My Vampire System (WN)

Alex's hands couldn't stop shaking as he carefully held all three crystals in his hand. He had even taken out a pair of special white gloves that looked like they had never been worn before to handle them. When Quinn finally placed them in his hands via his shadow, the crystals continued rattling against each other.

"Careful, I have to be extra careful with my precious, can't let them touch the dirty ground!" Alex mumbled, as if possessed.

"Just put them in your shadow for now, they won't get dirty," Quinn advised, giving Alex a meaningful look. Although they looked fragile, it was impossible for them to shatter, even if he were to throw them against the ground. Besides, wasn't he going to pound them with a hammer soon enough?

Nevertheless, seeing the excitement in Alex' eyes put a smile on Quinn's face, strengthening his conviction that he was the best person to handle them.

"Look at these wings, they're so red, and they're flapping about so fast." People who were watching whispered.

Noticing that they had attracted a crowd, Quinn decided that they should head inside the Shelter and perhaps continue their talk inside the faction base. While walking, he shared some insight about the Demon tier, and Demi-god tier beasts' abilities, powers and such.

Forgers would usually do this kind of research into the crystal, as it made it easier for them to make the most out of their crafts.

"I've decided that we are going to stay here for a while," Quinn shared his plans. "The Cursed faction, along with Sam, will take care of things. Once we have everything we need, we can head on to Blade Island. I invited you here so we could get a head start. If you find the forgery here good enough, I was hoping you could start on the weapons right here."

The best decision was to make Sil wait, whether that was an option or not was the real question. But the last time Quinn had called upon Sam he had received some good news, which meant they could perhaps progress to the Blade Island sooner than he had anticipated.

The only problem would arise if the Blades were still on the island. According to Sam, Brock had already been sent out to scout the area, so they should soon find out. If the Blades were still on there, they would only proceed after Quinn had procured better equipment for his family members, if not then they would go out immediately.

It was as simple as that, yet either way, Quinn would prefer to have the new beast gear ready, so they could react to any unforeseen circumstances.

"I can't give you an exact time, but it will definitely take longer than anything else I made," Alex said nervously, feeling the pressure his task involved, before he added, "I don't want to do a bad job like I have done with the Emperor tier crystal and I've already asked Logan to try and locate the person who has made the Demon tier weapon for Oscar. Having someone who is more experienced with higher tier crystals by my side should help in bringing the most of those crystals."

"Alex, you're the main forger for the equipment for our Cursed faction, and more importantly, you are the only one I can fully trust. I don't mind you getting tips from someone or even a helping hand, but I won't accept something created by anyone else!" Quinn stated.

"Of course!" Alex replied, and Quinn could tell how happy he was due to his wings falling about. Sometimes his facial expression and his wings didn't match, but Quinn knew which one to believe.

"Once we have figured out what will be best for the crystals it will also take some time to actually make the items," Alex reminded Quinn. "Speaking off, how was the set I made for you last time?"

"Your set is one of the major reasons I trust you so much, it's the best equipment I have used till date. I guess I will need to thank Helen in person for that one," Quinn answered with a smile.

The two of them had eventually reached the faction base, and the forgery turned out to be more than adequate. Although a lot of the Shelter had been destroyed the damage to the faction building was mostly concentrated on the hallway and training hall.

Due to it being a Tier A Shelter it had equipment just as good as on the Cursed ship, so Alex could get to work as soon as his assistant would arrive.

"Before I go in, I need your expertise on something. Have you ever heard of an 'upgrading crystal'? Something that can be used to increase a weapon's tier?" Quinn asked, curious to see how rare the thing he got actually was.

"An upgrading crystal?" Alex put his hand on his chin as he pondered over the question. "Can't say that I have. I know it's possible to upgrade a weapon's tier by using higher tier crystals, but at that point it would be better to just forge something out of those crystals. One would usually only resort to that for a lack of higher tier crystals and a very urgent need for such a weapon upgrade."

"But who knows, we haven't been exploring beast planets for that long, so maybe there is something like that out there. I can only tell you as a forger, if such a thing exists, it would be priceless."

Quinn nodded, as that was exactly what he had feared, before his thoughts revolved around finding a way to make the system reward him with more of those upgrade crystals, not just for himself, but also for the rest of the team. It would certainly give them more of an advantage when hunting.

'What exactly should I use the upgrade crystal on? I'm hoping that the Demon tier or the Demi-god tier will be enough to forge me a new set of gauntlets to use, if so then the crystal would be wasted on them.'

'Then I wouldn't need to waste it on the advance tier gauntlets. I could use it on the armour set, but it remains to be seen what upgrading the set will do to the active skill. Will it be strengthened? Perhaps replaced with something else? … or in the worst case, it might be completely removed…'

Quinn shook his head, as if that would somehow negate the last possibility. Still, he chose to trust in the system's reward being an overall good thing.

The last thing that he considered for an upgrade was his Emperor tier mask. The red coloured mask that would fill up an adrenaline bar, and allow him to boast a singular stat.

For now Quinn decided to keep the upgrading crystal with him. With the risk involved, he preferred to think about it some more and once he had made his choice, he would see if Alex could use it in some way.

Leaving the foraging area, when exiting out of the door, he unexpectedly bumped into Sil who had been waiting outside. Sil was looking downward and it appeared as if he was gathering his courage to say something as he was twirling his fingers.

"You look like you want to ask something. Let me guess, is it about Vorden and Raten?" Quinn asked.

"Now that we have the crystals… do you think we can really get them back?" Sil asked politely this time. He didn't seem angry but of course Quinn could see that this question was gnawing at him, and if it were up to him, they would have set out long ago.

"Let me ask you something Sil, I heard you and Eno had a fight, do you trust him 100%?" Quinn asked the other instead.

"Definitely not!" Sil replied instantly. "I hate that guy."

"Well, that makes two of us," Quinn admitted with a smile. "That's why I don't want to rely on him. For now, I have some good news. We have someone who is willing to learn the same ability as your friend, so we hopefully will be able to deal with things without having to overly rely on Eno. We're close, Sil, just a little longer I promise."

It seemed that was enough to cheer him up, and the fact that Quinn was still thinking about Vorden and Raten made him happy, just for how long he didn't know.

While walking away, there was still one problem that they had yet to solve.

'We still need to find bodies for Raten and Vorden. Logan hasn't been able to find any yet, and who knows what drawbacks there could be if we use the one's Eno has provided. The short life span is just the only one he admitted to, but knowing him there could be a plethora of other things he just didn't mention. I can only count on you, Logan!'

Finally leaving the Shelter, Quinn stretched his arms, things were going good and it was rare for him to have some time to rest like this. In fact, he had grown so used to doing things, that his hands and legs were itching a little for something to do.

"Should I play more of Power fighters, I did promise the martial arts God I would get to rank one. Or maybe I should focus on levelling up all my skills to level five, but without fighting anything it would be quite difficult.' Quinn pondered over his next course of action.

At that moment, a certain person approached Quinn. He could tell who it was straight away by their scent. Without turning around, he was aware that it was none other than Layla. Her hair blew slightly in the wind, and her face was a little red.

"Quinn…it's been a while I was wondering if we could talk," Layla spoke in a somewhat embarrassed tone.

"Oh.." Quinn replied, not really knowing what else to say. "Is it something important, or did something happen?"

"It is important….to me." Layla said.

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