Chapter 16: New Ability
The dark clouds gradually parted, allowing bright moonlight to spill down. Jin Sheng strolled over, sat down beside Yu Xian, and poked him with a finger. "Still alive?"
Yu Xian groaned, the words slipping painfully through his teeth. "Ugh. I'll survive."
Though he was throbbing with pain from head to toe, he knew perfectly well that he hadn't sustained any serious injury. Jin Sheng clearly understood a vampire's physiology and had deliberately avoided striking his vitals.
A few minutes later, Yu Xian sat up, his injuries mostly healed.
Jin Sheng stared at Yu Xian. "Tsk. You really are something else. I thought you'd be bedridden for hours, but you're back on your feet in less than ten minutes."
To Jin Sheng, Yu Xian seemed far more monstrous than most of the supernatural beings he had encountered. Is this guy even a normal vampire?
Yu Xian glanced up at the moon and smiled. "If it were daytime, it probably wouldn't even take a minute."
Jin Sheng couldn't help but complain. "Are you a vampire or Superman?"
A vampire whose healing factor was actually stronger in broad daylight completely turned all logic on its head.
Yu Xian had told his secret to Jin Sheng because in a small squad, trust had to be mutual. Since Jin Sheng had chosen to give Yu Xian his unconditional trust, Yu Xian decided to return the favor in full. Moreover, while they had just been casually bantering, Jin Sheng had already pieced it together. Yu Xian could absorb light to replenish his strength, which was exactly why he didn't need to drink blood.
Curious, Yu Xian asked, "Captain, are you a supernatural being? What was that giant lion from earlier all about?"
Jin Sheng looked up at the night sky. "I'm not a supernatural being, but a pure martial artist. I've been training in the Golden Light Foundation Art since I was a child. After mastering it at eighteen, I switched to the Tiger Subduing Divine Art.
"About five years ago, I consumed a drop of the Blood of Pangu, due to which the Tiger Subduing Divine Art mutated into the Golden Radiant Lion Divine Art. It became my exclusive technique. That was also the day I got my current codename, Lion Radiance."
Yu Xian nodded. It was indeed as he had thought. "So, you're a martial artist. No wonder your close-quarters combat is so terrifying."
Jin Sheng reacted like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. "What do you mean by 'no wonder'? Plenty of martial artists are terrible at close-quarters combat. They rely entirely on their vast reserves of inner energy to fight from a distance. Once you see more of the world, you'll realize that the only way to improve your close-quarters skills is through real-life combat. There are no shortcuts."
He had spent his childhood being repeatedly beaten in sparring by his father to build his current rock-solid foundation. A lifetime of blood, sweat, and tears couldn't simply be brushed off by a casual phrase such as "so, you're a martial artist."
Seeing Jin Sheng get so worked up, Yu Xian faintly sensed the underlying grievance in his words and couldn't help but laugh out loud. Jin Sheng shot him a look before finally clicking his tongue in defeat, shaking his head with a bitter smile.
***
After a few days, the lockdown restrictions began to ease. The Aberrant Parasites in Silver City had been cleared out, with only a few surrounding areas outside the city requiring further cleanup. Residents who had been taking shelter in various gymnasiums were starting to return home one after another.
By the fifth day, Yu Xian was back in his home. After changing into casual clothes, he immediately collapsed into the lounge chair on the balcony. He had spent the past few days constantly basking in the sun.
Probably because regenerating his severed arm required a massive amount of energy, it wasn't until yesterday that he finally accumulated his ninth heartbeat. Barring any surprises, he would awaken his second minor ability today.
He unlocked his phone and tapped into the mission section of the Qilin app. Now that the lockdown had been lifted, he could finally accept missions. The Merit Shop in the app was packed with incredible items such as the Blood of Pangu, silver, and spatial equipment, as well as supernatural weapons and armor. Every single one of them could be redeemed with merit points.
Although Jin Sheng had mentioned that Yu Xian would receive substantial merit points once the Silver City incident was wrapped up, Yu Xian figured one could never have too many merit points. Besides, he had nothing better to do. Perhaps before school started, he could scrape together enough merit points from these missions to buy some equipment.
The mission board featured a wide variety of missions, some issued by the government and others posted by fellow Qilin members. Yu Xian set his filters to show only Insect- and Ant-rank missions, instantly filtering out the higher-tier ones. He carefully scrolled through the missions he could take on.
[Insect-rank mission: Capture Frostlight Ferrets. Reward: 10 merit points per ferret. Requirement: 100 ferrets.]
[Government issued - Insect-rank mission: Harvest mutated Ghosthand Herb. Reward: 15 merit points per 500g. Requirement: 500kg.]
[Ant-rank mission: Collect zombie fangs. Reward: 25 merit points per fang. Requirement: 66 fangs.]
[Government issued - Ant-rank mission: Clear the zombies in Bloomwater City. Reward: 50 merit points per zombie. Requirement: Full extermination.]
Yu Xian noticed that government-issued missions always offered more merit points, but they came with stricter requirements. Furthermore, many official and private missions overlapped in content. One could easily accept both simultaneously to collect a double payout.
Just as he was weighing his options, his heart thumped. A surge of heat erupted from his chest, rapidly spreading throughout his body. Having gone through this once before, Yu Xian didn't panic. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and quietly waited for the new ability to take form.
Roughly ten minutes later, he slowly opened his eyes, a strange expression crossing his face. He extended his hand, and a streak of blood-red energy immediately materialized in his palm, looking simultaneously like water and flickering flame.
It was Blood Energy, arguably the most iconic and essential ability of vampires. According to the encyclopedia section of the Qilin app, Blood Energy was a major ability. Ordinary vampires had an extremely low chance of awakening it, even after surviving for three hundred years. The section even contained an explicit warning that if any operative below the Sparrow rank encountered a vampire wielding Blood Energy, they should retreat immediately.
Once a vampire awakened Blood Energy, they could learn various blood arts, which lifted them out of the bottom tier of supernatural beings. In fact, even among magic-wielding supernatural beings, a vampire with Blood Energy was regarded as a particularly troublesome opponent.
If ordinary vampires were squishy assassins, then a vampire with Blood Energy was a noble mage. Their statuses were worlds apart.
However, as Yu Xian stared at the blood-red energy dancing in his palm, his first thought was, Where the hell am I supposed to learn blood arts?
As far as he knew, only the Blood Fairies and the Blood Race possessed blood arts. Blood arts passed down within the Blood Race originated from their progenitor, who, after consuming a Forbidden Fruit, gained insights and developed the arts all on his own over centuries. It was already a miracle that the Blood Race hadn't hunted down Yu Xian, a wild vampire. There was no way they would ever teach him their blood arts.
As for the Blood Fairies, their progenitor had died in battle centuries ago, rendering their population incredibly scarce. Today, they live in tight-knit, isolated communities in the Western Continent. They were even more xenophobic than the Blood Race, making it completely impossible for them to teach him blood arts.
Well... Am I really going to have to unleash the world-shaking wisdom I'd been hiding all these years and invent blood arts from scratch?
Yu Xian looked at the Blood Energy in his hands, his gaze slowly becoming deep and insightful, or at least he thought so.