98. The five podiums

"Hmmm, a vampire tomb. I had my guesses but I couldn't be so sure." the system thought aloud inside Abraham's mind. "During my time the only place we called home was Earth. I did not know about places outside of the Earth. So who does it belong to?

"A vampire tomb doesn't necessarily mean a vampire is dead. A vampire can choose to go into eternal slumber, which is similar to death but not the same. If they are one in quite a high position or of importance to people, one of these towers will be created for them.

"Eternal slumber means a vampire has chosen to go to sleep forever themselves, it's a permanent state and there is only one way to be woken up from it. By consuming blood from someone of the same family. They do not need to be related by blood but only contain the same blood."

Even though Abraham knew all the detail, the system would keep talking about everything. It felt like a second time playing a game without the ability to skip the dialogue.

"Do you want to know who this tomb or this settlement belongs to?" asked Abraham to which the system respond. "Of course, but like every time, I'm sure you would not tell me anything."

"This is the punisher settlement," said Abraham.

"Ha, just I have said you won't tell..... wait what did you just say? The punisher." The system was in complete shock.

It was right for the system to be shocked. The punishers were a group of vampire that was feared by regular vampires. It was created to enforce the law to all vampires, possessing the authority even to punish the king.

But everything that the system knew about the vampire punishers was just tales as during his time, the punisher was gone. From what he knew, there was supposed to be a civil war where there were two groups of vampires. One that agree with the punishers being the cops and one that found that the punishers had too much power. That ended in the punisher leaving the vampire settlement. As for their location or what became of them, the system had no idea.

If this is where the punisher came to after leaving the vampire settlement, then why is it empty?

Abraham let the system wondered on his own and decided to continue exploring.

After Abraham followed the torches down the path, it eventually led him to a large staircase leading upward. Abraham powered through the many stairs and didn't really feel tired, however, he did feel like the stairs would go on forever and were wondering when he would end. Finally, the stairs had leveled out onto a platform and another large door could be seen.

It was the same size as the one at the entrance only this one didn't have a strange lock-like mechanism. Up ahead, after the platform, were even more stairs leading up suggesting they hadn't reached the top yet. Just like when they opened the door below. Torches around the room suddenly lit up.

Instead of lighting up a path, this time, the whole room was lit up. It was a fairly large square room but at the same time, it was nearly completely bare. There was nothing inside the room apart from five podiums in the center of the room.

Each podium had an item on them. They were pieces of armor, a chest piece, a leg piece, an arm piece, and a helmet. Lastly on the final podium was a ring.

The armor had a strange medieval design to it and didn't look like any of the beast gear Abraham had ever seen. It looked almost like knightly armor, only with points and such at the end, while red in color.

"Why are you not picking one," said the system.

"You will know soon" After saying that, Abraham activated his shadow equip skill. The emperor-tier dagger that was gifted to him by Andrew his now blood fairy appeared on his hand. Down after the shadow left his foot, a pair of boots appeared. Abraham activated the boot active skill on the spot raising his total agility.

[agility: 140]

Abraham positioned himself in front of the first podium in such a way that the other four were in line. On the first podium was the chest piece. Abraham positioned himself extremely close to the armor until his hand was millimeters away from touching it.

Abraham took a deep breath and began to run. In an instance he picked the chest armor and was already onto the second. He reached the second podium, then the third picked up the pair of leg pieces and arm pieces. For each podium, after he picked the item, Abraham would throw the item directly into his shadow dimension. Everything happened in a swift motion. But as he was about to reach the fourth podium, the room felt like it was starting to shake.

Abraham knew that he had to act fast but there was no way to increase his ability. He just hoped that what he had was enough. As he grabbed the helmet from the fourth podium, Abraham could see something happening on the fifth podium.

A strange circular cylinder-like shape was lifting up from the podium. It was all a matter of time until the item would be sealed away. Just as the strange cylinder rose the same height as the ring which was the last item on the last podium, Abraham reached for it and was able to pick it up. Looking behind him, the cylinder went all the way up to the ceiling of the room they were in closing access to all the five podiums.

Once the cylinders were formed the vibrations had stopped, and it didn't seem like anything else was going to happen. The five podiums were all out of sight as they all have been retracted inside the ground.

Abraham looked inside his fist and the ring was seen resting on his palm.

[Inspect]