On the morning of November 4th, I helped my parents with setting balloons and decorations to celebrate. Around noon, Emily returned! We surprised her by hiding and turning off the lights before she arrived, but we forgot the cars—they gave it away that we were home. Even our father took off to celebrate. He would soon be going to another set of ancient ruins until around Christmas time.

Overall, my sister's party was fun, and Bella and I enjoyed ourselves during it. She also liked the gift.

After so many roadblocks, the next day, Bella, Krystal, Kylee, and I returned to the skeleton battlefield. They haven't destroyed each other yet, and it looked like nothing changed.

Having Kylee and Krystal with us was a big help. As they were raised in a military-like environment, they were able to analyze the tactics employed by both sides. In so doing, they also found the inherent weaknesses. It wasn't easy to exploit them with four people, but we eventually made a plan. Bella and I would attack the side closest to us, and the other two would attack the side further away. Krystal also used the angelic marking skill, which marked both sides with different colors. Unfortunately, Bella couldn't see the colors. For the rest of us, though, we were able to differentiate between both sides.

Our goal wasn't to help one side rein victorious but to utterly decimate both sides until no more skeleton guards were left standing. Persuasion helped a lot with this since the skeletons were classified as undead. I also gained many new bone swords, bringing my skill to level five. Using the dungeon's functions, I combined many of them to create three "golden bone swords," which had a rank of C-.

Once done with the skeletons, we wanted to advance; however, in front of us stood towers. When we went to walk through, arrows shot by skeletons in those towers rained down upon us. We could easily defend against them, but it was still annoying, and my mana shield and armor couldn't hold up forever. Luckily, my daughters, again, had a solution. Krystal noticed that the archers were only positioned towards the middle, in an effort to create a narrow corridor. They left their backs wide open.

Kylee suggested the method of attack. Because we could fly, we would fly from behind, landing on the tops of the towers. We would then create an opening using our spells. For me, it was a superheated >.

Following her plans, we made it past the towers. I also got a few more bows, and we got some EXP shards. My experience was now 548 points.

The next room surprised me. There, it must have been a stronghold. A giant, stone castle arose from the barren landscape. I used Pounce to easily deal with the few guards stationed above before breaking the ropes and letting the drawbridge-style door swing down. There was no moat, but the door looked as if it was made to be a bridge over one.

On the other side, as soon as I entered, I heard a creaking noise. The floor lit up in a violet color in a circle. It then extended into two horizontal lines. Following this, the inside lit up.

"Welcome back, master vampire. We have been waiting for your return," an old voice said.

"Who's that?" I asked, thinking Bella would know.

"I have no idea. It's not the system, nor is it anyone I know. It may be a recording left as part of the castle, that can only be triggered when a vampire comes in," she responded.

"Thanks," I said, hugging her.

A large runic formation soon appeared on a circle in front of us. There were many runes together, and they were also changing as time went on. Both the elementary open lock and unsealing runes were included in the formation.

Soon, the runes appeared violet before settling down into the floor. Only, now, the floor was gone. In its place was a circle-shaped door. Since I could use spatial fold, I wasn't worried about continuing into the strange space beyond. When I arrived on the other side, I noticed Bella and my daughters couldn't follow me here, but my thought link still worked. I sent them to my spiritual world before looking around.

In front of me, there was a mountain of different-colored EXP shards! I split it in four, and I gave Bella, Kylee, and Krystal equal shares before absorbing my own.

[Congratulations! You have leveled up! Level 5àlevel 8. All stats increased by +21. SP + 42. Calculating Reward.]

[Reward determined. Class ??? Reward: all resistances below level 8 increase two levels. MP increases by 600 total, HE increases by 100 total, DE increases by 60 total. MP regen -9 minutes. Class Skill Lord reward: skill magic hand gained. Using one MP, extend an invisible hand that acts the same as your own hand.]

[Skill tickets gained: +10. Unknown interference detected. White armor level up! Level four! Black Armor Level up! Level four! Remaining skill tickets: 6]

[Familiar has consumed three skill tickets.]

[Familiar has consumed three skill tickets.]

[domain congealing +15%]

[domain congealing has passed 40%. Domain function unlocked. Unlocked death status: determine vitality of all beings within ten-meter radius of you.]

[domain congealing has passed 50%. Domain function unlocked. Unlocked death rejuvenation: death energy refilled whenever being dies within ten-meter radius of you.]

That was a lot of shards! I was currently at 2180/3780 points. After the mountain, I walked into a large hall, filled with numerous books. I took them all away into my spiritual world for later. One revealed a hidden bookcase. On it, there were only eight books. I knew they must be special to be hidden so well. The first one had a title of "Diary of the Great Catastrophe," which I was unable to open. The second one was "Basis of Mana." It was a very thick book, and it discussed the fundamental basis of mana and how it operated. The profound knowledge was really helpful, and I thought I may be able to use it as well once I could create skills.

I could also sense the mana flowing throughout my body. It was a specific pattern, and, following the book, I realized I could make it change directions and into different patterns. Actually, I already had two! The book didn't mention anything about multiple patterns, but it mentioned some races innately have their own mana circulation patterns. After practicing, I was also able to shoot out pure mana as an attack. Finally, my mana shield was able to level up twice! I could now move the previously-static parts of my shields, and they were double-layered. This increased not only my defense but that of my teammates as well. Even though there was no level increase, I was also able to make the shields denser, increasing their strengths. This was a great find!

The third book was about poison making, using various materials. Most didn't exist on Earth, so I disregarded it, and, like the rest, threw it into my spiritual world.

The fourth book I discovered discussed race-specific energies. It listed each energy and the races that could use it. These included death energy, demonic energy, and spirit force. All of the energies I had were included. There were even diagrams depicting progressions from one type to another as a race evolves.

The first diagram I looked at was the one that showed heavenly energy. I remembered Gabriel talking about some angels with divinity, and it was, in fact, a type of energy. After heavenly energy, archangels progressed to use justice energy before, finally, divine energy.

On the other hand, demons used miasmic energy until they become demon royalty, finally using demonic energy. While it did not record what they were, it did mention there was higher-tiered energy. I was also surprised, as vampires usually use blood power, and, at my level, I should be able to use blood force before eventually using nuclear blood force. I asked Seere if she knew why, but she didn't. Luckily, Amdusias had a guess.

"Because you became a vampire in such a peculiar way, you can somehow use death energy to compensate."

"Interesting," Seere said. like a student learning from their teacher, she asked more questions and listened intently.

The fifth book had a small knife in it. On the knife, violet runes suddenly appeared as soon as I touched the hilt. The runic sequence entered straight into my brain. Suddenly, I learned elementary necromancy techniques. Immediately, my demons began discussing.

"Interesting," Seere began. "Usually, learning this should be impossible for you."

I didn't even know how she knew!

Amon continued, "Now that you have learned it, you must practice."

Furcas said, "It will be good for you," before Amdusias finally explained why.

"Usually, you need to be an apprentice necromancer class to learn this skill. It's impossible for others to grasp it."

"It must be because of your skill lord class," Vepar chimed in, going against what the other Duke said.

"Thank you," I replied as I looked at the new skill.

The new skill I could use was summon skeleton. I could control a maximum of one hundred, and I could give them simple commands to follow. Each summon had a cost of one hundred DE, with a daily maintenance cost of ten DE. I took a few bones and tried it out. When I did so, the ground turned black. Slowly, more bones were formed. My DE went down, and a skeleton formed. I told it to take the sixth book and carry it. When it tried to do so, it began melting. I did not want to know the secret of this book, so I immediately moved it to my spiritual world and hid it deep underground.

The seventh book I likewise could not pry open. For this book, I needed potion making and alchemy-related skills to utilize its knowledge.

Finally, the last book was a record of a war between two master necromancers, both vying for a hidden treasure. It was very detailed, and it was extremely similar to what we just encountered. The only difference was that we were in a dungeon, and this took place in a gigantic world.

Once I finished with the books, I found mountains of materials. One had a function to compress the space things took up. I made a single, large mountain in my spiritual world. I then hollowed out the inside and, using the tool, took all the precious herbs, weapons, raw materials, and ingredients into the mountain before setting a few security measures I learned about in one of the books. I didn't want Bella or my daughters hurt by whatever was in here.

One treasure was a spell, final thoughts, of rank D+, that, for fifty DE, would allow someone to witness a being's last words before death.

Done with the treasures, I went to my spiritual world. For the next few days, we sorted, organized, and stacked all of the books into a new library.

We then continued our journey. The next rooms contained lingering skeletons in a maze-like fashion. Finally, we arrived in a different room. Here, instead of skeletons, there were black, gaseous lifeforms. Appraisal showed them to be curse apparitions, which, if preserved, could be used to strengthen curses. I was lucky to have the preservation materials from the treasure room, a special bottle with elementary and basic runes carved on it. The elementary runes were establish prison, energy trap, sealing, and suction. Using the bottles, I captured the curse apparitions in case I would need them in the future. In so doing, I learned two new curses.

The first curse I learned was a decomposition curse that would be applied to a liquid first. It was called liquid eraser.

The second curse I comprehended was a nightmare curse, which would cause realistic nightmares to whomever was afflicted with it. I could even gain some control over the type of nightmare. Nightmare city was able to have an area of effect as large as a normal-sized city.

Finished with the curse apparitions, we went to the next room. Here, there were black polka-dotted skeletons. I appraised them to see what their actual name was, and it surprised me. They were "black magic skeletons." In the skills section, it showed that they could use magic.

Suddenly, the black dots started to light up. From the sky, lightning began to descend. It was weak but still difficult to deal with. I > the strikes and summoned back my skeleton. I also summoned four more. It turned out they were not as affected by the lightning. Under my daughters' orders, my skeletons charged against the enemy, but they didn't last long. The enemy skeletons also had bone swords, which they used to decimate my small army.

It was enough time for us to get close, though. I used Persuasion to >, >, and > them until none remained. Using their bones, I was able to summon my own black magic skeleton, which had slightly higher vitality than the other summons. Disappointingly, though, it could not use any magic. It led the way into the next room before perishing.

The room was simple. There was a cliff face with a steep drop. To cross it, we just had to fly. It was also easy to descend. I wanted to collect the bones from my skeleton, so I descended while my other party members awaited my return.

I was surprised by how deep the chasm was—it took two hours to descend to the bottom. Fierce winds also attempted to hamper my progress and push me towards jagged edges.

Finally, I arrived. Numerous bones littered the ground. There was also a spell book, which I learned.

Bone building

Rank: C-

Level: 1

DE use: 40/10x10x10 area

Requirements: dark affinity 20% (human), appropriate bones

Description: make a building by combining bones. Skeletons can peacefully live here, awaiting caster's call. Others can also live and use the buildings.

I still had roughly half of my DE remaining, and I had a few potions to restore it. As such, I collected the bones into my spiritual world and built a barracks and some small houses for my skeletons. I also summoned another using the bones from the black magic skeletons we defeated. Finally, I drank the potions to restore most of my energy.

As I was satisfied with my journey, I attempted to ascend back to Bella and the others. The winds made this increasingly difficult, so I had to >. It was easier to do so, but the jagged edges made this almost impossible, as well.

I went into my library and found a book about winds. Reading through it, I had an idea about how to ascend. If I could use my mana to create steps from the wind, I could slowly move up and stop the wind near the steps. It would be a slow process, but it was my best bet for returning to the surface.

Returning, I began to disperse my mana. I pictured it trapping the wind like a wall and pushing it towards a single point. I then tried to move more points together. Finally, I coalesced the disjointed pieces, forming a thin sheet. Next, I weaved my mana to create a barrier around the layer. It wasn't enough to stop the wind, so I added the establish prison rune to it. It made the inside more impenetrable, and the wind was finally weakened. I wasn't finished, though. The step itself could still move around. I needed to anchor it. Rather than mana, I used blood to accomplish this. The blood made the whole thing look eerie, but the thin strands were able to stick to the walls, finally completing my attempt. It took fifty MP for the step and each of the four sides, for 250MP total. Using the blood also cost twenty DE.

Suddenly, the system rang out. It felt similar to when I learned mana shield, but this was a new skill entirely!

[vampiric technique: skill creation success! Please name new skill]

"System, name the skill Bloody Sky Step," I replied

[as bloody sky step was newly created, level increase difficulty undetermined. Skill can be used without dungeon interface support.]

I decided to appraise my new skill, and I was surprised > even knew its name!

Bloody sky step

Level: 1

Mana use: 250/step

DE use: 20/step

Description: create a step in the sky, with blood connecting it to chosen anchor points. A prison around the step prevents outside interference to any on the step.

It basically listed exactly what I just did. Even though I could easily create the steps, I wanted to try and reduce the cost. I was able to successfully remove twenty-five MP from each wall by using >, where both were the same rune. Now, when I reappraised it, I saw the skill's MP also decreased in the same way. I was more surprised, though, when trying it out, that the runes stayed each time I used the skill.

Soon, Craig appeared in front of me.

"I have confirmed that you truly created a new skill. Before, you were a small fairy. Now, you are somehow a vampire. It's unexplainable, but I won't pry. Your reward will come shortly," he said before vanishing.

"That was odd," I thought.

[Grand Achievement! First new skill created! Calculating reward.]

[Grand Achievement! First new skill created by earth explorer! Calculating reward.]

[reward: all stats +10, luck: 50 total, MP increases by 2000 total, HE by 50 total, DE by 800 total, HP by 50 total, all affinities +5%, air affinity +10%, all regenerations +2 levels. Error V regeneration maximum, increasing all other by +1 level. HP regeneration rank up! Small! elementary rune techniques level up! Level 8! Soul increased 50%!]

The new skill was runic combination, which, like the previous skill, combined runes. Now, though, I could combine many runes together. I used this new skill to further reduce the cost of my new skill. On one area, I added create opening, to make entering and exiting easier. On each wall, I added a third prison rune, which seemed to be the maximum. Each wall decreased in cost by another 10. At level eight, I was able to open the first page of the book on vampire's runes, and it was perfect for use here. It was blood return. By integrating it with the step skill, I could remove the blood and bring it back to me. The net DE cost was reduced to zero by doing so.

With my skill optimized to the limit (and increased to level five by doing so), I created a set of steps. I jumped between them until, finally, I returned to the top.

"Husband, I was getting worried!"

"There's no need to worry. You could have just contacted me through our thought link, too."

"I know. I knew you'd come back safe and sound, husband."

"Thanks, I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Welcome back," Kylee said.

"Let's continue," Krystal added.

Agreeing with her suggestion, we swiftly flew across the chasm I was just in. We landed safely on the other side, and, in front of us, there were two skeletons holding spears, blocking us from moving through an old, wooden door.

"I guess we still have one more small battle," I commented.

"Wait," Krystal said. "They don't look like they're ready to fight. They aren't attacking."

I was surprised as I walked closer. I could make out the words on the top, which were written in vampire language. I spoke in the same language.

"Blood seals release. Door, open unto me," I declared. The door opened, and the two guards looked astonished.

"Enter, sir vampire general. The blood of those we have slain is inside," one said.

"I guess these two are intelligent," Kylee commented.

"Yeah," Krystal responded.

I entered, and, in front of me, a sea of blood spread out. I took a bath in it while simultaneously absorbing it. Even though my stats didn't increase, I felt myself getting somewhat stronger. I could also use the blood to easily change its shape and make messages. Finally, I finished absorbing. There was still much left, but I saw that there was a second blood pouch. This one was a different color, though.

"Why's this one a different color?" I asked my demons, thinking they may know.

"It's not a vampire's blood pouch. That's why," Amon said.

"Interesting. It's an ancient blood tyrant's pouch," Seere said.

"Blood tyrant?" I asked, confused. "What's that?"

Raum was the one to answer. "It's a race thought extinct throughout the entire universe, a predecessor to vampires that could store an almost infinite amount of blood. They created a whole world of blood inside themselves and could sense and manipulate the blood inside of others. Even the likes of spiritual plasma couldn't resist their manipulation. Their direct descendants were daybreak vampires."

"Amazing," I said.

"Dangerous," Vepar said. "Even our old master was wary of them. How could this be in such a small dungeon?"

"Small?" I asked

Amdusias responded, "if you make it far enough, you will see how easy this dungeon is. Our previous master could clear the first one hundred floors in a few hours."

"This master must have been powerful," I said.

Receiving no reply, I began to integrate the pouch with my other one, and, soon, I saw a drop of golden blood. My plasma shook and was immediately pulled towards it. I had to resist. Finally, the drop began circulating with the plasma peacefully. I also saw a world where everything was made of blood. I could draw on its power and convert it into an insane amount of death energy, easily drawing more than 500,000 DE (if I could store so much). It even had its own energy source, able to replenish energy from nothing. I, however, couldn't determine the depths of power at my current level.

Satisfied once the blood dried up, I walked out.

"Follow us," the guard commanded. The four of us obliged and soon found ourselves in front of the classic orb. With this orb, though, I felt something was off. It was like there was some sort of power sleeping inside it. The feeling was different than any before.