The Briefing

Since the last fateful and rather eventful encounter with Zoyal, a close friend and partner to Aaron, the three of them were dining in a large white room on some delicious food from the high-shelves. Breaking the silence and the occasional ambience of Quinn's plate clattering, Zoyal was the first to speak. He was rather short compared to Aaron as they sat on the same side; he had short ginger hair styled with a textured and messy fringe.

"Where'd you find this monster, Aaron? I tried to shoot a gun, but it really didn't shoot! What did he do?" He spoke in a rather quite voice to the one next to him. 'I can hear your ass,' Quinn continued to eat, savouring every bite of the delicious meal after discovering that although food was not necessary for him, he could still taste it; which was a relief.

"We studied under the same master... apparently. And, he has a unique power and magic that I cannot explain; master really did raise a being close to the Ancient Demons," The other replied. 'Demon, huh?'

"Wait, wait, wait-! What?! Another disciple besides Xingqiu?! D-Does he know...? Uhhh, I don't think he'll be very... compliant regarding this; don't you think he'll try and kill the kid?"

"Hahahaha! He can try; and he will fail—I am certain. Quinn, here, is the strongest person with the most versitile and seemingly limitless skillset. Apart from master, I cannot think of anyone who can best him; hmph, not even those Vampire Lords. But, of course, the King is quite unique. I do not know if Quinn can take him on; from what I know, the two of them are definitely not showing everything they have got. Why do we not ask the person in question, hmm?" Aaron turned towards Quinn.

"Ngh... hey, look, I'm not that strong. Surely that Vampire King guy is stronger than me," Quinn said. 'Pretty sure I am stronger though. Don't wanna get into any trouble... . Hmm, maybe I should humble myself a little. Don't know what bullshit might just play out.'

"Enough of this. When do we head into the city?" Quinn got up from the table. "Relax. Forging a whole new identity takes a while; especially if it's in Vastoria—the city in question—which just happens to be the largest metropolis and empire of the planet; home to the Vampire King. And that guy is really careful when it comes to these matters; he just happens to care about his empire and people. You can go and rest; I'll call you when things are in place and we're ready to move."

Quinn was about to leave the table, as he heard some familiar instructions yet again: "Remember! Bathroom's on the third right turn from the north hallway and your room's the first left turn in the same!"

———

Aaron walked through the hallways, in search of Quinn's room. The three of them—Aaron, Zoyal and Quinn—were to meet in the security room a minute or two ago; Aaron, was worried if Quinn was nervous or something, and thus, late due to him contemplating over the mission to infiltrate the highest tier of city under a fake guise. And so, he walked over to Quinn's room.

Opening the door, without knocking, the only thing he could see was the floating figure of Quinn. The latter looked rather relaxed as the same was listening to music with some premium quality headphones on; his right leg, over his left's knee, and his hands behind the back of his neck.

"You should knock before entering someone's room," Quinn said with his eyes still closed. "Uhh, Quinn? What are you... I mean you are flying, I know that, but... what. How?"

"You seem to be asking a ton of questions. Alas, I only have the same answer for you: it's my magic. Ah, I see it's past the meeting time; well, let's get going then!" Quinn gently landed on his feet and move out of his room, but not before tapping Aaron's shoulder. The latter could only grunt and follow with.

Arriving at the security room, the door closed behind the two of them automatically. For being just a security room, it was quite big. Multiple moniters and holographic screens and buttons could be seen on and above a large desk, right in front of the door. But, Zoyal was sat on a smaller table, to the side, inviting the two of them to sit with him so that he could brief them on what will be happening and the currunt state of affairs of the Vampire world: mostly including Vastoria.

"Alright. A few things you guys need to know before you get to the city: first is that things have been quite dangerous within the city as of lately. What I'm trying to say is that the power struggles between a few Vampire Lords have been frequent and sometimes, even the civillians get caught in the middle of some petty attempts to defame the opposition. Speaking of civillians and the society, there's been a decree that states that young Vampires and Humans must attend any combatant school of their preferred choice; so basically, Quinn. You need to attend school here; sucks for you, I guess, but this is the only way things will work out for you."

Quinn was, needless to say, rather pissed after hearing that he would need to attend school even during his vacation on Nyxterra. "No can do. I'm way too strong for these people; Aaron ought to know."

"That doesn't matter to me! This is the only thing that could work for you in this situation, kid. Either way, I'm not the one who will select what school you will attend. I said that it will be your preferred choice, but it will be so out of the few schools that have decided to scout you; meaning: display enough of your strength to be invited to the inner and Royal circle of Vampire and Human education. Make some connections in the Royal academy, if you can get in there. I don't know what your goal is in the city, but this is all I can do. I hope you have some beast cores so that you can exchange them for money and put it in your bank that I made for you.

"Remember, Aaron will be your legal guardian for now, as long as you are in this city. Ugh... listen here, there's some talk going on around the whole city that there's a Vampire Lord within the ranks of the Royal academy; the youngest Vampire Lord to ever be. I don't know his name, but watch out for him: he might be of Royal blood. If that isn't the case, try and get close to him; but, if he is Royalty, don't mess with him, and keep at least 20 metres of distance from him."

"Any more weird instructions while I'm in there?" Vexed, Quinn asked in a sarcastic tone. "Yes, actually," Zoyal replied, "Try not to mingle with any Vampire hottie you see out there, kid. The trouble's just not worth; trust me."

Although annoyed, Quinn couldn't help but let out a chuckle at the comment.

"Aaron will be using a different appearance, so you better get used to it. I don't think you need a new appearance, so we'll leave it as is. And, I heard your request about your name... are you sure you wanna leave it as it was? The Maws' name has been reduced to shit ever since them stealing a Divine Relic; I doubt anyone will be able to do anything to you in the presence of the Knights or any other officer, but the people really don't like that name."

"I don't care about that; and you also said it: as long as I'm in the Royal academy, no one can touch me. Even if they tried, they won't be able to touch even a hair of mine. I'll make sure not to kill anyone, don't worry," Quinn reassured Zoyal. The latter was surprised to see a young kid talking about killing others so easily, but confidence in one's strength was a good thing.

"Alright then. Now, we just need to socket the information shards into you. I heard that you weren't raised here in Nyxterra so that you never got the chance to install a chipware socket. It's basically a place where you can insert data shard or data chips—whichever one you prefer—to just store that information in your neural blah, blah, blah. Surely, you understand. Basically, you won't need to hand over your physical papers to anyone like an ape; they can access the data shard with your cooperation and look through your information. C'mon, Daniels will install it for you; it won't hurt."

"Damn, they also have cyberware that can be integrated into the body? Even on Earth, it was ridiculously high priced; and here, everyone just has it?"' Quinn asked, "It would make sense for the Humans to have some special access to it, I guess; to not lag behind the Vampires?"

"You're almost correct. Don't worry about this stuff. I don't know how accustomed you might be to special implants and different cyberwares, but only Humans are allowed to use them within the academy. But, of course, such stupid rules don't exist outside of the academy, in the real world. Go out of the room and head to the other hallway that I told you not to go into; keep walking until you reach the every end. Go through the door and tell that guy why you're there. He'll be done in an instant and then you can get the hell outta my place. Aaron will be sure to guide you if there's anything you need in the city."

Being pushed out of the room by the short man, before he could turn around, the door shut and locked behind Quinn's back, seperating him from Aaron who was still in the room.

———

Following Zoyal's instructions, Quinn had arrived at Daniels' workspace, which could be said to be similar to that of a psychopath of a surgeon with tons of surgery equipment and a dozens of shelves with cybernetic implants and other technology. Most of the surgery equipment looked to be operated via Artificial Intelligence though.

After Quinn was done explaining to Daniels why he was here, the latter gave a deep sigh before telling him to make himself comfortable on the surgical reclining chain. He then walked Quinn through the process rather vaguely as he typed away on the holographic keyboard.

Firstly, a thorough medical check-up would be conducted to see if his body was compatible and accepting of the implant. Then, the rudimentary implant would be selected; however, Daniels gave Quinn the option of more advanced options with greater capabilities and advantages in exchange for a good amount of beast cores. Which Quinn agreed to pay for; he was in no shortage of beast cores, after all.

Daniels administered some anesthesia to Quinn and sterilised the equipment. However, unknown to him, the anesthesia was rendered useless due to Quinn's unique body and its godly defense system. Although the anesthesia had failed, Quinn was rather confident that he could handle the process. A drop of sweat ran down his forehead as he thought: 'Haha, when'd I become a fuckin' masochist?'

And thus, without further ado, Daniels began the proceedure of implanting the cyberware inside of Quinn. The machine made an incision near the neck—the implantation site—and another machine tried to modify the tissue surrounding that area, but ultimately, it failed; Daniels was confused and was about to stop the process, but to his surprise, Quinn somehow spoke up: "Let it do its thing. Don't stop the process. Initiate it again."

With a grin on his face, Daniels thought: 'What the fuck's up with this kid?! It doesn't look like the anesthesia did anything to him at all!'

Listening to Quinn, Daniels did not stop the process. As if it were a miracle, the tissues near the implantation area just gave way for smoother insertion and fixtation of the chipware socket after it was connected to Quinn's nervous system.

Covering up his wound, and finishing up, Daniels gave Quinn a few minutes to adjust to the layers of transparent screens that would appear in his retina. Daniels powered up the implant by inserting a jack through one of the three sockets, and told Quinn to slowly get used to it. Little did he know that the latter was quite used to seeing floating transparent screens in his vision.