Grey gasped, his body shooting up as his veins felt like they were on fire. But this was a vastly different fire than what he knew. It didn’t feel like the Genesis System burning him alive at all. Instead, it felt like his entire body was being reborn and reforged into something completely new.
—
[You have awakened a Perfect Linear Frame of the Proving Class, Vampire Lord]
—
[You have awakened the Body Resistance Ability {Iron Veil} to Level 1]
—
[You have awakened the Body Combat Ability {Heart Lance} to Level 1]
—
[You have awakened the Body Enhancement Ability {Hemorrhagic Regeneration} to Level 1]
—
[You have awakened the Mana Resistance Ability {Abyssal Anchor} to Level 1]
—
[You have awakened the Mana Combat Ability {Void Gaze} to Level 1]
—
[You have awakened the Mana Enhancement Ability {Crimson Cognition} to Level 1]
—
Grey’s body rose up from the ground in a curtain of blood before being unceremoniously dropped back down. He coughed, but this time it was followed by a lot less pain and far more discomfort.
He groaned and pushed himself up.
A sickening taste touched his lips and he licked at it before spitting it out continuously.
’What the hell is that? Ash?’
What was left of the Ball Bearing Eye crumbled from his face, and his iron jaw went limp. Grey was trying to spit, but instead it felt like something heavy and clunky was constantly getting in the way.
Realizing the problem, Grey hurried to transfer Prometheus back to Tuned Jaw 0BJ37. Finally, everything went back to normal and he felt that the jaw functioned a lot more organically now.
Grey touched his face and realized what had happened. It seemed that that was really the last bit of power in Esmeralda’s eye. If he had tried to devour that fang with his iron jaw, he would have definitely failed.
Luckily he was rewarded and got a Perfect Frame for his troubles.
’It specifies Linear, but my Magnetic Hero Frame doesn’t say for sure.’
Still, Grey was fairly sure that that meant he was right. He probably got one Frame for each of the Frame Types he had. As of now, that seemed like the number was four.
If he had a Perfect Linear Frame now, then he would just need three others before he could call it a day.
It should be even easier for him to improve his stamina now as well. The quality of his Frame was off the charts.
He grinned ear to ear.
"You’re welcome."
The voice snapped Grey out of his thoughts and he looked over to see a tired Amunet. She seemed to have forgotten to put her shadow back up, or maybe the treasure she was relying on had broken in all the commotion.
Grey looked over to where his chainsaw was and couldn’t help but feel a twinge of loss in his heart. The blade body was badly mangled, the teeth were torn apart and splayed out everywhere, and the body itself was smashed apart, the electrical innards buzzing and sparking like a powerline had been cut.
"Thanks, I appreciate the save."
"You look better than I do right now." Amunet mumbled as though half asking a question and half muttering in disbelief.
"Well, he didn’t actually suck me dry like he did you."
"Yeah, well, my heart wasn’t impaled by a fang that just... mysteriously disappeared in a ring of fire."
"Details, details. Your darkness shroud disappeared, by the way."
Amunet’s head snapped down to her body, her gaze flickering. Grey wasn’t sure what she did, but a moment later, the shroud was back.
"Boooo."
The shadows around Amunet’s eyes rolled. "That’s enough of a show for today. I was practically half naked, you should be paying me a fee."
"You’re used goods, give me a discount."
"Excuse me?!"
"I don’t make the rules. That vampire completely sucked you dry."
Amunet sputtered in laughter. "You’re an asshole, you know that?"
"A handsome asshole."
Amunet gave his mask covered face a look and shook her head. "Whatever you say. Can we look at the rewards now, my hands are aching."
Grey jolted up as though he just remembered that there was such a thing as well.
He looked around and then finally saw it, three beautiful floating boxes, all of them radiating that familiar silvery blue color. But one of them, the one in the middle to be exact, had a slightly different hue. This one had a tinge of red that almost made the silvery blue a silver violet instead.
This was just like the reward box that had housed what Grey presumed had been the Looping Necklace. It was that treasure box that had had the color of a Rare, but the undertone of an Epic Loot Box that had birthed the treasure that got May killed so many different times for the crime of having the necessary Type to use it.
Grey wasn’t actually sure what level was beyond Legendary, but whatever it was, there was definitely a tinge of it here.
"Let’s take the stats first?" Grey suggested. "Get the boring stuff out of the way. Maybe it’ll even help you heal up faster."
Amunet nodded and they both reached forward together.
—
[You have defeated the Vampire Lord Valdris!]
[+177 Free Stat Points Awarded]
—
"We got less for that?" Grey shook his head, but inwardly he wasn’t too disappointed.
Technically, Esmeralda was the easier fight, but only because he had to craft a Prosthetic Mech to nerf her first. Valdris was also literally killed by a piece of Esmeralda that was left behind, so it added up as far as Grey was concerned.
He also had a feeling that the amount of Free Stats you could get from a singular opponent was capped, especially in an Instance you fell into like this one. Otherwise, they would have been getting stats from every mob they killed, but they hadn’t.
He ended up with 89 Free Stat points that he kept for himself, and Amunet ended up with the other 88. He assumed that the system split the difference using whoever landed the last blow.
Regardless, he would decide how to distribute them later. What he most wanted to see was what was in those boxes.