Blood Queen Reborn

When Erin had opened the door to the safe, she couldn’t contain her excitement and ran inside. Surely, there were going to be hoards of high-quality beast gear inside, including a king— no, emperor tier sword, right?

But when she looked around the container, Erin’s excitement had dwindled, and her neutral expression turned into a frown.

It was just a mini library with shelves and shelves of books. All her dreams of finding a powerful sword were destroyed.

’Seriously? It’s ALL books,’ Erin thought as she grabbed one, about to throw it.

[Earth ability book level 1]

[Unable to learn. Would you like to convert into 10 EXP?]

Suddenly, Erin didn’t want to throw the book anymore. She selected yes immediately. That was when the book that was once in her hands disintegrated into nothing. She felt a subtle, strange sensation inside, and a new message had appeared.

[10 EXP gained]

[3,565/6400 EXP]

It wasn’t as cool as a brand-new sword, but she could work with this. Erin went through the books, absorbing them one by one.

As Erin got 10 EXP from each book, she realized that she could only absorb one type of ability book, meaning she couldn’t absorb two level 1 earth ability books. It was a shame since there were more of those type of books than the others.

[140 EXP gained]

[3,605/6400 EXP]

Once she absorbed all she could from this shelf, she looked at the next one, and it was all level 2 books. Despite having absorbed a level 1 Earth ability book, she was able to absorb the level 2 version. It was different enough according to the system, as they gave her 100 EXP each.

[500 EXP gained]

[4,105/6400 EXP]

Looking at the shelves ahead, there were quite a number of them. She then looked at the next shelf and picked up a level 3 ability book.

[Level 3 teleport ability book]

[Unable to learn. Would you like to convert into 1000 EXP?]

[1000 EXP gained]

[5,105/6400 EXP]

She was about to absorb another earth ability book when she realized that she could actually try keeping a book for herself. Erin grabbed a spare Level 3 Earth book and looked at Quinn’s stats page. If she was able to absorb the books for experience, then there was a chance she could help Quinn increase his ability level remotely.

[Would you like to absorb the book?]

[No]

[Option to use the ability book on family member (Quinn)]

Seeing those words surprised her as Erin had no more living family members. It was already strange being mentally connected to him, and they definitely weren’t blood relatives, but somehow, she wasn’t entirely against the idea.

It was a nice thought.

[ERROR]

[Quinn Talen is not blooded. Book will not be absorbed]

’Blooded?’ Erin thought, then she shook her head, ’That’s right, the system didn’t mean we were actually related.’

When it came to the word ’blooded,’ it most likely had something to do with her being a vampire. She did recall that vampires had a lot to do with blood from Layla, so being ’blooded’ likely meant having vampire blood.

’At least I could bring these back to him; he could definitely get stronger,’ Erin thought as she tucked the book under her arm, but it was a little awkward holding that as well as her sword.

’I don’t know if I should consider it fortunate, or unfortunate that there isn’t a level 3 telekinesis book here either,’ Erin thought.

Quinn wasn’t the only one she wanted to grow stronger, as Layla’s powers could improve too, but in order to do so, she’d need to somehow carry two ability books off of this planet.

After Erin absorbed the next couple of level 3 books, she leveled up.

[User: Erin Heley]

[Race: Halfling]

[Level 8]

[1,705/12,800 EXP]

[HP 50/50]

Unfortunately, there weren’t any more level 3 ability books. In fact, there weren’t any more books she could absorb. Erin looked at the other shelves further away from her, just making sure they all were empty. She thought it was true until she saw the last shelf at the end, which held a singular ability book.

Erin grabbed it and got a message.

[Level 6 shadow ability book]

She was about to absorb it, ready to shoot up several levels in her experience levels, when a new message appeared.

[Ability is compatible with the system]

[Would you like to learn it?]

"I... I could learn it?" Erin whispered to herself in disbelief.

This entire time, Erin didn’t have an ability. She no longer had her ice powers, something that held great emotional significance to her, and the only source of strength she had left came from a system she got by accident. Erin wasn’t able to relearn her ice powers, nor any other abilities she came across, making this book quite special.

Erin wiped her eyes. This was a level 6 ability, stronger than her old one. She didn’t quite know what being able to control shadows entailed, but it had to be worth it.

"I’m sorry, mom and dad... I’m sorry I couldn’t keep my power... but you won’t mind if I learn this one, right?" Erin’s voice shook.

She skimmed over the contents of the book as she didn’t need to learn it instantly. While holding it, she found out that it could apparently be stored in her system inventory, unlike all the other books. It was likely because it was a book that only those ’blooded’ could learn, and was compatible with her system.

Reading some of the techniques, there were details about the different shadow skills. The ability seemed to have a lot of smaller abilities to it, making it quite useful.

Yawning, Erin realized just how tired she was. Considering just how secure the container had been for all these years, Erin closed the door shut. She took out the books she couldn’t absorb the EXP of, opened them, and set them down in a row to make a very crude bed.

Tomorrow, she’ll decide if she was going to learn the shadow ability.