Chapter 19: Elders

“Are you guys amazed?” After Ian examined himself, he flashed a toothy grin to his teammates, his vampire fangs showing. ‘Although I don’t have ways to improve my bloodline quality as a vampire, at least, I can grow stronger by customizing my entire body.’ he thought to himself.

This body he got was so mediocre that it didn’t have the necessary conditions to evolve to a Higher Vampire faster, or even at the very least, a True Vampire. Due to this body not having a blood root, the source of every vampire’s potential.

In his understanding, Blood Root was like those Spiritual Roots or Dantian that he had read in Cultivation Novels in his past life.

Blood Root allows vampires to drink the blood of various creatures, whether dark races or not and use the blood devoured as nourishment to enhance their bloodline purity in order to ascend to higher states like True Vampire or Higher Vampire!

It was quite unfortunate for him to not have one. However, he wasn’t alone. To have a blood root, although not absolute, one should have noble blood.

What is Noble Blood? It’s the pure blood that vampires had inherited from their ancestor, Xenos, the Progenitor of Vampire, who was known to be on the Upper Realm, still alive. After all, once Xenos dies, every vampire that was in the Higher Vampire Realm and above would receive a vision.

The purer one’s blood, the higher their potential and the closer their origin is to the Vampire Ancestor Xenos. Obviously, as the progenitor of the vampire race, Xenos is the strongest vampire and also the oldest there is.

What determines a vampire’s strength? It is only the quality of their blood or bloodroot? No… Blood roots determine one’s talent while the quality of blood determines one’s realm. The most reliable way to measure a vampire’s strength is by their age. The older a vampire is, the stronger it becomes. As for the reason? No one knows. Many tried to research the cause or investigate why, but the answer remains elusive.

So there are two ways for vampires to enhance their strength… First, through devouring the blood of creatures. The stronger the creature, the more effective their blood becomes for vampires to enhance their blood purity.

A 100-year-old vampire is certain to become a true vampire without drinking the blood of creatures. 400 years old to become a higher vampire and 1,000 years old to become an Elder. Vampires only need to survive long enough to naturally increase the purity of their blood. Unfortunately, just waiting was a very slow process. After all, who knows if you can survive for how long? The world is cruel, it won’t wait for you to become stronger.

Devouring the blood of others was still a thousand times faster for vampires to promote. The vampire race treats the blood of other creatures as their resources to become stronger. Most vampires choose the faster way instead of waiting until they become stronger through aging.

Ian heard from Barseagle though that the Aristocracy, even the royal family, had chosen the age route though… Most of the important people in powerful families had their personal sacred graveyards where they buried themselves inside coffins to sleep for hundreds of thousands of years. Yes, this method is slow, but it’s also the less risky and safest for powerful clans who have enough resources to assign a group of elite True Bloods and higher to guard their Sacred Graveyard.

Those truly powerful families with ancient heritage? There’s no doubt that they had hundreds of Elders (1,000-year-old vampires) and even those terrifying taboo vampires that had buried themselves for 100,000 years. How terrifying is their strength? Ian didn’t know…

One can choose this method only if they are from a powerful clan. After all, if you’re just an ordinary vampire, burying yourself makes you vulnerable. Who knows if someone with malicious intention happened to discover where you are buried? You die. The risk is high for vampires that are not from powerful clans. Devouring blood is for the masses, burying oneself is for those who are backed by their clan. Of course, there would be always exceptions, there are instances where some lucky vampires managed to find ancient ruins or isolated dimensions inaccessible by others. A perfect place to slumber. As a result, they can sleep for thousands of years undisturbed, in peace, growing stronger as time passes.

Ian doesn’t have a blood root so he can’t grow stronger by devouring blood like most. Fortunately, he can still grow stronger through aging, although slow, it was a sure way. Well, it’s like he has a choice anyway, Beggars can’t be choosers. Not to mention, he still has his system. He just needs to survive long enough through the help of his system and become stronger.

As for finding a forbidden area to bury himself? Ian doesn’t want to leave himself in a vulnerable state. He doesn’t have anyone to guard him. Who knows if one day a nuclear suddenly falls where he was buried? He couldn’t even cry at that point even if he wanted to.

The best way for him was still to earn biomass to customize the most powerful body enough to make him survive, then, his blood purity would naturally increase as time passed… This is his path!

‘It would be good if I’ve been reincarnated to those important figures from ancient clans. I could just lie down like a salted fish, sleep for millennia, and grow fucking stronger…’ Ian sighed.

To be honest, the vampire race’s ability to grow stronger through age is quite a cheat, right? Unfortunately, it is also a curse.

Why? The Curtain Imperium World is unfriendly to the vampire race. Every dark race knows that vampires grow stronger through age. Due to this, they put top priority on killing vampires once encountered. There are only a few races that don’t target vampires, their allies.

After all, if an entire race can get stronger by aging, who’s sane enough to just leave them alone???

If not for those old monsters that hold the sky for the vampires and the fear of other dark races to Xenos who was on the Upper Realm, the vampire race would have been wiped out long ago.

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