The Sword Saint would be lying if he said he hadn’t expected that question to come at some point. He also understood why, from their point of view, it was odd for him to carry around an ancient vampire artifact without turning into a vampire himself. However, no matter what people thought, he had his reasons.
One’s they quite frankly weren’t privy to.
“Vampirism... isn’t part of my Path,” he merely said with a sigh, hoping the discussion would end there, even if he knew that wasn’t going to happen.
“Perhaps not right now, but one’s Path is nothing if not adaptable,” Katherine argued. “I did a bit of research on you, and from my understanding, you are a man who pursues the sword with great fervor, yet you also have a profession. Painting. While I understand you might find such a pastime relaxing or perhaps even soothing for the soul, it doesn’t quite seem to fit with your Path from my perspective.”
The Sword Saint remained quiet as the True Ancestor continued. He knew he wouldn’t hear anything he hadn’t already considered himself, but out of politeness, he at least allowed her to try.
“Meanwhile, should you become a vampire, you could shed that profession and pursue the sword far more single-mindedly. What’s more, considering who you are and that you own the Blood Legacy, I’m confident you will evolve into a powerful variant. The affinities of water and time that you cultivate currently are also easily transferable, as time is a common affinity controlled by vampires already, and with your powerful water affinity, you can combine it with blood and create something even greater. Overall, I believe you would become a lot more powerful as a vampire with your endurance in combat, especially shooting through the roof with your resources combined. I see very few downsides to embracing vampirism at your current stage.”
“What would those downsides be?” the Sword Saint asked.
Katherine, likely believing she had a chance to convince him, continued speaking. “Vampires are, as you know, not a popular race in the multiverse. That will naturally create some challenges. I will also admit that your Path will be more locked than before. You will need to cultivate some parts unique to your vampire race, but those will more likely than not happen in concert with sharpening your blade against powerful foes. Admittedly, I also do not know how your current Patron will react, seeing as I cannot recall the Primordial of Time ever blessing vampires before. Then again, he rarely blesses anyone. Lastly, as a vampire, you will need to feed, but I’m certain you would be able to have that sorted working with skilled alchemists.”
“Feeding would not be a problem,” Iskar chimed in after Katherine was done talking. “Remnants of Sanguine’s power reside within this Blood Legacy, allowing the owner to passively restore blood energy without the need for feeding. Sadly, it only works for mortals, though.”
“Vampire gods don’t need to feed anymore, though it does remain beneficial to us. Just not a requirement,” Katherine explained something that both Iskar and the Sword Saint hadn’t known. “This means that if what Iskar said is true, you will be able to be a vampire without perhaps the biggest downside.”“I see,” the Sword Saint nodded before sighing. “And yet the answer remains no... for it still does not suit my Path.”
“As I said, Paths are adaptable,” Katherine reiterated, trying to remain convincing. “I understand that you may be stubborn and believe that-“
“True Ancestor... the answer remains no and will always be no,” the Sword Saint said, leaving no room for discussion. However, for good measure, he did momentarily flare his aura as a Transcendent. Fairleigh and the True Ancestor both weren’t Transcendents and thus couldn’t passively sense he had one, but at least Miyamoto had learned to purposefully display his status when he so desired.
Katherine didn’t seem overly surprised at his aura, likely having already known he was a Transcendent beforehand. Again, anyone with a Transcendent could feel he had one, and at Nevermore, there had naturally been others around, including people from major factions who were pretty much just there to identify others with Transcendents.
She also seemed to instantly understand why he rejected her advice and simply nodded. “Very well, the decision is ultimately yours.”
“Thank you,” the Sword Saint bowed. Primarily because he knew he had been a little rude for interrupting her earlier. Not that the vampire god seemed offended in the slightest.
“I perhaps overstepped,” the True Ancestor acknowledged her mistake. Meanwhile, Fairleigh was merely looking at them while clearly trying to handle the pressure from being in the presence of a powerful god. He wasn’t looking that good. Contrarily, the Sword Saint had already adapted to her aura, and while he could certainly still feel her presence, it was quite manageable.
“With that matter settled... I am curious to learn more about the history of vampires. The parts most people don’t know, as I’m sure several factions have done much to suppress or erase your history,” the Sword Saint said.
Truthfully, he wasn’t that interested, but he knew the vampires liked to speak of their history, and he didn’t lie when he said he held some level of curiosity. Plus, the more he knew, the better he could avoid making any mistakes while dealing with high-level vampires in the future. It was something he had a feeling he would end up doing quite a lot, considering his plans to forge a good relationship between the six families and the Noboru clan.
Katherine smiled. “It would be my pleasure to enlighten you. Fairleigh, go get us some refreshments.”
“Yes, True Ancestor,” the man bowed as he hurried out of the room.
“That was kind of you,” the Sword Saint said, easily seeing through why she had sent him away. He didn’t doubt she had plenty of such refreshments on her already, so for her to send him out was clearly just a nice way to give him a break.
“Usually, mortals don’t do well around gods for too long, though you do appear to be an exception to that rule. Courtesy of the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, I assume,” she said with a smile.
“Jake does have that kind of effect on people,” Miyamoto nodded with a smile, deliberately using Jake’s first name to communicate their closeness.
“In exchange for me telling you some of our secrets, perhaps you could share stories about your adventures with the Chosen?” Katherine asked with a raised eyebrow.
“I would gladly divulge some embarrassing anecdotes,” the Sword Saint joked as he and the True Ancestor began the first real meeting between the Noboru clan and the vampires from the six families.
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“And you’re sure you don’t want to come in?” Irin asked, turning to look at Jake.
“Nah, I’m good,” he shrugged. “You just go ahead and do your thing... a bit quicker this time if possible.”
“Alright, alright,” Irin shrugged as she went into the fifth clothing store in a row, with Jake not even bothering to enter this one. He still didn’t understand why Irin kept buying clothes that didn’t even provide any stats, and none of her explanations made sense either, so he’d just chosen to accept it. He could understand that she wanted a few sets, but at this point, she had to at least have bought a dozen.
It had been a few days since he returned to the Order, and during this period, he’d naturally spent some quality time with Irin – solely to help her level up and stuff, of course – and even done a bit of meditation reading here and there.
Today, they’d gone out to do a bit of shopping as Jake wanted to buy some alchemical ingredients. What kind of ingredients? Well, he wasn’t entirely sure yet, which was why he decided to go shopping so he could see what was available. The plan was kind of just to look through a lot of the more popular stores before something would hopefully catch his eye. In other words, it was a planned shopping trip to make spontaneous purchases.
While they had certainly looked through a few alchemy stores already, and Jake had even bought a few things, he was beginning to reconsider whether having Irin along was a good idea. Was she good at knowing all the best shops, and did her guidance save him a lot of time he would have otherwise spent aimlessly wandering around? Yes. But a lot of that saved time was instead spent on clothing stores.
To make matters worse–or maybe better, Jake wasn’t sure yet–she’d even bought some clothing for him to wear. The kind Jake would never usually wear, as he preferred his armor, which he had been told was kind of weird. People usually wore different clothing when not going to battle, and only mages or casters were known to just wear their usual equipment at all times.
Jake could understand why many warriors preferred more casual clothes during their everyday lives, as lying on a couch in full plate armor didn’t sound very relaxing. Meanwhile, people with medium armor, such as Jake, sometimes walked around in their full getup despite not having any plans to fight, even if it was still viewed as very weird to wear it when chilling at home.
One small point of clarification was that, despite not technically wearing one’s armor, one would still get the stats provided. According to the system, any bound armor to a person was always worn, which was also why it was so easy to change in and out of in an instant and why, despite it being nearly entirely destroyed, as long as it wasn’t fully gone, one would keep all the stats. It was powered by the glory of system-fuckery to the extreme.
All of this is to say that Jake had no real excuse to keep walking around with armor on while at home. Was he still going to walk around with armor on most times anyway? Probably... but now he at least had some stuff to change into if he wanted to.
Jake wasn’t really that annoyed at Irin, as he was at least partially to blame. He had been the one to talk about his visit with his parents and let slip that he walked around in full battle getup even back then, only wearing “casual” clothes a few times here and there. When she’d asked him why, Jake had made the excuse he didn’t have anything else to wear, which was a big reason why he had ended up in his current predicament.
Anyway, Irin was soon done shopping as they went to see a few more alchemy stores before it was time to head home again. Jake had considered whether he also wanted some new equipment, but had ended up deciding not to. He knew Arnold was still working on more stuff for him, and with the newly gained ring that granted a fuckload of stats, he wasn’t really feeling the effects of not being fully capped on stats he could get from equipment.
Finally, he wanted to see what the Pantheon of Life had available. From what he’d gathered, chances were he could get some nice equipment there, too, perhaps even some that was better than what the Order had to offer. The Order wasn’t exactly known as crafters of medium armor, which Jake preferred to wear, while the Pantheon of Life had a lot of hunters and fighters wearing equipment similar to his, naturally resulting in them also having a lot of leather workers and bowyers.
After spending another few hours shopping, Jake and Irin headed back to Jake’s residence. Jake had stocked up on a lot of alchemical reagents, and he had more coming in the form of large bulk orders he’d placed directly with one of the higher-ups of the Order, gladly abusing his status as the Chosen of the entire organization. All of this is to say, Jake should have plenty to tide him over for a long time.
Back at the residence, Jake was just reminded of something as they appeared from the gate in the entryway. “Say, did you find out about Scarlett, by the way?”
Seeing as he was at the Order, Jake had wanted to meet up with the albino snake to see how she was doing, but it turned out she wasn’t around. He had considered asking Villy if he knew where she was, but had just asked Irin instead. She was a bit weird in the sense that she really liked it when Jake asked her to do things for him, so he sometimes asked her for favors for no good reason. In this case, asking about Scarlett was fully within the boundaries of her job description, making it not weird at all while also clearly making her happy.
“Let me just check,” Irin said as she took out her token and scanned it for a moment. “Ah, yes, it says here she’s currently away on a dungeon expedition with a group consisting of members from different Dragonflights. Should have guessed that one.”
That was also when Jake remembered that fateful dinner party that had ended with that guy from the Azure Flight losing an arm to Villy roleplaying a waiter. After such an ordeal, Jake halfway expected the Dragonflights to be wary of Scarlett, but it appeared it was just the opposite, which struck him as odd.
“Why should you have guessed that?” Jake asked. “Have the Dragonflights been spending a lot of time with her recently?”
“That would be an understatement,” Irin chuckled while shaking her head. “After you officially revealed yourself as the Chosen of the Malefic Viper, many factions have tried to form relations with people you’re considered close to. Even Reika and her roommate Bastilla have had quite some attention on them as it’s well-known you went to a dungeon with them.”
“I see,” Jake mumbled. “I take it you’ve also been bothered a lot?”
“Oh, of course, but I see it only as beneficial,” the succubus shrugged. “I’m riding high on all that attention. Anyway, different factions chose to target different people. The Altmar are naturally trying to get close to Lady Dawnleaf, though in her case, it's also in large part due to her position as Duskleaf’s Chosen. As for Scarlett, the Dragonflights chose her as their target.”
“Should I be worried?” Jake asked with some concern.
“I wouldn’t be,” Irin shook her head. “We are all fully aware of what’s happening and are all just taking advantage. Plus, even if the members of these factions have been told to try and get closer to us, that doesn’t mean genuine connections can’t be made. Everyone involved knows what’s happening, so no need to be concerned.”
“Alright, I guess,” Jake sighed. He still didn’t like the notion that those around him always had to consider if people got close to them genuinely or just as a way to get to Jake. Maybe he was just projecting, as Jake didn’t like it himself that a lot wanted to get close to him simply because he was the Chosen of the Malefic Viper.
At least a lot of factions wanted to get to know him now because of his Nevermore performance and his Primeval Origins abilities. He found that a way more acceptable reason, as that was at least his own power and not just something gained from pure association.
Speaking of taking advantage of someone else’s status, Sylphie also wasn’t around as she was doing something Jake hadn’t expected she’d ever want to... she was taking a few lessons. That’s right, the small hawk had willingly asked Jake to go through the lessons available and selected some that she was interested in.
Maybe she was just bored or wanted out of the residence, as Jake and Irin had made liberal use of the mansion’s privacy feature, but the result was still good. From what she’d said, the lessons she attended were mostly related to techniques and methods to more efficiently digest natural treasures, so it definitely sounded like she was spending her time well.
Speaking of spending time well... Jake soon came to learn that Irin had also bought a few outfits for herself that were not exactly suitable for everyday use – even by succubus standards - and she was very interested in Jake’s opinion of them.
There was even a standing offer that if he wasn’t a fan, he was free to remove them at any time.
Like so, several days at the Order quickly passed, and soon, Jake and the others had spent a quality week at the Order. They had all done what they needed, and soon, it was time for them to leave once more as the Pantheon of Life awaited.