The Primal Hunter

Ah, vampires. If any race had been truly marginalized and suppressed throughout the history of the multiverse, it was them. The Risen and Holy Church both hated them, and most humans, elves, and other humanoids also weren’t fans due to the racial skills they possessed.

For a good reason too. Vampires had the ability to drain the lifeforce of others. In fact, they had to do this due to a massive drawback associated with their race: the lack of natural regeneration.

Pretty much all other races could live without any kind of sustenance until they died of age after reaching a certain grade. You could put Jake in a box, and he would keep living until he ran out of lifespan. If you took the same box and put a vampire in it, the vampire would eventually die due to starvation simply due to passive energy expenditure. They did have some racial skills to alleviate this drawback, such as the Eternal Slumber skill, but it wasn’t perfect, and there were many times Eternal Slumber truly did turn out to be an eternal rest.

Now, the usual way to drain lifeforce for a vampire was through drinking blood. It was easy and straightforward, but it had the issue of harming the victim that was used as food quite a lot and could easily result in a casualty. Even if the target didn’t die, they would lose resources, and continued exposure to vampires would result in a temporary reduction in stats and prolonged periods of weakness. It was like Jake overdrawing his own body with Arcane Awakening except far worse, and often items or extremely skilled and specialized healers were required to fix the ailment.

Jake had already learned all of this during his time in Yalsten, and he had now learned even more by reading a few basic tomes on vampires that were already present in his library. He had even called Meira, who had given him quite the negative input if he said so himself.

“Vampires are always part of powerful families and really ward their legacies and power. They also buy a lot of slaves to use as food and simply for pleasure. The most positive outcome for a slave sent to a vampire house is the vampires liking the taste of their blood and deciding to use them for crafting blood potions. Well, they would also get really lucky and one day become a vampire themselves… if that is even considered a better fate.”

So, yeah, Meira wasn’t a fan. Yet she didn’t seem alarmed or surprised when Jake said he would go and visit the Nalkar House. Jake learned the reason for this was quite simple: there was no way they would ever dare drink a single drop of his blood. No, not because he was blessed by the Viper or had a backer or something like that, but because drinking his blood would be what in the vampire world was known as a very bad time.

You see, it turned out that drinking from someone with highly toxic blood courtesy of Blood of the Malefic Viper wasn’t the most pleasant experience. It involved a lot of corroded flesh and overall just made the entire action futile as the vampire would lose more blood energy than they would gain.

The exact polar opposite of someone like Jake were slaves or servants bred to be used as food. Viewed as livestock or pets, these people were trained and nurtured all their lives to be valuable blood banks. It was somehow a recognized Path of the system, and they even had skills and professions focused on providing better and more tasty blood while not being susceptible to the weakness after a vampire used them.

For classes, they tended to still have one focused on combat, but nearly always of the physical variety for better stats-distributions. These were also specialized and worked in synergy with vampires, making them potential soldiers.

The classification for these people was Blood Thrall for the weaker and less recognized ones. Blood Servant was then used for the more qualified and influential non-vampires, and finally, the Blood Disciples. Blood Disciples were those who had the potential of joining the main family and becoming vampires themselves.

Jake had decided to read a bit more up on modern vampirism as he didn’t wanna go in with knowledge many Eras old from Yalsten. In fact, it was a bit funny to read the books from Yalsten and compare them with more modern ones. One difference was that in Yalsten, merely consuming health potions and potions made with herbs was considered adequate to regenerate blood energy, but in modern times, consuming such potions was only done in combat.

of vampirism was inherently tied to the consumption of blood and life, so to try and substitute it was to stray from that Path. Short-term, it didn’t matter, but long term, the effects on Records became significant. Maybe some vampires in Yalsten knew this, as they still kept live humanoids to drink from, but Jake knew only the elite were able to indulge in this. Keeping the fact that using health potions was harmful in the long run secret made sense if the

humanoid races. The worst part was that it had to be humanoid. Beast blood and such

an open-door policy for any living who wanted to become a Risen, but for vampires, it was far different. You had to be part of a family or be hunted down and slain, as they did not want rogue vampires out there. They cared a lot for lineage, and

They were careful and wanted to avoid vampires causing trouble. The vampire families associated with the Order of

become vampires also led to every natural-born vampire being the child of talented individuals. The weakest vampires were born at D-grade, the majority in C-grade, and the Nalkar House, as an example, had four S-grades and dozens of A-grades currently alive. This did not sound like a lot

there and receiving benefits would help obscure who his backer was, maybe even making some factions assume the Nalkar House or a

as merely taking a teleportation gate. Jake had to put in a request to be able to enter their area as it was always

token and allowed him to teleport to them. He got no other information besides

combat outfit. Jake didn’t think he would get into

wall in his mansion, and after a brief goodbye to Meira, he stepped through, finding himself in an entirely new area. Jake stepped out

elves, humans, a few beastkin, and some mixed races. Compared to everywhere else in the Order, there was a distinct lack of

looked relatively normal, and the entire area seemed like the outer area of a large medieval city. The only thing really distinguishing this place from anywhere else was the oddly familiar sky. It was red, and something that looked

now, a dark red swirl appeared in front of Jake as a humanoid form condensed from mist. It was a young man that looked about Jake’s own age with black hair and one of those slightly androgynous yet also often considered handsome faces. However, the most striking feature was the two red eyes that met

[Vampire – lvl ???]

not a weak one either. The vampire looked at Jake briefly before smiling, revealing his fangs. “Welcome to our humble abode, Hunter. I

felt all the people observing back away while bowing deeply. The vampire Alcor didn’t even recognize their existence but just looked at Jake. The

a pleasant stay,”

my job will be easier. Now follow me; the Patriarch is ready to see you,” Alcor said as he opened his hand to reveal a rune of blood that then conjured a frame of red mist,

mirror portal for a moment before stepping through. He felt no sense of danger

more powerful than himself. At least twenty

turned and looked at the figure, who gave off an aura that seemed to almost tinge the very

The vampire was currently sitting on a large lounge

tone as he got up and began walking towards Jake. “All wish to be the hunter in any situation, but never the prey. And as you stand here, I come to believe that you do indeed adopt