"Uhh..." I groaned as I slowly opened my eyes. The light that came in from my eyelids made me hurriedly close them once again. And the pain - this constant ringing in my head. Why does my head hurt so?
I opened my eyes again, slowly this time. The light from all around was just the sun, but I didn't dare to look up. My eyes hurt enough as is and I wasn't going to make it any worse.
"What happened?" I mumbled to myself. I tried to recall the last incident my mind could help, but my head just hurt more.
"Arrgh." I grabbed my head with both my hands as I staggered to my feet and quickly made for the nearest tree shade. The ringing in my head finally subsided a little bit, allowing me to reason more carefully. But first, I would need to remember what happened.
I looked and saw grass all around. There were trees too, and the natural odd rocks jutting out from the ground in one or two places. This pointed to me being near a mountain, it seemed. I turned to where I had awoke and saw a mighty large figure lying over yonder where I was. It was a big maroon coloured figure and I felt a sense of déjà vu from it.
A little ways past that large body was a cave, it seemed. Seeing this cave caused everything to begin flooding in all at once. That stinging pain caused by my ringing head came back again. I held onto my head as I fell to my feet, my head touching the ground. I cried in pain for a time, until the pain finally subsided and with it returned everything I could remember.
"I-I remember." I stammered. I looked at the cave that was a little distance away and then at the maroon figure that was some distance from the entrance.
'That large figure should be Eron, the Wyvern' I thought. 'And the cave... How did I get out of the Caliagri dungeons? Did he carry me? El! By the gods! I defeated El, and nearly died.' I suddenly remembered that there were tons of messages flooding in after my victory against El and there was one that stood out, which said something about a Vampire. I needed to check those out. I quickly summoned my system screen to get an update of things.
User: Jason Xilmoa
Age: Twelve
Race: Vampire
Level: 1
Experience: 0/100
Life Force: 1000/1000
Magic Essence: 10,000/10,000
Blood Essence: 0
Strength: 100
Agility: 100
Dexterity: 100
Intelligence: 100
Stamina: 100
Attribute points: 0
Skills (Points: 0)
Bite
Hyper (Passive)
Charm
Dauntless (Passive)
Storage
Quests
~Empty~
"What the hell!" I was extremely shocked at how so many things in the system had changed. For one, there was no more tabs, everything was just a single screen. It had all the stats., skills and quests. I couldn't find the shop anymore though. But there were also so many other changes. Like the race for example. I was a vampire. What the hell was a vampire? Is that some kind of demon? Plus, I went back to level 1. After all my hard work, only to go back to level 1? What is this life force and blood essence supposed to be? I just have so many questions.
'Lucky for me though, I have all my base stats at 100. Huh, how good is a hundred? I think I should test it out.' I closed my system screen for a bit and turned to face the tree that shielded me from the sunlight. I gave a smooth, light punch to the centre of the tree.
Ka-cha... The tree trunk got splintered into millions of little pieces where I punched it, while the top part flung away. Even the noise from the breaking was tremendously loud. And just after doing this did a certain ringing pain cime back to me. I held my head to ease the pain and quickly dashed towards the cave to get away from the sunlight. It had already occurred to me at this point that the cause of the pain in my head could be the sun.
True to my thoughts, as soon as I got into the cave, the pain in my head subsided a little bit. I looked forward and saw Eron staring at me. The sudden sight sent shivers down my spine, before I calmed and remembered he was an ally. I was finally able to break away from the staring and questioned him of it.
"Why are you staring like that? It's scary." I said in a feeble manner.
"Scary? And what would you describe yourself as then?" He replied.
"What do you mean?" I queried, with a worried, anxious look on my face.
"Hmmm. I suppose even you do not know so much just yet, huh. Ask that person to explain it to you. I am sure he can do a much better job with that than I ever could." Eron said.
"That person?" I mumbled confusedly, before suddenly understanding who he meant by 'that person'. "Oh!" I cried in understanding.
'I guess I really should ask him. After all, he will have a lot more answers than Eron does.' I thought to myself.
'Hey, Hekate?' I called out in my head. In such a situation, there was usually an answer that only I could hear. This was because Hekate was the other soul inside of me body - half of my soul, to be exact. But this time around, there was no reply. I called out a few more times, but to no avail.
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine that mind space I had entered not long ago. When I entered the mind space at that time, everything happening outside stopped. I tried to see if I could get in again, but last time, Hekate was actually the one who brought me in there; and as I didn't know the procedure, I couldn't do it myself.
"He's not answering." I said to Eron. "Don't mind that, he does it sometimes, only talking back when he pleases." I said, trying to soothe my worries.
"That is understandable. He is, after all, a being of higher power." Eron stated.
"You know what he is?" I asked.
"Of course. I am a Wyvern, not a pushover." He said, putting on airs around me. "Dragons have the ability to detect magic essence. Though demi dragons, we have a semblance of such an ability too."
"Oh. Was that why you asked who I was when we first met?" I asked.
"Yes, I do recall that now. How long ago was that now, anyway? I don't keep track of the time, you see."
"A month back, I think. Two months max, depending on how long I was asleep." I answered. "Anyway, can you tell me anything about what happened to me?"
"You have evolved into a Vampire; a rare subspecies that only comes into existence from two possibilities - either when a human male is bitten by an Empusa and survives, or when a human male causes an Empusa to give birth, if you understand what I mean."
"How rare are we talking?" I asked.
"Well, usually, it is very hard to kill an Empusa so if a Vampire does come as a product of one's bite, it would be because she decided not to kill him. So, very very rare. And that's just for your kind of Vampires. The other kind, much rather than yours, are those children of a human and an Empusa." Eron said.
"Why so rare?" I asked.
"Ho ho. It seems you have forgotten you were almost killed by an Empusa. Empusas have an impulse in their blood; they loathe men of all species, human men even more so. Why this is, I have no idea. But what I do know is it is nigh impossible to find one that falls in love with humans, or agrees to bear their child." Eron explained.
"Oh, now I see." I said, deep in thought. As I stared blankly at the same spot and took my time to think of all I had heard in this short period, I noticed something in my peripheral vision. Shifting my gaze towards the curiosity, I noticed it was actually something the system had for me - messages. I had been such a fool! If I had read these messages, then I wouldn't need to go around asking questions about what I had become. Certainly the system would explain my circumstances to me. I was sure of it.
You have new messages.
Do you wish to read them?
Yes. No.
'Alright then, let's get started.'