Spoils of War

As Edward finished speaking, the two vampires turned to ashes, leaving only scattered clothes, shoes, hats, and other odds and ends on the ground. Edward quickly turned off the ultraviolet lamp—he didn't dare expose himself to that strong UV light for too long, afraid he might get skin cancer.

As for why he said those words before the two vampires died, it wasn't about valuing any 'user experience,' but because he felt stifled inside. As a transmigrator, he deeply understood the principle that 'the villain dies from talking too much.' He also deeply understood how those villains felt—keeping their secrets bottled up, unable to speak them out, how uncomfortable that was? What harm was there in telling a few guys about to die, letting them die with clarity? As for whether Edward was showing off, he clearly stated he wasn't. Just take it as truth, anyway, he believed it himself.

Back to the matter at hand, Edward unhurriedly walked forward. The small bow tie that had turned into a neck guard had reverted to its original form. He couldn't help but marvel at how useful the Alchemist's pocket watch was. With its amplification effect, he could now perform small-scale shaping without a transmutation circle.

Skillfully taking a long pair of tweezers from his Spatial Ring, he picked up the clothes on the ground and shook them. Out fell a pocket watch, rings, other men's accessories, and a few gold coins. He gathered the valuables into a small pouch, intending to put it into the Spatial Ring. But no matter how he tried, it wouldn't go in. With a thought, he singled out one ring.

This time, the pouch was successfully stored in the Spatial Ring. Edward used the tweezers to pick up the singled-out ring and examined it carefully, sighing:

"I thought those so-called Vampire Counts were just a bunch of paupers, but it turns out everything was here. This is more like the drop rate for elite monsters!"

Carefully wrapping the vampire's Spatial Ring in oil paper, he put it in his pocket. Then he gathered the vampires' clothes into another large bag, pushed open the shop door, and walked out.

He didn't go far, just outside the door. Skillfully taking a large iron bucket stained with smoke and fire marks from his Spatial Ring, he put the clothes inside. Pouring in some oil he had refined himself, he took out a lighter and lit it. The flames illuminated the pitch-black street in the dark night. The guards on the city wall saw the fire, glanced over, and, assuming it was a resident burning trash, paid no more attention.

Just then, a thin young man timidly crept out from the shadows. He called out tentatively:

"Lord Smith?"

"Ah, it's Harry's cousin, Lo... Lo what?" Edward recognized the newcomer.

"It's Lobby, Lobby Delton," the young man said cautiously.

"No need to be so formal. You're Harry's brother, so you're my friend. Did you know those two guys just now?" Edward asked.

"They're vampires from Transylvania. My whole family escaped from Transylvania as blood slaves. As soon as they arrived in White Eagle City, they recognized me..." Lobby recounted the whole story.

"They didn't do anything to you, did they?" Edward asked after hearing it.

"No... These vampires treat us like herders treat livestock—they won't easily kill us. They just regularly draw some of our blood... Sir, you won't blame me, will you?" Lobby asked carefully.

"Blame you? Blame you for what? I told you, don't be so distant. We're about the same age, just call me Edward. If any more of these guys show up, just lead them straight to me. If you can notify me in advance, we'll set up a code word, and I'll be prepared."

Edward was getting addicted to killing monsters and looting treasures. He had shown off a bit too much just now, easily killing off two vampires. What excellent experimental material they would have made—capturing them for long-term experiments would have been the optimal choice. Now Edward was starting to regret it.

Edward sent the terrified Lobby off, telling him to hurry home and report that he was safe. While the things in the iron bucket were burning, he used alchemy to repair the shattered glass door. When the flames in the bucket burned out, he poured the ashes onto the dirt beside the stone-paved road. Come spring, the grass here should grow a bit more lush.

Pulling down the roller shutter, he walked into the shop and found some ashes on the floor. It suddenly occurred to him that vampire ashes were excellent potion ingredients. So he carefully collected those ashes into a test tube, thinking that his knowledge of potion-making wasn't very deep. He'd ask Alice's mother, the Great Mage Lady Kaydelin, another day if she would accept them.

Finally, he used a Cleaning Spell to clean the Alchemy Shop, then turned and went back to the house in the backyard. Now the problem was, the long night stretched ahead, and he couldn't sleep. What to do next? Naturally, it was time to count the spoils.

Edward entered the underground alchemy lab. First, he tossed the small pouch of gold coins and the gold watch into a disinfectant solution he had prepared. Then he carefully took out the Spatial Ring.

He wiped the ring with alcohol—mostly a psychological thing, thinking those vampires were filthy and stinking from their body odor. Actually, according to the classics, vampires were relatively clean supernatural beings; the stench came from their natural scent. But whether they carried any harmful bacteria or viruses on their bodies was anyone's guess.

The classics recorded that people bitten by vampires, if it wasn't the so-called 'first embrace' for reproduction, would turn into Walking Corpses that only obeyed vampire commands. So Edward was very cautious. As for Lobby's family, these so-called 'blood slaves,' the vampires used syringes to draw blood from their bodies to drink, never biting them. Incidentally, the world's first syringe was actually invented by vampires. They invented it not for injection, but for blood drawing. Mm-hmm, another useless piece of knowledge added.

Edward tried to probe the ring with his Mental Power, and it went smoothly. The contents of the ring were laid out clearly. Sure enough, there were no anti-theft measures.

In his previous life, when he read novels about Spatial Rings and storage artifacts, they always required a blood drop for recognition, and to snatch one, you had to erase the mental imprint with Divine Sense. He always wondered back then—did they think magic arrays were like programming, casually adding user systems, or DNA locks, or even automatic kinship recognition? To snatch one, you'd have to hack an account or brute-force it? If mages had that kind of skill, they'd have entered the internet age long ago, wouldn't they?

So in this life, rings with those functions were all Sub-Divine Artifacts refined by Great Magisters, affordable only by major families. Vampires, as supernatural beings, were naturally adept at some magic, so using a Caster's specialized ring was no problem at all. It saved Edward a lot of effort.

This Spatial Ring itself was the biggest gain. It was a ring with 60 cubic meters of space, a full double the size of the one Edward wore. Although it was still a medium-sized Spatial Ring, its price would be several times higher.

He took out the contents of the Spatial Ring. First, some gold coins. Counting them, including those he'd thrown into the disinfectant, there were about two or three hundred—Franz Empire Gold Francs, slightly lower in value than Ailande's gold pounds, worth roughly 400 Golden Eagle Coins. Edward tossed them all into the disinfectant to soak. Then came quite a few Magic Crystals and Magic Gems. These were the 'hard currency' of this world, worth about 2,000 Golden Eagle Coins. Edward was overjoyed, thinking, 'Truly, murder and arson lead to golden belts!' But he wasn't that vicious a person—those two had come to him on their own, and they weren't even human, so killing them carried no guilt. With this money, he could comfortably be a homebody again.

By the way, a word about this world's Magic Crystals and Magic Gems. They were reusable mana storage materials, like the rechargeable batteries of his previous life. According to Edward's research, mana in this world was interesting—it could be stored stably in crystalline substances for long periods, though different crystals had different storage densities. Once mana entered a crystal, it remained stable, only able to be drawn out or injected with Mental Power guidance.

Even more interesting, the crystals and gems of Edward's previous life had corresponding Magic Crystals and Magic Gems in this world, and the more expensive the gem in his previous life, the higher its mana storage density. The highest density was diamond, followed by ruby and sapphire, then various crystals.

Edward had once experimented with making Copper(II) sulfate pentahydrate crystals, thinking he'd found a shortcut to wealth. But the amount of mana they could store was pitiful—about one kilogram could store one standard unit of mana. What was one standard unit of mana? It was something Edward defined himself: the mana consumed to cast a standard Zero-Level Trick, the Cleaning Spell. Can you imagine a Magic Apprentice carrying dozens of kilograms of copper sulfate crystals into battle? That image was too beautiful for him to look at...

Someone might ask: Could Edward make glass? Wasn't glass a crystal? Actually, no. If you don't believe it, go ask 'Baidu'—don't blame me if useless knowledge increases again...

Next came some everyday clothes and daily necessities. Edward dumped them all into the lab's incinerator and burned them.

What took up the most space in the ring were bottles and bottles of blood in glass containers. Edward could imagine that this blood was the 'hard currency' among vampires. But storing it took up space, and taking it out would cause it to spoil quickly.

He wanted to refine this blood into 'Redstone' like what was in the pocket watch. But he lacked the Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle diagram. Although he had once transformed into the 'Silver-Winged Magician' in Ailande and scoured everywhere, there was no clue. The Philosopher's Stone Transmutation Circle was probably treasured by those 'old monsters.' If only he could have gone to Transylvania with Monica back then, he might have obtained the 'Redstone' transmutation circle. (Note: The 'Redstone' in the Alchemist's pocket watch is a weakened version of the Philosopher's Stone, as anyone who's watched Fullmetal Alchemist would know. The Redstone native to the New Continent is a mineral, which will appear in later plot.)

Edward steeled himself and drew a huge transmutation circle, placing all the blood bottles onto it. The circle was simple—one for extracting iron elements. After the extraction was complete, all the blood bottles turned into a gray-white liquid, nauseating to look at.

Suppressing his disgust, Edward flushed those 'blood bottles' down the sewer, which he had dug straight to the seafloor. The reason for extracting the iron elements was to prevent the blood from attracting large numbers of sharks when dumped into the sea, which would cause panic.

Now, only one book remained lying alone in the vampire's Spatial Ring. Edward's interest was piqued.

This chapter was a bit scattered—a transitional chapter, please bear with it.