Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

The strategy exam scenarios were always losing situations. John’s first scenario placed him in the Oliua role absent orders from his Alii or advice from a Mele. There were 120 brothers in his kauwa, and he had to keep as many alive as he could in a 22-hour period until reinforcements arrived.

There were two opposition forces, both 400 strong. The force to the north was made up of enemies that could do a lot of damage but couldn’t take much themselves, called paper tigers. The force to the south was made up of enemies that could take a lot of damage but couldn’t dish out much, called tanks.

The paper tigers were fast moving. The tanks were slow moving but nearly impossible to disengage from once battle was joined. The area that could be maneuvered around within was limited so there couldn’t be a forced march away from danger for the 22 hours.

What John was supposed to do was split his forces and set up the most effective defensive perimeter for each force to the north and south, then last until reinforcements arrived. The 120 Peerless he commanded were all Silver, as were all enemies of the opposition forces. This was purely a test of strategy and knowledge of correct perimeters, defenses, and weapon systems such as machine guns, mortars, and mines.

John told his troops to head east as far as they could and wait, and not to set mines or anything else. If an enemy force came into visible range, they were to head north or south and avoid engagement for as long as possible.

The biosynth, Nine, survived the 22 hours with 81 men. Second place had 29 survivors.

As soon as John finished giving orders to his men, he rushed north. He didn’t know much about Nine, but he knew he was part computer, and computers obeyed instructions. The Oli also heard instructions and thought within the parameters of those instructions.

John had always disliked getting ordered about. And none of the Trainers allowed him to battle as he wanted. Even in the training room of his Mind’s Eye, the enemy limit was capped at ten. Now he had 800 enemies to let loose his frustrations on.

The paper tigers did good damage, but not good enough. The simulation was very well done. His enemy’s screams as they burned alive seemed real.

After killing the northern force, John rushed east to his men. They were safe, but the tanks were closing in. He sicced his minions on their flank and charged.

The tanks certainly were resilient. Each one took a very long time to burn to death, and John enjoyed their screams of horror and agony as they slowly died. Once the last enemy fell, the simulation ended. All 120 of his men survived. His time was a good bit under six hours and would’ve been far less if the tanks didn’t take so long to kill. Everyone else’s time was the full 22 hours and 14 minutes.

The following three scenarios went much the same way even though the conditions and strategy to be employed were all wildly different. Killing all the enemies as quickly as possible by himself was a winning strategy.

John picked the missions as his next exam. The first scenario started with him as a prisoner inside an enemy base. He had to escape his cell, make his way to a specific point, and hack into a computer to gain communications with his Alii. If he was spotted, the whole base including 2,000 soldiers ranging from Wood to Platinum tier led by a Diamond general would be alerted.

John had learned how to hack the systems used by the Peerless and the two other most common systems within this sector of the Milky Way. His [Skill] was over 16 in all three, but each required different specialty tools. Collecting the hacking tools he needed was a side objective.

When it came to stealth, few were better than John. [Hide] had become much more powerful since he gained his peak-concept, and that wasn’t counting his new cloak, Adumbration. It was an easy mission he would have no problem with at all.

While training with the child groups, John had run many mission scenarios. They always worked in a similar fashion. Once the first task was completed, a new task would be given. For this type of scenario, the three following missions would probably all be within the base, such as killing a certain captain or rigging a vehicle to explode. All four tasks would require completely different [Skills] to accomplish.

There was a risk of a task requiring a [Skill] John wasn’t proficient in. And all four tasks would take a long time to complete. Too long of a time.

John buffed up before he ran around yelling. Most of the enemies within the base were killed by pulling blood out their eyes before hardening it, creating what John considered blood icicles. It took a while to defeat all 2,000 enemies, but only the general and a few Platinums put up any sort of fight.

As soon as the last soldier died, all tasks were considered successfully completed in record breaking time.

John picked the obstacle course to complete next. From practicing with the child groups, he knew the course would be somewhat like those in two entertainment shows of Earth called ‘Wipe Out’ and ‘American Ninja Warrior.’ Just silly things with very unrealistic obstacles.

The course was created randomly for each tester and went on forever. There were 18 universal standard hours in universal standard days, and hours worked out to be what John considered 74 real minutes long. The testers had to traverse as much of the course as they could in half a universal standard hour, or 37 real minutes, without getting knocked off or out of the course.

Until Nine, no one had ever lasted the full half hour.

John not only had to last the full time, but he had to decimate the distance Nine traversed, 12,672 feet, or 1,413 dan, but he wasn’t fully sure how to work out the math of the grading curve. Avatar became uppity when he asked about it and told him it was easy to figure out.

John wanted to make Nine’s score a zero, and his own 400. He knew 100% of something doubled the number, so 300% quadrupled it. Zero times 400 was zero. Still, 1 times 400 was 400. He either needed to win by a factor of three or four hundred. But that didn’t seem right to him.

A factor of 400 worked out to about five million feet. That was over 900 miles or 1,500 kilometers. John couldn’t sprint that distance in half an hour, and the obstacle course wouldn’t allow much sprinting anyway. His math had to be off. He once again wished math made more sense and was easier to do.

John buffed up and started. He blew through the course. He found it easy, even pushing his speed.

Maybe Nine could come close to John’s speed if he refunctioned himself for it, but as things stood, John would easily win. The only question was how big of a margin he’d win by.

Once the timer buzzed, John had 61,248 feet, or 6,828 dan. He did the math in his head. He beat Nine by about a factor of five. Not good enough. Nine would receive far too many points.

The board updated and Nine was in second place with 79 points. John cursed under his breath. There was one event left, and he was determined to make Nine receive zero points for it.

In the grand battle, enemies were made specifically for the tester, and tailored to be challenging. The Trainer considered the tester’s aspects and concepts. Most Li only had one aspect and concept, and that aspect was minor with a low-concept.

John had no idea what aspect or aspects Nine had. He knew Nine had powerful manifestations, so he probably had a mid-concept, or possibly two low-concepts utilized together.

The first round of the grand battle had one enemy. The number of enemies doubled every subsequent round, so the second round had two, the third had four, the fourth had eight, the fifth had 16, and so on.

Most Li had completed the third round and failed on the fourth, losing against the eight enemies. Only five Li had made it to the fifth round this year. None had made it to the sixth.

The number of enemies killed in a failed round had an impact on score, but not a great impact if anyone made it to the subsequent round. Nine had made it to the eighth round and failed against its 128 enemies.

Since Nine was a peak Platinum, John didn’t know if he had to face Silvers like everyone else or enemies of his own tier. Either way, even with enemies tailored to be challenging, only making it to round eight wasn’t impressive.

Nine could only last as long as his essence lasted. His performance didn’t speak well of his staying power, making this an event John could shine in.

After doing the math in his head, going by a factor of 400, John became worried. If he was to ensure Nine received a score of zero, he’d have to last through round 16 and defeat all the 32,768 enemies of that round. If his math was right. He wasn’t sure at all it was. It seemed like a ridiculous number of enemies. 64 times 400 was just over 25,000. Round 15 only had 16,284 enemies.

To be safe, John would have to defeat round 16.

The regular Trainers had about 90% dilation, so maybe this more powerful and advanced Trainer was close to or was approaching one. If it wasn’t, a lot of real time would pass outside the Trainer.

Round 13 would have 4,096 enemies. Round 14 would have 8,192. That was a lot of killing. Even if John could kill the enemies quickly, it would still take a lot of time. Days. Maybe a week or two depending on the type of enemy he faced. Maybe longer. He had no way to accurately judge beforehand.

John wasn’t sure if he could go weeks without sleep. Then he remembered the strange dream he had of his mother. He lasted months in that battle against extremely powerful foes. If he wanted Nine to receive zero points, he had no choice but to endure.

The grand battle event certainly did consider aspects and concepts. After initiating the event, the enemy John faced was a wooden construct resistant to shadow damage. It had no blood. It was very durable and took time to kill. His sword and blade energy barely marked it. It couldn’t be turned into a minion either.

The construct was perfectly built to counter all of John’s aspects.

The Trainer obviously didn’t consider glyphs, as John’s worked very well against wood. And he was able to drain the construct’s essence just fine too. There was no stopping that.

It took little effort and time to get through the early rounds. It seemed the break John was given between rounds got longer each time too. With the 32 opponents, he had to run around avoiding the weak attack manifestation of the constructs while shrugging off their stun manifestations, lighting the group on fire with darkflame.

It took a long time to kill the 512 constructs John faced in round 10. He learned to take his time, as rushing only caused him to take unnecessary damage. He got about a twenty-minute break after that round, but that break was a Godsend.

After days of killing his enemies with fire, enemies that neither screamed in agony nor ran around in pain, John’s lifelong dream of having fire billow forth from his hands became too routine to give him any joy at all. After a few more days, it began to annoy him, and he started fighting the old-fashioned way intermingled with blade energy attacks, making the event a training exercise.

It became a routine of John killing until he was bored, draining essence to top off his dantian, and killing again.

After a few more days of constant battle, slowly whittling the groups he faced down, John became dead tired and wanted to sleep more than anything. He went back to [Flawless Glyph of Darkflame Jet]. His muscles grew sore, something he didn’t think was possible any longer. He breathed heavily and was covered in sweat.

The wooden constructs were just too durable. They took far too long to kill with anything but [Flawless Glyph of Plasma Barrage]. Since that glyph required a lot of essence, if he cast it too often, he had to spend far too much time draining essence to refill his dantian, slowing down his overall kill rate.

Normal Trainers didn’t allow anything like the battle John was engaged in. Like his NCS, normal Trainers limited opponents to about ten, and limited the time anyone could stay within the Trainer.

Unlike Earth, power wasn’t generated in a completely essence-free way on Gani. All the power didn’t come purely from essence, but a lot of it was required to keep a city going, and the Peerless didn’t usually allow it to be wasted in such a way.

Once John finally completed round 15, he was given over a two-hour break. He meditated and wished he could sleep. When he saw the 32,768 enemies arrayed against him, his heart sank. He was so tired already.

It would be different if John was fighting real opponents. Knowing his foes were fake didn’t cause him to feel what battle usually did. It was meaningless. Without purpose. Just boring routine. His foes weren’t powerful. They were mindless wooden constructs a computer generated. He desperately wanted to stop. He kept going.

Before John killed a third of round 16’s combatants, he had a hard time remembering why he was fighting – he just knew it was important and that he had to keep going.

Finally, John finished round 16. He forced himself to stay awake and meditated until round 17 began. He dove away from attacks and killed a few enemies with [Flawless Glyph of Plasma Barrage] before exiting the grand battle exam.

The lobby of the Trainer was empty. The scores were being retabulated. John waited, completely exhausted, rubbing his fake eyes.

Previously, Nine had a perfect score of 4,000 points. After John’s results were shown, Nine’s total points went down to 2,513.

Nine still held first place, but John took second place with 2,272 points. Third place only had 1,552. Last place had 462 points.

John received the full 400 points for the strategy, missions, obstacle course, and grand battle exams. Nine received 32, 94, 79, and zero for those events.

John’s strategy of speed paid off in some events he expected to get a zero in. He received a zero in the math and science exams, unsurprisingly, but he got 9 points on the biology and self-cultivation exam. Nine received 400 for all three of those.

For the history and Aikapu exam, John did way better than he expected and received 312 points. He placed second in that event. Third place had 311 points. For the spaceship and tech exam, John received a surprising 141 points. Nine received 400 for those two events.

Due to the forced march of the soldiering exam counting separately as 100 points and the rest being worth 300, it was the only exam no one received 400 points for. Nine received 308, John received 210, and third place 204.

John wished he held first place, but he wasn’t disappointed. He scored much better than Avatar and Abe assumed he would. His speed strategy had paid off, as did his gamble with the strategy and mission exams. Fighting for so long in the grand battle didn’t change the final outcome, but since he had forced Nine to receive zero points in one exam, he considered himself the winner.

After exiting the Trainer, John noticed all the lights in the building were out. The Mele desk was unoccupied. He checked his NCS. Almost four days had passed since he began the exam.

John could go a lot longer than four days without sleep, but his mind was exhausted, and he had no idea if spending so long in artificial, computer-generated dilation was like staying awake or not. Either way, he laid on the carpet and almost immediately fell asleep.

A foot gently prodded John’s side. He cursed himself. He felt too safe while surrounded by enemies and let his guard down. He was still tired and wanted to sleep longer but forced himself wide awake. His real eyes and orb-eye saw it was a young Alii dressed as a harlot. He assumed she was a trainee due to her age.

John took a knee and bowed his head, causing the girl to giggle. “Sorry, Alii. When I exited the Trainer no one was here, and I was tired. My pass expired days ago so I figured it was safer to wait here.”

Smiling, the young girl said, “It’s okay. And you don’t have to do that. I don’t have my kauwa yet. No one does that for trainees.”

John stood. He felt a few more people approaching, a Diamond and two Exalteds.

The girl stared at John, smiling brightly. He was forcing his mind to awaken and work when the girl said, “For attaining second place in the placement exams, if you were in my heiau I could ask you to swear to my kauwa in advance. Well, I’d need my kauwa first too. You Kahaka really messed up the scores. The highest score this year is right around the previous lowest score ever recorded. Everything’s all screwed up.

“Oh, I asked if I could contact you on the second day. You’d come in second no matter how many more rounds of the grand battle you passed. They told me no. They said it’s important to find the measure of our boys when they’re willing to do something drastic to win, even if it wouldn’t change the outcome. I like watching your highlights. You make my flower so dewy. I pray to Akua you spend credits on me one day. You’ll receive two for coming in second place. Kahaka Six-five will receive three for first place. Third place will receive one.”

John felt bad for the girl. Since the age of around ten, she had to mother and care for children while being one herself. And as soon as that great responsibility ended, the switch was turned on making Lilly course through her veins, and her society did nothing but promote and reinforce that.

The girl would never have a chance to just be normal. This was the only period where she could live anything resembling a normal life and she wanted nothing more than for it to end and to get her kauwa.

John asked, “Will the Li in the academies resent me for messing up the curve and scores?”

The Alii giggled and put her hand on John’s chest for a moment, and then removed it like he was made of fire. She became nervous and the smile left her face. She closed her eyes and blew out her breath, collecting herself. She said, “Sorry. Sorry about that. Um, probably. But they’d resent you anyway. Raising Kahaka to peers is in the Aikapu, so they’ll just have to get over it. One day, there’ll be no Kahaka or Kahako, and all will be Peerless. Besides the subhuman Kahaki.”

John wondered why the girl became so nervous and apologized. Then the girl worriedly stepped away from him. Another Alii entered the building accompanied by a Mele and an Oli, most likely her Meleua and Oliua.

The Alii looked angry and snapped at the trainee, “Why are you alone with a Kahaka?”

John took a knee and bowed his head as the trainee replied, “Sorry, Alii. This is what time I’m supposed to arrive here. He was sleeping on the floor right there, in front of the desk. Usually, the Mele is here before me. Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Did he touch you?”

The girl, with downcast eyes, said, “No. Nothing happened. We just talked. Just about the scores this year. And that he gets two credits for coming in second.”

With eyes like daggers, the Alii spit out, “You risk his life, his execution, to talk about scores? You…”

The Mele interrupted to say, “There was touching. She touched his chest and lower left ribs.”

The Alii’s eyes widened in surprise. She angrily asked, “You touched him?”

The girl said, “No. Not really. I toed his ribs to wake him up. Then…well, then I did brush his chest for a second. I just forgot myself for a second. I was trying to put the idea in his head to spend credits on me after I have my kauwa and first quicken, when it’s allowed. That’s all. Touching the chest is so beat into us during seduction class I just did it without even thinking. But I quickly caught myself. It was barely a touch.”

The Alii held her head with one hand. “Oh, dear Akua. My great and venerable husband and father, Akua. You certainly didn’t think, girl! It’s a death sentence for a Kahaka to touch you. You know you’re never to be alone with one. You know it. All our plans would be ruined. We’d have to kill him. And for what? A stupid girl that couldn’t control herself?”

The trainee raised her head and steeled her spine. “I’m an Alii too, you know? You just called me a stupid girl in front of your boys and a Kahaka, undermining both my current and future authority. That’s against the Aikapu too. If the rumors are to be believed, he formed golden nectar four out of four times. I did nothing you’re not going to do either.”

With a murderous look on her face, the Alii pointed at the door and hissed out, “Get to the HQ building! Now!”

After the trainee stormed out, the Alii’s attitude completely changed, and she turned to greet John with a beautiful smile.