When Maria smashed open the doors leading into the ice chamber and walked out, Ash, Carmilla, and a few other subordinates of theirs quickly raised their shields and waited for her.
“...Your Majesty?” Ash cautiously called out.
“...”
The cold fog gushing out of the ice chamber was obscuring their vision of Maria but they could tell that she was standing there at the doorway since her wings were poking out of the roiling fog.
“Your Majesty!” Ash called out once again.
Maria had been stretching her aching neck and muscles so she didn’t respond. When she opened her eyes, a flash of dark red pupils glared directly back at him and soon Ash heard, “...Shut up you idiot. I heard you the first time.”
Since his Queen was still able to converse normally, this meant that she wasn’t going berserk from the influx of energy rushing into her body so Ash released a relieved sigh and ordered everyone to stand down.
Maria walked out of the fog and into everyone’s vision. They couldn’t help but stare at her since her wings appeared to have grown larger. Her eyes had turned ruby in color, it wasn’t like before where it would only change color when she used her [Gehenna’s Eye].
Her skin was even paler than before, looking ever so similar to Ash and Carmilla’s shade of skin tone. Maria stretched her body and began yawning, showing her lengthened canines that were the same as any other vampire.
“The...transformation is complete?” Ash mumbled.
“...It’s amazing. She ingested the blood and was able to retain quite a bit of its purity when she absorbed the energy. She’s become...similar to a vampire...or perhaps more…”
Maria overheard their conversation but she had already long since noticed her transformation. When her Taint level had reached past 100,000, she received a notice that her SIN stat had increased by 1 and she attained a few features of the Vampire race after having ingested the Pureblood Droplet refined by her two subordinates, Ash and Carmilla.
She looked even daintier and delicate than before but this much was fine. There was just one thing that bothered Ash and that was the large, black glowing ring floating behind Maria.
It was radiating an unholy aura that seemed to corrupt the area around Maria. It didn’t seem to affect anyone here adversely. Instead, the people around Maria only felt invigorated by the aura.
Maria’s body felt sore and a bit numb in some places but she still had the mind to check on her status screen.
“[Status].”
Name: Maria Level: 80 Race: Fallen Angel Class: Dark Priestess
Subclass 1: Magus
Subclass 2: Queen Titles: Angel of Death, The Sinful One, Fallen Priestess, Fallen Saintess, World Traveler, Queen of the Dire, Wolf Slayer, Boar Slayer, Sprite Slayer, ... HP: 8,960/8,960
MP: 223,600/223,600
BE: 111,800/111,800
SP: 847/847
NE: 66/66 EXP: 0/8,000,000 ATK: 781 (+200~300)
DEF: 1232 (+115~215)
M.ATK: 2,394 (+20)
M.DEF: 11,968 (+15) STR: 132 (+10)
AGI: 275
VIT: 440 (+8)
INT: 4,326 (+26)
LCK: 11 (+10)
SIN: 9 Free Stat Points: 500 Universal Currency: 260,412 Gold 54 Silver 11 Copper
Vanhal Currency: 24,600 Blood Gold
Faction Currency: 2,001,000 Universe Gold
“Oh...I’ve got a lot of FSPs to spare...I’ll distribute them later.”
Maria swiped away her status screen and continued stretching her body. Her wings felt stiff so she tried extending them but they smacked against the walls of the corridor.
“...Oh, my wingspan grew!”
She retracted her wings and they now had to be folded twice so they wouldn’t mess up her balance.
Earlier, Maria saw the Awakened Variant extension on the name of her race but she didn’t understand what it entailed. At least, until the system prompted something to her again.
Player: Maria has successfully refined the Pureblood of Vampire. You’ve awakened some of the powers of an ancient vampire. Blood Energy Resource has been Unlocked! The following vampire race traits have been unlocked!
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Vampiric Trait 1 - Innate Charm
Vampiric Trait 2 - Life Force Vision
Vampiric Trait 3 - Blood Drain
Player has fulfilled the required Taint Value! Player has undergone a successful awakening! Unique Awakened Trait has been unlocked!
Note*: Further increase in Taint Value will only increase the SIN stat!
Note**:100,000 Taint per 1 SIN
Trait: Tainted One’s Halo - Unique Variant Rank: S+ Description: Unique Halo of an Awakened Fallen. Due to the nature of the catalyst used by the host in their awakening, the Halo provides additional effects on top of the normal effects. Effect 1: Unholy Aura: Provides an aura of healing and speed for nearby allies. Increases HP, MP, and SP Regen by 10%. Increases Movement SPD and ATK SPD by 10%. Passive.
Effect 2: Aura of Blight: Corrupts the area around the user. Any living being caught within the aura will contract 3 random debuffs. Debuffs last for 30 seconds once targets exit the aura radius. Passive.
Effect 3: Awakened Halo: Provides a 100% increase to all of the user’s stats for 10 minutes. Active. Cooldown: 1 Day.
It was a long stream of notifications that never seemed to end. When Maria finally got to the last one, she saw that it was a quest prompt.
Requirements fulfilled! Quest has been generated! Quest: The Awakened Ones’ Trial Rank: X Description: Race-specific quest. Complete the trial to fully awaken your abilities. Time limit: 3 days (71:59:50)
Congratulations to Player: Maria for being the 2nd player in the game to have Awakened! Awakened Leaderboards have been unlocked! Complete the Awakening Quest to unlock the full potential of your Awakening!
“Oh? I’m only the second one?”
“My Queen, is there anything wrong?” Ash asked after he approached her.
Maria quickly dismissed all of the system windows and replied, “Nothing. Let’s get going. I want to return home.”
“As you wish.”
A new leaderboard had been unlocked for her and she quickly opened it. She only saw her name and another person’s name but it wasn’t any of the famous rankers that she saw topping the player leaderboard rankings.
“Sky? What a simple name...I wonder who this person is?”
*****
On a sub-planet called Uqualoc, a player was currently fighting against a pack of murlocks within a marshland. It was a female player and she was slithering across the marshes with extreme agility and attacking the monsters with a spear.
That’s right, this player was ‘slithering’ through the marshes because she didn’t have any legs. Instead of legs, this player had a serpentine bottom from the waist below. She was playing as a naga so it wasn’t a surprise.
The naga race was available on the character creation screen but few people used this race due to a lack of 2 limbs on their lower half. It was hard for a normal person who used legs to move around using a tail.
People were used to walking, like slithering. Of course, this player who had a nametag on top of her head that read ‘Sky’, didn’t have such a problem. She was one of the few naga players in the game that actually adapted to their slithering movements and was extremely good at it.
Being able to slither around had its advantages. One such advantage was the agility, flexibility, and burst speed a player would get from the naga’s unique movement mechanics.
There was also the faster swimming and diving speed as well as the partial ability to walk on water. This player named Sky was using all of her race’s advantages to its fullest by taking advantage of the terrain and dealing with the murlocks.
After Sky dealt with the final murlock, she quickly checked her notifications and scrolled through them. She had received a notice earlier about something but was in the middle of a battle so she had to quickly dismiss it.
“What is it…”
System Notice: Awakening Rankings have been updated! Please check the rankings!
“Hm? Another person found the Awakening Feature?”
Sky quickly checked the Awakening Leader boards and found someone below her.
“Maria?”
It was the first time she was hearing this name, however, she felt like it was familiar...as if she’s heard it somewhere before.
“Hmmm...well, there’s a lot of Maria’s out there. Now that there’s another person with the Awakening, my advantage will slowly diminish. I have to quickly pull ahead of everyone before they can catch up!”
Sky was secretly within the top rankings of the player base level leaderboard, however, she just didn’t reveal her name. Her level right now was 129 and it was only 6 levels below the current ranked one.
She could easily rank within the top 25 players if she were to reveal her name on the leaderboard. However, she didn’t want to reveal herself because she was a solo player. Being a solo player had both its advantages and disadvantages.
If she were to reveal her level and how fast she was able to level up and hunt, she would definitely attract the attention of many guilds and they’d pester her with DMs and recruit offers. The harsher ones might even start attacking her to hinder her progress because she’d refuse to accept their invitation.
Sky liked to hunt solo and do quests alone. She would occasionally party with friends who played the game or go help out her cousin’s guild do some dungeon runs. She didn’t mind playing with others from time to time but being constrained by a guild was just too suffocating for her.
She’d rather play it solo and play it her own way without any distractions or obligations. Even though she plays like this, she was actually part of an adventurer team but her adventurer team would only gather once in a blue moon to complete a hard quest together.
If they didn’t need each other, they wouldn’t even bother chatting or saying anything. Her adventurer team was actually her University’s game club. Her friend had pulled her into joining the club and adventurer party despite her wishes but she couldn’t turn her down after being registered.
“Hmmm, let’s kill a few more murlocks. That Sea God’s quest is really a pain but I’m almost finished. I just need to kill a few more murlocks to complete the mid-ranked aquatic monsters’ objective and then kill 5 boss-ranked aquatic monsters to wrap things up! Let’s do it!”