++Among the world’s countless mysteries are why some creatures swell so greatly in size and power when mana saturates the air, where others remain as mundane as ever. The leading theory is that it pertains to size. The insectoid and arachnid are able to absorb more ambient mana due to their limited scale, like a chemical ground into fine powder to hasten the speed of reaction. This is a flawed explanation, however, for there is no great correlation among the insect kingdom between size and power. The notorious wolf spider is many times the size of a common ant, even when both are reared without exposure to magical energies. What cannot be denied, however, is how great the difference is, whatever its cause.++

  Chapter 12

  Reggie forced himself to be patient. Problem with vampirism, of course, was that it didn’t actually matter whether he was an abomination against God. Everyone else thought he was, and they were the ones who had all the pitchforks and torches. This made information-gathering problematic, but not impossible.

  For one thing, it was actually hard to spot him for what he was at a distance. By night, at least. Reggie had learned already that his dark vision was far better than a human’s, as was his hearing. This meant listening in on conversations and studying faces was a fairly casual affair while the moon was out and the mists were up.

  Still, it took him more than a week to start picking anything of use up. A week in which Reggie also learned a good deal of other things about his new form and powers.

  Vampire, Inheritor Tier. You are a descendent of the purest-blooded undead that have ever lived. There is no limit to how high you might rise. When draining a magical or sapient creature, progress is made towards reaching the next Tier and Evolving.

  Current progress: 1/10.

  That was…a very small number of drains, all things considered. Granted, fighting another nine magical creatures as he was didn’t appeal to Reggie too much. But he’d need to do it to power up. Unless he was willing to eat people, of course, which…well, no.

  Reggie continued looking into what he could learn of the town, and was interrupted only when Ludvich approached him.

  From behind, mind, and walking so quietly that he somehow came to within a few paces before even Reggie’s hearing picked him up. Not so surprising perhaps, he’d made a career out of hunting superhumans.

  “You’re going to get yourself killed if you do this without preparing right,” the Witchfinder told him.

  “Do what?” Reggie asked.

  “You’re planning revenge, right?”

  Reggie wanted to tell Ludvich he was wrong, that he was just amassing power to secure himself a place in the world. Then it struck him how impossible that would be. He didn’t have a pulse.

  “You want to stop me?” He snapped instead, making his words a challenge. He was certain Ludvich could, even now. Better trained, better equipped, better experienced. Age had slowed and weakened him, but Reggie hadn’t yet mastered even his own petty powers. He was nothing more than a weak monster.

  “I don’t think I have that right, after everything,” Ludvich said instead. Reggie relaxed, feeling a tension he’d not noticed drain out of himself. No fight then, no defeat. Nice.

  “So what is this then?” Reggie pressed, finally turning to the old man. He was surprised to see a fire in his eyes.

  “I’m going to keep you from dying. Being destroyed, whatever,” Ludvich growled. “Saving you was about the only good thing I’ve done in my life, and I’m going to keep that from being undone whatever it takes.”

  “Even if I’m killing elves?” Reggie murmured, figuring he’d broach the big question right away. Witchfinders were sworn to serve God, and that meant serving His chosen people.

  But Ludvich didn’t flinch.

  “Yes.”

  Say one thing for the old man, say he could make his mind up.

  “Well then…where do we begin?”

  Reggie was reluctant to go out into the sun, but Ludvich insisted he do so. Eventually he caved, ignoring Dvo’s suggestions that it was just a roundabout way of killing him, and felt…nothing much, really. Irritation, a stinging on his skin, but no sudden incineration at least.

  “Sunlight kills some vampires, but the weaker ones, the lower Tier ones, don’t have most of their severe weaknesses. There is one that’ll plague you badly, you’ll have a certain substance you’re vulnerable to.”

  “What is it?” Reggie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Ludvich shrugged, “it depends on which vampire sired you.”

  “System, what am I vulnerable to?”

  Unknown.

  “What? How?”

  I told you I don’t know every—

  “That’s what I get for taking you at your word,” Reggie growled, “I was wondering how someone could know everything.”

  “Are you talking to the System?” Ludvich asked him, actually looking surprised for once.

  “Oh yeah, it turned into a person in my head when I became a vampire.”

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Ludvich just ignored that response entirely, moving onto other matters without missing a beat. “You told me you can increase your Tier by…draining things?”

  “Not humans, magical creatures, so I need to find some.” Reggie wasn’t going to lie to Ludvich if he asked outright about the people part of that ability, but he wasn’t going to go after any humans so he didn’t see what it mattered.

  “First we’ll need to get you caught up on Norvhan’s current affairs, then we can start sending you out past its walls to hunt.” Ludvich looked like he puked in his mouth as he said that, but didn’t complain at least.

  Getting caught up on Norvhan proved…unpleasant. Apparently not much had really changed with Reggie’s death, not really, but the elves responsible had seen fit to install a Circumscriber to watch over the town after murdering him. That was where the new wall came from, as well as the three new Witchfinders who made their home here now. Beyond that, things were as they had been.

  Apparently, it was a generally positive change as far as the people were concerned. Only Reggie, and now Ludvich, had any reason to see the issue in it of course. Only they knew that it now meant innovation and discovery would be stamped out of the place with more efficiency than ever before.

  Reggie really didn’t like elves.

  [You should kill them all.]

  That would be unwise, you are not powerful enough to defeat a single Adept-Tier humanoid yet.

  At the very least his hallucinations—or…angelic voices?— were good at balancing each other out.

  “A few books were removed from the town library, too,” Ludvich added, “I thought that was odd but…Fuck. I didn’t investigate. Should have, I knew there was something wrong about your death—about the coincidences and the timing but…I didn’t want to know. Wouldn’t have brought you back, so…”

  Reggie wanted to tell him it was fine. He didn’t. It wasn’t fine. None of this was fine, and he wasn’t quite tired of seeing the man who killed his parents tortured and miserable. Not just yet.

  “Anything I should know about patrols? Sentries?” No and no, it seemed the place really hadn’t changed as much as it looked. Everyone was still apathetic and stupid. “Then let’s get started with my training.”

  It took two days before Reggie started to feel hungry again; a deep, bone-heavy kind of hunger that seemed to pull at all the tissues in his body and threatened to drag them down into his core. He’d felt it before, once as a vampire, a few times he’d come close to death as a human. But he had the feeling it would get a lot worse before he died now. It seemed one of the downsides to his new condition was a good deal of sensitivity to starvation.

  That wasn’t what motivated Reggie to set out into the woods, not on its own. A big factor was the simple pragmatics of his situation. If Reggie went out too hungry then he’d have no chance of overpowering the first creature he met, and would die the moment an apex predator caught his scent. Ludvich seemed to reluctantly agree, but had more to add.

  “I’ll come with you,” the Witchfinder insisted, “I’m not having you die on me again.”

  “No,” Reggie snapped. It took even him a moment to realise why he was so reluctant. Ludvich had gotten over the whole ‘vampire’ thing remarkably fast, even if Reggie still saw a buried fear behind his occasional glances, but seeing him drain something…he didn’t know whether that would poison things forever.

  And he wouldn’t find out. Reggie headed into the grimwoods alone, moving with all the coordination of a starving man who’d recently dug himself out of his own grave. Fortunately, he didn’t actually need to be quiet anymore. He wasn’t trying to avoid being attacked, he invited it. More enemies meant more chances to drain, meant more power.

  He didn’t take long to stumble onto a fight, either. Reggie came out into a clearing and found himself face-to-face with an ant. One of the red ones, which meant pincers instead of sprayed acid. It wasn’t particularly big, maybe seven feet from ass to head, but its carapace was looking plenty thick already.

  The ant looked at Reggie, and Reggie looked at the ant. They stood there. Looking, waiting. Neither moved. Until the ant did that was, and it moved by letting out a high shriek and rattling straight for him.

  Reggie had already transformed by the time he consciously thought to do so, body becoming a combat grotesquery of jutting fangs and claws. He lunged right for the ant and swiped out once with his talons, watching with no small satisfaction as they scored a deep gouge in the armour plating on its head. Then the ant kept coming.

  Its pincers closed right where his calf was until Reggie yanked it back at the last moment, by the sound he heard that bite would’ve been bad. The ant didn’t let up with that one, continuing to snap for Reggie, going low, forcing him to dance, almost, as he evaded it. They ended up scrambling back across the clearing in a mess of frantic backsteps and cracking chitin, then a tree got in the way. Not a big thing, its trunk was maybe six inches across.

  Those jaws closed hard enough to snap it right in half, which pretty much confirmed Reggie’s suspicion about his ability to endure a clean connection. Fortunately, it also bought him a moment as the ant tried to free its mandibles from pulped wood.

  Reggie jumped, landing hard on its back, wrapping his legs around its torso, and started clawing at the ant’s head. It shrieked, writhing around, trying to toss him off itself as they rolled in the dirt. Reggie felt sticks and stones scraping his skin, but the new Toughness his transformation brought meant that what would’ve been flaying-forces only served to irritate him.

  He was doing a good deal more than just irritating the ant, cutting deeper by the moment. Once his talons had sunk as far in as they’d go, he curled his fingers, gripped the ant’s armour, and pulled. A single, steady popping noise rang out as carapace fell away and exposed raw meat underneath. Reggie wasted no time in shredding it, and the ant stopped moving shortly after.

  Then it was his chance to drink.

  Reggie got about four gulps in before he realised his mistake and felt the blood stop flowing. Not good, that. He wasn’t going to have killed this damned ant only to end up without the benefits of draining it. Could he hang it upside-down, maybe, or—

  Your first level of Blood Magic will be useful here.

  “Oh, I legitimately forgot about that.” Reggie wasn’t sure how he’d forgotten, mind. Maybe the shock of having actual physical improvements just overrode everything else, magic was somehow too far from him to focus on even now that it was within his reach.

  But how did he use it?

  That answer came graciously quick, because Reggie had to do little more than think about the blood before it moved in answer to his will. There was some deliberate effort involved, some active work on making it magical, but the ichor was soon oozing into his mouth almost of its own volition.

  He drank fast, not knowing how long after a creature’s death he’d retain the benefits and already aware that this one was tasting staler than the still-living spider. Within a minute, though, he’d gotten about every drop from the ant’s veins.

  Reggie felt the change come fast.

  Progress made to next Tier, 2/10 creatures drained.

  Attribute point gained, +1 Toughness

  Name: Reginald Smith

  Age: 21

  Race: Vampire [Inheritor Race, Tier 1]

  Class: None

  Attributes:

  Strength 24(+10)

  Speed 24(+10)

  Celerity 26(+10)

  Toughness 23(+10)

  Charisma -1(-10)

  Abilities:

  Blood Magic I

  Form of the Beast I

  Traits:

  Enhanced Senses I

  Regeneration I

  He was full of stolen blood and felt it empower him, already closing the scratches on his back where hardened skin had found their limit against the ground. Reggie couldn’t help but smile.

  Now where could he find another meal?