Frei held a green cup in his hand, staring at it like it was a precious treasure he had just spent his all wealth to buy. Sitting on his bed opposite him was Nitarja who was doing exactly the same, but the shade of green was a bit darker when one looked closely at her cup, her other hand was resting on Frei's knee.

"Your progress is much better, it is not fair!" Frei snatched her cup and gave her his own. "Now, I am the one with the darker green!"

"Don't cheat!" She protested, trying to take her cup back, but he stretched his hand above his head, so that she could not reach it.

"Oh my, our lovely couple is at it again." Ejay sat on his own bed, his cup was light green. He looked around and sighed when he saw that the cups of all the others were of a darker shade.

"They are still better than you Ejay, look at your cup." Ratel's remark left Ejay with a frown on his face, it was not something she had to remind him about.

"I cannot focus on the spell when they are in the state of constant foreplay." Ejay rolled off his bed and stood up.

"You deserve it for laughing at us the other day." Nitarja smirked in Ejay's direction, but his expression remained stern.

"I need to train somewhere else." Ejay left the chamber and soon, Ratel followed him without saying anything.

"Maybe we should really tone it down a little. Ratel seemed quite irritated as well." Frei's fingers entered Nitarja's long, white hair.

"She? Do you think she is jealous or something? She has no right to be, do not forget what she did!" Nitarja stated firmly, moving her hand to his thigh.

"Hey, that is not fair, she had no choice." Frei reached out and tugged on her tail lightly.

"Are you going to defend her?" Nitarja was sulking, not trying to take her cup anymore. " Fine, I know that she had no choice, but it is stuck in my head nonetheless. It is just .. "

"So it is you who is jealous! We can make a revenge! Go borrow the collars, she will be the one on the chair this time!" Frei teased Nitarja. Actually it would not have been a laughing matter if they were in a normal situation, but they needed to joke about something, as they were very much aware that Victor held their lives in his hand completely. He could enter their room any moment and order a suicide mission and they would not be able to change their fate. They coped with the pressure by making jokes that would not be funny otherwise.

"Let's focus on the spell, the stronger we are, the better." Frei said and looked back at the cup.

  Frei had still his objective to get rid of Victor's influence, a solid motivation to steadily move forward. This spell of darkening the green paint on the cup was utterly useless, but they could not learn any truly useful dark spells at their level. As Frei observed this world, he was quite confused by its game mechanics. He knew that levels limited the power of spells, but it did not seem that his attributes increased when he leveled up. He noticed that Victor's speed or strength were normal, the same as any of his subordinate vampires. At first, he thought that he was hiding his true power, but he noticed that even among lesser vampires serving under him, there did not seem to be a difference.

Could it be that the attributes stayed the same all the way and the only parameter that changed was the ability to learn spells or skills?

So far it looked that way, but Frei existed in this world for a too short period of time to be making premature conclusions.

  After the yesterday's explanation, Frei started to think about their precarious situation from more angles and began to think that to simply get stronger and kill Victor would be the most straightforward, but maybe not the smartest solution. The question was, what then? Would the other vampires simply let it slide? Frei doubted it. Would humans or angels provide some support along the lines of the enemy of my enemy is my friend? Certainly not, as they were vampires at the end of the day. They simply could not turn vampires into their enemies lightly, as the singular fact of being vampires had already made them a lot of enemies.

  Frei could rely on the same bug as before when he used the nonexistent hatred between him and the dark elves, but that was before the change with the light in the sky and even if it worked, what about Nitarja? She was in fact the source of his many problems, but he refused to throw away the remnants of his humanity by just abandoning her. The more time he spent as a lesser vampire, the more he doubted the scenario of killing Victor, his latest idea was to sniff around to find out how other vampires became full vampires, as the ideal solution to their problem would be to evolve into a full vampire.

Was it dependent on level? Or was there another condition?

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"UGH, Finally!" Frei sighed, staring at his dark green cup.

"Too slow, you are such a turtle Frei!" Nitarja pinched Frei's side with her fingers while laughing.

"Oh shut up, or I will crush you with my tough shell." He caught her arm and his other hand kept sliding down along her spine with no intention to stop.

"I would love to be crushed." He received her deep look and was lost in the moment for a second.

"Wait for it, I will return the book to the library first." Frei said and walked out of their room after tearing himself off her.

"No, I will not let go, the game is on." He whispered and his decision reminded Frei of many schools of philosophy that had the thought of letting go as their central mission. However, Frei considered will itself to be the center of existence, letting go meant abandoning will, forfeiting will was the sign of ceasing existence, becoming a many-faced nothing.

It was only for those who had no place or desire to be in this world anymore and they considered such a state good purely out of their arrogance, not knowledge.

Well, at least that was what he thought.

"Let's go." He mumbled and tightened his fist, moving in the direction of the library. He not only wanted to return the book that contained all the useless dark spells, but also search for some kind of history books. He was very interested in how Victor had become a true vampire and he hoped that he could deduce it even from indirect information. He had to start somehow if he intended turn himself into a full fledged vampire, he and Nitarja could just let themselves be inspired by Victor's brilliance and follow his example, throwing away her shackles in the process.

  He walked along the walls of the deserted library and its full bookshelves. Some of the books looked like no one had touched them for tens of years, the Waldorf Castle was apparently old enough to amass quite a collection of books. Frei decided to take a book titled The Modern History of Waldorf Castle and sat near a window on a simple wooden chair, slowly opening the dust covered book on its first page.

"Ah, a nice title." He heard a voice from behind and hastily turned to face the familiar face of a vampire, nearly falling off the chair by surprise.

"The game is over, it's time to put cards on the table." Victor said with a cold face of stone and bent his back, lowering his head next to Frei's.

"No more rounds to play, die now Frei. I command thee to." Victor whispered softly into his ear.

Frei froze, the following few passing seconds felt like an eternity, there was no way to deceive Victor with this one.

"So it was really the truth." Victor straightened his back and stared at him. Frei wanted to refute the conclusion that Victor had to arrive at, but he had no cards to play, he lost and he knew it.

"How?" Frei stared at him, it was the only word he had managed to squeeze out of himself while he felt blood rushing through his head, expecting Victor's attack any second.

"I am very familiar with giving commands to my subordinates and there seemed to be a bit of hesitation in your actions, making me wonder if you really are under my control." Victor answered, looking at him like a wolf deliberating about which part of his prey to eat first.

"Fine, I have lost. What now?" Frei asked and the vampire reached into the folds of his cloak, as if to take out something and while the two vampires stared at each other, one side of their faces was suddenly illuminated by a blue light coming from the window. Victor stopped his movement and their pupils followed the source of the light, it appeared to be a similar phenomenon Frei had seen when he traveled to the Waldorf Castle in a long line of slaves.

  The phenomenon from before repeated once again and Frei could feel as if a transparent wave of something went through everything, the world around him seemed to gain more substance again. He could only guess what it was, or what consequences these events would have, as he continued to live as a part of this crazy experiment.

"Damn that mad scientist." He muttered and his focus returned to the vampire in front of him.

* * * * * *

  An old man past his fifties touched his beard in thought. His beard and hair had not been shaved for some time, he had no time for trivialities, now that his project was reaching its climax. Although everything went well, he could not help but feel nervous when he looked around himself. There was a throng of people gathered in front of a huge fancy gate that he had built.

  It was a circular gate with a diameter well over ten meters, mysterious symbols shining and twinkling along its circumference in a blend of magic and technology, its level so high one could not longer recognize one from the other. Some of the mechanical parts moved from time to time, making the gate look even more eerie.

It was naturally entirely redundant to make it this flashy, but how could he present them with just some shabby steel frame when many of the Galacron's elites were present?

  Among the people were military personnel and researchers alike, as the interstellar corporation threw away all caution, when the forces of the Divine Universe poured out of numerous portals everywhere and threatened to endanger its very existence. The peculiar timing of the invasion persuaded many that the cause for their rush was his universe creation experiment that seemed to be growing well and a decision had been made to claim it with haste.

  For that very purpose, all the Mages around him were now waiting for his signal, an honor given to him as the one who had initiated the project. Honestly, his position was not as high as to be giving all the speeches, but he was the one who would pull the lever that initiated the transfer. He put his sweaty hand on its surface and waited for the chairman of the corporation to speak his last sentence.

  When the moment came and he finally pulled the lever, a bright light flashed and a thin, shimmering membrane of light appeared in the gate. Only a few knew that it was again just a spectacle, as the portal was in fact almost colorless compared to the shining thing out of the wildest of night clubs that he had constructed to please the eyes of the masses.

"Go brave warriors, claim what is ours, the reward for those of you with significant contributions will be astronomical!" The encouraging words of the chairman still rang in his ears when he watched dozens and dozens of Mages disappear in the portal.