After City Hall confirmed the successful establishment of the merchant alliance and the heads of all five merchant guilds had received their corresponding tax reduction documents, Loren immediately received 20 million in funds. He deposited it all in the Fairy Bank, where it could be withdrawn at any time.
The remaining five million belonged to the Jasmine Flower Merchant Guild. The guild dealt in some slave trading, and Loren needed a batch of slave soldiers to make up for the manpower he'd lost when the territory was breached, so he didn't ask for the money.
Guildmaster Robert was a shrewd man, and he readily agreed.
The moment Loren stepped out of City Hall, the system notification sounded.
"Ding! Quest: First Pot of Gold completed.
Reward: Archdemon Bloodline activated. Claim now?"
Loren's face lit up with a brilliant smile at the system notification.
The Archdemon Bloodline—was this powerful trump card finally about to awaken?!
He was practically beside himself with impatience. After firmly declining the guildmasters' invitation to have a few drinks and watch catgirl maids perform a striptease, he hurried back to the inn with Fiana.
The sight made the guildmasters exchange knowing smiles.
Young men always had plenty of fire in them.
He rushed back to the inn. Under Fiana and Anor's puzzled gazes, he ordered them not to let anyone up to the third floor. Then he shut the door tight and sat down on the bed.
He summoned the system.
"Ding! The Archdemon Bloodline has not yet fully awakened. The reward has been issued. Would you like to activate it?"
The still-dormant Archdemon Bloodline was one of Loren's greatest trump cards.
Demons were terrifying beings who lived in dimensional planes, and Archdemons were their overlords, possessing unimaginable talent and potential.
Once he activated the bloodline, it was easy to imagine just how much stronger he would become.
But Loren hesitated. If he activated the Archdemon Bloodline in Decker City, wouldn't he be exposed?
Given demons' reputation among humans, he'd be lucky to make it three streets before someone killed him.
As if sensing his worries, the system transmitted a stream of information into his mind.
After the Archdemon Bloodline was activated, his human bloodline would remain, and he could freely switch between forms.
Loren was overjoyed. This system had consumed a divine shard to activate, and it certainly lived up to expectations.
"Confirm activation!"
The instant he confirmed, a terrible swelling pain surged through the blood vessels in his body.
A power that had long lain dormant was beginning to awaken.
It was as if millions of ants were biting and devouring his flesh.
The excruciating pain made Loren's already pale face turn even whiter.
"Wouldn't it hurt less if my balls shattered?"
His muscles began twitching uncontrollably. His once exceptionally handsome features stiffened and twisted.
The energy in his bloodline was tearing his muscles and shattering his bones. Loren gritted his teeth as wave after wave of terrifying force crashed over him. Several times, he nearly passed out, barely managing to endure it.
After the energy in his bloodline tore his body apart, his muscles and blood vessels would quickly heal, only to become tougher than before, as if cotton had transformed into steel wire.
At the same time, Loren's eyes slowly shifted from black to blood-red.
An evil aura began to fill the room.
Five minutes. Ten minutes.
Loren had lost all sense of time. The agony inside him had nearly blurred his consciousness.
It felt as if a century had passed, endless and without reprieve, as though the pain would never end.
Just as his will was about to crumble under the agony, the system notification finally sounded.
"Ding! Archdemon Bloodline activated successfully. Bloodline inheritance acquired: Demon Breathing Technique."
The terrible pain quickly vanished, replaced by the soothing sensation of soaking in a hot spring. Every muscle in his body relaxed.
Ah...
Loren couldn't help letting out a soft moan. After all that pain, this felt incredible.
The weakness inside him quickly disappeared, replaced by strength—a power and vitality unlike anything he had ever felt.
He even felt like he could smash through a city wall with one punch.
Suppressing the urge to test his strength on the wall, he silently called up his status panel. It appeared before his eyes.
Loren Grant Identity: Lord of Gray Eagle Territory, descendant of the Orchid Family Lord Talent: Eye of Truth (can observe the loyalty of subordinates) Level: Silver Beginner Bloodlines: Bauhinia Family Bloodline (A+ rank, awakened). Trait: Mental Fortitude (A rank), greatly increases mental strength and grants immunity to mental spells below the second circle. Archdemon Bloodline (S+ rank, awakened). Trait: Demonic Body (S+ rank), greatly increases strength and constitution; grants immunity to poison, instant-death skills, and curses. Cultivation Techniques: Bauhinia Breathing Technique (S rank). Advantages: Focuses on mental strength. Greatly strengthens the mind and increases mental resilience. At higher levels, it grants immunity to Spellcaster mental attacks. Combined with the corresponding skills, it can unleash tremendous power. Drawbacks: The Bauhinia Breathing Technique does not sufficiently train the body. Unleashing its full power can cause considerable bodily harm. Innate Skills: Steel Breaker Slash (S rank): focuses all mental strength and concentrates the body's full power into a single explosive strike. Storm Slash (S rank, learnable at Gold rank). Armor Piercer (S rank, learnable at Platinum rank). Demon Breathing Technique (S+ rank). Advantages: The demons' highest-level cultivation technique. Greatly enhances physical strength and fortifies the body. At its highest level, it can regenerate severed limbs, greatly increases resistance to magic, and grants inexhaustible strength. Drawbacks: After learning it, one can no longer learn spells. It is easy to fall into a berserk, bloodthirsty state, requiring exceptionally strong mental control. Innate Skill: Demon Frenzy (S rank). Greatly enhances physical attributes when activated, but creates an intense craving for battle and slaughter, with a risk of losing control. Super Recovery (Passive, Beginner): Increases the rate of injury recovery by 5 times. Stamina Recovery (Passive, Beginner): Increases the rate of stamina recovery by 5 times. Magic Resistance (Passive, Beginner): Reduces damage from magic below the second circle by 50%, and damage from magic above the second circle by 10%.
After reading his status, Loren's expression became wonderfully complicated.
Was this fate?!
The greatest weakness of the Bauhinia Breathing Technique was that it only trained mental strength, not the body. It could unleash powerful attacks, but couldn't sustain them.
Now that the Archdemon Bloodline had awakened, it had directly made up for that weakness.
What's more, the Demon Breathing Technique it granted also increased physical strength.
More importantly, the Demon Breathing Technique demanded exceptional mental strength, or it could make one lose control. Wasn't that exactly what the Bauhinia Breathing Technique provided?
The bloodlines complemented each other, and so did the breathing techniques!
It felt like when your partner didn't want to have sex for fear of getting pregnant, only for you to suddenly find an unopened condom lying beside the bed.
Could anything be more perfectly timed?
Loren felt the power surging through his body like molten lava and almost groaned aloud.
He felt that his combat strength had increased several times over!
He had activated the system right at the start, awakened two of the highest-level bloodlines, was a High Noble, and already owned a territory. This was an awfully strong start.
But it was fine. He could handle this much pain. He wouldn't mind a lot more.
Loren burst out laughing.
A moment later, he seemed to remember something. His gaze swept around the room until he spotted the mirror in the corner.
He walked over to the full-length mirror. In it stood a perfect young man, with sharp brows and bright eyes, whose features seemed sculpted by the world's greatest master carver.
He looked dashing and spirited.
But what drew the eye most were his blood-red eyes, clear as rubies.
They should have been the demonic eyes of evil, but paired with his near-perfect looks, they gave him a peculiar charm that made hearts race.
His elegant, noble bearing had also changed with the appearance of those red eyes, taking on a hint of wickedness and seduction that made it impossible not to look twice.
A devilishly handsome man, radiating evil.
"I feel like I came to the wrong place. If I went back to Earth, wouldn't all the women I know go crazy?"
Loren lamented his bad luck at having been born in the wrong era.
With a thought, the blood-red color slowly faded from his eyes, and the evil aura around him returned to normal.
The elegant and handsome High Noble was back.
Loren breathed a sigh of relief. The system really was dependable.
But when he came back to his senses, he soon fell into thought again.
The system had activated, and the Archdemon Bloodline in his body had lived up to his expectations, granting him immense power.
But the problems he faced remained urgent.
How could he face the Bloody Day? How could he survive in the Endless Wasteland? How could he deal with the Demon Overlord who was still searching for the divine shard?
After taking several deep breaths, Loren's dark, deep eyes became as sharp as a sword freshly wiped clean of dust—keen as an eagle's, commanding attention.
The future might be full of turmoil, but he would surely overcome every obstacle.
"Another Bloody Day will arrive in a month—no, in twenty-four days. I have to build up enough strength to face the next wave of Bloody Polluters."
"Decker City has a slave market. My predecessor bought the several hundred members of the pioneering team there."
"I still have twenty-five million. That's enough to buy a batch of top-quality slave soldiers."
"Now, besides having awakened two bloodlines, I have another trump card that's absolutely unbeatable: the system's upgrade function. I can buy a batch of low-level Bronze- and Silver-ranked soldiers and upgrade them to Gold and Platinum-grade."
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