Vampire Cultivation System in a Hidden World of Monsters

"Hey, so what happens now?" Dan said. "Great job in the arena."

"Thanks," I said, scratching my head. "I just did what comes naturally to me, fighting."

"Great job hon!" Victoria said and hugged me and gave me a big kiss.

"Great job 'hon'!" Tommy said and pretended to go in for a kiss, but ended up hugging me. "I'm with Dan on what happens now though."

"Well, the obvious happens," I said. "Tommy, you go with the lich announcer guy back to the lich sect, or at least find out how to get to the lich sect from him if he isn't in it himself. Then Dan, you go with the werewolf from before back to the werewolf sect, assuming he's in it."

"And I will give you each half of my prize money to get you on your feet and make sure you can take care of yourselves down here since you have no money. Paper money doesn't work down here. And then we all keep in touch. I don't know how people communicate long distance down here but I know sects can call other sects because my Elder did it for me once."

"So I'll just call the werewolf and lich sects after you guys get settled, and we'll keep in touch that way. Does that sound like a deal? Wait, where is that werewolf?"

"Oh, he's sitting right were you threw him, but he's back to human form now," Tommy said, pointing over his shoulder at a man in a black hoodie. "And that does sound like a plan! I'll take half of that prize off your hands for sure. Thank you very much, Dylan! I knew you wouldn't let us down in the end."

"That's rich, coming from the guy who accused me of abandoning the band for a girl and proceeded to call me a loser to my face," I said, smiling, showing I had no real hard feelings about it. I was just teasing him.

"I'm sorry about that," Tommy said. "I never should have doubted you. Won't happen again."

"Don't worry about it. I might've done the same if I was in your position," I said, still smiling.

"That does sound like a deal, Dylan, but I had something else I wanted to say," Dan said. "I don't see why we have to break up the band. Wasn't it originally because we would be living in two separate worlds? The human and the non human worlds. But now that we're all monsters, can't we just be a band that plays shows down here?"

"You know what? That's not an entirely bad idea," I said. "Yeah, let's do that! What do you say, Tommy?"

"I say let's do it!" Tommy said.

I gave them each half of the prize money and turned them in the direction of their respective representatives. For Tommy, the lich announcer. For Dan, the werewolf fighter. They went off to get acquainted and figure out their place in this new world.

Turning into monsters couldn't have happened to three better people. We were all down on our luck and had no real family connections or anything we'd be leaving behind. It's not like our band had a real following or anything topside.

This was our chance to start over. To start fresh. I felt comfortable leaving Tommy and Dan to their own devices now. Now it was time for me to tend my own garden, so to speak.

"Hey, babe, can we hit another portal before we go back to Elder Ravenkin? I don't feel like I'm powered up quite enough to get through another major realm yet. That and I don't feel as acquainted with my sword as I want to be." I said.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

"Yeah that's fine babe," she said.

-

We arrived outside another portal in the vampire territory. As is most of the vampire territory, it was a tall, deep cave. Most of the vampire territory was made up of massive interconnected caves. I didn't know what the other territories looked like.

I had visited the dragon sect academy but that didn't tell me anything about what their territories looked like, or what I'd find in them. For all I knew, they had roaming monster herds or something like that.

I counted myself lucky that the vampire territories were quiet as a mouse. Not a peep out of the local wild life or anything. No sounds other than the echoes of our footsteps and the occasional drip of water.

I was ready to go. I ate beforehand. I had my martial arts uniform and I had my sword. That was all I needed.

"Wish me luck," I said, and kissed Victoria goodbye.

"Good luck," she said, and kissed me back.

I stepped through the portal and arrived in a trashed apartment. It looked like someone had turned everything over looking for something. All the drawers were pulled out and clothes dumped on the floor.

[Main objective: Find and rescue the president's daughter. Search her apartment for clues]

I looked down at myself and saw that I was wearing a black trenchcoat, black pants and a black fedora. It was like I was in some kind of crime noir film, except some of the technology looked high tech. The TV appeared to be holographic.

I looked around for 'clues', but I was really only looking for one thing, blood. The abductor's or the abductee's would work. I just needed blood to activate Blood Fiend's Blood Sense ability. It would allow me to track down where one of them was.

I still had my sword at my side. I was relieved to at least still have that. I checked all over the apartment except the balcony. The sliding glass door was closed.

I opened it and checked around on the door, the railing, the ground. I didn't see a single trace of blood until I idly looked up. On the ceiling above the balcony was part of a bloody handprint.

It was on the very outer edge of the ceiling, like the victim had been pulled up onto the roof and she was struggling to hold onto something. I took my sword and scraped some of the dried blood off the ceiling with it.

Blood sense activated and I could tell the victim was getting farther and farther away. She was floating above the rooftops and moving fairly fast. The abductor must have been carrying her over his shoulder.

I got onto the balcony railing and reached up to grab the roof. I pulled myself up and over the roof. I rolled over the edge onto solid ground and for a moment, I felt like laying there, but I couldn't.

A woman was being abducted and the abductor was getting closer to getting away with it. I got up and started running across the rooftop towards where I sensed the victim's blood. I came up to a gap between two rooftops. It looked wide, but I didn't slow down. I just empowered my legs with Vi and jumped as hard as I could.