Darius Supreme

Mikey and Joneson made short work of the remnants with their overwhelming power, although their lacking skill would have made it quite an amusing sight for an onlooker. Joneson naturally didn't care, but Mikey kept grumbling under his breath. 

"Oi Mikey, what's got you looking like you swallowed bad cheese, hmm?" Joneson asked with concern as he ran over after absorbing his share of the Death Energy. 

Mikey scratched his head. "Boss gave us these weapons to practice with, but I feel it will take some time to do so. His queue for Transmutation is full too, so he can't make skillbooks for us. That means we have to either learn ourselves or find a teacher." 

Joneson tilted his head. "You sure bout that? We are now Vampires, not Liches, remember? Before, we could only do some basic stuff, but now we're Supreme Undead, right?" 

Mikey clapped Joneson on the head 'lightly'. "Get on with it blockhead!" 

Joneson grinned as he rubbed his head. "Donchu think we should have some special abilities that can allow us to gain shortcuts right? There has to be one somewhere!" 

Mikey was instinctively about to berate Joneson before he paused to think about it. "You make a surprising amount of sense, Joneson. Hmm, there are three things we could try out." 

"The first is to tie our consciousness to our Blood Warriors and have multitudes of them fight with swords or spears against enemies with similar skills to polish ourselves. This requires a heavy investment of blood and compatible foes, but it should be the quickest way." 

"The second is to Create Initiates from the human Journeyman around this band. I have a feeling that we would have an easier time learning skills from our blood subordinates." 

"The third is mostly a guess, but we could try absorbing the skills of our victims when we drink their blood. We've already taken their lifeforce, blood, and memories, so what's to say we can't do the same for their skills and special bloodlines?" 

Joneson nodded. "I think so, yah. Well, we can do the first option later, I say we start with the last one!" 

The duo shared a look before laughing maliciously. They quickly disappeared from their spot, leaving only an afterimage as they tore through the landscape at inhuman speeds. 

...…. 

Darius woke up with a smile on his face. He had only truly spent two nights in the midst of the blight, but that had been enough to make him appreciate even the hard earth that formed the ground. 

Waking up sick and retching was sure to demoralize any army or group who ventured here. The Plains of Death had so many natural defenses, and he had learned about two tragic campaigns executed over the course of recent history that ended in tears. 

After nudging Gunner awake, Darius exited their sleeping tent with him and walked over to their 'bathing' tent. There, he graciously allowed the Branded Servant the first go with the tub while he blinked away 50 km. 

After checking his surroundings, he changed 4 CP worth of Purification Potions to fill his quota. He also took out one of his last empty spell manuals from Foldo and concentrated. 

[Would you like to change the empty spell manual into a small water spell manual? This will cost 4.5 Conversion Points.] 

Darius assented to the change and watched as the book transformed from a slightly special tome to a glowing blue book that smelled like the sea. 

[Pulse Spell - Manual 

Durability: 10/10 

Description: Contained within is the required knowledge to cast the simplest spell of the water element, Pulse. Due to the high quality of the material and the penmanship, the success chance of learning the spell is increased by 100% while the effectiveness of the spell is increased by 500%.] 

[Detected spellbook. Would you like to learn its contents? 

Warning: The spellbook will be destroyed upon using this method! Continue?] 

[Pulse - Level 1 Spell 

Cost: 1 MP 

Description: Summon a jet spray of water with varying pressure. It can either be intense enough to cut or low enough to drink. This deals 5% water damage at maximum velocity.] 

Darius nodded with satisfaction. He took out his old flask of water and checked inside to find some leftover Pure Water within. Pleased, he filled the flask up with more from his new spell, which basically turned his fingertip into a tap. 

He then converted the flaskful of water upwards in quality at a cost so low it wasn't easily computed by the system. After doing so, Darius removed the Bowl of Nuwa he had received from Darla and poured the Pure Water within. 

This item, as appraised, had the ability to turn any liquid that stayed there for 24 hours into some sort of special fluid that could heal any ailment. 

The important thing about it was the extra note. The quality of the liquid poured decided the potency of the effect after 24 hours. 

As such, Darius pouring the legendary Pure Water, which was the highest grade liquid of the basic category should - theoretically - allow him to revive the dead. 

This meant little to him personally, because if he died, he obviously would not be able to open his Inventory to drink the liquid. 

Neither Gunner, Mikey nor had any access to his Inventory, just as he was locked out of theirs. It was also unclear whether they would even survive in the case of his demise, since at least in the case of the vampires, he was technically their summoner. 

Besides, he had the Stitch in Time, a lifesaving item granting him 9 'resets' yet each one was as precious as… well, the most precious thing in the world! 

So the purpose of storing this and keeping it on his person was for Gunner mostly. As Darius feared, it was quite possible for Gunner to die in the execution of the plan. 

In that case, he would be torn by having to choose either to 'reset' and try to succeed the next time while keeping Gunner alive, or to finish everything at the cost of his first Branded Servant. 

With this, his worries were somewhat abated. Of course, if Gunner were to end up vaporized to ash, Darius was unsure if this miracle water would be able to save his life.