The Earth After Rebirth - Chapter 22: The Master

Chapter 22: The Master

Kiro knew exactly what the system was doing. A quest will always change ranks when those doing it are too strong. They’d levelled up too much and were too strong for the boss.

“Unbelievable luck!” Kiro said loudly.

“What do you mean?”

[Calculations done, due to your strength rising above the Master of this Manor, the system recalculated the rank of the quest.

New Rank: S]

Nobody thought Hiro could get any paler than he already was, he was white as a sheet. And Kiro just stared at nothingness dumbfounded.

“From B to S? I knew it, this quest is impossible. Wilace was trying to end us after all?!”

‘Personally I can’t admit defeat here, I have too much coins, that’s enough to get me a mansion in the upper district. I cannot mess this up!’

“Hiro, let’s look at the equipment we got.” Kiro said trying to break them from their stupor.

Armour [Rare]

Material: Dragon Newt Hide

Physical Attack Defense: 400

Magical Attack Defense: 800

They quickly equipped the armour. Although the ones they were wearing were rare too, rare had different levels. This dragon newt armour was clearly better!

Shield [Rare]

Material: Obsidian Steel

Defense: 1000

Attack: 100

Both of them lost their marbles looking at the shield. Hiro was smiling like an idiot at it. He quickly equipped it.

Sword [Unique]

Material: Lesser Obsidian Steel

Attack: 200

Defense: 100n–O𝒱𝖾𝑳𝚋In

Kiro found himself wishing that the sword could turn into a staff. He couldn’t equip any other weapons. A staff was the only weapon a Sage or an apprentice Sage like himself could use.

“Don’t worry Kiro, once my smithing career takes off I’ll go mining for high grade obsidian steel and make you the best staff this world has yet to see.” Hiro noticed the melancholic expression on his friend’s face.

“Deal.”

What Hiro didn’t know was that Kiro was planning to drag them into the mines once they were done with this quest and mining would be their first priority until the game was patched.

They decided to check out the skill book. But it was yet another disappointment. They couldn’t use the skill at all.

Undead Skill [Rare]

Necromancy skill that’s able to control the undead beings of higher intelligence.

“What’s with these necromancy skills!!! We’ll have to auction them. We’ll also auction the third and second shield.

“Hey Hiro, once we’re established players. Let’s create our own guild. Well not a guild per se. Just a group of mercenaries. Taking jobs to help people clear dungeons for money.

“We can find trusted individuals, or we can do it just the two of us. Of course we’ll need a plot of land to build our base. So the sooner we buy land the better.”

Lands right now were cheap, but they would sore after the update because the game will have millions and millions of players who’d want to create their own guilds. So it was better to buy a spot right now.

Hiro grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

“It’s a deal!”

After equipping everything, they drank HP and MP potions, and their bars were full again. Kiro practiced hitting in the air. He didn’t feel it but the staff was too ordinary and was holding him back now.

After a short break, they got up, and entered the Manor.

Ding!

[You’ve entered Dracula’s abode, be careful lest you’re killed before you even know it.]

“What a chilling message,” Kiro complained.

The Manor was creepier inside. The moment they opened the door, a wave of blood attacked their senses. This was truly a vampires abode. It was bigger than the outside lead on, as if expansion magic was used, there were dark portraits on the walls of pale men with red eyes, black hair and fangs.

“Hey Hiro, look at your other family.” Kiro said jokingly, pointing to the portraits.

Hiro knew immediately what he meant and laughed manically, hissed and said “Give me your blood, mortal.” While faking an accent, pretending he had fangs.

They burst out laughing. That seriously made the mood more cheerful. The Manor didn’t feel frightening to them anymore. They weren’t even afraid of meeting the master of the place, if he talked like that, it’d be a cherry on top.

‘Developers please, let him talk with that accent.’ Kiro thought pleadingly, as they went up the stairs.

The stairs were long and curved. There was no shortcut, they had to climb all the way up.

Name: Kiro

Level 27

Race: Dreki

Class: Sagehood

Subclass: –

HP: 1000/1000

MP: 1010/1010

Attack: 600(+100)

PDEF: 500(+900)

Strength: 35

Vitality: 30 (+5)

Dexterity: 35(+2)

Stamina: 35

Intelligence: 35

Equipment: rare dragon newt cloth armour and boots and uncommon staff.

Skills

Staff Wielder (Rank A, can’t evolve) 20% damage

Vibrations (AOE Rank S, can’t evolve)

Consumes 5MP per second, no cooldown.

Blink Step (Rank S, can evolve)

Consumes 10MP per second.

Hurricane Punch (Rank B, can evolve)

Consumes 10MP per second.

Martial Arts (Ranked S, can’t evolve)

Chi (Ranked A, can’t evolve)

Bending Kick (Ranked A, can evolve)

Crashing Palm Palm (Ranked A, can evolve)

25 AP

15 SP

Kiro found himself bowing four times to his S ranked skills. They’ve helped him a lot until now, he had been both lucky and unlucky with gaining skills. Although he didn’t have much, he didn’t have a skill below B ranked. Quality over quantity, indeed.

He also noticed that physical and magical defense were combined into one stat, which he thought was strange since they were two different things.

The stairs were fairly long, but they made at it the top drenched in sweat. It had taken them hours. There were many rooms at the top.

They opened and closed a lot of them looking for Wilace’s wife. Luckily they hadn’t run into the Master either. Now it just felt like they were together, that they’d just open one door and find him feeding on her.

‘Would we even clear the quest if the woman died or was turned into a vampire.’ Kiro pondered.

As if on queue with his thoughts, the door they opened next had two silhouettes in it, but it was too dark to tell so they turned on the light.

The Master of the manor was right about to feast on her, when the light turned on, he looked at the ones who dared disturb his majestic meal and hissed. Kiro panicked, thinking about how this meant they failed the quest if they were too late.

‘We can’t lose our characters because of something the game intended. How’s that fair?’ Hiro thought to himself. He was too panicking.

“We aren’t too late are we?” Hiro asked perplexed at the situation.

“Let’s hope not. You, monster get away from her.” Kiro shooed the Master.

The vampire smiled and started, “this is my meal, I caught it, therefore it’s mine. You have killed my minions. Leave while I am still being generous.”

Hiro and Kiro looked at each other, they roared with laughter. They couldn’t hold it in anymore. Kiro was on his knees unable to contain himself. Dracula was speaking exactly how Hiro imitated.

Upon their blatant disrespect, Dracula was fuming, but the two boys in front of him didn’t care, they just found this situation extremely funny.

Kiro slowly got up and looked at Hiro and asked, “how did you know?”

He grinned and answered, “old films!”

“Man it was spot on, the accent and fangs and everything it—”

Dracula was furious because the intruders had totally ignored him, so he yelled “ENOUGH!!!”

Ding!

[You’ve made Dracula angry, all his stats are increased by 1+”]

“Damn it, how’s that fair system! Okay Hiro, let’s beat this overgrown bat before it gets angrier and gets more buffs.”