he had sometimes chosen to hide as a slave.

Some of these historians and scholars had wanted slavery to always be bad. Certain forms of it certainly were, such as when a man was treated as an animal.

In many times and places, even if slaves weren’t treated all that well, being a slave was preferable to the alternative, and many slaves would’ve rejected offers of freedom that didn’t raise their status above that of a free commoner, as their freedom would’ve resulted in them starving or forcing them into thievery or banditry, two career paths that usually ended with a short life and a quick death.

John had never lived in a place where slaves of important nobles and aristocrats weren’t more important than free commoners such as laborers or farmers. Many of these slaves held very important positions. The majority of these slaves lived a far better life, commanded far more respect, and had far more authority than commoners. Such slaves were valued, whereas free commoners weren’t.

Slaves didn’t have to think about where their next meal would come from, when they should sleep, what they should do, or anything else. Some low and cowardly men would always prefer the yoke. Some would always want to be ruled over completely.

And sometimes only slaves were allowed to have real fun. John’s master promised that every week he’d be given deadly matches in the arena. He couldn’t be happier. There was nowhere else he’d rather be.

For the next few weeks, John and Nine battled side by side, overcoming all odds, defiantly continuing to live.

And John and Nine grew closer and closer together, forging a bond, one hammered and hardened in the mighty fires of blood and battle, strengthened by constantly teetering on the rain-slick precipice of oblivion, standing right at the edge, between life and death, existence and annihilation, where one wrong move would see one slipping straight down to the pits of Hell itself.

Slowly but surely, John was able to bypass the powerful collar rated for mid Exalteds. Breaking it required tolerating terrible pain even worse than that he felt while ascending. The trick was not letting go of the essence when the pain caused him to faint. If winning required such torture, he would be tortured. The search for peace and comfort was for those resigning themselves to lose. Or maintain their place.

John was strong. Peace, comfort, and standing still weren’t for him. He would always seek to grow stronger. His enemies would all be ground to dust beneath his heel. He knew that for certain. Not believing so would be a type of torture he couldn’t tolerate. Breaking the collars rated for mid Exalteds wasn’t easy to teach himself to do but he enjoyed the challenge and the continued opportunity to test himself against such pain. And such battles. He was born for this. This was his purpose. He was finally content.

Nine had a much harder time breaking his own collar and had only succeeded in doing so once. John didn’t mind. It made the battles all the better for him. Never had he come so close to dying gloriously in battle so often.

And Nine was a fearsome opponent even without manifestations. The biosynth had figured out how to unbind his opponents while collared, was very durable, and was a monster with unarmed combat.

Gnahad had also taken to informing the Li of what they’d face in the ring, and Nine was able to repurpose his form if he thought it would help.

And every battle the two friends fought together, the crowd may have started off with boos and jeers, but in the end, they always cheered the two victors.

And every time the two friends entered the arena, the stadium was packed. The ring was open every night of the week, but only on Fourthday night did Transcendents battle, and these matches were what the Great Ring was known for. The best Transcendents in the sector, or the ones willing to, fought in this ring. This was always the biggest and most crowded event of the week. Or was.

Those like Gnahad provided Mortal Tree gladiators most other nights of the week as filler spectacles between plays, performances, or other events, but only when a sponsor was willing to pay. With Thecla having a high population of Exalteds, no one really cared about these gladiators and their filler matches.

Now, Weekend night drew the biggest crowd. Every week two Mortal Tree gladiators, hated dogs of the Peerless, condemned to death in the arena, continued to not die. And unlike the Transcendent matches where a death was an extremely rare event, the crowd could see all the death they could want on Weekend night.

Even the time between matches wasn’t so bad. John befriended and learned from the other gladiators and slaves. Nine kept his distance. He didn’t want to be friends with anyone he could be forced to face in the ring, and he trained by himself or only with John.

Gnahad was a decent sort, or so John thought. Greedy and predictable. If he was given the respect that he believed he was due, he was easy enough to get along with. Though his wife looked very much like Gnahad, and John had no ability to tell male and female raloins apart, she was much kinder – a truly sweet woman.

People tended to treat those below them in status poorly. Gnahad’s wife wasn’t one of those. Nine bombarded the woman with questions, and she would answer them all in detail, giving her full attention to Nine. If anything, she treated those with more status than she had with a little contempt and those with less status as her equal. She told Nine every right he had as a slave and that every win in the arena earned him and John a purse.

The cost of any broken collar and some other expenses John and Nine incurred came out of the winnings, but they still had won a great deal of crystals.

Nine and Gnahad’s wife did some calculations. They figured after three more nights of matches, there’d be enough for one of the slaves to buy freedom, security for protection, and a ride away from Thecla to a neutral station.

But that was for future consideration. Once John healed enough from his last battle, not wanting to wait longer, he merged a few [Skills] to gain the required amount of harmony and prepared to perform the [Domain] ritual Betrayal had taught him.

By this point, John had seen and felt many [Domain] abilities. All [Domains] gave a very strong version of a manifestation. This manifestation was of an unrelated concept from the same-colored aspect as a cultivator’s strongest. In his case, this was ‘vampirism.’ But ‘vampirism’ was a peak-concept and covered a lot. And it contained four different colored aspects – green, blue, red, and yellow.

Avatar had no guess on what sort of manifestation he’d get, and John was very curious to find out.

When John got his [Aura] [Perk], it wasn’t known beforehand it would be forbidden knowledge. It was labeled so after the fact. Avatar didn’t want to know how he gained this knowledge, but she asked and was told this ritual would most likely be counted as forbidden knowledge too.

The NCU prepared beforehand. This ritual wouldn’t be recorded or seen by anyone – watchers from the core or fellow gladiators. Nanites formed a thin screen around John’s cell, blocking sight and sound.

And the ritual was strange. It required a tremendous amount of John’s blood to draw the circle, and it seemed the blood changed to something else before infused with essence. A bowl of black blood not John’s own somehow appeared in the circle too. Half of the ritual required him to dance and scream gibberish chants in a very masculine manner, much as the warriors of his tribe did around the fire after battles.

But the other half of the ritual had John dancing and singing in a very womanly way for a long time, gyrating like a lady seductively mimicking a snake or the like. He had never felt so foolish in all his life as he did while performing this part of the ritual, and he was very glad he wasn’t being heard or observed doing so.

Once completed, strange energy suffused John for a couple minutes, causing him a severe amount of an odd type of pain he had never felt before. It took him a few additional minutes to recover before he could enter his Mind’s Eye.

“So, what’d I get? Is it good,” John asked Avatar.

Avatar put on her serious face and said, “We think so, though it is a very unusual type of [Domain]. There’re some items we need to address as well. First, forbidden knowledge. Same spiel as last time. The Decision Matrix and the core have been informed. Sharing this knowledge with anyone will result in immediate and severe consequences including the permanent loss of any version of the NCS. Don’t be more of a silly boy. Take this threat seriously.

“Second, you’ve received enough [Achievements] to surpass the 87.5% [NCU Energy Cost] discount limit. The Decision Matrix has already made changes and given instructions. I think you’ll like how it’s been adjudicated. For at least the Mortal Tree, [Achievements] will now give points based on rating. For instance, F-rated will give one point, SSUR-rated will give 10. Currently, you have four points. A new field has been added to your summary to track this.

“Once you hit 100 points, you can cash them in for a physical reward. And better still, if you hold on until you have 200 or 300 points, you can receive much better rewards. The 300 is the top tier of reward you can get. This could change on the Transcendent Tree. We won’t know unless and until my silly boy achieves that feat. This is all pretty great, huh?”

“Definitely,” said John. “More than pretty great. What level of reward was the Level Capsules?”

“I don’t know. No info was given on tiers. Before, if a user achieved the threshold of 10% or more [NCU Energy Cost] discount at once, they received an award. There were no tiers prior to this. I guess we’ll find out about these tiers and the rewards together.”

Hearing that reminded John his life ended at Diamond, so he promised himself he’d get at least one reward before then. “What about the [Domain]? Was it good? What’s its name and what’s it do?”

Avatar said, “We think we know its main function, but even when it’s activated it’ll require some testing and data collected to be sure, or at least be certain of the extent. It’s called [Touch of the Ancients Domain]. Forbidden knowledge.

“Like your [Cloak Essence] [Perk], you feed it essence to initiate it, and it’ll continuously draw a very small amount of essence from your core to stay powered. And like [Cloak Essence], it will be almost impossible for an outside force to deactivate it.”

John waited for Avatar to continue. She just stared at him. After another moment she said, “Well, go on. Go and activate it, silly boy.”

John exited and felt for the new rune formation. Once located, he fed essence into it, surprised how long and how much it took before it finally stopped, leaving him with hardly any essence. He was a little disappointed to find it wasn’t an offensive manifestation, but just a little, and that little disappointment was soon gone too, replaced by excitement.

John had always felt a little different after receiving prior [Perks]. It had been noticeable something had changed. He felt stronger or more powerful or just different in some way. The last two [SupraType] [Perks] he had acquired, [Picture of Health] and [Inner and Outer], were quite noticeable in how they changed him.

But nothing had come close to how John felt after he had strengthened himself so much on that dark walker within the Tribulation the gorgeous, soul-collecting ladies made for him. All the power his body gained was a struggle to adjust to after that.

Activating [Touch of the Ancients Domain] still wasn’t close to how John felt after strengthening himself so much on the dark walker, but it was far and away the most noticeable difference any [Perk] had caused him to feel. He felt much stronger, faster, and hardier. And a lot more powerful. His small cell was not a great place to practice and adjust to the changes, but he still tried for a while, too excited not to.

Once John had tested himself the best he could, he entered into his Mind’s Eye again. He told Avatar, “It’s certainly not an offensive manifestation like I was expecting, like maybe a new alpha-strike. It seems to be some sort of buff. I feel much more powerful.”

Avatar laughed. “It’s a little more than a buff. You have a minor and permanent connection to an ancient old one, we assume Betrayal, and it will grow more powerful as you rank up and ascend. Right now, it’s increasing each [Stat] by 21, the same as your level, as well as 5% increased efficiency to all [Stats], the same as your tier.

“So, at low Platinum, it should provide a bonus of 26 to each [Stat] and increase the efficiency of each by 6%, and so on and so forth. Simply marvelous! Oh, and it’s also having some influence on your soft caps. No tension is felt for your [Runes] [Stat], nor any other. There’re some runes we haven’t seen before, so there’s other unknown effects. Only time and exploring your new [Perk] will reveal their purpose.”

Smiling, John said, “Fantastic. Very cool.”

“My silly boy sounds even sillier when he uses modern lingo,” said Avatar with a smile. “There’s good reason Hux made fun of you whenever you did around him.”

Laughing, John said, “He was just jealous since I look the appropriate age to use such lingo. But I get your point. Touché.”

“One day, I’ll pay someone out there to box your ear for me, my silly boy.”

“I look forward to the day, Avatar,” said John. “I hope it makes you feel better. I owe you a debt I can never repay for all the help you give me.”

After glitching, Avatar looked more somber than usual. She said, “Well, if that’s it, remember your duty and the collective mission. Your actions and inactions help or hinder the collective mission. We shall achieve core.”

“Bye, Avatar.”

As he embraced John, Nine said, “This is only a temporary farewell, my friend. I feel horrible leaving you on your own here, but I swear on all I hold dear I’ll be back, and you will be freed.”

Smiling, John clapped his friend on the back. “Don’t worry about me. No need to come back. I love it here. I haven’t enjoyed myself this much in forever. I’m just happy you’re able to leave. Enjoy your freedom. And if you do go back to the Peerless, please, I ask you to watch over and protect Amber. She’ll do the same for you.”

“She will be my Alii. Protecting her will be my duty. The woman you love will come to no harm.”

“I don’t love her,” said John, exasperatedly. “I told you many times – I love no woman. Never again. Just…please, she is a good friend, and I would not see any harm befall her. She’s not like us. She detests violence and fighting, whereas you and I were made for such. And if you get the chance, she enjoys being watched as she cooks and cleans. She also enjoys having her great beauty recognized, so a compliment or two would be nice.”

Nine didn’t have a sexual drive. Yellow told him when to mate and which Yellow to mate with. But Nine did appreciate beauty in art and form, so John believed he must also appreciate how beautiful Amber was. Nine could also tell male and female raloins apart, no matter how much of them were replaced with cybernetics, and even appreciated their strange beauty somehow.

John had a feeling Nine was too smart to go back to the Peerless, but he hoped the man did. He was a good friend, and John knew he’d protect Amber. And he secretly hoped his friend would also help Amber escape from the clutches of the Peerless.

There were many reasons Nine was the right choice to be freed with their pooled funds. The biosynth’s essence had steadily depleted during his imprisonment. Meditation even with crystals in hand couldn’t keep his dantian full, and he was well under half now.

John had no such issues with essence. And he was having far too much fun to leave. He felt bad about abandoning Amber, but she had said she wanted to be an Alii for some reason. She’d have a ship. If she couldn’t escape the Peerless while having a ship under her own command, she was beyond help.

The Peerless would still be there for John to destroy whenever he had had enough of the arena and Thecla. If Amber wasn’t free by then, she would be soon after.

And if John was freed now and went back to the Peerless, he’d have to see Amber every day. Things were hard enough just thinking about her. Being near her all the time would truly be intolerable. He feared she’d chip away at his resolve too much. He knew he’d be able to hold out for a long while, but, eventually, he’d fall under her evil spell and open his heart to her. He couldn’t allow himself to be betrayed again. Never again.

Here, John was happy, at peace, and steadily gaining in strength. He’d never go long without worthy battle. He was living the life he was born to live, free of any women he was attracted to, free of worry, free of plans, and free of thinking. He couldn’t be more content.