One week later, Damien was sitting with his legs crossed and his eyes closed, deep in thought. During his time there, he experienced significant improvements in strength and durability. Enduring the increased gravity allowed his body to develop stronger muscles. These increases could also be seen in the system status window, which had seen a major leap forward by now.
Name: Damien Atlas
‘Age: 200 years’
Level:70
Race: High human/Shade (E rank)
Bloodline - High shade
Titles: The first to awaken, Storms Child, Shades primordial.
Class: Origanls descent
Stats:
Health:550 —> 650
Mana:750 —> 850
Strength:580 —> 680
Agility:550 —> 650
Defense:500 —> 600
Intelligence:540 —> 640
Perception:500 —> 600
Willpower:480 —>580
Skills: Mana breathing (Divine), The original (Primordial), Storms blessing (legendary), Lightning fast (rare), Expert Samurai (Rare), Flicker of the original (epic), Originals knowledge (legendary), Pure mana manipulation (Rare) semi-space manipulation (Epic), Memory seal (NEW - Rare)
Points to distribute:210
Skill selections available - 4
Surprise appeared on Damien’s face when he saw the last line of text on the system window. Ever since they entered the temple, Damien had completely forgotten about skill selections and that he got them every ten levels. Tapping his finger against his chin, he started to think about what he wanted to do. He could make the selections all at once now, or he could save them for later…
After spending a decent amount of time in thought he eventually decided to just do one selection for now and save the rest for a later time since he still needed to make his way to Owlshire and did not want to waste too much of his time trying to pick the best skills. Tapping on the skill selection text a system prompt appeared.
“User has started a skill selection, displaying options.”
“Blitz (Epic) - An upgrade for the user’s skill “lighting - fast” Unlike the previous skill where the user could only use it for short periods blitz has no limit other than the user's mana.”
After reviewing the first option, Damien found himself quite interested in the skill. While it mainly served to remove the limit "lightning fast" would definitely be useful in many situations.
“Area sense (Rare) allows the user to enhance their perception even further than they would usually be able to while also preventing the user's brain from overloading with information.”
This skill was rather simple but also extremely tempting, having this skill would allow Damien to sense his surroundings to his full extent without worrying about his head starting to hurt from too much information. After staring at the skill for a few moments Damien pulled his hand back and moved on to the next skill.
“Semi-blood control - Due to the user's relation to vampires as a shade, the user has been offered this option. Allows the user to control blood up to a certain degree and can make attacks out of blood (NOTE- since this is only semi-blood control, the user can’t create blood attacks without blood being in his surroundings.)
As for this one it had shown up in the past and was another that Damien was quite interested in selecting but at the same time he had a feeling that it was something he could learn himself given the right circumstances so he was not really inclined to select this one.
“Leader’s brilliance (Rare) - The user has shown potential in their ability to lead others, this skill will allow the user to more easily get people to follow their will.”
Damien looked back at the last skill he had chosen and felt quite disappointed. Compared to his previous selections, this one was completely underwhelming in all aspects.
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Letting out a sigh, he reviewed his options a couple more times, trying to decide what to choose. Eventually, he narrowed it down to two options: Area Sense and Blood Control.
His reason for not selecting Blitz instead of Blood Control was that he had a high affinity for lightning and was already learning how to control it with the system's help. It wouldn't be long before he managed to upgrade his lightning-fast skill himself.
Glancing back at Area Sense, Damien felt extremely tempted to just select it and move on, especially since he had no idea if he would ever get an option like this again. Looking back and forth between the two choices, he suddenly had a thought and decided to choose the Area Sense skill.
*DING* - The user has selected the skill “Area sense”
This was the second time the Blood Manipulation skill had appeared, meaning it would most likely show up again. Even if it didn’t, he was essentially the first vampire in a sense, which meant his talent for learning the ability had to be exceptionally high.
Smiling at his choice, Damien activated the skill, eager to test out its effects. Upon activation, he felt his senses expand massively. Previously, when he had pushed his senses to the maximum, it not only caused him head pain but also limited his vision to about thirty kilometers. Now, with this skill, he could see well over one hundred.
Having this skill would make his life much easier, allowing him to deal with situations far more effectively than he could before. For example, if he were being chased by someone stronger, this skill would enable him to outmaneuver his pursuers, whereas before, he would have struggled to do so.
While Damien was testing out this new skill something caught his attention that he previously would not have been able to detect, about eighty kilometers away from him a giant group of people was gathered slowly forming a circle around him. Seeing this Damien’s expression turned grave before he let out a smug smile.
‘Thought you could ambush me huh?’ he thought to himself while laughing on the inside, little did they know that Damien could now sense so far away from him running their plans.
‘Now what should I do? I could just run away using my abilities but where is the fun in that? And besides I want to see who exactly is targeting me.’ Having made up his mind Damien sat in wait.
The people forming the circle around him were about twenty in number and while most of them were of no danger to Damien being F rank there was a few E ranks among their ranks making Damien raise his guard to a certain degree but overall he was still relatively relaxed.
He was however interested in where these people had come from since he was currently within the gravity forest an area unexplored by most seeing as it's not on the map Ela had given him these people could not be anyone Damien was familiar with or at least that’s what he believed. If they turned out to be from Bloodless Damien would spare none of them.
After waiting about ten minutes the men seemed to all be in their positions and were all waiting for the signal from their commander who to Damien’s surprise was an extremely tall and robust woman if Damien had to compare her to something it would be a woman from some type of tribe.
She was wearing barely any clothes pretty much only covering up her private areas and all over her body were what appeared to be some type of war paint. While Damien was examining her the woman gave the command and all of the tribal warriors jumped out surrounding Damien in an instant who was still calmly sitting with his legs crossed only now his eyes were open.
Seeing that they had successfully surrounded the man the leader displayed a smug smile before making her way in Damine’s direction and stopping ten feet in front of him, “#%!%!%#?” the tribal woman spoke out but her words were completely foreign to him making Damien rather annoyed.
“I don’t understand you.” he said in response even though he was sure the woman had no idea what he just said.” To his surprise, however, the woman nodded her head and turned around to signal an old-looking man over.
Once the old man arrived he pulled an item out of thin air and handed it over to Damien who examined the item with interest before having the system scan it.
“Cutaina translation bracelet (Uncommon) - An item crafted by the old sage of the Cutaina tribe, allows the holder to understand and speak the language of the Cutainans.”
‘Huh, well that is convenient.’ Damien thought before equipping the item, “Can you understand me now.” said the woman after seeing him equip the bracelet.”
“Yes, I can understand you, now tell me why did you surround me?” Damien asked in response.
“We did so because you are within our tribe's ancestral grounds, anyone who is not a part of our tribe that steps foot within here is to be killed.” the woman said in response while examining Damien up and down.
“So are you going to kill me then?” he asked with a smile that made the woman feel uneasy, for some reason even though they had this man surrounded she had a feeling that if he wanted to he could easily kill everyone here.
Gathering herself the woman looked into Damien’s eyes, “I am going to offer you two choices, either we fight to the death here or you become a part of our tribe through becoming my habatu.”
The older tribe member hearing him adopted a serious look and said, “Chieftain you must not, you can only-” Before he could finish the woman turned around and glared at the man making him stop his words.
“What is a habatu” Damien asked confused as to what the woman was talking about.
A slight blush appeared on the woman's face before instantly disappearing, “For outsiders that we believe would be an asset to the tribe we offer them to become a habatu of one of our members, depending on the strength of the outsider they will be matched to someone from our tribe of equal strength. Essentially a habatu is what we call an outsider who is to marry someone from within the tribe”
“Absolutely not,” Damien said without hesitation, thank god Ela had not been here otherwise things would have gotten scary.
Hearing his words the woman's face stiffened before becoming extremely ugly, “Can you at least tell me the reason you turned me down?” trying her best to keep her cool. “I already have someone I am in a relationship with I have no interest in replacing her or having another partner.”
Understanding appeared on her face and the chieftain’s expression eased a bit, “Well in that case we can only fight, I had hoped it would not have come to this but unfortunately I must follow the tribal rules otherwise the ones behind me might think its okay to break them.”
Damien showed a mysterious smile at her words, “ A fight sounds fun, unfortunately, though I do not have the time to stay here any longer.” he said before vanishing from sight.
