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Paul tried to concentrate on the game instead of on Chris. It was already hard to deal with him IRL, and now that he had obtained such a provocative avatar, for lack of a better word, he was having a hard time even looking at him.
Everything about Chris screamed the word erotic, and he simply couldn't shake that off his head. It was indeed the Charm Stat of an Incubus in the works there. However, he had also noticed that Chris wasn't a full-blooded one, but a half-incubus.
"Also his Trait…"
He looked at Chris' Status again, finding the Trait that he had almost forgotten about, and also the Flaw. Chris had not gone into details about them, but they seemed quite interesting.
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[Character Background Traits]: [Fairy Spirit Heart (Legendary Grade)]
[Character Background Flaws]: [Insatiable (Legendary Grade)]
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"Fairy Spirit Heart? It's a Trait and not something like a feature for his progression, like a blood core?" Paul thought. "And then… Insatiable, ah, I don't even want to think about what that is about."
"Paul! Hey! Why did you start running away out of nowhere? Take it easy, dude!" Chris finally caught up with Vlad, who had finally stopped moving across the plains and stood up in the middle of it.
"Ah, sorry about that; I just... Err, never mind." Paul couldn't really make an excuse; he had simply run away from Chris' presence because of that aura he had.
A pink-colored aura that created a very alluring presence, it seemed that Chris was completely unaware of its powers, it brought the attention of anybody nearby, and the closer you got to him, the dizzier you felt.
"Huh? Is the game that fun for you?" Chris raised an eyebrow. "You're so lucky to get that cool vampire guy... I bet the only thing you need to do with that Dracula cosplay is drink blood, right? Easiest sh*t in the world in a video game about hunting monsters."
"It's not that good, actually…" Paul sighed. "I guess it's about time we share each other's Traits and Flaws. So we can get a better understanding of our abilities and weaknesses. How about it?"
"Hmm, fine…" Chris sighed. "But don't make jokes after reading it, okay?" he started poking Vlad's face with his index finger; his nails were painted red and were longer too.
"Okay, okay, stop pinching me…" Vlad blushed a bit. "Here, look."
After making sure there were no monsters in the vicinity and that they would need to walk a bit more to encounter any as this was the lowest-level dungeon out there, Paul decided to show his Trait and Flaw to Chris.
"Oooh? Woah, what the—you got two Traits and two Flaws?! And… What?! Huh?!"
Chris' face was constantly changing expressions as the cute boy couldn't believe his eyes! Not only did Paul get two amazingly overpowered Traits that allowed him to eat anything and absorb it and another that made him nearly invincible for ten minutes a day, but his stats were already pretty high.
However, when he looked at the Flaws… He was at first confused about what he read, quickly realizing the terrible weakness that Vlad had: a 90% debuff to all stats active at all times. And then, well, the Heavenly Demon's flaw did not offer any negative thing.
But it had a certain quest that he had to fulfill within a year, or else, well, he would permanently lose control over his Avatar.
"What is this? Pfff, Hahahah!" Chris started laughing without stopping. "So you… Your background is that the Vlad guy is... the reincarnation of a super strong martial artist from another realm, I see, but the flaw... So he's gay, and he wants a "male bride"?!"
"Aaagh, don't rub salt in the wound!" Paul felt an immense cringe as he heard Chris talking about it. "I know it's cringe."
"It reminds me of those Danmei novels, where it's like yaoi, but with Chinese fantasy cultivators instead," Chris pointed out. "There's always the heavenly demon and then the heavenly saint or something; one represents the bad guys and the other the good guys, and well, they get going and stuff."
"Hm? And why exactly are you reading yaoi?" Paul wondered as Vlad raised an eyebrow in response.
"Eh?!"
Chris panicked a bit; he was caught rather easily for talking out loud and trying to poke more fun out of Paul! He ended up spilling a little secret: he liked reading BL romance novels.
"T-That's just a fantasy book anyway, dude. I just read a bunch of novels of any genre and type to get a grip on the market, ya know? Yaoi sells pretty well sometimes," said Chris. "Though I found out it doesn't sell that well on English publishing pages... It's weird; only BL Manga and BL Chinese Stories ever sell well; anything else just falls off. Not a good market!"
"Hmm, okay…" Paul decided to just not pursue the situation; it's not like he had time for it. "Anyways, let me see yours now."
"R-Right… Okay," Chris swallowed saliva. "Just don't make fun of me…"
"Hard to ask when you just did that to me…" Paul crossed his arms, and his handsome face gave him a stronger glare, which only made Chris recoil a bit.
Having such a handsome, tall vampire looking at him slightly angrily was making him really Well, it was better not to say it.
"Y-Yes, okay, look…" Chris looked elsewhere, blushing out of embarrassment.
"Let me see…"
Vlad squinted his crimson eyes, analyzing Chris' Character Background Traits and Flaws.
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[Character Background Traits]: [Fairy Spirit Heart (Legendary Grade)]
Alitheus is the illegitimate son of a Succubus and the Fairy King of the Fantasia Realm. Born as a half-incubus and a half-fairy, he has the properties of both the children of the Evil Goddess of Obsession and Pleasure, Luxuria, and the descendants of the World Tree, Yggdrasil.
Unbeknownst to him, he possesses the properties and abilities of a Fairy Heart of the highest quality, a special crystalized organ Fairies possess inside their chest. However, because he's a demon, he was unable to create it from birth.
Nonetheless, these properties remain within his entire body, making him an even deadlier Incubus than the rest of his peers, in exchange for starting out weaker than them.
Grants the ability to absorb and develop Spiritual Energies of any property or attribute and freely conjure Spirit Magic. Alongside that, it is also possible to easily contract Spirits, and the user is naturally loved and protected by them, even to the point of receiving gifts and offers from them.
Illusion, Nature, Life, Spirit, and Dream Magic receive an enhancement to their learning proficiency, speed, and spell power of 300%.
It is possible to gain the properties of fairies within the user's body as they develop and obtain more abilities as a result.
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"Oh, this is pretty good; your Trait can allow you to contract Spirits! That'll definitely be useful, Chris," Paul commented, trying to cheer up his friend, even if a bit.
"Aaah, I guess so? I hadn't thought about that too deeply; how do I even find spirits anyway?" Chris wondered.
"Hmm, I could always look for that online; wait a bit…" Paul moved on to the Flaw's information.
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[Character Background Flaws]: [Insatiable (Legendary Grade)]
Alitheus has been cursed by his progenitor and primordial ancestor, Luxuria, the Evil Goddess of Obsession and Pleasure for being an "imperfect" existence that possesses the properties of Fairies, beings abhorred by demons.
Normally, the relationship between fairies and succubus would only yield a pure-blooded incubus as their bloodlines are completely incapable of mixing, however, Alitheus is a rare case, managing to channel both a Demonic and a Fairy bloodline within him.
His existence is considered an "error," and to punish him for even existing, Luxuria has given him a curse, the curse of the "insatiable.".
The more energy and lifeforce the user absorb from a target, the more obsessed they become with it, and the more chances there are of them entering a frenzy that will make them go temporarily mad while draining as much energy as possible.
It makes the growth of the Lust Stigma ten times slower, requiring much more energy to be drained to grow stronger. And if the user has yet to drain any energy from a target for 48 hours, they will enter a {Hunger} status that will decrease their stats every hour by -5% (Max -90%).
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"Wow, the Flaw is really harsh…" Paul didn't really find anything to laugh about.
In fact, it made him empathize more with Chris' situation because his Flaw was pretty similar. However, Vlad's flaw was caused by Gula's gift, while Luxuria here directly cursed Alitheus like a bitch.
"Yeah, see? Actually, my stats are already going down…" Chris sighed.
"So how exactly does this energy-draining work?" Asked Paul. "Don't be shy, and just tell me."
"W-Well, we don't really need to do anything; just touch," Chris sighed. "If the target is going through strong emotions or is in pain and dying, the energy drain becomes faster too."
"I see…" Paul nodded. "Thankfully, you're not forced to… Well, do that."
"Yeeeah, but the system keeps insisting on that!" Chris felt embarrassed again.
"For now, how about you try feeding off me?" Paul asked. "Here, grab my hand; that should do it, right?"
"But…" Chris felt embarrassed about even doing that with Paul, but there wasn't much of an option right now.
"Don't worry about it; let's see how you can do this first," Paul gave him comforting words.
"Okay, fine…" Chris nodded, touching Vlad's hand.
The moment he did, his womb tattoo glowed brightly, as he felt warm energy entering his body.
"Aahh… Ah, sh*t, this feels good…" Chris moaned almost in pleasure, making Paul even more embarrassed.
He quickly noticed his stamina and energy were slowly going down. There was no Health Point indicator in this game, but every person could naturally feel their own life force decreasing or increasing as they took damage or healed.
Perhaps an aspect of the game's realism was that there was no HP Bar, meaning that, unlike other games where taking enough damage on a single part of your body could eventually kill you, in this game, it was important to aim at the vitals instead.
Any player could survive taking damage in any area and could also instantly die if their head or heart were crushed. Also, being crippled by having their spine broken was a real problem.
Of course, there was healing magic to remedy most things; even potions and elixirs worked as well, but even then, there was still this internal Life Force, which increased the stronger a Player became.
This Life Force helped increase the natural recovery of wounds, managed stamina, and even seemed to affect Ki.
"Ugh, Chris, I think that's enough… I'm getting tired…" Paul groaned. "Chris?"
Vlad's crimson eyes opened wide as he realized Chris seemed to have slightly changed.
His cute red eyes glowed brightly, his wings became three times as large, and his long tail suddenly began wrapping around his arm.
"L-Let me suck a bit more…"
He slowly extended his tongue, which was longer than Paul thought, as he began licking his hand.
"Ahh~ Why is it so tasty? What the hell? I should just eat you up completely instead…"
"W-Wait! Stop it!"
Paul felt flustered, shocked, embarrassed, and aroused, but he quickly stopped Chris, giving him a little bonk in the head.
"Ouch! Hey! What- Eek!"
Chris came back from his daze after being bonked in the head, swiftly stepping back in embarrassment after letting go of Vlad.
"Agh… I'm so exhausted…" Paul felt completely tired, falling into the dark grass below. "Oof…"
He popped out a Stamina Pill and ate it. It slowly recovered some of his Life Force, but it wasn't enough, so he drank a blood bottle, and that finally did the trick.
"W-What the fuck did I do? That was freaky!" Chris said. "Sorry about that, dude; I didn't mean to..."
"A-Ah… Well, it's fine, I guess? This game is weird because it can directly affect our senses; I guess it's part of the Full Dive VR Technology," Paul sighed.
He was trying to forget the immense arousal he felt when Chris licked his hand; he had almost felt something down there beginning to rise, and it wasn't the Shield Hero.
Paul couldn't really believe that whole scene even happened, but he tried to regain his composure after he heard something moving across the tall grass.
"Ah, sh*t, right, we're inside a dungeon."
He stood back up, standing next to Chris.
"What's wrong?" Chris asked.
"Can't you hear them? There are monsters around. They're hiding in the grass; stay by my side," Paul said.
"Ah, right!" Chris' senses finally flared up once he regained his composure too.
The sound of slightly large creatures approaching became louder—not one or two, but three of them at once. The grasses shook rapidly; their movements were quick; they weren't even trying to hide anymore.
"They're here."
Vlad's eyes shone bright red as he detected something jumping towards him from his left.
"ROAR!"
It was a pitch-black wild dog, a Tier 1 monster of the lowest rank. It was around the size of an adult domestic labrador, and it had sharper fangs like those of actual wolves. Its crimson-red eyes shone amidst the darkness of the night, attempting to bite Vlad's face off.
"{Fireball}!"
Using his wand, Vlad quickly acted, conjuring a fireball roughly the size of his head, which was fired directly into the wild dog's head, exploding and engulfing the beast in burning flames.
BOOOM!
"Gryyaagh!"
The monster quickly fell to the floor and started crying and running away, but the flames consumed its entire body, dying after a few seconds.
"What the hell?! You know magic?!" Chris gasped, amazed.
"I learned a few things and imbued them into this wand I made." Vlad smiled confidently.
"H-He can do all of that already? Why is he so cool out of nowhere?" Chris thought, feeling rather shocked by this new facet of Paul he had not seen before.
"ROAR!"
The other two wild dogs pounced to attack. One of them aimed at Chris' legs, which he detected in time and used his wings to fly into the skies, evading a deadly bite. The second wolf jumped to bite his tail, though.
"Eek, don't bite my tail!"
"Just kick it and punch it! Abuse the fact that you can fly! Don't you have any weapons they gave you at the beginning?" Vlad asked as he handled the other Wild Dog by using his martial arts.
His punches were so weak at -90% stats that it was barely a joke to the Wild Dog, but each punch stole a piece of the monster's soul, weakening it.
"I got this thing, a trident sort of thing?"
Chris pulled out a black-colored trident from his inventory.
"Then use it! Quickly!"
"Got it!"
Chris quickly lunged the trident down; the Wild Dog evaded the attack because it was really obvious, and then used the trident to climb and attempt to bite the cute Incubus's face!
"Uwagh!"
Chris furiously punched the monster's stomach before it could get any closer and then kicked its face. He only had roughly 400 Strength, but that, coupled with his Lifeforce Stealing ability, was enough for the Wild Dog to drop dead.
"Eh? I killed it?"
He looked down at the monster; it was truly dead, and he also received a notification.
[You have absorbed +100 Lifeforce Energy from a Monster.]
[Your [Lust Stigma]: [Energy Absorption Realm (Tier 1: Rank 1)] has Ranked Up to Tier 1: Rank 2!]
[Your Sin Power has increased by +200.]
[Your Charm increased by +150.]
[Your Vitality and Dexterity increased by +100.]
[Your Strength has increased by +60.]
[You unlocked the Racial Skill: [Lifeforce Stealing Attack (B): Lv1]!]
[The Racial Skill: [Flight (B): Lv1] has Leveled Up!]
[The Class Skill: [Shenanigans (C): Lv1] has Leveled Up!]
"I got stronger… Now that feels good, this is nice! I didn't know I could just fight using this power." Chris smiled, feeling like things weren't so bad anymore.
"See? You can get stronger too!" Vlad smiled. "Now…"
He pointed his hands at the corpses but then stopped.
"No, wait, we'll need to sell these to make any money… Okay, let's just drain the blood then."
FLUOSH!
Chris looked in surprise as Paul rapidly absorbed the blood from the monster corpses and drank it fresh from the recent corpses.
[You have drunk the fresh blood of Monsters.]
[You gained +150 Blood Energy.]
(Blood Energy: 1.050/1.500)
If each Wild Dog gave him roughly 50 Blood Energy, he would need to beat nine more to get to Tier 2 Rank 2 at this pace, which is not bad at all.
It was a pity he couldn't just eat it, but with Chris around, it was better if he prioritized the two getting something out of it.
"So was that your vampiric power thingy? It looked pretty edgy, but cool," Chris laughed. "Do you get stronger like that?"
"Yeah, I need Blood Energy for my Blood Core to grow stronger. I get it by drinking fresh blood; old blood from bottles doesn't work," Vlad explained. "The corpses have now all bled, so they won't go bad any time soon. Let me store them; once we're done with the Dungeon, I'll distribute the spoils equally between the two. Is that alright with you?"
"Sure! I don't mind~" Chris smiled. "Thanks, Paul. I was really worried this class was shitty, but I ended up finding a way to fight. I'm kind of pumped up."
"Me too; I also felt like shit, but because I helped my sister, I ended up getting Arcana and magic books; with that, I was able to craft this wand and finally step out of my dammed manor," Paul sighed in relief. "We have to just work around our flaws and slowly improve."
"Right! I'm finally feeling the vibe of a fucking MMO now; let's go hunt and level up!" Chris had completely switched to his gamer mode.
"Haha, okay, slow down!" Paul ended up chasing Chris as he flew away, looking for monsters.
They advanced through the Instance Dungeon, checking the timer.
[Dungeon Time: 24 Minutes]
[Monsters Left: 7/10]
[Dungeon Boss: Alive]
This low-level dungeon only had a time limit of 30 minutes, ten monsters, and one boss. The way to complete a dungeon was to slay the boss; slaying the monsters wasn't a necessity, but anybody who wanted to grind would hunt them anyway.
If the timer went down to zero and the boss wasn't slain yet, the players would quickly get kicked out of the dungeon and appear behind the Dungeon Gate in the town. Then, they would have to wait five minutes before entering the dungeon; this cooldown would vary depending on the dungeon type. But the minimum was 5 minutes.
Or so was what Paul investigated online, and which Chris was listening to as he explained it to him while they hunted a group of four Wild Dogs.
"I see, that sounds pretty interesting, so you can just enter a Dungeon infinitely?"
Chris asked this question as he flew in the air, evading the Wild Dogs while provoking them with his high Charm Stat and then impaling their heads when they got close enough.
His new Skill: [Lifeforce Stealing Attack (B): Lv1] allowed him to not need to touch a foe to steal their life force, as long as they were holding a compatible "demon weapon," and the trident was one.
"Yeah, that's right, we can go as much as we want. The thing is, we'll eventually get too tired; this game is too realistic in some aspects after all," Vlad explained. "Also, my wand has a limited amount of Arcana; once it's down to zero, I won't even be able to move without its help."
As he explained, he fought two Wild Dogs at once, trying to preserve mana. He maneuvered in the air and evaded blows while hitting the monsters with his feeble punches.
The Wild Dogs felt their souls slowly being eaten bite after bite; it often took five to seven punches to kill them in this way. It was annoying, but it saved Arcana.
He would only fire a spell when he had no way to dodge.
Like right now.
"ROAR!"
"Shit, there was a fifth?!"
Paul panicked as he saw another Wild Dog jump from behind. He quickly conjured a spell to repel it as quickly as possible.
"{Ice Shard}!"
His golden cane glowed brightly as a small spear of ice was created out of thin air, firing towards the Wild Dog's open jaws and piercing its throat.
CLASH!
The Wild Dog dropped dead instantly; the Ice Shard Spell wasn't as explosive as the Fireball, but its piercing power was the best.
"Need some help~?"
Chris appeared from above before Paul was to get swarmed by more Wild Dogs, kicking them and then piecing their heads with his trident.
"Hah, thank you," Vlad didn't care if his kills got stolen; he gained Blood Energy anyway.
It was also better if Chris killed them, so he would get the most Lifeforce Energy out of them.
"You're welcome; I am totally carrying you right now, lol~" Chris laughed mischievously as he saw Vlad absorb the blood.
"Honestly, we're pretty even in terms of contribution... But you can indeed dish out damage easily; you can just fly very high and just evade all attacks. Flight's really a cheat…" Paul felt a bit jealous.
"Next time you get crippled, I'll just carry you on my back and kill monsters; you'll get carried by me and owe me a lot, haha!" Chris was savoring the moment.
"That actually sounds like a good strategy…" Paul was quite shameless about it and seemed to like being carried anyway. "Will you really carry me like that? It would be really nice of you."
"Eh? Ah…" Chris wanted to tease him, but Paul took it seriously. "There's no way! You're super heavy, dude; I wouldn't even be able to fly like that."
"Ah, yeah…" Paul sighed but also felt stronger after absorbing the Blood Energy.
[You have drunk the fresh blood of Monsters.]
[You gained +450 Blood Energy.]
(Blood Energy: 1.500/1.500)
[Your [Blood Core]: [Blood Refinement Realm (Tier 2: Rank 1)] has Ranked Up to Tier 2: Rank 2!]
[Your Blood Power has increased by +250.]
[Your Strength, Vitality, and Dexterity have increased by +200.]
[Your Arcana has increased by +100.]
[The Racial Skills: [Moonlight Boost (C): Lv1] and [Ogre's Muscles (C): Lv1] have Leveled Up!]
[The Class Skills: [Soul-Eating Fist Technique (S): Lv1] and [Treacherous (D): Lv1] have Leveled Up!]
[You Learned the Class Skill: [Beast Hunter (D): Lv1]!]
[Beast Hunter (D): Lv1]: [Increases Damage Dealt against Beast-type foes by 10%, decreases Damage taken from Beast-type foes by 5%.]
Vlad took a glance at his gains and felt satisfied enough. The Beast Hunter Skill seemed like a particularly good passive skill, so he equipped it quickly.
"I think these were the last monsters… Yeah, ten out of ten, they're all hunted."
[Dungeon Time: 14 Minutes]
[Monsters Left: 10/10]
[Dungeon Boss: Alive]
"Now what?" Chris asked.
"We hunt the Boss…"
Paul and Chris had been analyzing how the dungeon worked as they moved through it.
Despite the Dungeon resembling an endless grassland, its space was quite limited. They had walked enough to reach an invisible wall, and through their senses, which they expanded using the Auras of their respective Racial Abilities, they were able to more or less mentally map the layout of the entire dungeon.
Despite confusing people by making it seem like just a giant grassland, it was actually four huge rooms interconnected by small passages, which were all invisible. They moved through the first three rooms; the fourth was the last, and they wondered where the boss might be located.
"The gates in this weird dungeon are invisible too; they open automatically once you get close enough, and the monsters jump out of nowhere," Paul explained.
"Yeah, it's really weird... But I kind of like the vibe it has~" Chris seemed to be having fun.
And Paul too.
Playing the game alone was okay and fun, but with a friend, things always became more interesting and fun.
Teamwork was indeed necessary when both had awful flaws too.
"I think it's around here- Ah!"
The moment they stepped forward, suddenly, the huge body of a creature surged from the grassland.
The invisible gate had already opened, revealing the beast hiding in the last room.
"GRRHHH…"
It was a two-and-a-half-meter-tall Wild Wolf, the Tier 1: Rank 5 Boss of the Dungeon.
It was four ranks above the other monsters, who were only between Tier 1 Rank 1 to 2!
"ROOAR!"
The beast was getting ready to attack.
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