Like most other undead Vampires have a natural resistance to cold temperatures, though it isn’t to the same degree as something like a skeleton or a zombie's resistance. Like a ghast vampires have a increased healing speed that can be seen by the unaided eye starting on medium levelled vampires, the best way to counter this is with pyromancy but any other lingering magical effects such as necrosis can also work well against it.

One of the more disturbing skills a vampire has but might not know of is the ability to take and attach the limbs of another if theirs have been lost. Due to their undead state they can attach their nerves to severed limbs not belonging to themselves much like some skilled necromancers can do when creating their terrible experiments. The best ways to prevent this from happening is to leave a jagged or otherwise unclean wound where the limb was severed, this way it will take much longer to do for the vampire. Alternatively a blunt weapon like a hammer or mace will mangle the limb istead of severing which is much harder to heal from.

I couldn’t look away from the book, almost like I was under some sort of compulsion spell that forced me to look and read everything within its pages.

All vampires will have a boosted magical affinity for all three types of magic but they usually chose to become mages rather than occultists or priests as they gain excellent affinity for illusion magic in particular which few gods offer. Even without any proper training a vampire has a natural ability to influence a mortal's behavior to sway their opinions or thoughts to a certain extent. This is why there are so many stories of vampires becoming nobility and ruling decent portions of land, the most notable example was the Count Dracula during the late first era.

‘This Count Dracula character sounds rather interesting. During the first era, that was around four thousand years ago. He must have been very impactful if he is still well known after so long. I wonder if there are any books about him, I will look into that when I have some free time after reading this book.’

The best way to identify a vampire from a normal person is their physical characteristics, vampires tend to be thin and have pale complexions compared to the average person. Many who have known vampires personally have commented about the paleness of their skin asking if they are afraid of sunlight or if they spend all their time in caves.

Vampires will often have physical strength that doesn’t match their physique, this is largely due to being undead. It can be especially noticeable if someone who is a vampire also spends a lot of time doing physical labor or lifting heavy things often. They will often only have half the mussel mass as a normal person in the most extreme cases as the mussel is dense rather than large like most creatures like the were beast. As such they are also very dexterous and nimble and often take advantage of this in young vampire hunters.

‘That explains how Darius was so thin compared to Aulus and yet had such physical might to face him down. I should probably also look into levelling up several more times and investing some of those points I gain into strength and vitality. My strength is currently at twenty and my vitality is at twenty five, putting another five points into my dexterity wouldn’t be a terrible idea either given just how fast he was.’

Flipping the page once more I found that I had reached the end and all that was left was a small blurb from the author who also had a highly detailed picture of himself just above it. The author was named Tiberius Trebellius, and what I assumed was the time of writing the book based on the picture, was in his late sixties with a small amount of grey hair on his head and a short grey beard.

When I was a young lad like I expect many who are reading this very book I killed many vampires, most of which were young vampires who didn’t know much about their abilities. The few powerful vampires I fought almost always nearly killed me, that is why you should never fight a vampire alone no matter how skilled or knowledgeable you are. Having people you can trust is a strength that not many evil beings can say truthfully, not even vampires with those they turn as evil will always fight amongst itself.

It was good advice that Tiberius Trebellius was giving at the very end, however that might have been something he should have included somewhere else other than the very end. ‘With the help of Aulus or someone like him and the templars under their command I should be safe enough when I go to the vampires cults lair. I will need to expose the existence of the cult first and then get enough attention so Darius will send the assassin to kill me like last time. Then when I kill him and inform the city guard of what happened the paladins will arrive and I can speak with their leader regarding the cults base of operations.’

With a plan in mind I returned both the books I had in my possession back to their respective locations before going back to the evoker section for more spell books. ‘I should look into some tier three spells from other magic types as well, that fireball Calavia used against me might be enough to give Darius and his followers a surprise.’

Checking through the book shelves I picked up several books that I thought might contain the spell I was looking for along with a few others about geomancy that looked interesting leaving me with five books in hand. I walked over to the same table I was sitting at and started reading the first book on evoker level pyromancy.

It took me around an hour to read the whole thing, but by the end I felt my knowledge had expanded enough to make the time spent worthwhile. I didn’t find the spell I was looking for but I did find another that I thought would be useful in some situations.

The spell was called Burning Weapon and would ignite any weapon I touch along where I touch with the hand I cast the spell with. According to the description the spell would last for around ten minutes which was the same as the Free Handed Earth Weapon spell. As I was thinking about the similarities between those I suddenly had an idea I needed to try.

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‘What if I was to cast the Burning Weapon spell on a weapon conjured with the Free Handed Earth Weapon spell? Assuming something doesn’t go wrong it should be covered with a flame and increase its overall power significantly.’ I made a mental note to try this out as I opened the front cover to the second book about evoker level pyromancy I found.

To my surprise this book was less about offensive fighting with pyromancy and more oriented towards protecting yourself and others from powerful pyromancy spells gone wrong. Funnily enough the first thing it said to do was to stay calm.

Stay calm. Panicking in a situation where a powerful pyromancy spell whether it be your own or someone else's will do you no good. If you panic easily you need to take deep breaths and calm your mind enough to think carefully before you do anything.

You will need to extend your mind and take control of the wild flames that you wish to take control of, this will leave you vulnerable for any falling debris that may fall nearby, that is why you need to find a safe place where you will conduct your magic. And always remember your safety is the most important, if you are worried about getting hurt while helping someone you are doing it wrong.

‘Certainly a unique take on personal safety and for others, but I assume that the writer had a good reason to write this all down.’ I continued reading the book and found that the first quarter of the book covered how to keep yourself safe from what the author referred to as wild fire. It was just fire that wasn’t under the control of any spellcaster but was still dangerous enough to possibly hurt someone. After that it went onto how to actually control a wild and unpredictable fire which I figured I could also put towards controlling the fire I conjured up as well.

An hour passed as I read the book from front to back and I felt the time I spent was worthwhile. I raised my arms above my head and stretched which was followed by myself standing up and stretching my entire body. Looking across the room I noticed the clock and my eyes widened in surprise.

“Is that the time already?” I asked nobody in particular, a little surprised that it was three o’clock in the afternoon already. I had only felt a single hour had passed.

“Yes it is Arthur, you have been sitting at that table for nearly two hours now reading that pile of books.” Mrs. Florens said, suddenly appearing from behind a nearby bookcase with a book in each of her hands which she quickly put back in its place.

I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sudden surprise, I quickly collected myself and smiled awkwardly before picking up the two books I had finished and putting them back where I found them. The other three I picked up and walked over to the front desk and waited for Mrs. Florens to return.

A minute later she seemingly teleported behind a nearby bookcase and walked over and began the process of signing the books out under my name. “Books about geomancy? That wouldn't happen to be your specialization, would it Arthur?”

“It is, though I am going to try and learn a bit more about pyromancy as well. That way I can have a bit more diverse selection of spells.” I replied hoping that she didn’t connect this with my interest in vampires and how fire can be effective against them.

“Not a terrible idea for a mage. You will find that having many tools that you never use is better than having just one tool that you can’t use. Just remember that you shouldn’t try to learn everything, nothing wrong with learning a little of all magic, but nobody can learn everything. Not even the gods know everything despite all their wisdom and experience.”

*********

At six o’clock that night I was seated in the free parrot bar with a bowl of soup as my dinner on the table before me while I was reading the book in my hands. While the chair wasn’t quite as comfortable as the ones in the library it was good enough and I could just cycle the little restoration magic that I knew of to alleviate any discomfort.

While I was standing up to take a stretch as I was doing every half hour I looked around the room that was filled with a large assortment of people. I noticed someone dressed in a very familiar way. Somebody, most likely a man, was dressed in a red cloak that reminded me a lot of the Red Eye cult and what they wore.

At first I chalked it up to an odd coincidence but suddenly something deep within my mind was telling me differently. The man with the red cloak was sitting at a table with two others who were dressed normally, none of them were eating anything. Nothing wrong with that on its own, but something told me that it wasn’t as simple as three people meeting up.

Trying to remain discrete I kept watching while I pretended to be reading from my book. After a minute the red cloaked man handed a small bag of something to one of the men sitting across from him and received something else that I didn’t get a good look at. Only a few seconds after that the two normal looking men stepped out of the tavern leaving the cloaked man alone for only a minute before he did the same and stepped outside.

I waited until he was at the door before standing up and following, stepping into the street I saw the cloaked man walking amongst the remaining people walking through the street. Most of the people were either walking to their homes or a place to eat after a long day of work. Following the cloaked man I hid behind people walking in his direction, I made sure to stay a good distance behind him so he wouldn’t notice me. It helped that his cloak prevented him from looking behind himself without almost turning all the way around. I followed him from the tavern to the familiar plot of unkempt of land where the lair was located.

Since we were so far from anything anybody would want to be around I had to use what few buildings and other large objects I could find to keep myself hidden. As a precaution I stayed even farther back just in case he could hear my footsteps.

As he reached the overgrown grass our surroundings were dead silent, the rustling of the grass as he moved through almost echoed through the area. At that moment I cursed myself and watched from a distance as my target disappeared into the vast section of land that once belonged to a noble family.

‘Dam, this isn’t good. I can’t follow him to where he is going without alerting him to my own presence. If we were going down the path with the fake trees or just actual trees then I would have been able to continue following him, but that grass would give me away faster than someone shouting blood murder.’

With little else to do I left and returned to the tavern a little bitter with my failure, I ended up ordering a drink to try and ease my mind somewhat to a limited success. I continued reading the books in the room I rented, this time I managed to snag a proper room on the second floor with a decent look over the street below.

To pass the time I tried some of the manipulation techniques that were listed within the books of both the pyromancy and geomancy types, though I kept the amount of fire to a minimum due to the obvious dangers of fire in a wooden building that I didn't want to be held responsible for. Knowing my luck one of those priests with lie detection magic would start asking me questions about what happened and I wouldn't be able to lie.