Chapter 36 - Reaping Rewards

"In the end, we didn't really learn anything new," Lucian audibly sighed. Reclining in the driver seat of his sleek red sportscar, Lucian rested his head on his carseat and closed his eyes. Since Alecia was manning the wheel, he didn't feel any need to both with keeping his eyes on the road. To be honest, after such a tiresome day, he was utterly spent. "I still feel that your actions were too conspicuous this time, master." "I only completely emptied one person of their blood, and I made sure to bring their corpse back with me," Lucian pointed to a sizeable duffel bag in the seat next to him, "I made sure to not leave any noticeable traces. So there shouldn't be any issues." If Lucian were to drain the blood of every person he killed, it would be possible for someone to connect this string of deaths to the work of vampires. While he didn't meet or heard of any other vampires before, Lucian didn't want to take any chances. After all, if he was one, there were undoubtedly bound to be others, people whom Lucian wasn't too keen on meeting. Lucian only needed to kill and completely drain one person of their blood every day to meet his quest quota, so he didn't go and devour the others. Instead, he settled with mutilating them alive. From the intel he gathered, most of their abilities were lacklustre at best and not worth stealing. Furthermore, he couldn't take any D-rank abilities, either. It could be said that the corpse on Lucian's right was the luckiest of the batch. At least his death was somewhat swift, at least compared to the slow and agonzing deaths his comrades were subjected to. He only needed to completely drain one person a day to maximize the free daily 20 Experience. As long as he had his blood bags, he didn't even need to kill people daily to survive. Pulling up his status screen, Lucian looked at the list of notifications that came up during his nightly escapade. [You Have Quenched Your Thirst For Blood. THIRST bar has been reset to 0] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 50 Exp for killing a D-rank mortal] [You have received 50 Exp for killing a D-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 50 Exp for killing a D-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for killing an E-rank mortal] [You have received 50 Exp for killing a D-rank mortal] [You have received 50 Exp for killing a D-rank mortal] [You have received 10 Exp for drinking the blood of an E-rank mortal] [Quest Completed] [Quest (Reoccurring): Satiate your hunger] Quest Completion Requirements: - Drink 100% of a mortal's blood. Quest Duration: - 24 Hours Quest Completion Rewards: - Victim's Ability (Warning: currently does not work on victims with abilities greater than E-rank) [New Ability: Shadow Cloak] [Ability Description: Use the cover of shadows to hide and avoid detection.] [Cost: 1 Ability energy for every 10 seconds of usage.] [Gained 20 Exp For The Completion Of A Quest] [Status Information] Name: Lucian Sanguinis Age: 15 years old Race: Vampire Lv.2 EXP: 340/500 HP: 30/30 STA: 4/15 ABILITY ENERGY: 2/25 THIRST: 0/65 (Gain one point in thirst every 30 minutes. WARNING: DO NOT LET THIRST REACH THE MAXIMUM VALUE) DEF: 9 SPD: 16 STR: 14 CHAR: 25 Free Stat points: 5 Lucian's lips curved into a wicked grin as he saw all of the juicy experience points he got from killing those mercenaries. He usually would need to struggle to kill a fully-fledged D-rank ability user, but because of their injuries, all Lucian had to do was put them out of their misery. Frankly, it couldn't be any easier. "Should I just target hospitals from now on?" If he could do this, getting stronger would be faster and more effortless. Lucian began seriously considering killing off hospitalized criminals in the city before abruptly shaking his head. After tonight's incident, there was no way they wouldn't bolster the security to avoid something like this again. Even if he got a new ability that would allow for him to potentially slip in undetected, he could only use it for 250 seconds or just over 4 minutes max. Simply the act of leaving the hospital with his duffel bag cost him almost all of his ability energy. After that, he would have no way to defend himself. It seemed that there was no other option but to go out and hunt his prey the old-fashioned way. "Looks like it's back to stalking drunks again…." Lucian complained with a deadpan expression. Lucian reached the passenger seat and unzipped the duffel bag, revealing a dried-up corpse surrounded by what appeared to be a large stockpile of blood bags. "Sneaking these out and carrying them all the way here was a pain, to say the least. But I won't worry about running out of spare blood bags for a while." Opening one of the pouches, Lucian greedily devoured the contents before letting out a satisfied breath. Even if he was wholly satiated, the taste of blood gave him an intense euphoric effect. "On second thought, I don't think they'll even last that long," Lucian chuckled wryly. Just as he contemplated drinking another bag, a ringing sound broke his train of thought. "You're receiving a phone call from Sir Bruce." "Uncle?" Lucian's eyes lit up with interest as he sat in his chair and looked at himself in the overhead mirror. He was met with the visage of a young man whose entire face was almost entirely dyed blood red. Not even his hair or clothes were spared from the sticky red substance, attesting to just how much 'fun' Lucian had while in the hospital. "I'm still drenched in blood… Pick up the call, but keep the video off." The last thing he wanted to show his fiancé's father was his bloodstained appearance. "As you wish." Shortly afterwards, a voice came through the speakers, replacing that of Alecia's. "Hello, Lucian. Are you busy right now?"