Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

John performed an exercise called a squat while holding a very heavy bar of weights on his shoulders. He disliked this form of exercising and thought it was a waste of time. As a youth and long after he accepted the power, his muscles would ache after working them hard.

No matter what John did now, his muscles never ached as they used to so long ago. He preferred to work his muscles by training useful [Skills], but Avatar said he was close to maxing out natural caps for his physical [Stats], and that would help his soft caps.

One of the exercises John was supposed to do was called [Running], which was a [Skill] he had at the Adept Mastery, close to Master level. He liked running far more than the exercises that fell under the [Weightlifting] [Skill]. One day he ran so far in the direction he considered north he saw a new building off in the distance. It was empty and was exactly the same as the one he and Amber stayed in.

There was no way to tell time in the pocket plane without the NCS. The sky was always the same orange color. Avatar said John could bring up a clock at any time. He disliked clocks so he had Avatar send him a notification when he could train in his Mind’s Eye again. The deal he made with her was that he'd do stupid exercises for two hours after his daily NCS training.

John continued to squat down and stand up with the heavy bar on his shoulders until Avatar sent the notification telling him he was done for the day.

Getting his body [Perk], [Leech Body of the Morning's Glory], drained John of all his harmony, so he had a long way to go to fill up again. With the [Skill] cap in place and only being able to raise new or low level [Skills] at a decent rate without combat, harmony gain was slow going. At Bronze he needed to get the next [SupraType] [Perk]. Avatar was certain he could generate more than enough harmony without merging [Skills], and if he worked hard enough, he’d even have plenty left over without worrying about going over cap.

Following where he sensed Amber to be, John went into the room with chairs and sofas she called a lounge and saw her relaxing on the floor in a similar pose to when she first caught him looking at her chest in the Trial. Her legs were crossed at the knee and one of her shoes dangled from her foot as she leaned back on her elbows.

Amber was reading a book by having some sort of device project words onto a wall. The hem of her robe had ridden up high and she embarrassingly pulled it down to cover herself. Demons had no real genitals, so there was nothing to see or cover.

John thought it was strange to see a demon sit so femininely. Even without real genitals, all demons were considered male and constantly shed something like sperm from their skin called spermatia. Nether would cause some of the spermatia to grow into demons, so demons considered the Nether their mother, though it was just a type of energy.

“Would you like to spar,” asked John.

“Um, could you ask me again a little later. I gotta finish this. I can’t stop now.”

John held in a sigh. Amber did little actual training. They both agreed to only advance together. In case John had the same issues with Bronze he had when he ascended to Copper, they agreed he would ascend to Bronze before Amber ranked up to mid-low Bronze to watch over him. They should still return to Earth at the exact same moment, regardless.

John thought he could die of old age before he ascended to Bronze at the rate Amber was training. She mostly wanted to talk, read, and relax.

Leaving the house, John went to the targets around back. He was getting decent with blade energy attacks. He had practiced with it consistently every day since he arrived. Avatar said she didn’t track it as a separate [Skill] since it wasn’t. It was considered part of and could improve his sword [Skill], and that would grant him some harmony, but getting better with blade energy on its own did nothing for her to track.

John found that odd since getting good with blade energy required devotion and much practice. How it worked benefited him though, since if it was a separate [Skill] he would only be able to increase it by five points as the NCS measured it. This gave him a way to advance his Grandmaster sword [Skill] without combat.

Every time John tried to attack with blade energy, he succeeded. It just took him some time to build it up and get it ready to be dragged and released. He planned on getting good enough to use it with every attack, and attack at his usual speed, or close to it.

Thrusting with a sword didn’t work with blade energy. John thought it used a different kind of energy and required a different process to gather and release. He planned on figuring that out too. He had the time. He already maxed out increases with all the important lower level [Skills] he had been working on weeks ago.

John had many other lower level [Skills] he could increase, including very old ones, and others he never used. He only cared about a few new ones, such as [Self-Propelled Projectile Weapons] and [Essence-Infused Projectile Weapons]. Most of the others weren’t worth even tracking, such as the ones Amber told him to look into, including [Terran Social Media] and [Portable Computer Devices].

[Terran Social Media] covered the various ways Amber shared her illicit pictures with strange men she did not know, and the various tactics employed to get more and more strange men to look at them. [Portable Computer Devices], also known as phones or smartphones on Earth, was the medium allowing Amber to show her illicit pictures to strange men. At least that’s how John saw the two [Skills].

For [Portable Computer Devices], Avatar taught John the use of many devices used on Tech 1 worlds which were fueled by essence and worked very differently than the phones of Earth did, though she still taught him a little of the use of Earth phones and tablets.

If John spent a thousand years in the pocket plane, he didn’t believe he would be able to increase his higher level [Skills] five points each. He’d need actual combat to increase those [Skills] in any significant manner. In the past, even with heavy combat, he had been happy when one of those [Skills] increased by point-zero-one of a point.

Once a [Skill] increased 5 points, it became painful to even think about. The pain was worse for some [Skills] and not so bad for others. For instance, [Essence Manipulation] and [Blood Manipulation] controlled a lot of other [Skills], and it only hurt a little to work on [Skills] that fell under those two. For most [Skills], the pain gave such a headache it was impossible to think.

What John spent most of his time on was his concepts and combining them into new spells to replace his old ones. He wanted to be proficient in all his concepts, as Muzaran could do much with just one of them, and he knew he needed to get much better at utilizing all his own correctly. Avatar started to name the spells, as she had a great dislike for how he named things.

John had resolved not to check his summary until after he ascended, and he didn’t plan on doing so for a long while. And no one knows what Amber’s plans are. I would bet both Fireblade and Defiance Amber doesn’t even know herself. Not even the mighty Tree of Life was capable of healing the mind of women from the ancient madness that infects most of them, thought John.

One interesting fact John found out about Amber when he needed a sparring partner was that she was adept with many weapons. He remembered her saying she wasn’t good at catching during the Tribulation. He doubted that was true. She was excellent at throwing and great with the sling, bow, staff, spear, and long-spear. She was more than decent with other polearms, the sword, axe, and flail.

One benefit John had seen from Amber spending her time in demon form was she was less likely to pretend she wasn’t good at something or act overly immaturely. It was apparent her form changed her thinking. She even called humans magals.

A thought hit John like a bolt of lightning. Great gods below, we do have a time limit! And it is extremely short!

John rushed back into the house and the lounge and yelled out, “Amber, don’t you have to kill a human every year? You haven’t killed any since you got your demon form! How long ago was that?”

Amber said, “Holy Jesus! You almost gave me a heart attack. Relax, buddy. I killed a magal right before…remember when you jumped into the yellow table-portal thing to save Stretch? Lilly was freaking out bad after and she made a lot of…real awful threats.

“Well, some magals tried to, um, like, detain her or something and…and I turned into a bear and…and I didn’t mean to, but I accidentally killed one of the magals. I barely even touched him. It was an accident.”

John said, “Oh. Okay. Well, we still have a time limit. A year.”

Without even looking up, Amber replied, “A universal standard year. So, like, one year and five months. Um, and, like, a week, too, I think. I just checked. Yeah, and a week. I’m sorry. I thought I already told you. We came up with this timeline on our first day here. Remember? We’re leaving a little early so I can…uh, so I can have a little bit of a buffer to kill another magal.”

John just looked at Amber. “Do you want to kill magals now, Amber? Do you feel urges?”

Amber laughed. “No! Come on, buddy. It’s still me in here. Just…different. But only a little. I feel real bad about accidentally killing that guy. Not so much now, but if I changed to human, I know I’d still feel real bad and…stuff. This form is great for avoiding guilt and thinking about…other stuff. Gross stuff. Yuck! Disgusting! Rguga! That’s the closest to a gagging noise I can make as a demon.”

“Okay. Are you almost done reading?”

Amber said, “Um, not really. Sorry, buddy. This book is crazy! You should read it.”

John replied, “Maybe,” knowing he’d never read that book or any other. Avatar made him read and study during training. That was all the reading he could handle. He walked back outside to continue practicing with blade energy. I might not make it a year and a half with her, he thought as he flung blade energy at a target.

The energy of the pocket plane was thick and made energy gathering much faster. There was no need for Amber to use crystals to gather energy at a good rate. They’d been there for many months, and his foundation had been rock-solid for a while.

John worked with Avatar on when to stop improving new [Skills] so he’d be able to improve the [Skills] he found important after he ranked up to peak Copper without wasting harmony. He had plenty he could work on and improve other than harmony-generating [Skills], such as blade energy and working out his new [Ultimate]. And getting new [Skills] to 5 barely generated harmony, though getting one from 6 to 7 and going from Neophyte to Novice Mastery generated a noticeable amount.

John still exercised for two hours every day, though he was more certain than ever it did nothing and was just a waste of time.

Since Amber had a tendency to annoy John a great deal while she was a demon, he spent a good amount of time with Avatar. There were a lot of things he didn’t know about, or ignored, and he tried to correct that.

John had long ago maxed out the amount of energy the NCS could store for him as a credit to use for [Buffs]. Many of the [Buffs] he could purchase as temporary enhancements would’ve been a great help in many of his previous battles. He had to remember to utilize them.

John wanted to confer with Sublime Sunshine before he activated any new NCU upgrades, but there were some he thought were necessary. Since he no longer created shen, had so much NCU energy cost discount, and gathered energy so quickly, he saw no good reason not to get upgrades. The ten percent penalty to his NCU energy cost discount would be removed when he ascended to Bronze too.

John put a lot of thought into his fight with the g’athu. He also spoke to Amber about it many times. He was able to handle the ones not wearing their strange tech much more easily, and the g’athu didn’t have enough of the tech to kit out the majority. Not yet at least.

The plan was to first somehow escape from the cage that held John and Amber. With any luck, ascending would help there somehow. They would then make a great slaughter of the Wood, Copper, Bronze, and the two Silvers that remained at the base producing tech. Hopefully that would bring the Gold and other g’athu slaughtering humans back.

Amber, while invisible, would use her mighty glyph to kill the Gold. Then John and Amber would kill the rest of the g’athu. They were sure the large portal on the platform led to another base, maybe even both other bases.

John was able to shrug off most of the mind control of the Gold. It couldn’t control his mind, but fighting against it caused him enough pain and distraction that he couldn’t function through it, and it made him an easy target and easy to capture. He wanted to be able to fight through it or shrug it off completely.

Without the tech the g’athu wore, John knew he could make short work of all but the Gold, and the Gold wouldn’t be too much of an issue if he could shrug off the mind control. He still feared the g’athu more than he should but having killed so many of them made him feel less fearful.

The tech was the issue. Not the only issue, as John knew he wouldn’t have been able to kill nearly as many g’athu if it wasn’t for Amber and his mighty plasma ring. And the pocket plane didn’t allow him to practice [Unbind Defense] enough to change that. Hubaba, a Gold and the best cultivator he knew at unbinding and protecting against unbinds, couldn’t get a spell off while facing just the Bronze g’athu, and neither was he able to unbind the spells of the Bronze.

The NCU upgrades John could purchase for additional protection against the Gold’s mind control weren’t all that expensive, but he got a little impulsive and got three more upgrades, including one that was very expensive. He thought he should be fine. He was able to gather energy and convert it to essence much faster than anyone else he knew of. His meditation technique was at Legendary Mastery level, and powerful.

[Inexorable], 8% passive, improve resistance to mental influence.

[Refractory], 4% passive, slightly improve the ability of [Inexorable] to resist mental influence.

[Nano Support C], 4% passive, [Nano Assistance] also slightly improves ability to defend against unbinds.

[Nano Support D], 4% passive, [Nano Assistance] also slightly improves ability to unbind manifestations.

[Lock and Key], 20% passive, improve ability to defend against unbinds and unbind manifestations.

With all those unlocked, John’s NCU energy cost went from twenty-four percent way up to sixty-four percent. His current NCU energy cost reduction was about forty-eight percent. After he ascended to Bronze and the penalty was removed that would change to fifty-eight percent, leaving the actual NCU energy cost applied to him to be about twenty-seven percent. He didn’t think that was too much of a cost. He wanted to unlock more upgrades but forced himself not to.

With the NCU upgrades purchased, not wanting to waste energy, John spent and planned on spending all future energy credits towards unlocking NCU expansion slots. The slots were extremely expensive to unlock, and it would take a very long time to unlock the remaining fifteen slots. He would switch to having the energy saved as a credit for the purchase of a [Buff] shortly before ascending to Bronze.

Not needing to extend his senses to find Amber, John walked back to the lounge. He sniffed the air and made a disgusted face. “Amber, did you cultivate today?”

Amber made an odd noise and sarcastically said, “Yes, dad.”

“You stink horribly. You must bathe immediately. I can’t take the smell.”

The tension in the room rose and took on a hostile tone. Amber got up violently. “You said you wouldn’t abuse it!” She rushed past John in her bulky demon form and stomped up the stairs. She yelled down, “I knew you would. I knew you’d abuse it. You’re such a jerk! I can’t believe I trusted you!”

John was confused for a moment until he realized he had given her an order. He knew her true name. She had to obey his commands.

John had always been so careful with what he said to Amber. He just slipped up. He felt horrible. But not too horrible. She needed a bath. She always claimed demons didn’t smell, but she did. And she knew demons smelled. Hubaba often smelled awful when they all lived together in the Trial. They all smelled. Well, Amber never did. Before.

Sensing that Amber changed back into human form, John decided to go apologize. He could hear her crying as the bath filled. He was glad she finally changed back into a human. The longer she stayed as a demon, the more annoying she became. She was ready to ascend to Bronze, but she was mostly wasting the wonderful gift they were granted.

After climbing up to the third floor, before John could knock on the bathing-room door, Amber yelled out, “Don’t you dare come in here, you sick pervert! You monster! You promised! I hate you so much! I…” Loud and dramatic sobs took over from her yelling.

“I’m extremely sorry. It was just a slip. An honest mistake. A moment of carelessness. I messed up. If I wanted to abuse the power I hold over you I certainly wouldn’t on your hygiene as a demon. I hope you realize that.”

Amber replied with only loud sobs.

“Please allow me to make it up to you. May I escort you to dinner later? As a human. Not me, you. As a human, I mean. I have a gift for you. If you do allow me to escort you.”

The sobs quieted down and John heard a sniffle. “Okay. But I’m still real mad so…so…you’re still a jerk, you know? It’s going to take me a while to get ready so…and you have to wear something different than last time too.”