Hiding in a small grove of woods nearby to the south of the boneyard, Henry looks over his status, trying to understand the world around him. Memories about the past life of Wilber would pop into his mind off and on throughout the day until everything snapped into place at sunset. At that point, he became Wilber. Snapping out of the dazes from filtering through the memories.

"God, I hate that name. I have to summon a skeleton servant at midnight or be kicked out of the Academy and abandoned by my unloving father. The stronger the skeleton, the better in the hope of survival in this world." mutters under his breath.

"Mary, what do the Bloodmancer system do?"

"It appoints quest and tasks that can be given to help you become stronger to survive in this world. As a new race of vampires, I can teach you to use blood magic to heal and gather more power. You are the first vampire to use magic. The goddess felt you needed access to necromancer, dark magic, and blood magic in order to survive. She felt the ability to be harmed by sunlight to be stupid. As one of the few gods of this world that saw something about your soul, she hoped to see you grow stronger. She felt you deserve to live longer."

"Who is the goddess?"

"Lady Death."

"Crap." Lady Death is the goddess of necromancers and vampires. She is a cold merciless goddess that rarely takes an interest in the living. Somehow, I have gotten her attention, and from what Wilber's memories tell me, that is not good. The last person she became interested in died in an earth-shattering war that killed millions. The man insulted her, considering the poor bastard was a paladin for the god Fopel. She ended up killing the paladin, one of the largest temples to Forpel, and the city of Brighton. She ended up luring millions of beasts to that city. She did do the world a favor, and by destroying enough of the beasts that mankind was able to get a foothold and build a stronger position in the world to handle the beasts. But after the man's death, everyone was warned not to get her attention. I don't think Wilber did anything, so it must have been me. My system said she was assigned to help him from the Lady of Death. I hope I don't piss her off. Why did death pull him from Earth to here?

Listening to Mary talk, realizing I had not been paying attention to what she was saying. "At rank one, three, six, and nine, you are given a choice of three spell routes. At rank five, you are given a choice of one of three traits you will pick that will direct you on your path. When you reach rank ten to step into the next tier, you get a choice in the path of the class of what you chose to go on to the next tier. Since you are new to this world, she decided to take care of picking the first tier of spell for you."

'Great, a micromanaging god.' groaning to himself.

"There are bronze, copper, silver, gold, and platinum tiers in your choice in the paths you can take. After platinum, you become a knight, baron, count, viscount, duke, archduke, and lord. Ninety-five percent of the population do not pass the test to reach knight. And they rarely get a chance to pass the test again for the second time. Only one person can reach Lord in their class. Once you reach knight, you can carve out land in the wilderness to combat the beasts and build a city. Thousands of knights are created each year. Most of them die or flee the wilderness and end up serving others. This system will help you achieve Lordship. The Goddess does have a task for you to fulfill when you gain Knighthood. When you reach Knighthood, I can tell you."

'Yep, she is a micromanaging goddess. I hope I don't piss her off.'

Delving on what Mary said earlier. He knows Cradle city is where his Academy is at. One of the largest wall cities in a few hundreds of miles, and it is ruled by an Earth Lord by the name of William Wall. He is an Earth Elementalist that broke through into becoming a Lord over four hundred years ago. One of his four children, born by his two wives, will inherit the city after he dies, nears a thousand years of age. Having survived several assassination tempts. More likely by other dukes seeking to be a lord.

The thought of becoming a knight himself and owning a newly created city to protect his mother seems poetic to rub it in his father's face. His father is two hundred and three years old and is a knight and has been a knight for almost a hundred years. Their clan lives in Wells Hope, a population of about ten thousand people. And all his sons are fighting to be the next lord of the city. Already ten of his sons have been assassinated by the other sons. Henry himself has no urge to get into that mess. Becoming stronger and opening his own city is safer than being stabbed in the back by his brothers. Known Wilber's father's insatiable lust for beautiful women and the urge to make babies could leave a long trail of bloodletting by his sibling over the next few hundred years. Being immortal, Henry doesn't feel the need to have children to keep a city legacy alive. Maybe his father dislikes necromancers so much because they can become immortal as a lich, and he can't.

Cradle city has a population of a hundred thousand people or more. With the Academy on its ground, it can almost add another fifty thousand people to the city's population. It is considered to be a gem of humanity in the area. Surprisingly, the city lord didn't grow his city to a few million but kept it at a hundred thousand people. Every ten years, large numbers of beast gates will open in the area, and the city will be attacked by beasts and other monsters. The larger the city, the more creatures that will show up. It may be the reason why he does not grow the city bigger. There is a loophole where a city lord can form other smaller satellite cities. But the man has no urge to grow. The next gates to open are less than a year away. Startle out of his thoughts upon seeing the sun is setting. It will be a few hours to midnight, so better to get started.

Crawling out from under a small stone overhang. He dusts himself off, using his night vision now that the sun has set. He can tell that the clothes he is wearing are torn, cut, and tatter from the chase and untimely death of Wilber by a vampire. Watching over darkening boneyard, he spotted a vehicle driving near the area. Its single headlight in the front center of the vehicle casts lights and shadows around the area. He watches as two men get out of the car that fits in an early twentieth-century car design for a steampunk movie. They searched the site up to an hour before midnight for any sign of him as he hid. One of the men, in frustration, gave up searching the area and left in the car. It was not hard to see the man's face with my night vision. Mr. Hardy is my tenth brother's personal servant and a mean bastard. He is a bully and lazy son of a bitch. Everything he has done to Wilber was back by Wilber's tenth brother. There were many times Wilber almost died because of him. Watching him from the treetops as he traveled a few miles back to the car and left. The red glow under the car pulse as it moves away. The single large headlight finally dims and fades away to let me know the man has left for the city, more likely to drink at a pub and fuck some skanky hoes. Too lazy to do the work himself, Mr. Hardy always lets others get their hands dirty. Surprise that the bastard took time to search the area.

He can think of only one reason why the tenth son, Harlow Wells, is targeting him. It is because of his younger sister. The tenth son's sister. Wilma Wells is also a Fire Elementalist, but she is nowhere close to being as powerful as my sister, Charlotte Wells. They can not attack my sister until she is eighteen, or else my father will wipe out that whole branch. It had happened once thirty years ago. The fifth son killed the fifteen-year-old twelfth son. My father killed his seventh wife and all her children to set an example to the other. After that, there has not been any attempt until they reach eighteen years of age. Wilber's father has no love for his children. They are only to be used to gather political strength and resources. By disgracing me, he is hoping to discredit my younger sister. At eighteen, the first sister Sarah was married to a hundred-year-old mage for access to the mage's spellbook. It gave his father three spells to aid him in fighting. His third sister was married to a man they later learned was a crook. His sister is living somewhere in Cradle city in the slum after the man divorced her after finding out he would not gain anything married to the woman.

I was digging through my memories and found that the world is a mixture of magic and technology. Steam power is used a lot, based on fire and water elementals. Blimps play a large part in long-distance travel. While only the extremely rich and wealthy clans can afford magical cars. Many creatures in the ocean and seas can destroy whole fleets of ships. So blimps are like flying mobile fortresses that can repel flying beasts and travel great distances. Most of them are owned by several cities to pay for the cost and maintenance of the magical blimp. My tenth brother's car speaks volumes on the wealth difference between the rest of the family and me. There is a large gap between the rich and the poor. Those that have magic live better than those that don't.

There is only one reason that necromancers and vampires are not hunted down and destroyed in this world. Without them, mankind would have been doomed long ago. It is the strength and speed of the vampire that can kill the beasts and the necromancer's ability to raise the death that can protect the cities. I need to reach Knight before leaving the Academy or get drafted by my father to work in his city and can no longer advance my skills. I will be suppressed even more by my father. I can't let that happen.

This world is many times larger than Earth. Once, it was a thriving technological world. Then one day, scientists activated a power plant test that they hoped to power their world and usher them into a new age. The power plant explosion opens a portal that emerges several dimensional worlds into one and forces hundreds of thousands of temporary portals worldwide to open randomly year-round. At first, vampires fought against mankind in the shadows. Still, they were forced into making a treaty with the humans, witches, elves, and a few other species in an uneasy truce to survive. When these strange beasts came rushing into the world, killing any and all intelligent races without fear. A hundred years after the treaty was formed, massive wall cities were built using technology and magic to merge together to protect these cities.

Vampires can only survive at night or in the frozen southern end of the world that always stays in darkness. Elves and some minor races slowly maintain their hold in the jungles at the equators. Because of that, their fighting skills surpass humans. The dwarves fought in the mountains only to dig deep to hide from the creatures. Using the mountain's own stone to protect them. The humans and the witches that merged into one race through marriage created a new stronger race that created Elementalist, spellcasters, and even necromancers began to appear. Several thousands of years have passed by, and the races still have not stopped the beast gates from opening, and the races still fight each other in the shadows. The world population is only a fraction of the population of all the worlds that combine together. This world has evolved into a Victorian-style world where steam power can be harnessed by magic. Armed and armor steam trains travel between cities, blimps travel across oceans and desert. It has become a harsh world, where the strong rule over the weak.

At the moment, I am not strong enough to fight my brother's servant. But the man he left hidden behind in the bushes to watch for me. I have had no problems in killing someone since I have changed. I need blood and have not drunk my monthly allowance since I became a bloodmancer. Waiting to see if no one comes back as the full moon is but an hour from reaching midnight. I attack the bored, inattentive man. My new strength overpowered him as he screamed in fear as my fangs plunged into his neck from behind. I was fearful the act of killing someone would make me hesitant to take his life. The other thing was the taste of blood might repel me even though I had tasted it earlier. The taste of a normal human is bland, unlike the vampire. In fact, neither killing nor drinking the blood seem to bother me. As the man became deathly, still I was prompted.

[ You wish to make a lesser vampire?]

No, I growl as I drink his blood. Seeing that the time was almost near to summon my skeleton, I broke the man's neck. A slight regret at not draining him completely was the only feeling I had for the man.

[No new skills or power can be acquired! Normal Human.]

Surprise at the prompt, I look down at the body for a second. As memories from the man's blood flow into my head like a movie. This man has killed forty-some people and raped countless women, even girls, in his lifetime. The last memory is contacting Mr. Hardy if I show up. Then he is to simply kill me and drain my body of blood. Leaving behind two holes that look like fangs bites in my neck to blame it on the vampires. The man's carrying bag has a single gem that he can crush to bring reinforcements if he cannot handle me. Searching through the contents of clothing and finding a bottle of fire ash. Fire ash can be sprinkled on a dead body, and water is added, which will burn a body to ash. Keeping the bottle. I cast blood mist on the thug's body, turning it into bloody mists leaving behind just the bones. The mist flows into my mouth and nose, granting me an immense amount of energy. Bending over and absorbing the man's spirit that still sat in the man's chest, I can feel it making me stronger. I finished searching the bag and finding a bag of gold, silver, copper, and a few gems valuing about three hundred gold. There was also a drawing of myself that was a few years younger. Realizing it must have come from my brother.

"So my death is worth three hundred gold. Not cheap, but to my tenth brother wealthy, it is only pocket change." I shook my head. "I will pay you back, I will have to think about how, but I will get you back, for Wilber."

Seeing no other threats in the area, I gather up the bones, return to the boneyard, and dump the man bones off the cliff onto the pile. Moving to another spot at the boneyard is not easy to get to. I open my pocket watch, seeing that it is only a few moments from midnight by the moonlight. I started the spell to summon my servant. The magic gathers the blood mist in me and changes it into a surge of power to flow from me into the boneyard. The mist disappeared under all the mass of bones, and the sound of thousands of people wailing ended when the church bells of the goddess Rene the local goddess of farming, rang out at midnight. The boneyard began to glow red as the light from under the bones flowed throughout the field. Winds start to whirl in a tornado of bones before him as a skeleton in a red dress appears in the center of the flying bones.