Aki plopped into bed, mentally tired out of sheer boredom. His money was not going to end anytime soon, yet it was completely useless in buying anything he actually wanted.
Since he had delivered the package to the mercenary guild with the receiver beeing the crown, no one had tried to assassinate him, nevermind contact him yet, meaning he'd spent over a week of 'Me time' with his books and magic.
He could do something else to relax when he hit a wall, so he practiced with a common sword outside of his room, somehow teaching himself to apprentice rank through imitation of strikes he'd seen before, similarly teaching himself to dance in his hotel room.
Then he did it, he finished his books and unlocked a skill to control sound\wind magic, one for gravity\earth, and another for water\ice, which seemed to unlock something in him, because besides the respective attribute increases, he felt something shift, then energy exploded from inside of him, his body stiff as a rod as he gained a new ability.
Hexagonal element balance didn't actually do much. It gave a flat bonus to an element for its level and another flat bonus if he had all his elements on the same level.
Which was great, sure, but it also gave 9 points to each of his stats, somehow allowing for both spirit and intelligence to reach a solid B rank, his power increasing again. The magical revelations, to his senses, became that much more beautiful. The world was so, so ugly, yet so mesmerasing. He knew not if he was the strange one for finding beauty even in the dour amalgamation of intents of the city, but for once, he truly couldn't care less. No second or third guessing, every part of him agreed on this.
His new facination did not muddle his mind however, and he didn't unleash his new powers yet, choosing to keep reading books on body reinforcement (blood magic here) despite the recent level up of his mystical knowledge.
The books turned out to not be so useful, mostly knowledge related to understanding the human body and it's limits plus some practical advice here and there. Nothing ground breaking, but Aki didn't consider himself a genius, more like someone that was only having their efforts reconised after years of study, so of course he intended to accumulate knowledge until he could improve.
By the time he'd finished said books, however, he was just too bored of his routine, his practice with the new skills limited so as to better hide his capabilities, though he tried to keep a constant use of gravitas for reducing his own weight, which had been increasing with his vitality and strenght.
Roaming the streets looking for something interesting finally became an interesting enough prospect for his introvert mind. He'd tried going to the magic shops of the city, but they mostly relied on a trust system, a shadier one he'd found relying on bartering and favor exchange instead, but he could not find any better deals where he would not need a backer or compromise himself. Robbing the black market would always be interesting enough, but he was not dumb. Even that knight captain could dodge two headshots before he could kill her, and the resting auras over there were much stronger than her, almost as powerfull as those hiding in the church and the royal cicle.
Aki actually didn't know what rating would allow him to gain a special dungeon, but those were clearly useful, allowing a player to use all the benefits of a dungeon world before letting it go. Even now, he could only await for his return to the newbie dungeon. There was something in the air he could now notice the absence of, and he could not for the life of him tell what it was, just that that dungeon world had a lot, while this one had a bit and the player lobby held almost none of. If someone told him it was not the thing that allowed him to improve skills faster, than he'd likely laugh to their face.
Thinking about his worries over his rattings, he was caught by surprise when a small hand caught his, no killing intent being emited from the small child he'd first thought of blasting away. That was real by the way, killing intent, and could be detected through observation of the spirit.
"Act like everything is normal and follow my lead." The young girl told him in a low voice while looking him in the eyes. Interesting. "Brother, but i want those sweets!" She said, pointing towards a rather expensive shop.
"It can't be helped, we will buy some, but will go back after. It's getting late." He smiled, leading the girl by the hand and calmly eating with her before going through several alleys she led him through. There were plenty of men following them, and they seemed ready to deliver some stupid lines, so instead he upped the gravity by three times around them, making two men fall from the rooftops they stood at, the child to dunk to the floor and most of the other assailants to knell from the pressure.
One of them seemed surprised but about to strike, so intead Aki sheared off his arms and legs, pinging the head of each of the men with a ray of light through the skull before releasing the extra weight consuming a lot of his energy and drinking a potion for good measure. A quick movement with his reinforced body and he was squashing down the throath of the man falling to the floor, then stepping over the back of the little girl.
Curiously holding his jaw with his other hand, the young man noted that his would be assailant had fangs and a pale complexion. For good measure, he shot those in the ground two more times.
"You chose the wrong mercenary to prey on. Do tell, who are you and who is she." He calmly asked with a smile towards the man on his hands, releasing his jaw and allowing him to speak, the surroundings already brimming with shadow darker than that of a twilight would suggest.
He didn't get an answer, only spit on his face, which he didn't really mind at this point, but still dodged. Shaking his head, Aki stepped closer to a wall, pinning the man against a now spiked surface so his sholders and hips would have stakes holding him in place. Standing close to the little girl again, he crushed her left leg under his boot, bone snapping under his strenght, though it only elicited a muted scream before he started griding the bone to dust under his heel, transforming it into wails of pain as she tried to claw her way forward, black nails extending from her hands as her mouth tore open as she hissed with a mouthfull of fangs made to bite off chunks of meat.
"Who are you all?" He calmly repeated the question, the vampire on the shutting his eyes and saying what Aki reconised to be a prayer. "This is not a place for gods young one." He reprimended, his voice box cut by a small blade. He broke the other leg, waiting for the first one to regenerate. The grinding and screaming would not stop.
Keeping track of it took a bit out of him, torturing what looked like a child, but every ten minutes, their limbs became usable again, meaning they had a very strong vampiric bloodline. Yet an hour of this passed and neither seemed to think it enough to talk.
"I see this isn't going to take us anywhere. Whoever you are, i am sorry, i know not your crimes." He gently spoke, cutting off their limbs with a blade of light, the searing heat closing the wounds and impeeding the regeneration. Ripping their simple clothes apart, he cut their flesh so as to leave a passage of a book, calling the thing that looked like a little girl a heretic. "Any target of revenge you might want to point me towards?" He asked, hatred and sorrow the only thing in the eyes of both his captives. He nodded and finished the job, two corpses without eyes or teeth the only things left behind.
*****
[Still beating heart of Maria, the vampire queen (Legendary): *The heart of an infant vampire queen, barely over a hundred years old and with no court. When consumed, will pass on her full bloodline. Will remain fresh for 2:18:55:43.]
When Aki first saw the description of the organ after he 'cirurgically' removed the glowing loot from the dead body, any guilt he might have felt evaporated, immediately replaced by greed and fear. He needed to run.
Killing a vampire queen was a big thing. His ratings would certainly go up twice or thrice from it, but that could only happen if he survived the dungeon. As it stood, the only thing stopping someone more powerful than him from coming for his head had been his umbra, which had basically stopped the wailing soul still stuck to the heart from calling on reinforcements.
There had likely been some kind of signaling device as well, but that would have been with the guards, which he had either incapacitated or killed on the first moments of the fight. The murderous little ghost on the other hand, didn't have any 'family' to feel her dire straight, but someone would come look for them at one point or another.
He drank another potion and ran off, the scene left behind as he ran through the alleys, reaching the poorer parts of town and rapidly picking off a rough man trying to beat down a kid, Aki didn't hesitate anymore, jumping through walls and into roofs before gently reaching the city wall, which he easily jumped off from, gently floating despite the amount of weight two grown man should have. All his things were with him anyway, so he could always leave the main event which had already been completed as long as he was not in combat.
Going on a mad killing spree was something pretty much garanteed even for someone with good INT and SPR status, so of course he had to bring a source of food, but how could Aki expect that the moment he woke again up he'd be crunching down on a deformed skull without even a brain with a jaw that was too out of proportions for a normal human, on a body that didn't have any more blood.
He'd run for a couple of hours at his maximum speed, nothing really stopping him before he found a small cave on an out of the way forest. He killed several wolves inside of it, hoping his hungry self would be satisfied with this amount of blood. Now there was barely any fucking blood on even the ground, nevermind the mostly chewed on bone remains of the clearing on who the fuck knows where.
According to his system clock, he'd spent a bit over a day hunting and eating before he had been satiated, sunlight luckily not doing anything to him. His stomach was still mildly empty, but now that he was concious he didn't need to relly on eating to feed his special constitution.
Walking up to a tree, he used magic to separate the earth and touch one of it's roots, then started using life steal on it, sucking the whole thing dry until only a hole on the ground stood, the earth falling as it's support became ash.
Normally such action would have killed him from breaking most of his mana pathways with the amount of energy harvested, but right then, it simply accelerated the transformation of his body. It was painfull in the way that only having your muscles and bones messed with would ever be, so fucking painfull Aki wanted to passout, yet he found himself unable to even move, nevermind let his conciousness go in the midst of all the pain.
Most notably, his nails on both feet and hand became dark claws, his canines became needle sharp while the rest of his teeth grew into tiny blades perfect to dilacerate flesh, and then his fangs, the mark of being an abyss cursed vampire royalty, grew out for the first time. The bone white spikes grew out of his wrists and ankles, the pain excruciating but barely of note by the end.
Around half an hour later, he examined himself, faculties working again. The fangs on his arms were big, leaving the downside of his wrists like the tusks of a pig, growing a bit downwards and then back up to have it's lenght end in a tip that reached just a bit farther than his hands. His ankles were a bit diferent, extending from left and right on both legs, seemingly new aditions to the bone composion and giving him a bit more balance instead of acting like a heel since only it's tips passed the sole of his feet, the dirt bellow his feet parting like dirt for the two small protusions. This had practically ruined his new boots, but he couldn't even use then in this state despite the remaining enchantments working as it would give away his feet weren't normal either.
"Lots of messages from the system, but now what?" He sighed, more than just a bit tired as he looked for his trail of destruction looking for anything he might have dropped.