CH41

Spring 43, 11M 495Y

Cainite Territory 

Bavilim Outskirts 

They were given leave within spitting distance of their destination. 5 of Gabriel's squad mates had already left, with locals abandoning their armor and weapons for life under vampire rule. Gabriel spat on the ground. How could they betray humanity? He gazed at the town and despaired.

Human children littered the roads, slowly making their way back home in the dead of night. Vampire female minders sang to them songs that taught history, vocabulary, and mathematics. Massive group homes dotted the castle's surroundings, filled to the brim with families. Undead abominations tended fields instead of farmers or druids. They worked tirelessly at all hours to support the vampire's true food supply. There were so many children on the roads led by female vampire teachers. He counted a hundred as they marched, and they made him feel like everything he knew was a lie.

The vampires all held amusement in their glowing red eyes. Gabriel felt less like a hero avenging his sister and more like a lamb led to the slaughter. Sure, their weapons were effective against weak vampires, but they did nothing against the strong ones. What tool did he have that could pierce the vampire's shield? All of it, from recruitment to training, and finally, the march felt like a trap.

If he fled in battle, Prog would put a bullet in his back, and his armor would do nothing against Prog's hand cannon. Why send humans only trained for 6 weeks instead of squads of trolls? Attacking during the middle of the night sounded like a horrible tactic against vampires.

The more he thought about the situation and the inconsistencies, the less he felt in control. Then again, hadn't he sold his control away for a chance at revenge. He gained a level in Knight for killing one of the new vampires.

At level 18, he was nearly a 5th of the way to mastering his class and gaining his second one. He had planned for something like marksman to round out his attributes. More perception could help gain back sensation and fine motor control.

He felt a hand grip his arm, and he turned to see one of the vampire women looking up at him. The rest of his squad continued walking.

She started talking in a husky voice. "You look like a strong young man; why don't you spend the night with me, and you could stay to help teach these children. Isn't teaching the next generation better than throwing your life away. I could give myself to you, and I doubt you'll even need to be turned. Knights have 7 attribute points instead of the normal 5 per level, and that is very handsome. Take up the Dark Knight, which will give you 9, and Dark Paladin with 12, and you could equal a 5th-rank master vampire. Dark Knight gives 5-point Vitality bonuses every 5 levels, so you could live much longer than normal humans." Gabriel had tensed under her hold and slowly inched his other hand to his sword. "What I'm trying to say is you are a nice young man with potential. Don't waste your life in this mad pursuit for revenge when you could be happy." She said.

"We've never met. How could you know why I fight?"

"I've been a vampire for 20 years. So, tell me if you heard this story before. A young man's sister, lover, mother, or daughter was bitten in their home and taken. So, the young man seeks to get revenge and throws himself into training. He happens to have the knight class, and instead of going for the lucrative job of an adventurer or some rich guy's guard, you joined the governor's Vampire Hunters. I see boys just like you every year. They are all so handsome. I love your blonde hair." She smiles sweetly with her lips closed, hiding her fangs. "Everyone like you dies or is turned and killed before they grow too strong. If you go into that castle, I will probably taste your blood when it's sold on the market in town tomorrow night. Well, number 20, what do you say, stay or go?" She asked.

Gabriel felt like this was his one chance to leave the death march. Prog hadn't turned back or raised his gun while the men marched to the gathering point. The others only looked back at him when they passed him by with a sneer on their faces.

"How many have stayed?"

He felt his amulet heat up as he looked at the black stone towers. For his sister, he would risk his life.

"That's not important." 

His heart hammered in his chest in indecision until he remembered the smirk on that vampire's face. Gabriel couldn't stop. He was on the path; there was no going back, whether he lived or died.

"Then I can only go."

"Fool, my brother tried to save me, and he was turned in that castle. He rapes girls like me every night. It's in his nature to rape. That's what you become if you don't die; you'll become the thing you're fighting. I will do it to you or someone else will. We'll rape you again and again until you turn." The woman snarled.

"I can't leave this path anymore. What's your brother's name?"

"Private Gabriel, get back in line, or we'll list you as MIA," Prog said.

"…" He heard the name and remembered the terror in his sister's eyes.

"If I become that man, I'll kill myself before I do what he does," Gabriel said.

He heard her laugh as he marched to join the others.

…

Day 22 

More practice was needed than I originally planned. Once against, I was in the blackness constructing a fused skill in the stopped time. Months flew by as I studied the intricacies of skills until I gained a greater understanding of them. It was to the point I didn't think I would need the system for many more decades. The more I studied the intricacies of skills, the more I realized the system might be one big skill in itself.

It was a theory one I wouldn't write any papers about or debate with people online about. Voicing that the Weston system was just a skill, something that could be farmed in a dungeon, was ludicrous. I would have to be off my rocker to even think it. With that in mind, I decided to take the next obvious step in skill fusion.

My farmer skills needed to be merged into something more usable. Having numerous skills sounded good, but I needed to know. What was the difference between dungeon skills and class skills generated by the system?

I knew the answer in my heart, but I refused to accept it. The system was one of the pillars that separated men from monsters. While even some monsters had access to it, they were formerly human. Monsters in dungeons could receive messages from the dungeon but not from the Weston system.

From the safety of the timeless void, I pried open a system-generated skill and found it half-optimized. No, it was optimized for humans but not for me. That distinction was frightening.

There was a hard limit on the number of system-generated skills a human could have. Attributes helped expand those limits, and limits by level helped limit that further. I wasn't fooled. There was a soft cap around level 250. Lvl100 and lvl1 granted 4 skills. Not all classes could deal with it. People would eventually go insane given enough time, even with the low number of skills. Maybe that was why few classes gave Vitality other than farmer one of the most useful classes for civilization and a hard one to level. Food would always be necessary, and farmers produced it in abundance thanks to their skills dedicated to altering the land to produce ever more food.

Farmer was also light on skills. I should gain two or three skills every 10 levels; instead, I gain 1. That had to be by design. Since farmers had vitality increases from the beginning and would live longer, those in power didn't want them to go insane. At lvl100 I should have 203 to 210 Vitality. That could put my lifespan at 200+, not counting any lifespan pills or attribute fruit that increased Vitality.

With that in mind, I optimized my system-generated skills before I even thought about merging them. I was leaning heavily into my Wisdom attribute when I did that; it was far easier to optimize before fusion than after. I might have saved myself a week of work. Agility helped my hands race faster to put together an Avatar-like frame for the skill connected to my body, something I couldn't only do after nearly two decades of practice in time stop.

The fun had only just begun. Dungeon farming and farming skills fit together like a glove, almost snapping into place. It seemed so long as they shared a theme it didn't matter what field they were used on. Even Dungeon Manager was more like Field Manager as far as the skill was concerned. It was a part of the greater structure optimized for a particular type of field called a dungeon.

Monster Husbandry might be the same as Animal Husbandry only with a bent toward intelligent monsters. Through these skills, I could infer far more than I could have before, making it easier to find points of connection with my skills. The goal at the end of the day was to make something that could fulfill as many tasks with the least energy possible. Skills could be incredibly specialized, but fused skills were practically the opposite.

The more I looked into skills, the more I learned there was more to learn. How long until I could do this without the skill guiding my hand. Levels didn't expand a skill. Skills increased their efficiency as they became tools more suited to their users. It was different from optimization, but I didn't know how. There was so much I didn't know, and I didn't think I would figure it out even if I spent decades more looking at skills. Why the system existed at all was something I couldn't begin to answer?

What was the purpose of the system, skills, and attributes? Why did monsters exist, and why could they become more human as they ranked up. These mysteries plagued my mind. And the only way to answer them was to reach the top. The grand champion could alter the system, and the grand champions before him were the reason we were in our system's current iteration. I wanted to know why our current system existed in its current iteration. I wanted access to the changelogs for the system.

Free of most of the mental corruption caused by my own skills, I finally had a goal to aspire to. I wanted to know the reason why the world was the way it was.

With my mind made up, I created my new skill.

Green Lord (O) lvl1 

Rank: 4

Description: The power to grow following the natural order from a single seed is within the user's hands. Till the land, plant, and harvest any land no matter how strange or what resources are available. Through type modification and careful planning, green life can appear even in the most barren of worlds. All that lives grows in power under your care. 

I could feel the skill interacting with Sky Fiend Apotheosis, boosting my regeneration further. Only the final skills were left, and I had put off Berserk for too long. I hoped that what I learned would be enough to create a skill that felt like a mix of very different pieces. Some skills would need to be shattered and taken apart, and I might lose a lot of function from others from my task.

Time resumed, returning me to the bedroom with a hidden door leading to the labs below. The tornadoes outside were stronger and more devastating the ever soaking up fell energy from their surroundings and devastating the city. I didn't know the death toll, but it had to be steep. I hadn't been exactly myself when I used the skill, but I found it hard to regret it.

Fu called me kind, and when I looked out the shattered window at the whirling dark cyclones spinning around the imperial palace, I couldn't see it. I used an arrow from my quiver to take care of the problem uncaring about what it would do to the civilians. Why would I? They weren't my people, and I had orders from my employer.

I shook my head. My actions were those of a mercenary. The promise of payment was too good to pass up, never mind the dungeon being on my property. Its seed germinated here, making it mine, and it had the gall to limit my access to a moderator. Well, I suppose the time stop sessions to let me indulge in my newest and greatest passion was payment.

The imperial bedroom was a nice place, and Nana looked both intimidating and adorable sitting on the Empress's bed. Red silk sheets inlaid with gold bunched up under Nana's glorious behind as her tail curled around a thick bedpost. Paintings of dour-looking Kitsunite royals covered the wall, along with a black and white picture of a family on the nightstand. Newspapers were stacked beside a desk in the room next to the servant's entrance. Bits and pieces of a gun sat on an oiled workbench, and some tomes on enchanting lined a bookshelf completely untouched. I picked up the bookshelf and tossed it through a portal.

"Is there anything else you want to take, maybe something a little softer?"

I looked over the bed. It had a sturdy frame, soft pillows, and a mattress big enough for a harem. Imperial size was a thing here, and the Empress's bed was big enough for the 18-foot-tall Nana to sleep comfortably. She was getting annoyed at nearly bumping her head on the 10ft doors separating the 20ft ceiling rooms that the imperial palace had for reasons I didn't understand. I figured it was a grandeur thing.

She waved her long tail about as thing thicker around as her own waist.

Its stinger had grown longer than my arm and dripped with venom. The eyes at its end and the way they looked at me and the mandibles beneath them moved was disconcerting. Her tail was a weapon that couldn't be denied in any tamer battles. Her stinger didn't kill, but it could paralyze prey to make consumption easier. Her mouth had lost its nightmarish teeth after her last victim and gained the blocky appearance of human teeth. She had become far more attractive to me after consuming Ichi, and somehow, she scraped by at rank 2 despite being near my strength before I fused my skills. 

The lab door was closed and locked, but that wouldn't stop us. Nana's acid could eat through it and I could pierce the metal with fell easily. No, the only thing stopping us was the news from Ni that soon, the Empress would be more powerful than we could possibly imagine. Since she was obviously not ready to come out, I thought we had time to take a break. I wanted to continue my intimacy with Nana before we ended this.