One of the things Erin wanted to do was to train their skills in a fight. Given that the assessment was going to have them travel to a planet away from earth, they were going to need to practice in order to stay safe. Having someone die was something Erin would very much like to avoid.
"Quinn, you fight with me, and Layla fights with him," Erin said as she pointed at Peter.
"What about Fex?" Peter asked, looking at the teenager in question.
Fex was laying down on top of a stack of mats, chewing on something. He just waved his hand, "Eh, don't even worry about me."
Erin rolled her eyes, and soon the duos got on their respective arenas.
Layla and Peter were in their fighting area, a wide flat spot with no forms of cover, and it was the same for Erin and Quinn.
Erin saw Quinn prepare his gauntlets, and readied himself into a fighting position. Partially crouched with his fists up.
Erin had a wide stance, and held a wooden training sword in front of her. She looked at Quinn carefully, ready for him to make the first move.
[Inspect]
[Name: Quinn Talen]
[Race: Human]
[Ability: Earth]
[HP 10/10]
[Blood type O-]
[Quest: Defeat Quinn Talen]
[Reward: 40 EXP]
{Erin} Finally at 40 EXP, huh?
Erin ran up and sliced with her sword, throwing slash after slash as Quinn blocked the hits with his wrists. With a fist, he punched the sword hard enough for Erin to go off balance.
Quinn was about to punch her gut, but her reaction speed was faster. She stepped to the side, and ran around him, kicking his back. Quinn stumbled forward, and turned around only to just narrowly catch Erin's blade.
She was stronger than him, and his knees buckled under her strength. Quinn, however, was able to push the blade away from him, causing Erin to overshoot her strength and almost fall over.
At that moment, she saw Quinn prepare to do a hammer strike.
'You're not the only one who saw those tutorials,' Erin thought, as she readied herself to flash step.
Erin tried to replicate the same moves she saw the blonde man do, but it was her first time using the skill, and tripped over her own movements. The attempted hammer strike hit.
[-3 HP]
[HP 22/25]
'I saw the video, it should've hurt her more!' Quinn thought, 'is it because I was only able to reach a 10 in strength?'
Erin spun her sword, hitting Quinn's side. Thankfully, it was a wooden training sword, and he wrapped his arms around the blade.
Erin kicked Quinn in the torso, and he fell onto his back, taking the sword with him. He scrambled to his knees, and liquidated his gauntlets, spreading across the floor and wrapped around Erin's foot. With a flick of his hand, Erin's ankle was twisted.
[-4 HP]
[HP 18/25]
She stumbled, and Quinn jumped up about to strike her with the hammer strike again, when she broke out of the mud holding her ankle, and rolled to the side avoiding the blow.
Erin ran to the sword, and grabbed it, meanwhile Quinn regathered all of the mud on the ground and turned around to face her.
'He's a level 1, he stopped touching the mud when he made that jump,' Erin thought, 'but why was it still solid when he did?'
Erin didn't think much further on it, only that it meant this would be a little bit more of a challenging fight.
Erin attempted to do the flash step again, and this time she managed to succeed albeit narrowly, and ran behind Quinn in an instant. The move was exhausting, more than what Erin was expecting.
She swung her sword, and Quinn caught it. Yet again, Erin's strength was overpowering Quinn, and he was being pushed, his feet sliding against the ground. However, Erin was tired from successfully doing her first flash step, and her grip was weakening. Sweat was forming on both of their bodies, and it seemed like at any moment, one could overtake the other.
With a desperate moment like this, something clicked in Quinn's mind. The earth ability at its first level was only capable of controlling mud when physically touched, and the ability book Quinn read said to treat earth as an extension of himself. Doing so would make learning the ability easier to learn as it helps to think of something physically attached to one's self as an extra limb, but that was just the first step.
[User Quinn Talen has gained a higher understanding of the earth ability]
[Ability level: 2]
In that moment, Erin saw Quinn's mud gauntlets harden, the wet smoothness of it became ridged, and he had one of his hands let go of the sword only to deck Erin in the jaw. When it did, the gauntlet shot out, doing further damage.
[-5 HP]
[HP 13/25]
Erin stumbled back, and similarly, Quinn fell to his knees breathing heavily. It wasn't easy fighting against someone with super human strength when he only started working out 3 days ago.
[Opponent has been defeated]
[You have received 40 EXP]
[Opponent has gained power during the fight]
[An additional 30 EXP shall be rewarded]
[110/400 EXP]
Quinn and Erin were both in shock for more reasons than one. It was rare for someone to level up their ability naturally without the use of an ability book, but then again, that's how the originals learned to use their powers.
What was really shocking, especially to Quinn, was that there was a new stats page. When selecting it, it listed information about himself.
[User: Quinn Talen]
[Race: Human]
[Ability Level: 2]
There wasn't anything else listed like strength, agility or stamina aside from those three things.
"Lets… take a break," Erin huffed as she walked over to the water fountain.
Fex, while he was chilling on his stack of mats, took notice of Quinn and Erin's moves. Erin seemed like a newbie when it came to vampire stuff, especially regarding how she seemed to lack the proper equipment. Not only that, but Quinn seemed to be replicating a move that was taught by vampires for vampires. Perhaps it was something he saw in a book or taught by a teacher who saw another vampire.
Or… Erin was planning on turning Quinn, but since she was still a halfling, she's just introducing him to some concepts of being a vampire without actually telling him about vampires. She wouldn't be able to turn him just yet.
Fex was theorizing while Peter and Layla were fighting.
Layla was practicing fighting up close since it was her weakest skill. There could've been the chance that a beast would sneak up on her, and she didn't want to take that chance. Peter swung downwards with a staff, and Layla jumped out of the way. She had an arrow hanging over Peter's head, dulled of course because they were training, and dropped it, bonking him.
"Ow!" Peter said as he rubbed his head, "Couldn't you go a little easier on me?"
"You've been here for how long? We need to practice!" Layla shouted as she drew back her bow.
Layla's arrow hit Peter in the chest, and he stumbled back. Peter sighed and held his staff to the side indicating he didn't want to fight anymore. He knew it wasn't exactly fair for him to fight against a level 2 ability user, but he thought that he could've done better since Layla was a bow user.
Layla suddenly walked up to the boy, which startled him a little.
"Look, in a real fight, there won't be anyone to go easier on you. Every fight can mean life or death, and you need to take this seriously."
Peter was about to respond when suddenly, he heard her name being called.
"Layla, come over here!" Erin yelled out, to which Layla's attention was immediately caught.
"Yes? What is it?" Layla quickly said, putting her bow away.
Layla walked over to Erin.
"I'm going to need a… little bit of assistance…" Erin whispered.
Layla nodded, and the two walked off over to the bathroom, leaving Fex, Quinn and Peter alone in the training center.
Fex got off his stack of mats, and walked over to Quinn, which concerned him somewhat as he was afraid Fex might've found out about something to do with Erin or Layla. Suddenly, he seemed a lot more intimidating than he usually was.
However, Fex was as casual as ever, "Wow, I can't believe they're just out doing that in broad daylight. Good for them."
Quinn was more confused than ever, "Huh?"
"I never thought Erin would have any interest like that, I mean, the ice queen seemed so cold but…" Peter muttered, nervously fidgeting with his fingers, "I'm glad that she's found someone."
"What???" Quinn was running a thousand thoughts a second, but nothing seemed to help him figure out what everyone was talking about.
"Y'know… I did see them come out of the bathroom together once, and Layla's face was… well… I shan't say…" Peter quietly said as his face grew redder by the second.
Quinn was really confused as to why Erin would fight Layla in the bathroom. Surely what Peter was talking about were cuts and bruises from being in an intense training battle, right?
"Oh look, they're back," Fex said, pointing at the two love birds with his thumb.
Quinn looked at them, and suddenly he now realized what Peter meant by Layla's face. She looked woozy and pale, and immediately, Quinn knew what happened.
'She's drinking her roommate dry again!' Quinn thought.
—
While Erin was in the bathroom with Layla, she had drunk her roommate's blood for healing purposes. Nothing else, no other reason. While she was there, Layla also gave her some of the blood that she collected. It was tricky gathering a bunch of different blood types while she volunteered at Hayley's place, but it was well worth it.
[Blood type A has been absorbed]
[+ 3 strength point has been added]
[Strength: 20]
[You have reached the maximum amount of stat points in strength]
[To proceed further you must evolve]
[Blood type B has been absorbed]
[+ 2 Agility point has been added]
[Agility: 18]
[You have reached the maximum amount of stat points in agility]
[To proceed further you must evolve]
[Blood type Ab+ has been absorbed]
[+ 5 Stamina point has been added]
[Stamina: 15]
[You have reached the maximum amount of stat points in stamina]
[To proceed further you must evolve]
[Blood type O has been absorbed]
[You have gained +4 free stat point]
Erin had found out at that moment that there was apparently a limit, but it'd be easy to guess that she would need to keep evolving at some point. Namely, that she would change into a vampire from leveling up just like when she first became a halfling. What was really annoying was that she wasted some good stat points in the blood collection. If there weren't a limit, then who knows how high her stats would be now.
Since she couldn't do anything about the free stat points for the time being, she left them alone.