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.

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

totally understand why many races and factions distrusted or were outright antagonistic towards a race that literally required the subjugation and consumption of other humanoid races. The worst part was that it had to be humanoid. Beast blood and

a family or be hunted down and slain, as they did

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

family was everything. That entire thing where only the talented could 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 for a “faction,” but one had to remember this was merely a faction connected

and Jake needed resources. As he researched them, he also concluded that him going there and receiving benefits would help obscure who his backer was, maybe even making some

a teleportation gate. Jake had to put in a request to be able to

a day to hear back and get a positive affirmation that he could come, which also unlocked his token and allowed him to

but stayed in his good old combat outfit. Jake didn’t think he would get into a fight, but

new area. Jake stepped out of a large rectangular monument in the middle of what looked like a city square

the newcomer. All of them were either elves, humans, a few beastkin, and some mixed races. Compared to everywhere

distinguishing this place from anywhere else was

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

[Vampire – lvl ???]

at Jake briefly before smiling, revealing his fangs. “Welcome to our humble abode, Hunter. I am Alcor, and I am to act as guide without you becoming too

even recognize their existence but just looked at Jake. The vampire also let his aura really go off, as

hope for a pleasant stay,” Jake smiled in response,

opened his hand to reveal a rune of blood that then conjured a frame of red mist, where the center of the frame took

at the spooky-looking mirror portal for a moment before stepping through. He felt no sense of danger from it, and quite frankly, the C-grade wouldn’t need to use weird tricks if he

revealed a giant, fully furnished hall, and Jake instantly felt dozens of auras far more powerful than himself.

who gave off an aura that seemed to almost

lot like Alcor but was middle-aged and wore an old-timey suit. He had a well-kept beard and the same deep red eyes. The vampire was currently

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 this trait, at least in concept. Immune to presences of those stronger… unwilling to recognize himself potentially a prey before a predator. You are a hunter indeed, with all the