CHAPTER 313: WHAT TO PICK?

Varnyx ignored him and continued to explain. "Those allowances are granted under the provisional clause of a rising Hall Lord, tied to the current Authority level and Blood rank. However," he said, turning his piercing gaze back to Damon, "those additional items must still be chosen wisely. The vault does not suffer greed lightly."

Damon chuckled. "No problem. I will only take what I am allowed to take."

He strolled further in, his eyes sweeping over the potion cases. Most of them were advanced potions that could only be consumed after one reached level 50.

Damon already had plenty of these and did not particularly need more of them. Of course, having more could never really hurt. If there was nothing else, he could simply stock up on these.

He continued looking around, and surprisingly, there were even more valuable potions at the far end of the vault. These were potions that could only be used after one reached level 100 and officially stepped into C rank.

These were extremely valuable and rare, and even a single potion sold for thousands of gold coins. A C rank tier health potion could essentially be considered a second life and was usually hoarded by large guilds for emergencies.

In his last life, Damon had yearned for several days to just have one in his hand so that he would be more efficient when it came to bigger kills. But there were several just sitting in front of him.

Either Varnyx was far more resourceful than he let on... or the Blood Hall had deeper reserves than Damon initially thought.

"Tsk." Damon clicked his tongue. "That old bastard died too soon." If he had known that the poison master was a trap NPC beforehand, he would have definitely milked some more potions before everything went to hell.

He walked over and casually picked up a sleek black vial labeled [Heartmend Draught – C-Rank].

Kaelthorn quickly explained. "That’s not just a health potion. That one regenerates flesh, bone, and mana simultaneously. It can even delay death by freezing the soul’s dissipation for ten full seconds."

Damon smiled with a nod. He already knew it, but he was fine with his new overeager unpaid intern explaining everything. He then placed the vial back. This was good, but he still wanted to take a look at the rest.

Moving on, his attention was caught by a huge shelf filled with all kinds of books. The skill book collection!

The shelf was split into tiers. The lower shelves contained common skill books such as alchemy, sword mastery, and blood slash. Even though he lacked some of these, Damon was fairly certain he would be able to obtain many of them in the Bloodlands. There was no need to waste his three choices on these books.

Damon barely glanced at them. He had long since surpassed that stage. Next were the middle shelves that contained some of the crucial vampire clan-specific skills.

There was Blood Manipulation, which he already had, Sanguine Chains, a rare control-type skill that allowed one to manifest blood as living chains, useful for both crowd control and battlefield manipulation, and quite a bit more.

Damon’s eyes landed on Blood Gate, a teleportation skill similar to the one Ellora was using. He only had minor teleportation skills so far, and this could come in particularly handy and save a lot of time and gold for him. He decided to pick this one and continued browsing.

There were all sorts of eye-catching skills, but Damon zeroed in on a skill that could be particularly useful for him. Blood Dominion, an aura-based skill that can force lower-tier bloodline beings into submission, causing a sort of fear and momentary paralysis effect if the difference was big enough.

Damon grinned. With his bloodline, such an ability was basically a cheat skill. He would definitely be picking this for his second choice.

He then saw a few other skills that could be very useful, some that he hadn’t even heard of before and but ultimately he refrained from making a choice as he looked up to see the upper shelf that had the top-tier skill books.

Naturally, these should be the best skill books available in the vault, and there were only five of them. These top-tier skill books radiated an oppressive presence. Unlike the orderly rows of the lower shelves, these were spaced out, each sealed in protective glass or bound in chains inscribed with ancient glyphs.

The first was bound in what looked like scaled leather and exhaled heat with every breath it took. Its title shimmered: [Bloodflame Ascendance].

From its brief system description, Damon learned it was a fusion technique that allowed the user to ignite their bloodline, temporarily combining fire affinity with blood magic to unleash explosive attacks that scaled with rage and vitality, a volatile but incredibly destructive power.

Damon already had permanent high fire affinity, so he had no need for a skill like this.

The next book also turned out to be an equally useless one. [Ritual of the Crimson Moon]. This one wasn’t a skill in the traditional sense. It was essentially a dark ritual. A group-wide enhancement that required a blood rite under moonlight, empowering all vampires within range. It required a thousand sacrifices.

Even though Damon was pretty sure he did not fall into the morally good category, he also did not plan to do something like this anytime soon. He would have at least considered it for guild wars and such if not for the absurd soul sacrifice it demanded.

There was also the part where the sacrifices did not have to be human. This meant he could sacrifice a thousand demons or similarly vicious creatures to obtain the same effect. In this instance, he wouldn’t mind using the skill, and his consciousness did not have any problem with it.

But it can wait. There was no rush to learn this skill and it was definitely not his top priority at the moment, especially when so many more utility skills were available that he badly needed.

***

Please thank Syphatrol for the mass release