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nThe summon of the vampire lady resembled a large bat that had two large horns on its head. It was twice the size of Keith and the speed at which it attacked him was not something to scoff at. For its size, the summon was incredibly fast and agile.

nBut the opponent of the summon was not any ordinary vampire either. Having evolved his blood core to the viscount stage and the warrior frame to the count stage, Keith’s physical power was way over the viscount stage, be it speed or strength.

nTossing the large bat to the ground, Keith struck its vital points trying to wear it down. The bat struggled and tried to use its legs to attack Keith. In front of a count level, the bat couldn’t do anything.

nStill, Keith never used his full power up until now so the bat could somewhat manage. Turning its head, the bat shot out blueish liquid from its mouth. Keith dodged it without a problem but upon contact to the ground, the liquid melted the floor.

n“Corrosive poison, huh? I need to shut your mouth.”

nKeith grabbed the bat’s head and closed its mouth. Applying more pressure on the grip, Keith cracked the bones of the bat. Then he grabbed one of the horns and used all his force to rip it apart.

nGraaaah!

n“Stop!” The lady vampire attacked from behind with the other male vampire aiding her.

nThe two figures lunged at him simultaneously while Keith was holding the bat. They thought now that Keith was in a position where he couldn’t let go of the bat. And the attack was well coordinated as the two vampires attacked from opposite directions.

nLooks like I got my answer. Viscounts are much weaker now. I thought they would entertain me for longer, alas…

nKeith used the same technique he used multiple times while fighting the ghouls.

nBoom!

nA horn pierced the male vampire and he dropped to the floor. The lady vampire was hit with her summon and blasted away, hitting the other side of the wall. Keith walked up to the lady and picked her up.

nHolding her elbow, he dragged her to the middle of the room and kneeled down.

n“I didn’t even use my full power to not kill you. You should listen to me when you have the luxury to, otherwise, I will take much more important things from you than just coins.” Keith whispered in her ears while licking his lips.

nA viscount level vampire had a tremendous amount of blood-qi and unlike the ghouls, the life energy that could be converted efficiently was much higher. The system knew that a ghoul’s corrupted blood-qi was much harder to distill than the blood-qi of other vampires.

nIt all came down to the relative structure of life energy. While the corrupted blood-qi was abundant, due to the significant change in attribute, it was harder to absorb and most of it gets absorbed by the surroundings in the process of conversion.

nBlood-qi was similar in structure for all vampires and the only difference was in the attributes that were interwoven with the blood-qi. It was much easier to erase the vampire attribute from the blood-qi than the ghoul attribute.

nGhouls were bloodthirsty and didn’t have a clear mind. Sure, the higher-level ghouls were somewhat intelligent, but the corrupted blood-qi was the reason they couldn’t control their instincts.

nThe corrupted blood-qi was a chaotic type of life energy that feeds off of a vampire’s primal desires and takes it to another level. The physique changes and vampires slowly turn into ghouls.

nThere are many ways to trigger the corrupted blood-qi creation. If a vampire mindlessly consumed blood and killed other species, the primal instinct solidifies more, and the process of corrupted blood-qi creation starts in their body. But it is too slow and any experienced vampires could eliminate the corrupted blood-qi by abstaining from killing and consuming blood or forcing the corrupted blood-qi out.

nIt also takes a lot of time for the corrupted blood-qi to form. So unless the vampire deliberately commits these atrocities, the chances of a vampire turning into a ghoul this way are almost impossible.

nThe other way a vampire could become a ghoul is when a blood ritual goes wrong. This is also not very prevalent as the blood ritualists are usually careful enough to not cause any disaster, but once in a while, these accidents occur and the blood-qi gets chaotic all of a sudden, hence turning the vampire into a ghoul.

nAll of these are just a small portion of the ghoul population. The majority of the ghouls were humans who were forcefully converted without supervision. That’s why it’s forbidden to turn humans without the approval of the vampire council.

nAs the ghouls have the same amount of lifespan, most of the powerful ghouls are centuries or even thousand-year-old powerhouses. Humans don’t live much longer and they create more of them every year. So almost all the new ghouls that are being turned, are humans.

nKeith couldn’t get the amount of blood essence from the ghouls of the same level. A vampire’s blood was very precious especially if the vampire was a viscount. So Keith had all the reasons to find dumb vampires who would throw themselves at him just so he could extract their blood from them.

nIf the lady in front of him denied his offer, Keith would bid his time and when she leaves the academy, he will absorb her blood-qi to compensate for all this. He won’t kill her but if she loses enough blood-qi, she can’t sustain her viscount stage for much longer.

nKeith looked at the lady and raised his eyebrows in a curious manner.

n‘How is she going to respond?’ He thought.

n“This is the money I had saved to buy artifacts, you can’t take them away from me.” She retorted as tears started forming at the corner of her eyes.

n“Then collect it again. Not like you are going to die tomorrow Unless you want to?” Keith glared back.

n***

nThe two male vampires were huffing and their hands were shaking. The lady in the middle was a little calmer, but her pupils were shaking which showed how stressed she was.

n“You can take the compensation for the mission. We will withdraw all the complaints and I will give you 500 gold blood coins.” The lady said, showing her five fingers.

n“I don’t want to negotiate. If you don’t give me your treasury rune card, I will beat you up until you can’t remember your own name.” Keith’s voice turned fierce.

nThe dialogues! Where am I getting them? Keith’s mind is surely influencing mine. Still, it’s fun to say stuff like this. The system inwardly laughed but Keith’s face was stone cold.

n“You can’t take the treasury cars just for a small misunderstanding. We didn’t know you were a count okay. So can you just drop it? I’m not afraid of you. If you beat us up, the summoning department will not take this lightly. I am Miss. Cryel’s direct disciple and she is a marquis. You can show off your strength in front of us but not her.” The lady said while clenching her teeth.

n“Is that so? Well, I am not afraid of any marquis. If you think mentioning her name will save you from me, then you are mistaken. This place is in the jurisdiction of Miss. Shaw and I don’t think others will interfere with the hunter affairs because at this moment, you are not in the summoning department but the hunter office.

nBang!

nKeith threw a slightly powerful punch trying to test his strength but it blew away the vampire standing next to the lady. Although the vampire was not hurt that badly his body was experiencing immense pain.

nThe punch Keith threw was powerful enough to compare to a final stage viscount’s full power punch. Keith didn’t use any extra blood-qi to strengthen the punch but it still managed to disrupt the blood-qi of the opponent.

n“I will say this one more time. Give me your treasury cards or the next punch won’t be this light.”

nHiss!

nThe lady’s eyes were full of dread but she didn’t lose her mind and gave her treasure card. Clearly, the treasury card contained a lot of coins, which she was unwilling to part with.

nThe other vampire was shaking and hastily took out his treasury card and gave it to Keith.

n“Hmm… only 200 gold blood coins, no wonder you handed it so easily. Now Miss, don’t make me wait any longer, I have other important things to attend to.” Keith gestured his hand to the lady.

n“Never!” The lady suddenly expanded her aura to counter Keith’s and brought out her summon.

nShe was at the final stage of Viscount and her summon was also at the level of final stage viscount. Showing no fear, she ordered her summon to charge forward and attack Keith.

n“Great! I can finally warm up. Hopefully, you won’t disappoint and withdraw after one attack.” Keith turned his fist and cracked his neck.

nCirculating his blood-qi, he struck the summon after appearing above its head and blasting its head on the ground.

nBoom!

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