Blood Queen Reborn-Chapter 13: Count Down
[Daily quest complete: avoid sunlight for 8 hours]
[Reward: 5 EXP]
[EXP: 95/100]
Erin woke up early a second time, but now to the sound of her system notifications.
She grabbed her sword before heading to the cafeteria, and got some breakfast. After that, she headed over to the VR room with the gaming pods. She still had plenty of time from when she spent cash yesterday, and walked up to the side of one of the pods.
There was a large rectangular box attached to the pod on which were the words "Beast Weapons" written on it. When Erin placed her sword into the box, it began to scan the sword. While it was scanning, she noticed something about her stat screen.
[Erin Heley]
[Race: Human]
[Level 1]
[95/100 EXP]
[HP 15/15]
[Strength: 15]
[Agility: 15]
[Stamina: 15]
Then, when the scanner was done, and she picked up her sword, her stats had changed.
[Strength: 15] [+3]
[Agility: 15] [+2]
[Stamina: 15]
’This must be how much my sword boosts my stats,’ Erin thought.
Beast weapons had the ability to improve someone’s strength and speed, which was more noticeable with even stronger, more powerful beast weapons. Erin’s sword was only intermediate tier, so it only gave her a small amount of stats, but if she had something a tier higher, at advanced tier, it would give a lot more.
After logging in, she appeared in the white room once more, and she set up another quick match to start up. A loading screen began spinning until it linked her to a user with a level 4 bird transformation ability.
"Maybe this guy will actually provide a challenge," Erin commented.
Erin still had her profile listed to have an ice ability, but she wanted to see if she could fight without it.
The match began, and she saw a relatively short teenage boy with light blue hair parted to the left side of his head. He had no beast gear at hand.
[Quest: Defeat HarpyParrot]
[Reward: 25 EXP]
Immediately, Erin ran in ready to close the distance until she saw that the short boy transformed into a light blue humanoid bird the size of a grown adult. His wings stretched out, and he flew above her, out of reach.
If she wanted to use her ice powers, this would be no trouble, but she no longer had them in the real world. This was something that she needed to learn how to fight without. Instead, Erin decided she would wait until the bird boy made his move.
She held her sword up in a defensive position. Soon the bird boy began to dive down, claws out, ready to strike.
She held her sword tightly, and swung it into the boy’s claws. He tried to grab it, but the blade cut into him, and he let go. Seeing as he needed distance, the boy began to flap away.
Erin wasn’t going to let him go, however, and sprinted towards him, sword thrusting into his shoulder.
While the blade was stuck in him, he was back on the ground, so he slashed at her chest with a clawed hand.
[- 4 HP]
[HP 11/15]
Erin yanked her sword out, then, using her momentum, spun around and slammed it into him, which he caught, pushing him back.
He held it tightly, and Erin tried to yank her sword back, their grips at equal strength. Then the boy brought his head back, and jabbed her with his giant beak.
[- 2 HP]
[HP 9/15]
The attack caught her off guard just enough for the bird boy to throw her blade to the side, disarming her.
With no weapon, Erin decided to throw a punch into the bird boy’s jaw, knocking him back.
He almost staggered to the floor, wings frantically flapping about in an attempt to regain balance. He was surprised by the strength of the girl in front of him as his ability gave him slightly improved strength. Before he could recover fast enough, Erin managed to grab her sword in time.
Seeing that she was with her weapon again, the bird boy flew back up to regain his biggest advantage, but then he was met by a sword getting thrown into his chest, and he fell back down onto the floor.
Erin ran up to the boy, now pinned to the ground with the sword, and ripped her sword out of the boy only to stab him again in the head, finishing the fight.
[25 EXP received]
[120/100 EXP]
[Would you like to level up?]
Erin was taken out of the battlefield and back into the white room; when she saw that message, she just shrugged.
"That was why I was in this fight in the first place," Erin said to herself right as she was about to press the button. However, the button was suddenly pressed, but not by her; somehow, Erin felt like Quinn was the one who pressed it. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖
[Once you have leveled up, any changes will be irreversible]
[Are you sure?]
Her eyes widened, and she immediately opened up the system’s messaging tab.
{Erin} Wait! Give me a moment to—
Even though Erin had sent the message preemptively, it was too late because it appeared that Quinn had already selected ’Yes’ for her.
[Congratulations! You are now level 2]
[Evolution process has started]
Suddenly, Erin felt a sharp stabbing pain in her heart as it began beating beyond what a normal human should experience, as if it were about to jump out of her heart. She almost fell to the floor of the white space, trying her damnedest to stay upright. A system message from the game suddenly appeared in front of her.
[Outside pain detected, ejecting player from the game immediately]
Suddenly, Erin woke up in the dark room of the gaming pod, and gasped for air as she grasped at her chest. It felt like her heart was about to explode, pumping blood throughout her body, making every cell of her skin feel alive. Breathing heavily, there was a strange tingly feeling around her mouth that was quickly becoming a sharp shooting pain in her teeth.
Eventually, the pain started to settle, and Erin could think straight. She was glad that she didn’t scream because otherwise there might have been more attention brought to her. Instead, she saw a few messages
[Congratulations, you have successfully evolved]
[You are now a halfling]
[Your stats have increased]
Despite the intense pain Erin just experienced a few seconds ago, if there was at least one positive thing she could look forward to, it was going to be the improved stats it just told her. However, the system messages didn’t stop there.
[Skill unlocked: Lv1 Blood swipe]
[Blood swipe: The skill has a range of 5 meters. It will fire out a red line of energy from the user’s hands. To use the skill, the user must use their own blood causing -1 HP per Blood swipe.]
’Finally, an offensive skill!’ Erin thought to herself, but what surprised her the most was the final set of messages.
[Your hunger grows]
[You can no longer suppress your need for blood]
[Your HP will decrease by -1 HP every hour until you have consumed human blood!]
"... Damn it," Erin whispered to herself.
Quickly getting out of the pod, she looked at the time. She was about to be late for class. Erin grabbed her stuff and ran over to her general studies class.
