TW: Gore, blood, made up philosophy.
As the hidden adult in the house, Xiao Xun considers himself a very good parent.
Although Cecil did everything, he always remembered to thank him and say he was the best, he listened very carefully to Cecil when he told him not to touch the stove or the fire pit and overall, he kept the house in a good atmosphere with his liveliness.
[It sounds more like you are the child and Cecil is your very tired mother. Not even a grown child, a spoiled one.]
"Do I have a choice?"
It was true, not only did Cecil insist on doing everything himself, Xiao Xun couldn't help much.
As a vampire who has just transformed, Edmund has become very sensitive to light and extremely weak. Cecil even hung dark fabrics over all the windows of the house, turning the originally warm stone structure into something more like a grand tomb.
It turns out that the stronger a vampire is, the less obvious the race's characteristics are.
Xiao Xun looked at his pale skin and black nails and then at the normal-looking Cecil dusting the bookshelves, who didn't look like a walking corpse even a little bit:...
The gap is so big.
Just the fact that the experienced Xiao Xun didn't notice something odd about Cecil's appearance when they first met showed how great Cecil's power was.
The sunny child, with his blue eyes and tanned skin, didn't look like a vampire at all.
Xiao Xun assured himself to get stronger quickly, he wouldn't be able to go to the academy looking like humanity's greatest enemy.
Since vampires, well, hunt humans, humans don't like them very much in return.
Every year a wanted poster comes out about one or another vampire with an astronomical sum of money on his head. Cecil was terrified at the thought of Edmund being hunted like this and did not allow him to leave the house alone.
He himself hunted everything Edmund needed as a turned vampire, he even bothered to make the dishes pleasing to the eye.
As long as Edmund did not find out what was the meal made of or leave the house during the day, he could imagine that everything was as usual.
Overall, he was very considerate of his mental stability. If he didn't have a job to do, Xiao Xun could agree to just play dead and do nothing all day, making the huge sacrifice of just eating and reading all day. But his work forced him to realize that not everything can be peaceful forever, being lazy now can lead to horrific consequences after this world. To be nominated for trial for failure of mission... He didn't know much about the central world's prison, but his common sense led him to assume that it wasn't much more fun than a normal prison.
"Cecil, when will you teach me?"
Cecil stopped polishing the already polished table, "Is it a little early, Edmund? Maybe we'll wait for you to get stronger?"
He didn't know exactly what Cecil was putting in the food, but he recovered a bit after eating it. The system gave him a lot of crap reminding him of the different treatment between eating Cecil's unidentified food and Elisha's, his fake sister.
'Are you really comparing what is clearly one of the sources of abnormality between someone who has proven time and time again that he won't hurt me?'
[He did not appear in the original plot either, and I have a bad feeling about him.]
Xiao Xun ignored this, so far his system's feelings had not taken its far.
"I don't want to wait, Cecil, I want to study now."
"Alright," He rubbed the table so hard that Xiao Xun thought it would make a hole in it, "we'll start tomorrow."
****************************************
In the middle of the destinated night, the full moon reflected in the barrel filled with dark liquid.
"Every vampire has the power to channel the magic in creatures's blood into him," The last time Cecil looked this serious was when he threatened to kill himself "And every creature has magic in its blood."
"The problem with turned vampires is that they still think as prey and not predators. They reject the natural power that vampires have subconsciously out of inherited fear of their ancestors." At some point, his sparse vocabulary was replaced with textbook-like speech, "As long as you consciously and actively absorb the blood, your innate resistance should slowly disappear. You should recognize that you are drawing other people's blood into your own body."
Something in the words 'consciously' and 'recognize' made Xiao Xun wonder what the fork he ate under Cecil's supervision, yet he pushed those thoughts away and continued to listen intently to his words.
"Unite yourself with the blood.
Make your body aware of its new animal nature.
Surrender to the power that the moon's goddess penetrates into... wait, what? Never mind, skip the last paragraph..."
It finally dawned on Xiao Xun that Cecil's 'new vocabulary' was actually a textbook. In the dim light, he could just hear Cecil flipping briskly through a stack of papers.
"Here! Edmund, you need to get in the bath and pray you'll have magic powers."
[Are you sure you trust this guy? He basically described the bedtime routine of a seven year old.]
'Then how lucky I am to be seven years old.'
It slowly enters the already full barrel, causing the blood to flood everywhere and water the ground around it. Watching his entire skin coated in paint, Xiao Xun had to admit that Cecil's book was right. Even he, who had caused quite a few people to bleed, felt a momentary tingle when he saw his body covered in the sticky substance.
He recognized the fear of the prey within him.
As a human, he was born to worry a little when he was bleeding or injured. There was always an unconscious fear that his life would end abruptly in one way or another. If he really wanted to deeply understand the essence of the vampire, he had to become one with the blood. To feel the source of life enveloping him from the inside and the outside at the same time.
And the final step, Xiao Xun understood without needing Cecil's book to tell him so, was not to fear his absence.
As a predator, he has no concern for dying. Although he longs for the source of life, he does not need it to survive.
To become a supreme vampire, he must not only become one with the blood but also control it.
You can't control something when you need it.
Xiao Xun bit his wrist with his new fangs, causing his blood to mix with the blood in the barrel.
Despite the dim light, Cecil's keen senses alerted him to Edmund's actions, "What are you doing! Admund!"
Xiao Xun didn't listen to him and just bit deeper into his arm, completely draining his blood out.
So, right on the brink of death, when Cecil was already crying helplessly from fear, he started drinking.
A thirst he had never felt filled his throat and his mind. Suddenly, the blood that had repulsed him seemed pleasing to the eye. He drank his blood mixed with unknown blood with pleasure, knows no satiety.
He continued this way until the barrel filled only Edmund's body, empty of any other liquid. Xiao Xun stopped himself from kneeling on the ground and licking the spilled blood. Although he craved it, he didn't owe it to his survival, and he certainly wouldn't sacrifice his royal honor for blood.
He is a vampire.
He slowly got out of the barrel, seeing everything as sharp as in the daylight. He smiled at the crying face of Cecil, who stopped searching frantically in the ancient book, full of runes he could now see he was holding the moment he got out.
Extending his hand towards him, as an equal among equals, he said the first sentence of his new life: "Won't you wish me a happy birthday?"
Cecil jumped on him happily, unfazed by the blood that stained him all over.
After all, he was too, a vampire.