"Sleep?" I said.
"Yes, sleep," Elder Ravenkin said. "We've been going for eight hours straight! You should be happy with what you've achieved today. It can take most cultivators several weeks if not months to complete a single level of the Vi Condensation Stage. You've completed thirteen levels in a single day!"
"Do you have any idea how rare that is? You are the most talented cultivator I've ever met. You're only supposed to take one of those pills at a time. It's a miracle you aren't dead. You are a genius among geniuses. Be thankful to have been so blessed and accept that everyone needs rest, even geniuses."
"Ok," I said. "When you put it that way, it makes me sounds greedy."
"You are! If I didn't know better, I'd say you were secretly a dragon. Now off to bed with you. I'll show you to your room," he said.
-
I slept in a guest bedroom. The window had really good drapes. They kept the light out really well. They had to since the artificial light on the ceiling of the floor that housed the vampire academy never turned off.
It made some sense. If the lights turned off, it would be pitch black. No one would be able to see at night. In order to see in the dark, there had to be at least a tiny amount of light, since that's what your eyes are doing when you see in the dark.
They're detecting a small amount of light. With no light, your eyes see nothing. I supposed they could have an artificial moon on the ceiling, but maybe it wasn't set up for that. Who knows. I didn't design the place.
I made my way downstairs to the kitchen to see if Ravenkin had a coffee maker. It turns out he did. He had one of those pod coffee makers. And he had every flavor of pod known to man and vampire. There were even blood flavors. Tinny, rich, thin—you name it, he had it.
I tried the rich blood flavor and immediately spat it back into my cup. Even with being a vampire, it was gross.
"The flavor of blood takes some getting used to," Elder Ravenkin said. "It's an acquired taste." Apparently, he'd been sitting off to the side at a counter island thing that looked kind of like a breakfast bar. It was really nice.
It had these large incandescent lights that hung from the ceiling down to just a foot above where a person's head would be. The countertop looked like granite too. It must have been insanely expensive just to make that breakfast bar.
That's enough of me gushing over good interior design though. "Yeah, I'm clearly not used to it yet. I think I'll try a mocha pod instead," I said, putting the pod in the coffee maker and making myself a new cup of coffee.
I sat down next to him at the coffee bar. It had muffins, bagels, and donuts in a clear plastic casing as well as various fruit off to the side. I sat there in thought eating a banana and drinking my coffee when it occurred to me to ask, "Why do I have a heart beat again? Shouldn't it be still since I'm undead or whatever?"
"Using the stolen life essence we've accumulated, we can simulate life in our undead bodies, making it function at its peak potential performance. That's part of the Vi Condensation Stage. Without simulating life, our bodies become decrepit over time and slowly age, except we don't die when our body becomes too frail to support itself. We kind of just collapse in on ourselves until we're crippled from rigor mortis and riddled with dementia," Ravenkin said.
"Keep in mind that this continuously uses up our accumulated life essence. That's why it's so important to learn how to constantly absorb the ambient life essence in the air. It's so we don't deplete our accumulated life essence and become weaker."
"Interesting. Is that where the image of the Nosferatu vampire comes from?" I said, thinking of the movie with the bald creepy vampire.
"Partially. The other part is artist interpretation. None of us really look like that, but they had to do really exaggerated makeup effects back then for it to be noticeable on the screen due to poor image quality," he said.
"That makes sense," I said, finishing my banana and coffee. "So what are we doing today?"
"We're finishing up the last two levels of the Vi Condensation Stage, and then you get to go on a field trip," he said.
"Oh boy! I love field trips!" I said sarcastically. "Where am I going?"
"You're going into one of the vampire controlled portals to farm life essence from the creatures on the other side. You need more life essence to complete the Blood Foundation Establishment phase," he said, ignoring my sarcasm.
"Let's get started then," I said. He followed me to the studio we spent eight hours in yesterday.
"Ok, the fourteenth level of the Vi Condensation Stage is called Vi Surge. It's where you rapidly circulate Vi through your Nexus point network. This allows you a temporary burst of Vi enhanced strength, agility, and energy," he said.
I envisioned what circulating Vi through my Nexus network would look like. It would involve every single Nexus point having Vi flowing into it and out of it at the same time. This meant I had to carefully calculate and choose which pathways should be transporting Vi and the direction they should be transporting it at all times.
It had to create a continuous flow too. There couldn't be stops and starts or changes in direction. It took me nearly an hour experimenting with different pathways and direction flows to get an endless circulating flow of Vi through my Nexus point network.
It took all my concentration to do it. I couldn't imagine trying to circulate my Vi and moving my body around at the same time, let alone setting up attacks and defenses with external Vi use.
After another hour of deep concentration, I was able to circulate my Vi while doing 'the wave' dance move with my arms repeatedly. After another hour, I was able to stop 'the wave' and change directions back and forth. After another hour I was able to throw a series of one two punches, while staying on the balls of my feet.
After another hour I was able to think about moving my body in anyway I wanted spontaneously while continuing to circulate my Vi. Then one more hour in I was able to employ external Vi empowerments and external blood control.
"Ok, what's the last step?" I said.
"If you're able to continuously circulate your Vi throughout your body without taking breaks while being able to use external Vi and blood control techniques, then you already did the last step," he said.
"The last step is Perfect Vi Condensation Mastery, and it looks like you already have that. That is truly incredible. You were able to completely master Vi Condensation in less than two days."
"Nice! What's next?" I said, hopping up and down on my feet.
"I don't think you truly appreciate what you've accomplished. It takes most vampire cultivators years to master Vi Condensation," he said, really putting emphasis on his words.
"No, I get that I'm amazing and that I've basically achieved the unachievable. It's just that I have my sights set on achieving the goals of defeating the dragon sect and clearing out their portals that they're losing control of. And since I haven't achieved those yet, I don't feel like I have the luxury to celebrate," I said.
"I suppose that makes sense," he said, scratching his chin. "To answer your question, next is you go on a field trip into our easiest portal, which still takes an entire team of vampire cultivators to clear out. Your goal is to clear the portal by yourself. There is no time limit. You just have to complete it."
"That doesn't sound too hard. I welcome the challenge," I said, cracking my knuckles.