Deadly Training to Avoid Death

I jumped through the air doing a front flip and cut off the troll's head halfway through the flip. I landed on my feet on the other side. I lit a molotov cocktail and threw it behind me without looking.

I thought it would be cooler that way. It wasn't. Some of the gasoline splashed back on me and burned holes in my clothes. Luckily, I was wearing a jacket, or my arms would probably be covered in burns. Sometimes I'm a dumbass.

[Sometimes?]

'Oh, shut up you! You're not supposed to have a personality,' I thought.

The system didn't respond to that.

I turned around and saw that at least I'd done what I was trying to do. Burn the neck so the head wouldn't grow back. The troll fell to the ground, dead. And on fire.

[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 10 of the Major Vampire Lord Realm!]

[You have extracted a troll ability. Complete Regeneration. A passive ability that can fully regenerate any damaged or severed body part as long as the area is not cauterized by fire or acid and some idiot doesn't fuse your feet to your stump legs]

'Hey, I'm that idiot!' I thought.

[Yes, you are]

'I've been outsmarted and I don't like it.' I thought.

[Too bad]

'This is starting to feel unnecessarily cruel, but moving on.'

[Indeed. Would you like to assimilate Complete Regeneration or convert it into life essence?]

'Assimilate.'

[Complete Regeneration has been assimilated. Would you like to view your abilities?]

'Not yet.'

So extracting abilities did work like I thought it would. Not only could I extract vampiric abilities, but I could also extract other monster abilities as well.

"More trolls, please," I said.

"Coming right up," Victoria said as she pressed more buttons

Nine holes appeared in the ground, and nine platforms were raised up out of them, carrying one troll each. I tried to activate my Daze ability, but I got a system notification.

[Species incompatible with Daze]

'What species does work with Daze then?'

[Humans and some human based monsters such as vampires]

'Well, now you tell me.'

[You didn't ask]

'Fine.'

Without the help of Daze, I got to work taking them down. I zipped across the battle field and cut three troll heads off in one pass.

Then I got a reasonable distance away and tossed molotov cocktails at the headless bodies. After a few seconds, they fell to the ground dead. I did the same to three more trolls and then three more.

[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 7 of the Lesser Vampire Baron Realm]

[Ability Complete Regeneration extracted 9 times. Converting redundant abilities into life essence. You have broken through to level 10 of the Lesser Vampire Baron Realm!]

I was out of molotov cocktails at this point. "Can we try something else?" I said.

"Sure," Victoria said. She pressed some buttons.

A hole appeared in the ground, and a platform was raised up carrying a manticore. It had the head and body of a lion, wings of an eagle, and tail of a scorpion.

"A manticore? Really?" I said.

"It's different isn't it?" She said.

"Yeah and it might kill me," I said.

"We'll see," she said.

The manticore charged me and struck with its tail. I narrowly dodged the tail and swung at it with my sword. My sword hit something that felt like a mix between steel and rock. The chitin of the scorpion tail was hard and unyielding.

It didn't want me to cut it. I would have to adopt a different strategy. I dodged out of the way of the tail again and ducked down underneath the front of the manticore so it's tail hopefully couldn't reach me. I stuffed my hand into its mouth.

It bit down hard, breaking and puncturing my hand with it's teeth and powerful jaws, but I used it as a medium to drain its life essence. The manticore's eyes started to droop. It shook its head to keep itself awake, but it was no use. In a matter of seconds, I had drained all of its life essence, killing it.

[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 2 of the Greater Vampire Baron Realm!]

The higher I got in realms, the slower my leveling up got. I could tell that the more dangerous monsters had more life essence, thus leveling me up faster, but it wasn't scaling up as much as I would've liked.

It looked like I was going to have to grind this out. I wanted to get to the Vi Condensation major realm by the end of the day. That was going to take some doing though. I may have to settle for less today. I was already feeling the burn in my muscles, and I'd only fought 11 monsters so far.

[Two abilities extracted. Venom Generation and Venom Immunity. I will not describe them as they are self-explanatory. You may only assimilate one. The other will be converted into life essence]

'What am I going to do with venom generation? How would I deliver it?'

[Teeth]

'Ok, fair. While I don't love the idea of biting my enemies because it makes me feel like I'm a toddler, I am a vampire, so I might as well get used to it.'

[Good job]

I wasn't even going to respond to that.

'I'll take Venom Immunity first.'

It was a pain in the ass trying to dodge that stinger. If I could just let it sting me with no repercussions, that would make it easier to fight manticores. Or other venomous monsters, for that matter.

[Venom Immunity assimilated. Venom Generation converted into life essence. It was not sufficient to increase your current level]

"Let's do that again, but with ten manticores this time," I said.

"Okay," Victoria said.

Ten manticores were raised out of the ground. I jumped right into fighting them with my sword. I let them sting me as much as they wanted because I was immune to their venom, but I made sure to stay away from their teeth. I stabbed a few manticores in the face and neck, taking them out of the fight.

I countered their paw swipes with my sword, severing some toes and paws along the way. That made it easier to whittle them down. I kept having to dodge roll around them to stab them in the sides. I was getting exhausted.

You'd think with my Complete Regeneration, I'd have more stamina, but apparently that wasn't how that worked. After one more lunge and stab, I finished off the last manticore.

[… Life essence extracted. You have broken through to level 6 of the Junior Vampire Viscount Realm!]

[Abilities extracted. Would you like to assimilate Venom Generation?]

'Yes.'

[Affirmative. Venom Generation assimilated. Redundant abilities converted into life essence. You have broken through to level 1 of the Senior Vampire Viscount Realm!]

This training with unintelligent monsters thing was starting to lose its effectiveness. That or I wasn't thinking big enough.

"Victoria, release the kraken!" I said.