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  After Teressa woke up and all enemies were dealt with, Vd and Alitheus quickly moved to heal any person that got caught itles or the destru. At the same time, their mother also started to the streets from rubble while ting those that ended up dying.

  Although they wao sit down and just talk about what happened, nobody had the time for that. With the walls broken open and a bunch of corpses everywhere, they had to get to work. Teressa called several workers and servants to their aid this time, though; although they didn’t have official soldiers of their own or anything like that, she had already employed a few dozen willing servants.

  They were strong-looking people with stern faces, werewolves, some other orcs, and even a few imps that could jure magic to lift things for her. They stantly ented about how everything was rather terrifying, but nobody really went against Teressa’s orders.

  Vd took care of the invaders and also of Helena and her son, st them inside his iory so there wouldn’t be any evidence of their deaths left for the moment. Meanwhile, after ting the casualties, they found that eleven people had died iire thing.

  Perhaps not too many when there are over a thousand people living in Elderbridge, but it was still a big loss for Teressa, especially because there were young people there, including a child and their mother, who died crushed by their building falling over them.

  The atmosphere had bee even more ive, and it was rather palpable all over the city, especially in the area where everything had happened. People were terrified and had pletely lost their trust in Teressa.

  The only reason they weren’t reveling or doing a coup was because she was much strohan anybody and could easily just kill anybody that dared to fight against her or pin about the terrible state of the city.

  Although these people beed from the vampire family’s strength and prote, they also had to be subservient and not get too ahead of themselves, as it was well known that vampires, especially those from the imperial family, were ruthless.

  However, they didn’t really know how good they had it, as Teressa and her family were perhaps the “” vampires of the entire empire.

  “What will happen with the bodies?” wondered Vd, seeing the corpses covered in clothes.

  “I ’t revive them, unfortunately,” sighed Alitheus.

  “It is fine; you’ve done so much already, Alitheus,” Teressa said. “This is… I’ll take responsibility for them. Their bodies shall be ied, and their ashes will either be given to their retives, or if there aren’t any, they shall be pced in the graveyard.”

  “So you don’t put people in coffins as they are?” Vd wondered.

  “What? Maybe I have old you before? But usually only special graveyards do that,” said Teressa. “That is a from different Realms. Obscuritas is a Realm filled to the brim with miasma and darkness. If you pce whole corpses in a graveyard, you’re pretty much asking for them to rise as Undead and begin attag people. He's better to leave them as ashes.”

  “Oh… Makes sehen,” nodded Vd, sighing. “At least the graves are still there.”

  “Yes, we’ll go out of our way to pce graves for these people, with their names…” Teressa sighed. “It is the least I could do for them…”

  Vd’s mother seemed genuinely upset over the people that died; even though she had tried to act coldly before, that was far from the actual truth. Vd and Alitheus, and even Camil, were beginning to better uand that most of the time, she hid her true feelings.

  “Alright then,” nodded Vd. “About the walls and... that draic beast that fell asleep, what do we do?”

  “Hm, it should be possible to fix the walls using magic; you are very profit in that, right, my son?” Teressa asked.

  “Haha, okay, I will try,” said Vd. “But that Draic Beast… It has fallen asleep, but the staff that trol it remained, and so did the colr it had.”

  “Hmm… Although I wouldn’t have hesitated to sy it aime, a Tier 6 Draic Beast could be a very valuable asset for us,” said his mother. “If only we could properly tame it. Whatever Curse Helena and her son obtaihat was capable of trolling that thing won’t do for much lohe monster will end up dying before it st long enough to be an actual guardian of the city.”

  “Hmm, we’ve been missing out on taking our Subcsses,” said Vd. “Right Alitheus? Perhaps we could try getting a css that help us tame the beasts.”

  “Huh? Ah! Is that possible?” wondered Alitheus.

  “You’re not offered every css out there, but it's usually based on your talents,” expined Vd.

  He had read a lot of guides online about how the css, skill, and status system worked in Fantasy Story Online. Although their characters started out with already predefined main csses, it is possible to go to a church of any god and receive their “blessings” in the form of a new subcss of their choosing.

  This is where the further ization of the game began, as pyers would be able to easily bine abilities and skills from different csses to create their own unique abilities or results.

  “Usually these Subcsses are reted to other things than just fighting, such as alchemy… or moaming,” Vd smiled. “Also, we’re high enough that we should be able to also Rank Up our main csses.”

  “Oh, so when we Rank them Up? Does it have some sort of level requirement?" Chris wondered.

  “Yeah, for the first Rank Up you o be Tier 3 in your two growth cores,” expined Vd. “Growth Cores mean things like the Blood Core, your Lust Stigma, my Psyche, Bloodline, or your Heavenly Core, for example.”

  “Make sense!” said Chris with a nod. “Then what about further Rank Ups?”

  “Hmmm… I think the sed es at Tier 6? Thehird at Tier 10, the fourth at Tier 15, the fifth at Tier 20... And that’s as much as I remember,” expined Vd.

  “Strengthening your Csses is important,” said Teressa, stepping into the versation. “They’re a source of great power; if you want to get somewhere in life, you’ll o always rank up; don’t fet that!”

  “Yes, yes, mother,” nodded Vd, feeling a bit tired. “Anyways, let’s go repair the walls first.”

  Even after this entire disaster, there were many things they had to do before logging out aing. They had to repair the walls, then rank up their csses and obtain a subcss, see what to do with the draic beast, and stly check the entire quest revolving around the test events.

  “Hm, like this, right?”

  Vd jured the Spell Stone Wall several times and used Geomancy to rapidly shape the magic stone around the entire wall of Elderbridge, quickly filling the huge gap by almost emptying his Ara. He had to jure the same spell almost a huimes to pletely fill everything.

  “It loh, but it’s better than nothing.” His mother nodded. “I’ll reinforce the walls using my Frost Magic. It’ll take me some time, so you are dismissed for now, son. Ah, right, bring your sister bae in the way, okay?”

  “Alright, let’s go, Camil.” Vd held Camil’s little hand as they walked away. The girl looked very sleepy already, so she robably going to fall asleep immediately upon reag his bed.

  As Vd walked across the streets, most of the people g him with surprise; seeing a tall, armored knight seemed to be a rare sight to behold around here.

  However, after seeing how he fought, rumors about the young lord of Elderbridge being an armored knight began to spread around, so snized him.

  “Is that young lord Vd?”

  “If that’s him, then the girl with him must be Lady Camil.”

  “I heard something happen in the wall areas.”

  “He’s covered in blood; he most likely fended off whatever tried to enter.”

  “But... wasn’t the young lord crippled?”

  “Who knows?”

  “They sure love to bicker all they want…”

  Vd also saw some Pyers, although after the Raid’s disaster most Pyers decided not to e back here; some had chosen this pce as their home, so they were slightly forced to be here, at least until their first Css Rank Up so they could leave somewhere else.

  “Big brother…” Camil muttered.

  “Yes?” wondered her brother.

  “How I get stronger?” The sleepy vampire girl seemed to be worried about her own strength.

  “Um… Well, you’re pretty young for that-”

  “I want to bee stronger! After Mama almost died... I want to be of help. Of any help…”

  Camil seemed on the verge . The girl truly wao be of help to everyone, but because of her early age and her just retly awakened abilities, she couldn’t do as much as she wished.

  Even with her brother’s accessories giving her a lot of Ara, it wouldn’t have been possible for her to even hurt one of the orvading the city.

  Her abilities help if bined with ani, such as her mother, improving the power of the elemental magic.

  But alone, she could at most defeat small creatures, such as the octopus-like Cursed Monstrosities; although one of the big creatures emerged, she was left pletely helpless.

  “Right now, what’s your Blood Core Rank?” Paul asked.

  “Hmm, it’s… Tier 1… Rank 5!” Camil said.

  “Rank 5 already? I guess that’s pretty high for someone who hasn’t fought before,” said Chris. “Where did she get the blood?”

  “It must be because of the blood we drink daily, but that’s just normal and very slow growth over years,” expined Vd. “Well, to get stronger, you must drink the fresh blood of defeated foes, so you gain Blood Energy and Rank Up your Blood Core, Camil. It’s important that you defeat them, or help defeat them, as you’ll gain much more Blood Energy like that.”

  “So you ’t bring me a half-dead foe, and I kill it?” she wondered.

  “I… maybe we could do that,” wondered Vd, rubbing his . “But it would be better if you defeated the foes yourself anyway; you’ll gain the most Blood Energy that way. Once everything calms down, we could explore the dungeons again and help you defeat moo drain their blood. How about that?”

  “Nice! Sure!” Camil really liked the idea.

  “Hey, is this the pce?”

  Suddenly, Chris poi a huge church that was located in the southwest of Elderbridge. It had seven windows painted of different colors, and then ahree resembling moons above.

  “This must be the church,” said Vd. “It is a special church, a temple of the gods where every god divinity easily reach you… It is through their diviervention that we Rank Up, apparently…”

  “So that’s how the loes, huh?” Chris smiled. “Okay! I’m going first!”

  “Wait, Chris, you o pay a fee!”

  Vd tried to catch Chris, but it was too te. When Chris tried to ehe church, two monks stepped in, wearing pletely bck clothes and with their faces covered by red clothing in the shape of eyes.

  They summoned spears of blood and crossed them, stopping him from advang. It was as if they had beehe whole time, even when no one really saw them until the very st moment.

  “You ot ehe Temple of the Gods without paying the fee, incubus!”

  “Don’t you dare give aep, or you’ll pay for the crime of trespassing into the Temple of the Gods illegally!”

  “W-Who are you guys?!” Chris was fused.

  “Those must be the church of the seven gods’ priests,” Vd stepped in. “They are the people that take care of this Temple.”

  “It is a shame we have to take care of a Diviemple shared with the three moon goddesses…”

  "But, well, what be done about it?”

  They seemed overly cocky and rather annoying; Chris grew furious, and they dared to stop him.

  “In what sort of pce do you o pay to enter a church?!”

  “Enough, Chris; don’t get angry; it’s their job…” Paul sighed. “Anyways, I’ve got the fees for all three of us here.”

  “It is a thousand credits per person,” said one of the guards. “ you afford three thousand yourself, sir knight?”

  “Easily,” Paul threw a bag of s into the priest’s fad then broke their spears with his bare hands. “Let’s go.”

  “Y-You i…!”

  “He paid, though…”

  The priests could hardly do anything to them, as they ted the money, and it was ihree thousand.

  Making his way inside, Paul marveled at the interior designs until he saw a huge green crystal sitting in the middle of the temple’s interior.

  “The Divine Css Stone…”

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  Pach