Blood and Qi: A Vampire Xianxia LitRPG

A real Mele took over the CQ desk on graduation night, allowing Nine to celebrate. Nine seemed genuinely congratulatory and not disappointed that John had taken First in Class from him.

The two Alii trainees were nowhere to be found after they distributed spirits to the graduates. John assumed the girls were ordered to stay sober, and to stay away.

The Rector, staff, and some visiting Oli patrolled the dorm floors of the battlegroups, ensuring the revelry didn’t get out of hand.

Offers from Alii started to come in to the new graduates. Tiny-face was among the first to receive one, and that gladdened John. Far less than 1% of the students that started the year at Premier Grand Akua Koa Academy would recycle, none from his battlegroup, and only one student had been sterilized and sent to Palm.

Through his CSL, John received so many offers to join a kauwa that he couldn’t keep up with them, including offers from many famous Alii such as the plumb-haired Nani he had lain with twice.

Retreat sounded at the same time as any other night, and the curfew was strictly enforced. Though John wouldn’t accept any of the offers, it was custom to politely reply to each Alii, and he spent most of the night doing so.

The next day, after exercise and breakfast, instead of having classes given by battlegroups, one massive class was to be given in a grand stadium inside a Trainer by the Nani of Palm. She stood silently while waiting for the graduates to take their seats.

“You all know of mighty Akua’s friend, the demon scab Wena. Once Wena ascended to the second Tree, he knew his old circle would accept him back as a chosen. So, Wena betrayed our great and venerable father, my husband, Akua. Demons always stay true to their nature.”

All the Li in the stands booed Wena and cursed his traitorous and evil name. The Nani sauntered around, showing off her beauty and curves as she let the students boo for a while. She held her hands up, waited for silence, and continued.

“It’s easy to forget that my husband, our great father, the man that made us without peer, just like us, started out as a subhuman Kahaki. Like us, he became superior. Like us, he became more. Now, it’s hard to believe those pathetic filth are our ancestors, but they are. By his word and his law, we must not terminate the remaining subhuman Kahaki. We keep them safe on Palm.”

The Nani paused for a long moment to look around at all the graduates sitting in the stands. “Even after we freed this world of our demon oppressors, even after we became an empire, even after our empire expanded to twelve worlds, even knowing we will soon control this whole sector, the Kahaki still don’t accept we are not them, that we are superior and without peer, and they are just the dirt and filth in which we grew out of long ago.”

The Nani paused while the students booed the Kahaki. “The Kahaki are F-grade. We are now having Li born at B-grade. Once we integrate terran DNA, we will birth A-grade Li! And that integration will also reset our [SupraType] chain, and once the new chain is completed, in two generations, all Li will be born S-grade! We tower far above that F-grade filth. Kahaki, those subhuman scum!”

This time, the pause was for cheering, and the cheering lasted for a long while. “You boys have all graduated. Soon, you’ll all be in kauwas and ascend to five-ones. Golds. Oli. The greatest warriors ever known! Our boys! Peerless!”

The stadium rocked with foot stomps and cheers. The beautiful Alii smiled. Once it quieted down, she said, “Nothing is more important than our mission. The one known as God didn’t lift a finger to help us for all the millennia we were subjugated by His enemies. No one came to save us. We saved ourselves.

“And my husband and father, the venerable Akua, tasked us with the sacred duty of saving everyone else. And we will! As Akua did for us, we will raise them up as peers! We will bring an end to all that creates inequality and suffering! We don’t need the false Heaven promised to weaklings and cowards! We will sweep through this sector, this quadrant, this galaxy, this universe, this reality, and every other reality! We will bring our heaven to everyone!”

The Nani waited patiently as the stadium rocked again. “The sacred duty we were tasked with won’t be easy to accomplish. It sounds crazy. It sounds impossible. But not to us Peerless. We will fulfill the duty entrusted to us no matter the difficulties faced. It will take a great amount of effort and time. We are certain of success if we let the Aikapu guide us.

“And it will require each of us to get our hands dirty. Oli, Mele, and even us Alii. Sometimes, the greater good calls on us to do terrible things. And we do them, knowing it must be done. At some point, your Alii will call on you to do something that might seem like it skirts the praised Aikapu. Maybe it will. Just know she will always have her duty in mind, and you are to obey and perform the task, knowing you stand in the light of Akua by doing so.

“I could’ve refused when they asked me to be Nani Palm. It isn’t a glorious position. It is a disgusting duty. But it must be done. If not me, who? We Alii are also tasked with dirty deeds. And we obey. We sacrifice. As you will. We treat the subhuman Kahaki well, and still, as expected from such filth, they bite the hand that feeds them. They insurrect against us, discontent with the lives of peace and leisure that our blood, our sacrifice, our dead boys give them! We bear the full cost, and they reap only the benefits.”

A large image of a Kahaki man appeared above the Nani’s head. “This is the subhuman Kahaki named Kū. You’ve never heard of him. Kū was the first Kahaki of Palm to ascend to the next Tree. Instead of being thankful that we saved this world from our demon oppressors, Kū traveled to Umpani and begged them to attack our world and defeat us Peerless.

“Twice now Kū has snuck back to Palm, like a dog, fomenting insurrection and discontent. Like demon scabs, Kahaki will show their true nature given half a chance. The blessed Aikapu states we cannot kill Kahaki. Because of their nature and all the lies and misinformation they spread once ascended off of this world, as Kū proved, we cannot risk letting Kahaki Transcendents live.”

Images of six Alii replaced Kū. “Nani Aikapu,” stated Nani Palm. “These Alii are tasked with solving such problems. We place our faith in them. Just as they are solving the Advancement Chamber and core-crystal problems, they solved the Kahaki Transcendent problem too. Kahaka.

“We have many strong fighters in our Kahaka reserve forces. Any Kahaki that ascends off this world is greeted by some of these Kahaka. Problem solved within the boundaries of the glorious and praised Aikapu. If a Kahaki insurrectionist is found, trusted Kahaka pay them a visit.”

The images of the six Nani Aikapu were replaced by a large and live closeup of Nani Palm’s face. Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears. “We are not proud of this. We are all called on to do what is necessary for the greater good. We prefer doing our own dirty work, as we do on Kahaka and Kahako planets. In the case of Kahaki, we cannot.

“This example and everything else I will share with you this morning is not to be spoken about. Not among Oli. Never. We admit to the things we are not proud of. You are to know of them, but you are not to repeat any of it. The purpose of this class is to let you graduates in on our secrets, so when you are called on to perform a task you think might go against the Aikapu, or you think you see something that does, you’ll know better. You’ll know how these things come about, and why you always must obey orders without question. Any order. All orders. No matter what.”

The sins of the Peerless were many. John was surprised at the nonsense they considered to be shameful secrets. What they were doing on Earth and other similar atrocities weren’t considered sins at all. Not one mention was made of murdering child prisoners in cold blood as retribution for the acts of their people, or worse, killing children they decided were defective.

Still, John recorded a little of each admitted sin, though he didn’t see how it would help.

The rest of the classes John had to attend as a graduate mostly covered topics they didn’t want any Li sent to Palm to know. Most were boring or nonsensical, such as a class on the very basic mechanics of sex. There were only a few classes he thought were interesting.

The first was on how Li would advance from that point on. Nearly all Li picked the same [Archetype], a Martial type called Rifleman. Up through Silver, Li targeted [Capacity], [Swiftness], and [Min. Power]. They were to wait until a concept aspected naturally. The naturally given aspect point acquired at Silver was only to be used to upgrade a naturally opened aspect.

At Gold, Oli targeted [Capacity], [Swiftness], and alternated between all three [Fortification] [Stats]. Or they used to. Now, they were told to keep targeting [Min. Power] until it had a base score of 75 before switching to a [Fortification] [Stat].

Since Li were naturally strong and constantly worked on their conditioning and stamina, those [Stats] were largely ignored. And since the Peerless used all their essence to power tech, such as their essence-rifles and machine guns, [Runes] and the manifestations and glyphs rune-points provided weren’t all that valued. Mele could just recreate most effects with technology.

John learned of a few more exceptions to general rules such as the consumption of animal products. It had long been a rule that on deployment, once all packaged Peerless food was consumed, animal products could be eaten if no clean food was available. The same exception was made for core-crystals and empty dantians.

Further, as a new rule, at every rank of advancement, every Oli now had to consume a core-crystal the same tier as his own. Coupled with the changes to Advancement Chambers, it was thought there would be less issues for future Oli passing the bottleneck, something that had still yet to be done.

Another class went into the specifics of how the Peerless would integrate terran DNA into their own to increase the grade of their race.

John was glad he would finally learn the specifics of how the [SupraType] chain of [Perks] would be reset, as it could help him in the future.

If both parents had received the same [Perk] in the [SupraType] chain, their child would be born in possession of the [Perk]. If the whole chain was completed and the parents both increased the race of their grade, the child would be born of the same grade with the same completed [Perks]. Those [Perks] couldn’t be received twice.

The Peerless system of animal husbandry called eugenics as well as their genetic modifications continued to improve their race, as some Li being born B-grade proved, but those improvements had slowed down greatly. Terran DNA gave a clear and fast avenue of another grade increase separate from their own methods, and once integrated would reset the [SupraType] chain for newborns, allowing them to advance down the terran path of [Perks].

And in reverse, terrans would benefit from the Peerless method of eugenics and genetic modifications. Within a short period of time, terrans would be born D-grade. When they started to be born C-grade, Peerless would use their current DNA on terrans and bring them up to B-grade. Eventually, over time, terrans would catch up to the race-grade of the Peerless, becoming true peers.

None of this would be of help to John at all. His grade had increased due to the genetic modification already, but unless they incorporated Peerless DNA with his, something they didn’t plan to do for terrans for many generations, he benefited from this how he could. He couldn’t reset his own [SupraType] chain of [Perks].

The last and final class before the students were to leave the academy grounds was a long one on bioware and cyberware.

Bioware items were all organic and integrated with the body of the user.

Cyberware items were inorganic and usually replaced a part of the body but could also be grafted into or onto a body.

Either type could provide the same function, but provided it differently, and there were many functions exclusive to one type or the other.

In general, the benefit cyberware offered was stronger than the bioware options, but bioware scaled better with ascension.

Once the class was over, the new graduates could pick three pieces of minor cyberware or bioware, or an average piece and a minor piece, or one major piece.

Replacing a part of his own body was something John wasn’t all that interested in, but there were a few cyberware pieces that were tempting. Many improved the functionality and performance of the organ it replaced well beyond its normal capacity and provided a significant [Stat] bonus.

One heart provided close to 70 points in [Conditioning] and greatly improved all the major functions of the heart. There were lungs that increased [Conditioning] by about 50 points and also filtered out most airborne toxins, eyes that did many fantastical things, glands with strange and wondrous functionality.

If there was an eye that gave essence-sight, John would’ve replaced one of his own without a second thought.

Cybernetics and cyberware could increase in tier and effectiveness along with the user upon ascension, but it was thought only higher Tech-level societies could produce ones that did so significantly. Bioware, since it merged with and became part of the body, scaled much better. Having to replace or upgrade any cyberware made those items sound far less appealing.

There were implants of both types to enhance or upgrade the brain in some way, all majors, and all only compatible with Peerless, not terrans. John could request one be made for his human brain, but no timeframe was given for when he’d receive it, nor could anyone tell him if it would provide the same or only a lesser benefit.

Knowing he had a major battle of wills to face against Betrayal, John was disappointed there was nothing that supplemented his willpower. He didn’t know if that was possible, but not long ago he would’ve said replacing lungs or hearts or parts of a brain was impossible.

Only one item compatible with John helped improve or supplement the brain at all but it did so in a small way. It was a minor piece of cyberware called a smart-link. It looked like a bumpy and long rod. It went into the lower palm, extended all the way up the forearm, and formed many connections with the nervous system.

Once installed, the only visible part of the smart-link would be a small metal hole in the lower palm. Through that small hole, many thin and long mechanical tendrils would extend out to connect with any computer or electronic system and create a neural link with it, allowing someone to interface with the system with only their mind.

The smart-link also included a basic AI that would assist in hacking a system or lock. It stated the AI also improved response times and could store a lot of data directly into the smart-link itself.

After consulting Avatar, John’s first pick was the smart-link. With that decision made, he could pick an average piece or two minor pieces. It didn’t take much for Avatar to talk him into picking two minor bioware, both subdermal armors, since they scaled well with ascension and provided a great benefit. One piece covered both his chest and back, and the other covered his head and the back of his neck, but not most of his face or the rest of his neck.

The subdermal armor helped disperse kinetic energy over a wider area and gave great protection against physical and many forms of elemental damage. Both Avatar’s and John’s reasoning for picking the armor was that John could only truly be killed in a few ways, and more protection against those ways would always be a good idea.

Nine was not impressed by the bioware and cyberware choices. He picked a major cybernetic piece containing useful components his body could incorporate and utilize in its own way.

John was supposed to wait until he was in a kauwa and have a Mele assist him with installing the bioware and cyberware pieces he acquired, as installing either type usually required major surgery. He had Nine assist him instead, since they were both off duty until the next morning when they had to report to the Nani Heiau.

Installing the smart-link wasn’t hard at all. It slid right into John’s palm and up his arm. By the time the subdermal armors were installed, which took a long time and was much harder, longer, more painful, and bloodier than John thought it’d be, the smart-link had already formed connections with his nervous system.

And those connections improved as John meditated and healed from the many injuries caused by installing the subdermal armor. Pulling skin away from muscle wasn’t a pleasant experience, regardless of tier.

Instead of shaving all his hair off, John opted to have only the part of his head where the skin would be cut shaved. He was glad he had the helmet that came with his biosuit, as a big line was shaved right through the middle of his head. He knew he looked ridiculous. Or more ridiculous since he already had to shave his face and have the same high-and-tight haircut as all Li and Oli. Not even Akeolis and Akemeles were allowed to grow beards.

In the morning, Nine and John met near the portal to Hub City. It was time to leave the academy and report to one of the Nani Heiau.