The awkward moves from yesterday seemed like a distant dream and the one fighting in front of him looked like a seasoned baron. The moves flowed perfectly in a rhythm too familiar to Brad, as he had been practicing them for all his life.
‘ Is that his ability as well or he is a hidden genius.’ Brad thought.
As for Keith, he was performing all the complicated moves without batting an eye. His silhouette slashed forward and countered his uncle’s every attack. He knew Brad wasn’t going all out but his output had increased.
‘ He’s not even using direct blood-qi suppression. Most of his blood-qi is internalized. He is keeping his distance from my hand and solely using martial arts like me.’
What he wanted was to force him to techniques, so he could study it, more precisely the system could record it. But he didn’t see any new techniques displayed by his uncle.
‘ I want to know how he created that sword, the Esper power is something I really need. I don’t know if I can practice that, well I won’t know until I try.’ Several thoughts ran in his head as he was fighting.
His martial art model was getting perfect with each exchange of blows, but that was it. No new techniques were shown.
“You are getting good at this! If nobody knew who you were, they would think you are some kind of genius.” Blocking the attacks with his hands, Brad spoke up.
” You overpraise me! I’m just curious about new things.” Keith replied with a smile.
” How is your frame creation going? Did you conceptualize a valid frame?”
“Not yet, I think the blood-qi requirement is higher, so I need more time to generate a suitable warrior frame.” Keith replied.
” This will take time, so you need to be patient about it. I heard you will go to the academy after a couple of months. I hope you can create a good frame before that.”
” I will try my best. Can you tell me how you make that sword?” Keith asked suddenly.
” I’m afraid I can’t. Not because I don’t want to, because you can’t use it now. Even though I will be violating the laws of the council, that is not my biggest concern. The Esper techniques require an innate affinity and more blood-qi requirement than blood-warriors. when you can’t even generate a warrior frame, it will be waste of time if you try to practice Esper techniques.”
” How about after I learn the warrior frame? Will you teach me the Esper technique?” Keith looked at Brad in anticipation.
” If you can create a baron-level warrior frame, I will teach you the fundamentals of Blood-Esper discipline. How about that?” Brad raised his eyebrows with interest.
” Sounds good to me.”
The spar continued for hours until Keith exhausted himself. He could still spar, but compared to Brad who was a battle monster, he was nowhere near with regards to stamina.
After coming back to his room, he plopped down on his bed.
‘Man, I am still short on blood-qi to create the viscount level warrior frame. I guess I have to settle with a baron-level frame for now. I wish I had more money. I could ask grandpa, but taking such a huge sum will surely arouse suspicion, and someone could look into it out of curiosity.’ Keith shook his head.
Getting back up, he walked out of his room and entered Rena’s room. It was not noon yet, and the sky was relatively dark. When he entered the room he saw a clean shining space, which he couldn’t believe was empty for who knows how long. Rena was cleaning the windows with a short broom.
She noticed the door open and turned around to see who had come. Her face lit up as she saw him standing inside the room.
” Young master, welcome! Sorry if things are not set up properly, but I will finish everything up in an hour.” Rena dusted off her dress which was a little dusty.
” No, you did a great job, I think it looks very good. Especially when you consider the room was in shambles. I am surprised you could pull this off in one day.” Keith admired the decoration as he looked around the room.
” Oh! I was here to tell you that I will be out of the castle for today. So don’t go looking for me. And it’s not what you think, I won’t be in danger.”
” I will believe you. But anything unexpected can come up, so always be careful.”
” Alright, you stay here. Don’t go wandering around the castle.”
After assuring her, he left the castle and came to the plaza below the hill.
He already spent all his money while leveling up his blood-qi. Now he was left with barely any blood coins. He wanted to find more ways in which he could acquire vampire blood without arousing any suspicions.
He walked across the street covering his face with a hooded leather jacket. After looking around for some time he found a group looking at a wall. He approached the group and saw a poster for a hunt.
It was for a group of humans who went missing a couple of days earlier. There have been sightings of low-level ghouls outside the city walls. Due to the vast blood forests outside the settlement, the city guards usually gave these tasks to mercenaries. The reward for eradicating ghouls was two gold-blood coins per ghoul.
He saw his grandpa’s signature stamp on the bottom right corner of the poster. There was no serious requirement for the post except it wanted vampires above the 4th stage of blood-condensing phase.
Especially when barons were rare in the society, it made sense that there were no barons in mercenary business, at least not in this settlement. So he didn’t mind giving it a go. He also wanted to test out another theory.
‘ Well, it’s a collective job for low-level vampires, so there won’t be any dangers anyway. And the rewards are not that bad for a simple hunt like this. But first I need to cover my face. I showed it to the manager of that blood shop, but from now on I will keep it hidden while doing these kinds of things.’
He took out a mask that he bought earlier. It was a simple black-colored leather mask that was covering his face below the eyes. Then he walked towards the registration office which was around the corner.
Several people were waiting there to be registered. He waited patiently for his turn and looked at all the mercenaries. They were all around the mid-stages of the blood condensing phase. The one doing the registration was at the 6th stage, wearing the uniform of the city guards.
‘ I was so immersed in fighting with a viscount that I forgot how I was already stronger than most of the vampires.’
When his turn came he filled out the documents. He changed his name and other details. The recruiter read the form and stamped it. He handed Keith a metal tag.
” Here you go, ah… Drew right?”
” Yes,” Keith replied.
” Stay together and don’t wander around the blood forest.” The recruiter warned before moving to the next applicant.
‘Stay together, hah! Like I will purposefully lower my reward.’ A soft chuckle escaped Keith’s mouth inside the mask.