Once he had completed the strength test, Kang moved on to the constitution test, which measured everything, including his speed and perception. Ultimately, all of his metrics were S-rank except for speed, as he preferred to fake it.
With the tests out of the way, Kang allowed his records to become public since he wanted them globally acknowledged to ease his future matters. It didn't take long for his identity to be registered and printed, and global acknowledgment was just a matter of time.
The next thing Kang did was open a bank account and link it to his contact number so he could receive payment for the weapon from James. A little later, Yuna took him around the city to help him decide which building he wanted for the guild's headquarters while they waited for the payment.
Soon, Kang chose a towering structure close to the water, which made him imagine the view once it was completed. Although it was still under construction, Kang didn't mind paying extra to speed up the process. Afterward, Yuna drove Kang to the estate office, where he paid a little more than five hundred million coins to own it outright.
Since Kang had to wait for a week, he ordered Yuna to book him a temporary hotel room before heading over to register the Golden Sun as a guild. With nothing else to do, Kang rested in his room while checking out the hunter site he now had access to.
The site contained a list of freelancing services, gate rights for sale, and most importantly, information he wouldn't have known otherwise. A-ranked gates were those with one or two horrors as the final target the hunters needed to kill for the gate to collapse, and Kang saw it as a good way to put the girl to the test.
Since the 12-floor building needed a week to be completed, Kang decided to purchase an A-ranked gate to test Yuna's combat efficiency and abilities and, most importantly, to level up himself. Because the goal was to test her skills, Kang prevented her from using her current weapon and created a weak acid weapon for her to use.
'I see, so they are too aggressive toward humans for some reason.' Accompanying Yuna, Kang noticed how the beasts were swarming both of them compared to their behavior back at the rift. Surprisingly, the gate had a fairly low number of beasts despite being A-ranked. The A-ranked beasts were three, and the B-ranked ones were five. The rest were a mix of lower-ranked beasts, totaling about 100 in all.
"That's enough for now, you should rest until tomorrow." Ending Yuna's training session, Kang fended off the horrors, allowing her some time to leave before following her out. Sure enough, the beasts calmed down the moment she left, telling Kang that something was driving the beasts to attack humans specifically. "Is it perhaps the fact that I'm a blood fiend that keeps them away?" Kang thought, considering that blood fiends were native to Earth, which led him to suspect this as the reason.
But then, the mutated horrors, also natives of Earth, were never attacked by the beasts like humans were. Humans weren't weak either, so it couldn't be considered bullying behavior, leading Kang to dismiss his suspicion as likely false.
"Time to replenish some blood." With Yuna out of the way, Kang released his tendrils and activated Lifesteal. Soon enough, the familiar message appeared in front of him.
[Lifesteal activated!]
[You've stolen 19,900 blood and three hundred years' worth of life force]
[Ding!]
[Conditions are met, do you wish to undergo the trial and upgrade your class to Blood Demon(D)?]
"Blood Demon? Hmm? Never mind, I think that's too early to engage." Knowing the message appeared once he met conditions for the first time, Kang didn't hesitate to reject it before activating his Power Absorption.
[Power absorption activated!]
[Pick three abilities from the following: Heartburn(B), Wind Slash(C), Terror(D), Disorient(A), Siphon(B), Thunder Strike(B), Nature's Blessing(A), Harden(D)]
"Oh my! That's quite a lot." Surprised by the variety of the abilities he got compared to when he hunted in the rift, Kang had a broad grin painting his face below the mask. First, Kang avoided Thunder Strike due to being an elemental attack, the same for Wind Slash and Nature's Blessing.
But since he could choose 3 from the eight abilities offered to him, Kang picked Nature's Blessing due to its high rank, coupled with Disorient and Terror. Although Terror was lower ranked compared to the rest, Kang could guess what the rest could do. Which resulted in him choosing it.
[Extraction successful… Blood Pact(A) added to Absorbed Abilities.]
[Blood Pact (A): Offer a fifty-year lifespan to strengthen an ally in return for 1% of the Exp of their future kills below A-rank.]
[Extraction successful… Disorient(A) added to Absorbed Abilities.]
[Disorient(A): Consume 200 Blood to mess up the target's senses for thirty seconds]
[Extraction successful… Terror(D) added to Absorbed Abilities.]
[Terror(D): Consume 100 Blood to strike and force the target into a crazed state for ten seconds]
"Sweet, that's very amusing but I need that vacancy. Merge Terror and Disorient if possible." Having one slot left in his absorbed abilities tap, Kang decided to merge two of his new skills. In the worst-case scenario, Kang thought about merging ability fusion and precision as well to free up more space.
[Affirmative, merging Terror(D), Disorient(A)...]
[Merging Progress…15%...31%...51%…78%...100%]
[Merging successful…Disorient(A) upgraded succesfully]
[Disorient(A): Consume 200 Blood to mess up the target's senses and force the target into a crazed state for twenty seconds]
"That's enough, for now, time to level up." Following Kang's words, he proceeded to hunt a couple of C-ranked beasts to level up. Soon enough, Kang was level 15!
[Your level increased! You've gained 5 attribute points!]
Dismissing the system message, Kang summoned his status window to have a quick look before leaving the gate.
{Blood Warlock System}
[Blood: 58,316 | Lifespan: 1,229]
[Class Evolution Path: Blood Demon(D)]
[Level: 15 | Exp: 10,000/1,024,000]
[Attribute Points: 5]
[Absorbed Abilities (8\10)]
[Disorient(A): Consume 200 Blood to mess up the target's senses and force the target into a crazed state for twenty seconds]
[Blood Pact (A): Offer a fifty-year lifespan to strengthen an ally in return for 1% of the Exp of their feature kills below A-rank.]
"That's quite enough. For the time being, I should prepare myself for the evolution trial and hire someone to collect those mana stones for us." With the hunters' payment in mind, Kang decided to hire some porters through the hunters' website. They were quite cheap compared to how much hunters earned, but Kang didn't hesitate to pay them well enough as long as they met his expectations.
"Ah shit, I forgot to get a storage ring for myself. Man, I wish I could apply compression on it." Having forgotten about it, Kang was forced to use his leather bag once again. Although it didn't bother him, storing it inside himself was becoming a problem due to its size, which he couldn't apply compression to.