Chapter 70 : Raising Rank
He didn\'t have enough BP, just enough to evolve both of them up one rank into blood suckers.
For the evolution of blood sucker, 1000 BP was required, so with Aldritch\'s 2,500, two of them would do. The next evolution after that was 5000, there was no way he was going to be able to take anyone through that… \'I just hope Ingrid forgets everything I promised her…\' he thought to himself, berating himself for even making such bold claims before.
Within the underground haven, Aldritch had both Lina and Olgud follow him there. This place looked like a ritual spot… it literally was, or at least it had that section, but Aldritch brought them there for something else, quite similar.
Aldritch asked Lina to come before him first, then he turned to the system in his mind to initiate the procedure.
\'System, use the 1000BP to evolve Lina into a Blood Sucker.\'
[You are about to use 1000BP to evolve one of your family \'Lina Hellsing\' by one rank. Proceed?]
\'Yes.\'
[Evolution will start in thirty seconds]
Aldritch then looked at Lina and asked her to bear with whatever pain she might experience. Lina wasn\'t in the know of what was even going on, but she listened to Aldritch, determined to follow his words.
After thirty minutes was up, the system brought another message.
[Evolution will now begin]
Once that happened, Aldritch saw blood, quite the amount of blood, flow out of him from beneath his feet towards Lina. The blood wrapped all around her and continued like that until it formed a cocoon twice the area Lina covered, encapsulating her within.
The cocoon looked solid, yet liquid at the same time, it was strange. Aldritch, out of curiosity reached out to touch the cocoon, and what he felt was a hard shell, at least similar.
\'So that\'s how it works.\'
While Lina was in the evolution process, Aldritch had Olgud come forward, standing a few feet away from Lina. Just like before, he asked the system to initiate the evolution, but the result this time was different.
[The target is a Vampire Ghoul and is unable to evolve through this means]
\'Huh?... then how can he evolve then?\' Aldritch enquired.
[Vampire Ghouls can only evolve by eating other vampires\' flesh, something he will have to do individually; he can also evolve himself if he is able to find a human who possesses the rare bloodline that can transform most supernaturals to completely improved beings]
\'I see…\' Though a bit disappointed, Aldritch was happy that there was still a way for Olgud to evolve.
\'I can\'t just lose one good soldier like that, he\'s quite useful.\' He thought to himself. Even though Aldritch valued those closest to him, he still evaluated their usefulness to him, his true nature remained. Well, at least now he won\'t kick them to the curb if they were too useless.
"Olgud, you can\'t advance like a normal vampire, because you are different." Aldritch explained.
"You are what is called a vampire ghoul, you see. I give you a formula on how you can go about it."
Olgud looked serious as he listened to Aldritch\'s every word attentively.
"To advance, you\'ll first have to eat a vampire and gain their essence, only then is it possible." Aldritch said.
Looking at Olgud, he was sure of what ran through his head. Saying that he would need to eat vampires, wasn\'t that like saying you\'ll need to stab your family in the back if you want to get stronger? It was very messed up, after all, they were the only vampires in the world.
Seeing his dilemma, Aldritch assured Olgud that he wouldn\'t need to do what he had in mind or stay weak for the rest of his life… even though he could also grow stronger outside bloodline evolution, he assured him that even though they were the only vampires in this world, other worlds existed and there he would find plenty to further his course.
Aldritch didn\'t tell him about the rare human part, he would find that out naturally, especially for a low leveled vampire, he would feel the craving much stronger.
That aside, Aldritch focused back on Lina. There was no say from the system of how long this evolution process would take, so he could only wait around. He could have just asked Olgud to look after her while he attended to other things, but just in case there comes an incident after her evolution, he wanted to be around to curtail it.
Aldritch took a seat close by and started going through his system. At the moment, he had 1500BP to spend.
.
[Name: Aldritch Mondragon Hellsing]
[age: 22]
[Rank: Ordinary]
[Race: Vampire]
[Evolution: Blooded Vampire]
[Blood Bank: 30]
[BP: 2,500]
.
[HP: ====]
[SP: 85/85]
[Strength: 25]
[Agility: 25]
[Dexterity: 15]
[Vitality: 15]
[Intelligence: 15]
[Racial Skills: {Blood Manipulation Lvl 7} {Minor Compulsion Lvl 6} {Healing Factor} {Blood Bond}]
[Skills: {Hypnosis (Lvl 8)}]
…
Looking at his stats, Aldritch pondered, trying to pick out those that weren\'t as important at the moment to him. His SP of 85 was very ok since all his skills barely used any and he almost never felt drained. Now with his hypnosis at such a high level, barely any SP is being consumed when he performs linear hypnosis, apparently.
With that in mind, he decided not to increase his intelligence stat for the time being.
As for vitality… he could work his way around it, especially because he could regenerate using his natural racial skill healing factor which activated passively, and he could also control how much or how slow it regenerated him. For the sake of it, he could bypass vitality for the time being.
After filtering all these out, it left him with three stats…
...…
\'So, in the end I turn to physical combat, not bad, I feel pretty confident in that myself.\' He thought to himself.
…
[Strength: 25] >> [Strength: 40]
[Agility: 25] >> [Agility: 40]
[Dexterity: 15] >> [Dexterity: 30]
…
Aldritch spent 400BP to raise his strength from 25 to 40, and the same with his agility, then finally, he spent 200BP to raise his dexterity to 30 from 15. With every increase bracket he passed, the amount required for the next one doubled. At these lower levels it still wasn\'t looking too much, but Aldritch could only wonder what it would look like later on.
\'Perhaps getting stronger is supposed to be focused on stats the most I guess.\' He thought to himself as he thought about the future.
After spending 1000BP, he still had 500 left, so he Aldritch decided not to be stingy with his own money and spend it all, after all, this was not used in buying food or women, it was used to increase his own strength, no one would choose otherwise.
Using the remaining 500BP, Aldritch spent 320 to raise his strength to 45 and from the remaining 180BP he used 128 to raise his Agility to 42.
With each increase, Aldritch felt his overall strength increase, giving him a feeling of growing stronger, quite a pleasant feeling. Definitely something one could get addicted to.
Aldritch quickly checked his rank, but he was left a little disappointed as he was still \'ordinary rank\'.
As his strength had increased now, he also felt the need to learn some form of fighting properly. He felt that he was supposed to know one or two things about swordsmanship particularly, but then again, that memory was distant, the same with most of his memories from all his previous lives, he could only remember bits of them.
Aldritch was sure that unlocking those memories would prove to be helpful in becoming unparalleled, after all, in some of his past lives, he had lived at the highest top ruling over many and wielding powerful arts, surely, he would be able to employ all those magical arts and techniques in this new world. For now, though, that was a distant dream.
After about an hour, Lina started showing movements. The blood around her that had formed a cocoon started churning lightly, as though it was semi solid. After a few minutes of doing so, the entire blood cocoon started moving into her body as it absorbed it. This went on until there was none left.
Once all the blood was absorbed, Lina appeared from within and then when all of gone, she collapsed on the ground.
Olgud moved to wake her up, but Aldritch raised a hand stopping him. Soon, her body moved, and that was it as she had woken up.
"The evolution is complete. She seems fine too, that confirms that there won\'t be any issue of entering a frenzy after the evolution process." He said to himself.
\'Let me check her stats.\'