Before any of them could answer me, a window popped into my face again.
-Congratulations, due to completing the required challenges the game can now progress to its next stage.-
What? Does this thing have stages?
-This time the system has welcomed new features. You are free to explore and familiarise yourself with each one.
-Upgrade
-Create
We wish you a happy and enjoyable night, Goodbye!-
Oh?New features?
This looks interesting. With these tools, I can become even stronger.
However, my current situation is pretty bad. I got teleported to a random forest where I found some women bathing and then was held, hostage. Great night activities.
That pervert would've enjoyed this much more than I do now. From their appearance alone they should be related to vampires.
At least I hope so. From what I know when I was born my bloodline had vampiric ancestors.However, since the gods burned me with divine fire all that went to the trash.
Since these women didn't believe me all I could do would be to show them something that would prove my words were true.
So I went into the system menu and used the new tool.
-Are you joking? Asking this question.
-It's obvious we are on the first level of the divine realm.
What.
What do you mean by divine realm? Is that something similar to heaven or something?
It would make sense since these people alone give me a much grander presence than the queen.
I also haven't seen any other race than humans before on the main continent.
Wait...
-Divine realm..., does that mean some gods walk the earth?
The women looked at each other in confusion. One of them looked at me deeply and went closer.
She crouched and told me to open my eyes.
I did as I was told and the women all raised their eyebrows.
-It seems I was right.
The woman got up and looked at her friends. After staring at each other for a while the previous woman looked at me and started explaining how I wasn't supposed to be there since I was too weak.
-Your realm of power is too far behind ours. I don't know how you got here but pretty much any animal will be able to kill you.
Well, that sounds very encouraging. I asked them if there is anything I can do. But their answer was for me to either go back to the mortal world or stay here and go with them to their clan grounds.
I decide it's worth trying to see how is life going up here.
So after making sure everything I told them was true, they used some sort of spell on me and then we proceed towards their clan location.
-We proposed to you this deal only because you have a weak vampire heritage. Else you would have been instantly killed.
I see...
...
My decision might seem foolish but in reality, it's quite a wise move.
I left a gift for my teacher and the other people think I'm dead.
Going back now, as weak as I am will only disadvantage me.
If I can learn some new techniques then maybe I could do more, and save some people I care for.
After 4 hours of continuous flying, we arrived at a massive building that was surrounded by small houses.
From above it looked like a whole city.
When we arrived in the front of the building I could see the size of the doors and I could only describe them as archaic.
They looked old and yet durable enough to resist thousands of years of age.
When the doors opened an old woman greeted us.
All the women bowed and saluted the woman.
I also lowered my head and remained silent. In moments like these showing respect is the most intelligent decision.
My talent and body are mediocre so I can only hope it's going to be a fast process so I can start my training.
...
The old woman eyed the man bowing towards her.
He was a man with average talent but had very good looks. She thought for a second a found a suitable job for him.
-Young man, what is your name?
The man didn't move and only opened his mouth to speak.
-My name is Kizu, I don't remember anything more.
The granny seemed to space out for a bit but quickly came back and turned around.
-In that case, Kizu, you are to entertain the women in this clan by working in the red light district. Any objections?
He didn't show any facial expression and answered with a simple agreement.
-You girls will show him around and be familiarised with the main buildings, understood?
All of them bowed and shouted a clear yes.
...
After the lady left the women turned around and looked toward the only guy present.
His face didn't show many emotions but his looks were very good. All of them had the thought of at least having a try with him, just for "ensuring quality".
He lifted his head and looked at them.
He bowed his head again and showed them a friendly greeting.
-I will be in your hands then.
...
And so my days of working in the district began.
In the mornings I would have to clean the houses and hotels that customers would use at night. Then I would also have to help prepare meals and concoctions.
At night my job would become more enjoyable as I had a lot of clients. However the thought of having so much intercourse didn't make me that excited so I created a potion that would give the women the illusion that they had some intimacy with me. While in reality, they would be sleeping soundly on the bed while I would study this world more.
After months passed I discover the training system these people use. It's something similar to meditation. It's a technique where the user has to concentrate on creating pillars that would sustain a huge planet-like container. That container would, then be filled with energy and act like some sort of power amplification.
It was a pretty complicated concept and as such, it took me some weeks to get a grip on it. But after understanding the idea I couldn't stop training. The feeling of continuously rising in power was very comfortable, not to mention that meditation was sleeping.
As long as I was in an energy-rich environment I would not need to eat or drink. The reason?A very simple rune that can be applied to the body to convert energy into nutrients for the body.
Along with some other runes, this combination essentially made me a healthy and clean person without even needing to shower or eat a strict diet.
And so 1 year went by.
The time passed as fast as one would take the time to blink.
In the time I spent training and studying I understood some basic things.
First, meditation speed is heavily influenced by external factors such as energy density or potions that speed up energy absorption.
Second, power levels were classified in the following order: the amount of energy stored in one's energy sphere. And so, with more energy being stored the more energy one can refine and use.
...
The average human would have 0 ES.
An average mage from the magic country where I before had around 50 ES.
The queen would be around 200 ES. And the guy who defeated me was around 300 ES. Seeing these numbers would make me a bit worried but fortunately, I left her a gift that would hopefully be useful.
I think I should check up on her once in a while. Leaving for so long would surely make her worry.
...
I sat up and looked through the window. The sun was reaching the horizon which painted the whole world a crimson-gold color.
Today I meditated for 10 hours and reached a decent level for a mediocre man.
400 ES is a good start. The women that I met here for the first time were around 300 ES so I think it's a good level for now. But it's too slow, I'm sure that guy reached even higher and is probably now thinking of attacking the empires.
It's time for an upgrade.
...
After taking an opportunity I took a 'vacation'.I signed up for a mission and got an opportunity to excuse myself for an entire week.
The mission was about killing a huge centipede and gaining materials from the corpse for different kinds of tools and potions.
My goal was to get some potions or ingredients to make at least enough to get to 1 000 ES. It would be best if I will get them now but there is no rush anyways.
The next day a group of people were entering a huge magic array. It was used for teleportation and a very skilled runemaster was needed to install one of these.
I was, of course, part of that group and teleported together with them toward our destination. The evergreen forest.
...
After a flash of light, a group of people appeared in a forest not too far from the elven kingdom. This mission was pretty hard since the centipede was very closely located to the elves. And any disturbance would alert their troops.
And that would be a very unwise move since the vampires and the elves are not exactly friendly. Far from it, they waged war on each other for a long time when their two ancestors roamed the upper levels.
After some organizing, we each got to searching for the location. The creature is constantly moving and finding it is a bit tricky. However its general area is greatly defined and it doesn't leave it, only when it's in extreme danger do things like that happen.
But the elves don't hunt it because it's a protected species for them. For how some animals are not to be killed In certain religions back on earth.
...
After 1 hour of searching using spells one of the party leaders found the monster and used a rune to imitate the centipede's mating call and bring it to the surface.
Normally this trick wouldn't work since they are not that foolish but looks like today was our lucky day...my ass, such a thing as luck is foolish to believe in. The only reason it succeeded may be that it's a setup.
I made a formation and placed it on the ground far away. It would teleport me instantly as soon as I activate it. The biggest advantage was that detecting it was very hard since my skills and system helped a lot.
When the monster came to the surface we engaged in a group fight against it.40 people against such a monster would be no problem, they thought.
With the average person having 100 ES and the leaders 200 ES this should be pretty easy. However, the monster hit harder and was more durable than normal.
Yep, it's a setup. I readied myself to teleport instantly and as expected a huge veil started expanding above our heads and trying to cover the whole area.
I instantly tried to teleport but to no one's surprise, it didn't work. My whole escape plan was for naught. I started running towards the last open area. But a shadow appeared and kicked me back into the group.
Everyone looked surprised more than scared. It was known that vampires were a proud race and didn't fear death. Unfortunately for them, this was more than fear tactics.
I detected at least 5 people with above 400 ES power and even more, weaker ones are arriving. I rightfully think it's the elves who are doing this shit but to think that they knew about us coming here is an even bigger surprise.
That means we have a traitor in the clan. And if I am to be any more sure then my suspicions are that a higher-up is a mole since other people couldn't get the info on the mission only until they signed to participate. And the ones who are part of the mission are being spied on by the special forces of the vampire clan.
The highest of the high in the army ranks, below the clan leader himself.
I sat up and remained calm. Panicking in this situation would only bring my doom. I patiently waited and shortly an elven man with long blond hair and a handsome appearance showed up on a tree not far.
-Vampires, to think your promises mean nothing, I should've expected that from a traitor.
His voice was loud and clear with a hint of mockery in his words.
This made all the vampires present boil with anger and some of them even started cursing. This made the other elves who later also came even happier.
This is not good. Im going to assume the worst so I will need to do something.
I closed my eyes and focused on the system. A way to fight someone stronger is to have a better weapon. But one needs an excellent blacksmith to even make something decent.
A legendary or even mythical craftsman is needed to make a weapon that is usable for me right now. Fortunately, I have the system to help.
For me to create something with the system I have to at least understand it to some extent. It's not like the shop where you can buy some shit and read the description later.