Staying up all night was easy for me as a half-vampire, so I read the whole diary and wrote down the important stuff. Still, I took a nap when m came after returning the book and soon woke up when I heard the sound of wooden swords colliding against each other.

  It was only six in the m, but I had to give it to my older brothers they were pretty hard-w. The captain of the guards of the house was watg them train against each other.

  The first and the sed son were fag each other with wooden swords, the first son was called Jacques and he wielded his sword with a single hand and thrust the on forward with precision and power. He had a serious face while doing so, ohat did aion. He had short blond hair and green eyes… he was almost ten years old.

  His oppo was Gerald, a boy who was a year younger and was holding his wooden sword with both hands while showing an annoyed expression. The thrust attacks came at difficult angles, so he had a hard time blog them, even while using both of his hands. He had light brown hair and green eyes and by the look of things, despite being younger, he hated to lose to Jacques.

  The other two were dueling as well, but they were a lot less impressive. For oheir attacks weren’t as heavy, and for ahe third kid, Remi didn’t seem to be taking the duel that seriously. He was seven years old only, but he seemed pretty skilled. While the fourth son, Ulric who was six years old, was trying his best to attack him, Remi easily sidestepped and then swung down his sword slowly and hit him in the head without causing any real damage. Ulric looked aoo, but more frustrated than anything.

  Remi had red hair which was a bit long, and Ulric had bck hair, but both of them had green eyes… all of the boys in the family had the green eyes of their father, but only Ulric had his bck hair as well.

  “Here it is…”

  Once he got tired of only defending, Gerald jumped with all his might and then swung down his sword. It was a skill… Jacques blocked the attack with his on, but the power soon forced him to jump to the side since he only used one hand. Before they could tihe captain stepped forward and chopped Gerald’s head.

  “I said: no skills.”

  Gerald crouched down while holding his head and groaning… the captain could be w for their father, but he was still their training instructor, he had the authority to do that. They k better that pining would only make things harder for them.

  “... I just wao defeat him at least once before he leaves.”

  “If you could use your brain and were less hot-headed, you could have dohat a long time ago.”

  While Gerald was being scolded, Jacques assumed his resting position and began to recover without dropping his guard. The kid had a good head for bat and he was humble enough not to try to feel proud of defeating his younger brothers. Overall, he seemed like a good kid.

  Still, his calm expression ged to one of annoyand a bit of disgust wheiced me looking at them through the window. Jacques was a good kid at heart, but he hated me, only me because I was a half-vampire.

  ‘Well, I guess it ’t be helped… he wants to join the Holy Order, after all.’

  I read about them… The Holy Order was a fa of followers and desdants of the founder of the order who became famous for hunting unholy creatures and abyssals. They are made of padins, priests, and simir people. Jacques' mother and Rayner's first wife is a high priest in that order. Her father is the leader of the order as well and he was a legendary figure that many called the Holy Knight, a title that only the leader of the order had. Jacques wants to follow in his footsteps and bee a padin.

  At first, I thought that their religion was just like all the others, but when I heard them praying once, I felt a bit weird. I also felt a bit of a holy aura in the chapel when they prayed. So, it seemed legit… I couldn't do more research about it because evehey talk about their religion, I feel a bit tired. The founder was treated as something like a saint and a legendary hero. The iing thing was the fact that the legend says that he never grew old ot injured in battle. In any case, in their eyes, I was an inexcusable existence.

  ‘Well, they do hunt the unholy beings, and I guess I am half of it.’

  Aside from his hatred toward me, Jacques erfect son… perfect to the point that he would give his pce as heir to the sed son in order to focus on the Holy Order. Many groups like that had this kind of thing about not being fond of worldly possessions. If he had bee the head of the family, he would have been that iial.

  In any case, the year just started, and since Jacques was ten years old, he will be attending the Knights Academy. I had heard about that too, but I wasn't ied. Going to school again? No thanks. Having to attend a school in another world? Crazy cept, I know.

  In any case, the you, Ulric also gained his first css when he was five years old, so it looks like the tradition in the family ged a bit in order to make the members stronger from an early age. If I were to follow in Rayner's footsteps, I would have the ce to get my first css pretty soon, in just two years. If that weren't possible, I would have to leave this pce when I was around ten years old.

  The nobles of the Bastion Empire have trol over most dungeons that offer the most basibat csses in the Empire, but not all of them. The adventurers' guilds had some of them uheir trol and had no iion of selling them, but they only accepted kids who were only ten years old at minimum.

  ‘I have to find a workaround for this… nobles and those who serve them have some extra time to get stronger, but if I have to wait until I am ten years old, then my life here from five to ten will be even more difficult.’

  I left the window of my room when everyone began to look at me with the usual disgusted eyes and then I checked the notes based on what I had learned. Albert didn't talk much about the other csses he gained, but the Warrior css was something like this based on my research.

  Warrior - Hardness: Obtain one point of experience per point of damage suffered.

  Parameter: Health - Increases your health by ten points per level.

  Active: Bash - A powerful strike that causes damage equal to your strength and stuarget when causing more thahird of their total health as damage. Cost: 10 Stamina

  Active: Headbutt - Harden your head before attag the target, if you hit their forehead, you stuarget for a sed. Cost: 05 Health and 10 stamina.

  Obtaining new csses grants people the ce to obtain more parameters in which they upgrade aronger. Still, how was that possible just by doing some fighting in dungeons? I had to research more…

  A few days ter, Jacques left the home with some luggage to go to the knights' academy. During the day, even Rayner showed up to take him there after most of the family said bye to him. I wasn't informed of the day, so my presence wasn't required.

  Still, I saw, through the window my sisters showing up as well. I rarely saw them… to be ho, I only saw my brothers because they trained in the garden. They were all basically smaller versions of their mothers.

  “Men, Rayner sure 't keep it in his pants, huh? Being able to have four wives, cheat on them with a vampire, and still none of them left...This man is a genius. A modern-day Prometheus."

  Aside from four older brothers, I had five older sisters as well. I imagihat soon more siblings would show up, but there were no signs of that i three years. Perhaps that was a good thing sihere were enough people in that house who hated me. Being the tenth kid in that house was enough… it would be even more troublesome if my standing became lesser than the younger ones. Being disrespected by them would be hard to deal with.

  The first daughter is Adelin she is the eldest sister of Remi and she is too serious, unlike her brother, she has long straight bck hair and green eyes. She was nine years old, but she moved quite elegantly.

  The sed daughter is the twin sister of Gerald, her name was Gethianna. I heard her a few times saying that she wao bee a mage, but no one firmed that. When it es to kids of nobles, girls also usually had to folloath determined by their parents. She also had curly brown hair and green eyes, but unlike her brother, she didn’t mind being sidered less elegant than her elder sister. She was eight years old.

  The third daughter is the younger sister of Jaques and she also wants to bee a high priest like her mother, her name was Iri. She was also blonde and had green eyes, but her hair was insanely long like she never had cut it in her whole life.

  The fourth daughter and fifth daughter are twins called Lizzie and Li. On the few times I had dined with the family, they made sure to keep kig my legs the whole time… it didn’t hurt, but it certainly was annoying. They are five years old and the younger sisters of Ulric.

  I tried not to pay much attention to either of them sihey also treated me like air, but after seeing only them for over three years, it was kind of hard not to memorize their names and appearances.

  In any case, there was one fewer person in the house to look at me in disgust. Perhaps there was good enough reason to celebrate it, or perhaps not, since Jacques wao bee a padin and he might return one day and kill me since I am half-vampire.

  “All right… let’s do some serious research about the things that I do aside from being on fodder to propel the family’s he name is cool and all, but not enough for me to sacrifice myself for it. Actually, this family name is just to."

  In the end, I was determio read a book a day in order to find some tips on how to bypass the system rules… or at least avoid a life as a soldier. I khat only those who had noble blood could bee knights, and as a half-human, that was impossible for me. All knights in the empire were one hundred pert human.

  Since my future depended on it, I did exactly that, read a book a day and wrote down the most important pieces of information. I found information about all kinds of csses and what they could do, but I didn’t find a single clue about how I could bypass the system… if it were easy, someone would have found it ages ago.

  While I was thinking about that and doing my research, two years passed in the blink of an eye and I was called to talk with my father for the first time in his office… We had alked before and he was a man of few words, so he probably won't spend much time with idle chat.