The Drunkard (1) - 5

Taking a swig from my platinum flask, I lifted my sword and struck down.

"Clang... shliiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnng..."

Pathetically sliding down the side of the fighting dummy, I moved once more with a footwork that made absolutely no sense to anyone watching because, well, it made no sense to me also.

After all, I was just going with the flow of my swimming mind.

"Clang!"

This time, a powerful hit registered, as the dummy actually took some damage.

And then, everything was suddenly sloppy again, as, being totally drunk, I became super uncoordinated... in theory.

But, everything was fine, as I continued to whack away at the metal dummy.

Obviously, I knew that there was someone monitoring the state of the dummy and relaying my information to whoever was their superior, so I kept my fighting prowess at about a quarter of what it actually was, using this style of fighting at least.

Actually, I had learned that this "Drunken Style" really fit my body well, and was actually the best sword technique out of all the other ones that I had learned back in my first life for my body.

Sure, I wasn't as good at it as I was with the technique that I had used back then, but, after using this technique for a few years, I knew that I would quickly surpass the amount of proficiency that I had had when using the other swordsmanship.

This was just one of the many great perks associated with having the body of a vampire, and a high ranking one at that.

You see, vampires are born with many innate abilities, and that included an affinity for two different weapons and three different styles.

Only when using these two weapons, one as a main weapon and one as a supporting weapon whilst interweaving the styles with the weapons, was a vampire able to bring out the full potential of their body.

And, all this information, about what weapons or styles that a vampire was proficient in, well, each and every individual vampire could just "feel it", knowing innately where their potential lay.

After all, these weapons were bonded to a vampire at the molecular level, being made of a vampire's blood.

That was why each and every single vampire had a different and completely unique setup, no matter what.

Meaning, each and every single vampire had a distinctly unique fighting style, contributing to one of the many problems that caused humanity to lose the war against them way back then.

Anyways, this was my setup, as told to me by this body of mine.

Main Weapon: Flamberge Rapier - "Celeste"

First Style: Sword Style - "Drunken Painting of the Kunlun Mountains" (A/N: For the uninitiated, the Kunlun Mountains are a legendary mountain range in Chinese mythology.)

Supporting Weapon: Fountain Pen - "Calista"

Second Style: Menagerie of Creation

Third Style: Magic

Now, let me explain the structure of my setup.

First was the main weapon and first style.

Sure, many vampires had swords as their main weapon, but each sword had different abilities that were unique to each individual vampire because each vampire's blood was different.

As for me, I had a rapier with a flamberge style blade, allowing the rapier the ability to use the sides of its blade to cut through objects instead of just the tip.

Delicate, dazzling, elegant, and to the point, it was really just a sword that summed myself up in it's structure and style of use.

And with it being made of my blood, I could change the sharpness and frequency of the blade, shape and grip of the hilt, shape and coverage of the cross guard, and a few other things by will, increasing the versatility of the weapon.

(A/N: There's a frequency because it's a flamberge style blade. Look it up if you don't know what it means, actually, no, a picture of the sword will be in the paragraph comments.)

Overall, I was completely satisfied with the weapon I had been paired with, but that was expected.

And obviously, the first style mentioned up there was for me to use with my sword, that was pretty self explanatory.

Second was the supporting weapon, which, for me, was a fountain pen, that was used for sketching and had an endless supply of ink. Well, that was dependent on how much blood I had left, but due to me being a Patrician Level Vampire with broken regeneration abilities, well...

Anyways, at first, I had been confused when my body had told me that I had a pen as my supporting weapon, that was, until I learned about my second style, which was "Menagerie of Creation".

Basically, whatever I drew with my fountain pen would turn real, albeit, it would be made of paper, but, the stronger I got, the stronger my creations would also become.

To me, the only problem with this was that I would need to find a suitable type of paper, as the color white stood out too much against the backdrop of this gray-black world.

Other than that, I could use the "inceptions" that I created to do a variety of things, the options were endless, and the only limit was my imagination.

But, at this level right now, because of how weak I was, the inceptions could probably only be used for sending messages and spying, as their material, my blood, was too weak right now, and so my inceptions would only fall in real battle.

Finally, there was the third style, which was often the part of the equation that rounded everything out for a vampire.

It was the last piece that kept the entire puzzle together, keeping all moves, whether they be attacks, counterattacks, defending moves, parrying, or dodges that the vampire made, flowing, connecting each step, turn, swing, or stroke with the last.

Also, the third style of a vampire was an exception to the "uniqueness" rule, as oftentimes, many vampires would share the same third style, just because, most of the time, all one needed was the broad category of "magic" to be able to bring everything together.

Note, there was also a large amount of vampires that had "Blood Magic" specifically as their third style.

As for me, my third style was also just, "Magic", but, unlike other vampires that needed to experiment and try to figure out what type of magic they were best in, as "Mana", the force that every living being used to create "Magic", was not a part of a vampire's blood, and so there could only be a process of trial and error, like that of humans, as one tried to figure out which study or studies of magic suited them the best.

But, I was different.

After all, who had I been in my second life, if not a magic fanatic?

Sure, that kid wasn't able to put that much theory into practice, as his body had been made of a trash constitution, but he had injected so much information about magic into his mind over the years because of his enamorment with it that I had also learned everything.

And, although most of his knowledge was trash in this world, as my original world, the world I was currently in, was already millennia ahead of this world called "Earth" specifically in the area of the advancement of magic, there were only a few things that I could still use, ideas that had been unique to the world called Earth, and unique to the body that I had inhabited.

And now, I was going to use one of these few unique ideas, one that the kid had actually invented:

'Universally Aggregative Magic.'

A magic technique that allowed the user the ability to use any magic type, with the only condition being that the user had a talent for magic.

It was a technique, or "style", that that kid had come up with on his search for a way to turn himself into a magician, but due to the requirements of the technique, the kid was never able to use it.

But I could.

I was a vampire after all, a race where almost all could transcend the gods in their use of magic, not in terms of power of course, but in terms of intricacies, specificity, and uniqueness, second only to the elves, who were pure mana beings that none could compete with.

The only reason they hadn't taken everything was due to their minuscule population, which greatly inhibited the growth of their race.

Anyways, back to talking about me.

Now, all I could do was practice everything whilst still continuing to be a drunk.

"Chione! Why are you drinking whilst training?" Shouted a voice from a good distance behind my back.

Or not.

There were too much nuisances around me.

Yes, that was probably the main problem that I faced.