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nFortunately, the vampire was smart enough to know when to stop. He bit his tongue and after the other two woke up, he carried them with him and left the training chamber.

nLuckily, there wasn’t any more fuss about it. Keith silently absorbed blood-qi and circulated it at the same time to add his attribute to the new blood-qi.

nIt was afternoon and Keith left the viscount training chamber. He wanted to go to his room and check on Rena and Kenny. Despite the positive things he heard from the system, he wanted to see for himself how much they’ve grown.

nI wanted to inform you that you forgot about the student council. You were supposed to go to Valencia’s office. Or are you purposefully avoiding it? The system asked.

n“A bit of both. I don’t want to go unless I have a certain level of strength and now it seems like a good time. I don’t think anyone at the count stage will be a threat to me. At least I can defend myself and flee if anything bad happens.”

nMaybe she has some artifacts to control your movement, you never know.

n“But why would she want to capture me? Besides, even if she planned to capture me, I doubt she would go through with this plan. Remember who is backing me, he won’t let her get away with it.” Keith smiled and walked across the hallway.

n I think she sees the potential in you and wants to have you on her side.

n“Now that is more likely. I have to go there to find out. I’ve gotten stronger and I need to find out my limits, only that way I can stimulate the blood-qi. These weaklings can’t even block a single attack from me.

n“The blood-qi is also overwhelming. For some time, I need to stop absorbing a huge amount of blood-qi. I don’t know how to describe it but it feels like when you eat so much, you can’t even walk. But in my case, it’s more subtle. I feel like if I absorb more blood-qi, something bad will happen.”

nIs it just a bad feeling or..

n“A premonition. It’s instinctual.” Keith replied, lowering his head.

n I never had this kind of feeling even after absorbing three vampires’ corrupted blood-qi.

n“Probably because it’s not your body. I have a certain connection to it that I can’t explain. And the dragon said it too, the previous Keith merged with me, at least a part of him, his intentions.” Keith mumbled.

nHe arrived at his residence and looked through the hall to spot a big tiger-like beast lying on the floor, all curled up.

n“There you are. Your blood-qi has been stabilized and integrated with your soul. I can finally take you outside.” Keith glanced at his summon.

nSensing his sharp gaze, Kenny stood up shivering, and at the first glance, he walked towards him. He could feel Keith wanted to see him. It was a natural instinct to obey his master’s commands.

nAt the same time, Rena who was resting inside her room got up and came outside.

n“Rena, I’m taking Kenny outside for some training. He is ready now that his blood-qi has been stabilized.” Keith said.

n“It’s time for Kenny to be useful to the young master. All he does is eat food and sleep every day. I have to clean the hallway three times because he keeps jumping around. The carpet gets all mangled up.” She looked sharply at Kenny.

nA horrifying expression appeared on Kenny’s face as he stared at Rena, pleading not to tell more, and she didn’t anymore.

n“But he’s a good boy too. So make sure to train him well.” Rena smiled at Keith.

n“Oh, I will. He needs to get stronger, and for that, he has to go through hell.”

nAs Keith said that, shivers ran down the poor beast’s spine.

n“Speaking of getting stronger, you’ve grown stronger too. I can sense the life energy within you growing faster. If I didn’t know about you, I would think that you are a powerful human with years of experience in combat.” Keith said admiring her growth.

n“It’s all thanks to you. I didn’t even do anything. If I may ask, can I learn any technique or something that will increase my combat strength? I don’t like to sit around all day and do nothing. With all this power, I can do chores in an instant and I don’t even get tired. After that, I just sit around all day or gather supplies from the warehouse.

n“The other humans also saw me strangely after I carried 100-pound boxes with one hand. I can understand that they think I’m different, if I was in their position I would think that too. It’s just I can’t go back to being normal so I have to use this strength in the right way. They do admire and we laugh about it, but their fear for me… I can feel it.” Rena described her experience with her friends.

n“It’s natural that weak people will fear strong ones, it’s not their fault. You were also scared when I brought Kenny here. It was a natural response to probable threat. Especially when you are a human, and your strength far exceeds normal standards, people tend to be wary of you. This will only grow as you get stronger and even vampires will feel threatened by you. But that will take some time.

n“About what you said, I will try to find martial arts techniques that can be used by humans and give them to you so that you can practice. It will be significantly weaker than martial arts that use blood-qi, but it’s better than nothing.” Keith assured her.

n“I will be looking forward to it then.” Rena smiled in response.

n“I’ll come back after sunset, or a little later if something happens. ” Keith left his residence and headed to the student council office.

nThe student council was the governing body over all the students inside the academy and exercised its power to make sure students don’t go out of their way to cause trouble. Keith arrived in front of the office which was a white building made with stones and a type of clay widely used for all the buildings inside the campus.

nHe tried to crack the hardened clay outside his residence, but it was too strong. Only after applying force equivalent to the final stage viscount, he could create a small crack. If he used more power, he would have created a bigger crack, but he didn’t want to be held responsible for damaging the property so he left.

nWhen he came back the next day, he found out that the crack sealed itself and there was nothing on the surface. It was as if the crack was never there.

n“The blood ritualists are terrifying. I need to learn more about the rune and the blood-qi techniques of the blood ritualists.”

nKeith entered the student council building and walked up to the counter in the middle. The hall was surprisingly empty with only a handful of vampires sitting on the side.

n“Who are you and what’s your purpose?” A student at the middle stage of viscount asked Keith, looking at him lazily.

n“I’m here to see Miss. Winters. She invited me to join the student council.” Keith said, showing his rune card.

n“Alright, I will call her now to see if what you’re saying is true or not?” The vampire smiled.

n“What do you mean? You think I’m lying?” Keith asked with an angry face.

n“No… No… It’s just that a lot of vampires just come here not knowing anything about her. Often they come here to see her and that’s it. You could say they just want to meet her to admire her beauty. She is the most beautiful…Argg!”

nSuddenly another female vampire stuck his head with a rolled-up paper bundle and glanced at Keith.

n“Get back to work and stop telling people that. She is the most powerful and that is all they need to know. Now go to your place.” She ordered the male vampire.

nShe looked at Keith’s rune card and recognized his name. It was the name she heard many times after the first-year orientation ceremony.

n“Keith Ennes.”

n***

n“You are not worthy enough to look at my warrior frame. I was having a bad day so I spoke without thinking but you guys came to harass me just like that. Well, I also wanted to beat someone up so no complaints there.”

nKeith saw that the vampire had lost his will to fight and he didn’t want to beat them up meaninglessly so he sat back and continued to circulate his blood-qi.

nThe vampire stood there looking at Keith and clenching his teeth. He didn’t want to fight someone who was unpredictable. At first, he thought Keith was just a newly promoted viscount who entered the training chamber, so he confidently came here to teach him the rules.

nIt was not uncommon for seniors to bully the juniors for small and petty reasons, everyone was guilty of it. But it wasn’t that serious for them to get involved, still, they did. And it turned out they couldn’t be more wrong.

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