Chapter 9 - To Tame a Vampire II

Strength. Agility. Physique. Spirit. 

After centuries of research and classification on how to quantify their physical and mental abilities, the ancient and esteemed adepts decided on these four attributes as the ones every creature, living or dead, possessed in some capacity.

Strength, as the name suggested, pertained to one's musculoskeletal strength and ability to lift heavy weights. 

This attribute was of immense importance to close combat adepts since it affected the base damage of their fists and other melee weapons.

An ordinary man possessed strength in the range of 3 to 4. Someone possessing 5 strength was quite strong, a cut above average.

Agility pertained to an individual's body-mind synchrony, movement speed, flexibility, reflexes, and balance. 

Warriors who preferred light or leather armor rather than heavy and cumbersome metal protection usually favored this path. For this attribute's value ranges, they were the same as that of strength. 

Physique related to health and endurance, the strength and resilience of the body. 

An increase in this attribute improved one's ability to resist damage, pain, inhospitable temperatures, toxins, disease, and other debilitating effects. It also elevated recovery speed, causing wounds to close at faster than normal-rates.

For any ordinary human, having their Physique drop below 1—the lowest possible number—signified death. 

Finally, and just as important, Spirit determined an individual's ability to absorb, analyze, and process information, and above all, manipulate elementium. 

Unlike the prior ones, this attribute focused solely on the mind. An individual with a high amount of Spirit, usually above the 5 point mark, possessed speed and clarity of thought surpassing that of regular humans.

While all these attributes were important to every aspiring and actualized adept in some capacity, it was completely unrealistic and unheard of to focus and improve all of them in tandem while growing in power. 

Bloodline adepts with top tier bloodlines were slightly exempt from this.

For the other adept paths however, some attributes would fall behind while their main and most important attributes reached higher and higher heights.

Greem was lucky in this aspect. 

Apart from those who possessed a faint bloodline like his partner Tony, some mysterious innate abilities, or complete body-strengthening methods, most body refiners focused on only two attributes.

As Physique was to body-refiners what Spirit was to elementium adepts, an apprentice or adept who focused on it and Strength would patch up their resulting mobility weakness with spells, special resources, or magical equipment.

The same went for the combination of Physique and Agility, and the even rarer Physique and Spirit.

Due to the Hercules Method, Greem didn't suffer from this drawback as much. 

His Strength, Physique and Spirit were all up to par. Only Agility was behind and even then, it was still slightly higher than that of other Strength focused body-refiners.

Having predicted this development ages ago, he had taken steps to mitigate this weakness.

He'd learned the Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced level Levitate spells, finally settling on the last one as his go to since it elevated his Agility to match his other attributes. 

The spell however, had a long cast time.

In battles where opponents could strike over a dozen times in a second or fire off devastating spells with the speed of artillery, the five second casting time was enough to bring him near death's door several times over, so he sought to shorten it.

Despite his supreme Spirit control, relentless practice, and in-depth research into the properties of wind elementium, he only managed to reduce the 24 second casting time down to 5.

An impressive and downright impossible feat for a "muscle brain" and someone whose primary and secondary elementium affinities were fire and earth respectively.

Wind was nowhere in sight in his list of compatible elements. Even his plant affinity was higher.

So finding the reduced spellcasting time a dead end, Greem shifted his focus and spent a significant amount of the Knowledge Points and gold coins he earned over the years equipping himself with Agility enhancing magic tools.

Boots, gauntlets, a belt, and a talisman, each providing a boost of Agility +1, found themselves his property. 

They did not patch up the weakness completely, but they elevated his base Agility from Intermediate to Advanced, allowing him to react to Mary's naked "surprise," the blue shadows of precognition around her helping him along.

Easily sidestepping the girl's wild lunge, he smiled faintly at the incredulous look slowly overtaking her angry face as she sailed by.

Not letting her bypass him completely, he raised his right arm, flipped his palm and smacked down on her naked back, sending her to the ground at his feet with a bang, the collision kicking up a small cloud of dust. 

Right as she made to get up—Mary only managed to raise her upper body—a harsh boot stomped on her back and slammed her against the ground again.

She stayed down this time, her lower spine healing from the inflicted fractures much more slowly due to the extensive healing she'd done earlier, her blood reserves having run dry.

Unable to move in the meantime, she lay there and glared at empty air, the burning rage in her chest directed at Greem and her own weakness.

Was she really going to be a weak slave forever, beholden to the commands and whims of another?

Her question was answered when Greem crouched in front of her and smiled, that damned handsome smile, she thought unwillingly.

Despite her quick and easy defeat at his hands and foot just now, absent was the ridicule or "I told you so" look she expected his eyes and expression to convey.

What shone through instead was acknowledgment, her confusion clearing up with his next words.

"Hmm… our relationship will have to change. You can't be my subordinate now that you've advanced. From now on we're partners," he said as he pulled the gauntlet off his right hand and gently pried her paralyzed lips open. 

Carefully maneuvering her head and mouth, he placed his exposed wrist between her jaws as her fangs, unaffected by the paralysis, extended and pierced his skin. 

When the stream of fresh blood hit her tongue, tears welled up in Mary's eyes as she moaned.

 ☀☀☀

An intense dizziness assailed Alice, making it hard for her to differentiate between up, down, left and right. 

Ignoring her physical senses entirely, she focused entirely on her esoteric, spatial ones and ripped open a spatial crack, freeing herself from the chaotic spatial storm she found herself in. 

In the physical world, a wriggling tear appeared in reality and spat out the little girl, planting her on a stone floor face first. 

"Aw! Aw! Aw!"

Utterly exhausted and feeling a new source of pain bloom in her head area, she cried out in agony and rage. 

The arrows in her arm and abdomen were long gone, however the fall not only brought back the painful reality of her defeat and the injuries she had to show for it, it also afflicted her with new ones.

"Damn rascal. Damn vampire. You better hope I don't fully recover. Once I'm healed, I'll–"

Alice suddenly stopped mid rant and went completely still. Great fear filled her eyes as she took in the hunched figure who appeared before her out of nowhere. 

Making sure not to make any reckless motions, she examined the surroundings in confusion and finally noticed the peculiarity of her locale. 

She was in a dark, windowless, stone room, not the safe zone she'd set up in advance.The person before her too was not anyone she was familiar with. 

Her gaze, growing more fearful by the second, roamed over his skinny, almost shriveled appearance, his long and gray Adept robe, the wizard's hat and the vicious rotten smile…

"A–Adept Anderson!," she let out a cry, part shocked and part horrified. 

This skinny old man was none other than the master of the tower and magical swamp, First Grade Adept Anderson.

Since he was the highest authority in this place, it was no issue for him to modify the destination of Alice's teleportation spell and bring her to him. 

The frightening abilities of an Adept was not something ordinary mortals could fathom. 

Even with her once in a millennia talent and powerful spatial abilities, Alice held a deep fear and respect towards these powerful and mysterious individuals. Her haughty and violent demeanor was nowhere in sight. 

Should this man wish her dead, her "invincible" Protection Barrier would not be able to save her. Neither would Spatial Shatter, her strongest spell, come close to hurting a single hair on his head. 

She bent her body forward and waited patiently for the Adept to speak. 

"I'm in a really bad mood today. It seems that a few bugs slipped into my garden when I was busy with an experiment. So, little girl from the House of Fragrance… who gave you permission to enter my territory?" 

Adept Anderson's insidious visage was completely emotionless, his cold voice sending shivers down the unruly girl's spine.

"Honorable Adept Anderson, my mentor, the great Deborah, sent me here to deliver a message." Alice didn't hesitate and immediately stated her purpose in the swamp.

"Deborah, that crazy woman?" Anderson frowned, "So, you're that genius Apprentice that Deborah got three years ago? Did you come to show off in my place after learning a few tricks from her? Hahahaha… little girl, didn't your mentor tell you that I don't like to be disturbed? Oh right, so are the other two little bugs from the House of Fragrance too?"

Cautiously standing up while keeping her head lowered, Alice quickly replied, saying, "No. We met outside the Swampy Area. All of us are here on our own missions. One of them is from Mandasor Academy, and the other is from the Black Glove Association."

"Missions? All of you came to my Magical Swamp for missions?"

"Yes. We each received training missions from our organizations. That's why we came here uninvited."

"Damn it, damn it… I knew those damn Zhentarim guys would never stop trying to get this place. This is The Magical Swamp! My private territory! How dare those guys set this place as one of their mission sites. In the next Adepts gathering, I'll definitely report their damn behavior to the council…"

Perhaps Alice's words touched on a subject sensitive for the Adept, he became frenzied after the rant.

Almost screaming, he began to curse, and at certain points, switched to different languages, Alice identifying only three.

After insulting whomever he was targeting to his heart's content, Anderson calmed down and focused his insidious gaze on Alice.

"You've shown the proper respect, so I won't keep you here. But, as you have intruded on my garden and wreaked havoc, I can't let you go without punishing you. This will serve as your lesson." 

Adept Anderson leisurely pointed his staff at her and a tiny glowing green dot rose from the focusing crystal on it and flew into the wound on Alice's abdomen.

Simultaneously, a ring of pale silver light appeared under her feet, blinked a few times, and engulfed her in its radiance. When normal visibility returned, she was gone. 

In the same second she was expelled, similar teleportation rings appeared under the feet of the other two groggy and weakened Apprentice Adepts, removing them from the swamp as well.