The dark clouds gradually parted, letting bright moonlight spill over the earth.
Jin Sheng strolled over and sat down beside Yu Xian. Poking Yu Xian's hand with a finger, he grinned. "Still alive?"
"Ugh... not dead yet," Yu Xian groaned, speaking with difficulty.
Though every inch of his body ached, Yu Xian knew very well that he wasn't seriously injured. Jin Sheng clearly understood the biology of a vampire quite well; none of his strikes had hit vitals.
A few minutes later, Yu Xian sat up from the ground, his injuries mostly healed.
"Tsk, there really is something off about you. I thought you'd have to lie there for hours, but you're back up in under ten minutes." Jin Sheng stared at Yu Xian, feeling that he was freakier than most Transcendents he had ever seen.
Was this even a normal vampire?
Yu Xian glanced up at the moon and chuckled. "If it were daytime, it might not even take a minute."
"Are you a vampire or Superman?" Jin Sheng couldn't resist retorting. What kind of vampire had even greater regenerative powers during the day? That was completely backwards!
In the same squad, trust had to be mutual.
The moment Jin Sheng chose to trust him unconditionally, Yu Xian had decided to extend that same trust in return.
Though the two had appeared to be making casual banter just now, Jin Sheng had already caught on: Yu Xian could restore his stamina by absorbing light, which was why he had no need to drink blood.
"Captain, are you someone with superpowers? What was with that lion just now?" Yu Xian asked curiously.
Jin Sheng looked up at the sky and answered, "I don't have superpowers. I'm a pure martial artist. I started practicing the *Golden Light Boy Art* as a child. When I mastered it at eighteen, I switched to the *Tiger Subduing Divine Art*. About five years ago, I took a drop of Pangu's Blood, and the *Tiger Subduing Divine Art* mutated into the *Golden Light Lion Divine Art*. It's practically my own exclusive technique. From that day on, I earned my current code name: Lion Light."
"So you're a martial artist. No wonder your close combat is so fierce," Yu Xian said with sudden realization.
Hearing that, Jin Sheng reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. Agitated, he snapped defensively, "What do you mean, 'martial artists are just good at close combat'? Plenty of martial artists are actually terrible at close quarters and rely entirely on immense internal force for long-range combat! Once you've seen more of the world, you'll understand that the only way to improve in close combat is through real combat experience. There are no shortcuts."
He had been beaten by Jin Dajun throughout his entire childhood to develop such solid, practical combat skills. That journey was steeped in so much blood and tears—how could it be brushed aside with a mere "So you're a martial artist"?
Seeing Jin Sheng suddenly get so worked up and faintly sensing the deep grievance in his words, Yu Xian couldn't help bursting into laughter.
"Tsk..."
Jin Sheng looked at Yu Xian, finally sighed in defeat, and shook his head with a wry smile.
***
Over the next few days, restrictions were gradually eased.
The aberrant worms inside Silver City had been wiped out, leaving only a few areas outside the city that still required mopping up. Residents taking shelter in various stadiums began returning home one after another.
On the fifth day, Yu Xian returned to his own home.
Changing into casual clothes, he immediately went out to the balcony and lay back on a chair.
He had been basking in the sun continuously these past few days. Perhaps because regenerating his severed arm had consumed a large amount of his body's energy, it wasn't until yesterday that he finally accumulated nine heartbeats.
Barring any surprises, he would awaken his second minor talent today.
Unlocking his phone, he tapped into the mission section. Now that Silver City's lockdown had been lifted, he could finally accept missions as well.
There were actually quite a few great items in the Merit Shop, such as Pangu's Blood, silver, spatial storage equipment, transcendent weapons, and transcendent armor.
Every single one of them required merit points to redeem.
Even though Jin Sheng had said that once the Silver City incident was completely resolved and contributions were evaluated, he would likely receive a hefty merit reward, Yu Xian felt that the more merit he had, the better. Besides, he had nothing else to do anyway; perhaps before school started, he could gather enough merit to buy an item or two just by taking on missions.
The missions on the board were diverse. Some were posted by the authorities, while others were issued by fellow members.
Yu Xian set the filter to Insect rank and Ant rank, immediately screening out the higher-tier missions and leaving only the low-rank ones.
He began browsing carefully for tasks he could handle:
[Insect-rank Mission: Capture Coldlight Ferrets. 10 merit each. Requirement: 100.]
[Official Insect-rank Mission: Harvest Mutated Ghost-Hand Green. 15 merit per jin. Requirement: 1,000 jin.]
[Ant-rank Mission: Collect zombie fangs. 25 merit each. Requirement: 66 fangs.]
[Official Ant-rank Mission: Eliminate the zombies appearing in Fangshui Town. 50 merit per kill. Requirement: Slay all.]
Yu Xian noticed that as long as a mission was offered by the authorities, the payout was relatively high, but the requirements were also larger. Furthermore, many official missions overlapped in content with private ones; one could easily take both at the same time and claim a double reward.
Just as he was pondering whether he could handle these tasks, his heart suddenly thumped violently. A surge of heat gushed from his heart, rapidly circulating through his entire body.
Having gone through this once before, Yu Xian didn't panic.
He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and quietly waited for the new ability to take shape.
After about ten minutes, he slowly opened his eyes, looking slightly strange. He opened his palm, and a streak of blood-red energy immediately formed in his hand, resembling both water and fire.
[Blood Energy]
This could be considered the most iconic—and most essential—ability of a vampire.
According to the guide section of the Qilin App, this ability had an extremely low probability of awakening only in vampires who had lived for over three hundred years, qualifying it as a major talent.
Moreover, the guide recommended that if members below Sparrow rank encountered a vampire wielding Blood Energy, they should retreat immediately.
With Blood Energy, vampires could learn all manner of blood magic, shedding their status as bottom-dwellers among transcendent races. Even among spellcasting Transcendents, vampires who wielded Blood Energy were considered quite formidable.
If ordinary vampires were squishy assassins, vampires who wielded Blood Energy were noble mages—their statuses were worlds apart.
However, as Yu Xian looked at the Blood Energy in his hand, the first question that crossed his mind was: whom was he supposed to learn blood magic from?
As far as he knew, only two races currently wielded blood magic: blood elves and the Blood Clan.
The blood magic passed down within the Blood Clan had been self-taught by the Progenitor as he grew under the blessings of the Forbidden Fruit. As a wild vampire, the fact that the Blood Clan hadn't killed Yu Xian was already great restraint on their part; there was no way they would ever teach him any blood magic.
As for the blood elves, because their progenitor had fallen in battle hundreds of years ago, their numbers were exceedingly scarce. Nowadays, they mostly lived clustered in Europe, and they were even more xenophobic than the Blood Clan. It was utterly impossible that they would teach him blood magic.
Well...
Was he expected to tap into the world-shaking wisdom he had hidden for years and invent his own blood magic?
Yu Xian stared at the Blood Energy in his hand, his eyes gradually filling with profound wisdom.
Chapter 16