57: Chapter 57 Upgrades and Dimensional Bags

The moment Richard threw the Firebolt, he initiated a Charge.

The instant the skill was activated, his body turned into a straight, black afterimage.

His terrifying, brute strength stomped onto the stone-paved ground, kicking up two fine cracks.

In an incredibly short span of time, he crossed most of the alley's distance, his right hand already gripping his halberd tightly.

Before Lucius could even push himself up from the stone wall, the halberd's blade was already slashing down in front of him.

He instinctively raised his left arm to block. A Vampire's skin was far tougher than a human's, and ordinary iron weapons would at most leave a shallow cut on it, but he had underestimated Richard's strength.

His terrifying, Ogre-like strength combined with the impact bonus of the Charge.

The moment the halberd's blade slashed into his left forearm, he heard the sound of his own bones shattering.

Both bones in his forearm snapped into several pieces from the middle, the jagged bone fragments piercing through his skin as dark red blood gushed from the wound.

To Richard's pleasant surprise, his Mortal Strike had triggered!

This skill, whose trigger rate had made Richard want to curse ever since he acquired it, activated without any warning during this slash.

It was almost as if it were a malicious attack specifically targeted at Vampires.

A faint, dark red shimmer, nearly invisible to the naked eye, flashed across the halberd's blade, looking like coagulated blood being reignited.

Lucius's body suddenly froze.

He opened his mouth wide, wanting to say something, but only a very brief, airy gasp came from his throat.

His eyes—those blood-red vertical slits—instantly lost all luster in their sockets, turning from red to a hollow, grayish-white.

In the next second, his body began to disintegrate from the inside.

Skin, muscle, bone, and even blood—every tissue that made up his body turned into grayish-white powder simultaneously, without even a single convulsion of struggle.

Right before the female Vampire Erin's eyes, his entire body collapsed into a pile of ashes.

Within the pile of ashes, his long coat lay limply on the ground, the dark red silk cravat at the collar still maintaining its tied shape, but there was nothing inside it anymore.

[Killed Vampire (Elite) ×1 — Obtained 500 experience points.]

Watching her husband turn to ash before her eyes, Erin's facial expression contorted from shock to pure terror in just a single second.

Her blood-red pupils shrank to the size of pinpricks, and her lips trembled uncontrollably.

Her husband, Lucius, was no ordinary Vampire; he was an official member of the Holy Blood Court who had lived for over two hundred years, and had even fought several high-level temple priests without being completely killed.

Yet now, he hadn't even lasted a single blow against this human warrior?!

She believed there had to be something wrong with that halberd! It must have a lethal enchantment specifically targeted at Vampires!

It was highly likely a demon-breaking weapon, a temple-blessed weapon specifically designed to counter undead creatures, or worse, a high-tier demon-slaying weapon dedicated to hunting the Kindred.

At this moment, she was too terrified to even want to know the answer.

Her body suddenly burst apart, turning into a chaotic swarm of dozens of black bats, each of them fleeing frantically in different directions.

The swarm of bats let out sharp, noisy screeches in the air, disappearing into the night sky above the alley within a few seconds.

Even if Richard wanted to give chase, he couldn't; the bat swarm was too fast, and they scattered in too many directions.

Even if he hit a few bats with his Firebolts, it would be futile, so he decided to let it go.

Standing beside Lucius's ashes, he looked down at the prompt on his panel.

[Current distributable experience points: 500. Experience points can be allocated to any combat class.]

He allocated all five hundred points, along with the experience points from his warrior class, to his mage class.

[Congratulations, adventurer, your Mage level has increased!]

[Current Level: Level 3 Mage (420/600)]

[Obtained 1 free attribute point.]

[Please select one of the following skills:]

[Wall of Fire] — Creates a Wall of Fire. You can choose to create a straight or circular Wall of Fire up to eight meters long, eight meters high, and thirty centimeters thick, consuming one point of mana per minute.

[Blink] — You can teleport to any unobstructed location within a ten-meter range, while simultaneously removing any root effects, consuming two points of mana.

Richard saw the word "Blink."

The moment his brain registered those words, it paused for half a second, and then his heart began to race.

Blink was obviously an absolute god-tier skill—teleporting to any position within ten meters and even removing root effects.

He currently had a maximum mana of five points, allowing him to cast it twice in a row in a single day.

Combined with the Charge skill, it could instantly close the distance to engage enemies.

A warrior who could cross a ten-meter distance in half a second to get right in an enemy's face would absolutely suppress the enemy's fragile backline formation.

Without hesitation, he chose Blink.

He could worry about Wall of Fire later, but Blink was something he had to get his hands on today.

Next, he added that one free attribute point to Strength.

The Strength on his panel jumped from twelve to thirteen. Richard's body shuddered as he felt completely filled with power!!!

In the alley, Cecilia was still standing in place.

She looked down at the pile of ashes on the ground, a trace of complex emotion flashing through her blood-red eyes.

The members of this organization might all be Vampires like her, but she did not want to become an evil person; she would continue to hold onto her moral baseline.

Cecilia let go of her hilt, and the half-drawn sword slid back into its scabbard with a crisp metallic clink.

She crouched down and picked up a palm-sized black velvet pouch from the pile of ashes.

The surface of the pouch was embroidered with twisted runes in silver thread, and a small agate bead was threaded onto the drawstring at its mouth.

She quickly recognized it—this was actually a dimensional bag!

Her father had mentioned this kind of thing to her before, saying that even the cheapest dimensional bag would sell for over five hundred gold coins in Blackwater City.

Furthermore, they were in high demand but low supply, often bought up by mage lords or wealthy merchants as soon as they appeared in auction houses.

"Incredible, this is a dimensional bag, a spatial item... very valuable." She handed the dimensional bag to Richard.

Richard took the pouch and hefted it.

The weight of the pouch was abnormally light; no matter what was inside, the total weight was only a few pounds.

He opened the mouth of the pouch and peered inside; the space within was much larger than it appeared from the outside, packed to the brim.

He tipped the pouch upside down, and all the items inside spilled out onto the stone-paved ground of the alley with a clatter.

Over a hundred gold coins, five high-quality pearls, a bag of black soil, dozens of wax-sealed plasma vials, several pieces of deep red Blood Amber, along with some clothing and miscellaneous items.

Pressed beneath the miscellaneous items was a notebook with a black leather cover. The edges of its pages were yellowed and curled, and a twisted skull design was drawn on the cover.

Richard quickly tucked the gold coins and pearls into his robe first, then began to identify the items one by one using Appraisal.

Meanwhile, Cecilia squatted down, picked up the notebook, and flipped through it.

Her fingers paused between the pages, her blood-red pupils lingering on one of them for a long time.

"There is a lot written in here... knowledge about Vampires..." Her voice grew soft, as if she were talking to herself.

"About how to charm humans, how to transform into bats, and a type of magical item—the Lesser Soul-Binding Flask."

"With every intelligent creature killed, their soul is sucked into the flask, used to feed Vampires and increase their own power."

"They use this to ascend, using such evil means to grow stronger." She closed the notebook, her fingers still pressing against the cover, her face slightly pale.