By the time Murphy tasted something else in Lady Adele's blood, it was already too late. Once the Embrace ritual began, it couldn't be stopped midway.
Because, in essence, it wasn't simply an exchange of blood.
It involved the unique reproductive process of vampires, and as everyone knew, anything connected to reproduction was difficult to put on hold halfway through.
Suppressing his doubts, Murphy drank three large mouthfuls of virgin blood as a "gift" from the childe to her elder. Then he rose and lifted his left hand, touching the bite mark on Lady Adele's neck with his index finger. Using a vampire's control over blood, he drew her blood out of her body in an unbroken stream.
Dark psionic energy enveloped his fingers, keeping the scalding blood from falling. Instead, it swirled in his palm, changing shape like a non-Newtonian fluid.
It looked cool, but in reality it required the one receiving the Embrace to submit completely. If she resisted even slightly, the bloodletting wouldn't go so smoothly.
The unconscious Lady Adele couldn't resist. She could only grow weaker as her blood continued to drain, brought ever closer to death.
Her once-full, fair skin grew withered and dull. Even her ample chest rapidly shrank. Under Mirian's horrified gaze, the once aloof, statuesque lady soon looked like a "dehydrated corpse."
The poison plague Wolfsbane had inflicted on her blood rapidly dissipated as the blood left her body.
Murphy held the "blood orb," now purified beneath the night sky, before him. At Femis's signal, he bit into his right index finger, letting his own vampire blood well out drop by drop.
His blood was noticeably thicker and more crimson than ordinary human blood. When the two mingled, it was like "dyeing" the other.
Once the ratio was precisely adjusted to 1:3, Lady Adele's blood had been completely dyed the same color as Murphy's.
"That's enough! Put it back in."
The young lady prompted him.
Murphy brought the blood orb to his lips and drank it all down as if devouring a meal. Then he repeated the first step, biting into Lady Adele's corpse-like neck and injecting the renewed blood back into her through his fangs.
Just then, a special prompt appeared before Murphy:
Please choose an inheritance template for your childe, 'Bella Bernice Adele'. Available character templates: Common / Rare. Character template inheritance rules: 1. If you choose the Common template, your childe will gain all vampire traits and the starting values of an ordinary race. This option has no additional cost. 2. If you choose the Rare template, your childe will gain all vampire traits, 150% of the starting values of her race, and randomly inherit one of your talents or specialties. This option will consume an additional 30% of your blood and deepen the bloodline connection between you and your childe. Warning! A deep bloodline connection is not always a good thing for vampires! Please consider carefully.
"Character templates have a use like this?"
Murphy blinked and chose the second option without much hesitation.
He didn't plan to create many childer, so quality mattered. And since he was already doing the young lady a favor, he might as well go all the way!
After he'd put in so much, surely even the young lady would feel awkward about looking too deeply into some of those "accidents" from earlier, right?
Rare template inheritance selected! Additional cost activated! Drawing inherited ability for childe... Inherited ability: Summoning: Astral Direwolf. This childe has no Summoning specialty; ability downgraded to Summoning: Astral Wolf.
"Ugh..."
Murphy cried out in pain, leaving Femis, who was presiding over the ritual, frozen in place.
She could tell from his pained expression that this family outsider was giving Adele a portion of his own blood essence.
For a vampire, this was an act of extraordinary generosity. Not only could it grant the childe greater strength, it could even help her skip the long "adjustment period" after becoming a vampire.
The gesture also subtly changed the young lady's impression of Murphy.
Murphy was a good guy to have around!
When trouble came, he really stepped up!
Sure, he was a little useless, but he was generous and willing to take risks. He had brains, made decisive choices, and followed through. He was definitely worth getting to know and cultivating.
For example, this time, without him, they would certainly have failed to intercept the transport convoy.
So, affection up!
The other two onlookers had no idea what had happened in those few seconds. All they saw was Lady Adele's withered body inflate like a balloon, soon returning to its plump, alluringly aloof state. But the blood had already begun changing the nature of her life.
Her skin grew even fairer, while a crimson glow began to shine in her eyes. Her heart started beating again, but at one-tenth its former pace, or even slower.
The deeper changes would take more time to complete.
Generally speaking, a newly embraced vampire needed at least five to seven days to awaken, though that wasn't an absolute rule.
If an elder particularly favored a blood thrall and was willing to give her more power, he could use his own strength during the Embrace to transform both her blood and body at the same time.
Like Murphy was doing now.
In that case, it was "surgery today, back to work today."
But most vampires were selfish bastards. They'd never waste their power on a blood thrall—not even the slightest bit.
"I've done my best."
Murphy stepped back.
He swayed weakly, but Maxim caught him. He nodded at the young lady, whose expression was complicated, then turned and left.
The conspicuous anemia and weakness status on his character card showed that it would last for 48 hours. Losing a third of his blood meant he couldn't do anything strenuous for the next three days, and it would probably take even longer for him to recover completely.
But he hadn't really lost out.
Besides doing the young lady a favor and gaining a rare-template childe at the Black Iron tier, he'd gained something else:
Blood creation complete. You have your first childe! Bella Bernice Adele Lasombra has formed a profound mystical connection with you, based on blood. Vampire-exclusive system: Bloodline Contract activated! Your current power tier: Class Holder. Number of bloodline contracts you can form: 1/1. Bloodline Contract terms: I. Symbiotic Contract: For each additional childe, the elder's maximum health increases by 10%/15%. The exact increase depends on whether the bloodline connection between the elder and childe is profound. This bonus is not included in character attributes. For each additional childe, the elder's self-healing, stamina recovery, and psionic recovery rates increase by 10%/15%. For each additional childe, the maximum health, maximum psionic pool, and combat resource recovery rate of the other childer increase by 5%/10% when they fight together. II. Command Contract: The elder has the right to issue any command to their bloodkin except 'commit suicide' or 'harm yourself.' The elder has the right to suppress their bloodkin's blood essence at any time, putting them into a 'weakened' or 'blood-starved' state. The longer the elder and bloodkin remain connected, the weaker the bloodkin's resistance to the elder's will becomes. Eventually, the bloodkin will wholeheartedly uphold the elder's authority. How long this takes depends on the intensity of the childe's resistance, but in the end, the childe will regard the elder as their one and only master. III. Death Contract: When the elder dies, their bloodkin immediately suffer damage equal to 90% of their maximum health and permanently lose 30% of their vitality. They are afflicted with soul weakness, reducing all attributes by 50%. This weakened state cannot be removed until they have a new elder. When the bloodkin dies, the elder immediately suffers damage equal to 20% of their maximum health and permanently loses 10% of their vitality. Warning! If the bloodline connection between the elder and bloodkin is 'profound,' the bloodkin will die immediately when the elder dies. Warning! If the bloodline connection between the elder and bloodkin is 'profound,' the elder will immediately suffer damage equal to 70% of their maximum health and permanently lose 30% of their vitality when the bloodkin dies. Warning! The damage described above takes effect immediately, is subject to no restrictions, and cannot be mitigated in any way. Warning! After drinking the family's source blood, the bloodline contract can be broken. At present, no other definite way to break the contract is known.
"What an utterly outrageous contract. Thankfully, my elder is Triss, that kind and gentle girl. Otherwise, I'd be ready to die. This is worse than a slave contract!
It's practically cannibalism.
Wait, this abnormal attachment I feel toward Triss... could that be because of this, too?"
Murphy looked at the newly unlocked bloodline contract panel. Every line was steeped in the elder's control and manipulation of their bloodkin.
Under such an unequal contract, bloodkin had no way to oppose their elder's will.
But bloodkin would go on to create new bloodkin of their own, making the unequal contract spread ever further until it wove a vast net across the entire vampire civilization.
Yet, on closer inspection, the contract showed that the relationship between the two wasn't purely one of oppression and subjugation. There were other aspects to it. For instance, beneath the explanation of this "special vampire mechanic," he saw another prompt:
Embrace complete! Bella Bernice Adele Lasombra has returned a portion of her power to you during the process. The effects are as follows: Dexterity +1, Intelligence +1, Perception +1 New skill acquired: Shadow Elf Secret Art: Mejewa Family Swordsmanship. You can now learn this advanced swordsmanship from the Shadow Realm. New talent acquired: Marksmanship. Your accuracy with ranged physical attacks is greatly increased. New talent acquired: Shadow Affinity. Merged with your existing talent, Dark Psionic Manipulation, to create the new talent Shadow Mastery. Your perception of dark psionic energy is slightly improved, and you move faster, more nimbly, and more quietly when walking through shadows.
See? The Embrace didn't just benefit the blood thrall!
Through the fusion brought about by their blood connection, the elder also gained a portion of the blood thrall's "power in return." It was like some damn "processing fee."
By vampire family tradition, a "creation tax" of between a quarter and a third was considered reasonable.
But some unscrupulous vampires would take half their blood thrall's power, leaving their newly created childer without strength or potential. They could only become family outsiders, carrying the title of vampire without the ability to match it.
Uh, why did that sound so "familiar"?
"If I didn't know Triss really was a weakling, I'd think she was an unscrupulous vampire too."
Murphy silently grumbled to himself as Maxim helped him back to the campfire. He wiped the blood from his mouth with a handkerchief.
He felt that he needed to rest. He might as well browse the forum in the meantime and bring the little players a little gift from home.
And the moment he closed his eyes to rest, his earlier grumbling about Triss turned into a faint, barely perceptible longing.
He'd been away from home for six days.
The longer he was gone, the more he missed the shabby yet peaceful life at that decrepit manor. Perhaps his bloodline contract with Triss really was taking effect, making him think more and more fondly of Triss, that King of Cripples.
But Triss really was the most generous.
She wouldn't even collect any "processing fee" from her blood thralls. Maybe that was because the blood thralls she chose didn't have any power to begin with?
As for that attachment called "longing"...
Emmm, it probably wasn't just because of the bloodline contract, right?
Probably.
On the forum, the gaming group had been chatting away when a message suddenly sent everyone into an uproar.
Alpha: @Everyone, I'm thrilled to share some great news! After several days of hard work by the development team, our improved and upgraded test server is ready! The "True Otherworld" Alpha 1.0 test version will officially launch in 16 hours!
For details, please see the official post on the forum!
The dev team invited an old Taoist priest to bless our new server. I've got to go watch and ask him for a talisman, then put up a few sticks of incense and pray it doesn't suddenly break.
Meow King: Damn! Why are they springing this on us again? Does this company have no rules at all?
A-Cha'en: Stop complaining, Meow Brother. Hurry and check the post! There's so much juicy stuff! Everything we wanted is there. It's New Year's!
Meow Brother didn't believe it until he went back and refreshed the homepage. Sure enough, Alpha had already posted the latest official announcement. The title was simple enough, but the contents were anything but:
"True Otherworld" Alpha 1.0 Closed Beta Update Announcement:
After making the entire testing team sleep on the development team's office floor for five days, our first official test version finally launched before the deadline—and successfully resolved several issues frequently reported by our testers.
Details are as follows:
1. With help from the development team, our handsome main-quest NPC, Ravnos Murphy Lasombra, has finally gathered all the materials needed to improve the Otherworld Summoning Spell.
After this update, the player login feature will be available!
To account for server load and the ongoing, orderly progress of testing and bug fixes, the current access window is 6 hours per day. Please plan your playtime accordingly.
The game is great, but don't overindulge!
2. Under pressure from repeated tester feedback, our developers had no choice but to urgently contact the halfling mechanics on the Genoa Peninsula. After a series of shady deals, they got their hands on the latest and greatest steam engineering marvel.
After this update, the player interface system will go live!
To deliver a realistic, hardcore gaming experience, the development team has carefully written a plausible explanation for the player interface. Testers can look forward to trying it out for themselves and submitting their valuable reviews.
3. Although the development schedule was extremely tight, we still found time to conduct a full evaluation of the current gaming helmets, so new testers can get started more easily. The evaluation post has been pinned to the forum homepage. Special thanks to tester "Meow King" for his generous help.
The development team has also prepared a gift for him. Please collect it from the main-quest NPC after logging in.
4. The new map "Cadman City" and the new faction "Blood Eagle Clan" are live. Related quests are waiting for testers to discover.
5. Closed beta player rewards have been implemented. Please collect them from the NPC after completing the Cadman City questline.
6. Optimized the physics engine for greater realism and added more intelligent, interactive roleplay NPCs and random events.
7. Fixed a few bugs.
The post's contents were clear enough, but the little players replying below were focused on something else.
Leading Pigeon: @Meow King, does your butt hurt?
A-Cha'en: @Meow King, need some lube? I'll order some online right now. Will ten bottles be enough?
Mud Truck Iai: @Meow King, Old Yang, thanks for all your hard work. Please keep it up and maintain a good relationship with the dev team. Everyone's gaming experience depends on you. side-eye smile.jpg
Meow Shark: @Meow King, Meow Brother, you're a digital fairy!
Invincible Tyrannosaurus Car: Damn it! How does Meow Brother always find a way to make shady deals? I can do that too! I want special rewards too!
Meow King: facepalm That's enough, you guys! There was no shady deal behind the scenes. I just accepted a random quest from an admin. Damn it, stop messaging me privately! I told you, there's no special connection! No pictures! And I'm not into men!
Enough already!
Keep this up and I'll bend you all over!
Before you continue