By the time the charming man had finished off his last opponent, I had completed forming the new layers on my lifeblood crystal. This time when I looked at him, I didn't feel affected by his charm for some reason.
I felt something trying to creep into my mind, but I mentally swatted it away. Maybe forming the crystal had increased my mental fortitude. The man looked at me, and I looked at him. He rushed up to me in a blur. One second he was a hundred feet away, and the next he was right in front of me.
Unfortunately, for him, I was faster. I had prepared a gut punch to greet his arrival. It launched him into the air. He did a backflip and landed on his feet clutching his stomach.
"Bastard!" He said. "You're stronger than they said you would be."
"I'm stronger than I was a few hours ago," I replied. "Are you the one they sent to kill me?"
"Yes. But it doesn't seem I'm going to be able to," he said. "They will send others."
"Thanks for the warning," I said. I charged him in an instant and threw a few punches to his midsection. He was only fast enough to block one. The other two connected.
He fell to the ground and spat out blood. "You don't have to kill me," he said.
"I'm not," I said. "I'm going to do worse. I'm going to take your strength."
I plunged my finger into his back and drained some of his life essence. Just the parts that would be useful to me. He could keep all the lesser realms of strength.
[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 4 of the Senior Vampire Elite Realm!]
[You have extracted a vampiric ability. Daze. When you activate the ability, weaker minds that try to focus on your face will enter a mild daze, making them slower to react to your actions or attacks]
[Would you like to assimilate Daze into your list of abilities or would you like to convert it into life essence?]
'Assimilate.'
[You have assimilated Daze. Would you like to view your list of abilities?]
'No.' I thought. I only had the one, so viewing my abilities would be useless at this point.
The no longer charming vampire lay defeated and bleeding on the ground. I picked him up and threw him hundreds of feet out of the ring.
The crowd cheered. The announcer came up to me. "Congratulations on winning the outer sect disciple competition! Umm…"
"Dylan Sanguis," I said.
"Dylan Sanguis! Exciting development folks. The winner of the competition is a no name! That hasn't happened since, since Victoria Sanguis, many years ago!" The announcer said.
The crowd cheered and roared. "No name! No name! No name!" They chanted. "Dylan Sanguis! Dylan Sanguis! Dylan Sanguis!"
"I haven't gotten this much applause from a crowd in well, ever," I said.
"Don't get used to it," the announcer said under his breath. "This crowd is fickle. Trust me."
"I know. Most crowds are," I said, being a veteran performer myself.
"Alright, folks! Dylan Sanguis isn't going home empty-handed! He isn't going home at all, in fact, because he lives at the vampire academy now. I mean, we're giving him something for winning!" The announcer said.
The crowd cheered and roared again.
"We're giving him a brand new car! Wait, that's not correct. What would he do with a car in a building underground?" The announcer started shuffling cards. "Here it is! We're giving him lifeblood pills, vitalus pills, and a shitty, I mean, shiny sword!"
"Woooo!!!!" The crowd cheered. "Dylan, I want your babies!" Said a random woman in the crowd. The crowd stopped for a moment and all stared at her. And then they said, "Wooooo!!!" Again.
"Thank you! Thank you! You're too kind!" I said into the microphone.
"Alright, that's a wrap, folks. Time to go home!" The announcer said.
"Ahhhh!!!" The crowd whined before dispersing.
The announcer handed me two small pill bottles and a sword and scabbard that he had around his waist. "Here you go, kid. Don't spend it all in one place." He winked at me and then followed after the crowd, leaving me alone in the courtyard.
I quickly pocketed the pills and put the scabbard around my waist. The charming vampire had mentioned assassins would be after me, so I had to be prepared for an attack at any moment.
I didn't know where to go though. I supposed I could go back to my dorm room. I still had the map with me and the key. I started making my way to my dorm room.
As I got to the dorm building, I went inside and started walking down a long hall to my room. The lights in the hall flickered and sputtered. I looked at them for a moment, and then when I looked back down the hall, there were three assassins walking down the hall towards me.
They had their swords drawn and masks on their faces. "Hey guys, can we do this outside? I don't want to damage the walls." They looked at each other and then at me and started running towards me. "I guess not!" I said.
I pulled out my sword and prepared to defend myself. I activated my daze ability. They all looked at me and slowed down a bit. It was like they were drunk.
I swung my sword at one of them, and they blocked, but I followed it up with a kick to his chest, and he flew backwards into the other assassins, knocking them over. I ran up to them before they could get up and swung down on them.
They all blocked my sword, but I slammed my foot down onto one of their feet, crushing it. While pressing my sword down on their swords to keep them occupied, I smashed all of their feet under my boots.
Then I backed up to see how I did. They got up, but they could barely walk. I waited for one of them to come at me, and I cut off their sword hand and plunged my sword into their back.
The next one I slid onto a knee and slashed their stomach open. The third one, I slashed his throat. Blood sprayed on my face.
I wasn't very good with a sword yet, but I had played around with one enough in my teen years to kill three charm drunk assassins. So I guess I wasn't terrible.
[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 9 of the Lesser Vampire Master Realm!]
I thought I would feel more from killing people, but I didn't. They tried to kill me. I was just defending myself. I didn't see anything wrong with that.
I wiped the blood off my sword on their clothes and put it back in the scabbard. I went through their clothes to see if I could find anything but they didn't have anything on them except their swords. So I took their swords.
I opened my dorm room. It was dark, so I put the swords just inside the door and turned on the light. Victoria was standing on the other side of the room. Apparently she had been standing in the dark. Like a weirdo.