A Bar a Vampire and the Apocalypse

Life is a wonderful thing. You live, do your best to leave your mark on the world, then leave hoping you left it a better place than you found it. As the saying goes people plant trees the shade of which they will never sit under. But what if you could? What if you walk through life never fearing old age, never fearing leaving things behind. Eternal life, Eternal youth, Im-mor-tality. Kings, emperors and powerful people of all kinds have been searching for this very thing for as long as the concept of death was truly understood. Being an immortal king, and in theory creating an immortal empire was the goal. To always have power. The need, nay the greed for power, to never relinquish it.

It is a funny thing that is. For all my years walking the earth one thing seems to always hold true. Stagnation leads to rot, rot leads to death, and death leads to new life. Even in the short life that humans hold, if one generation holds on to power for too long it can begin to start this process. So imagine a human who rules for 100, 200, or even 500 years? Would their empire grow or crumble under the rot of stagnation? No king rules forever and there is good reason for it.

But it seems the world, the gods or whatever higher power there is that looks down upon us has decided that our planet has stagnated and has chosen to up turn how the world works. I must say it was quite the surprise to wake up to see a screen in my face.

[World break system version 10.14 has been activated. Phase one integration has begun. The World will now go through changes and all inhabitants now have access to the World break system.]

In my many years alive, I had never seen anything this world changing happen, and I had lived through a lot of world changing inventions and events. But I guess that is what happens when you have lived for over 2000 years.

It did not take me long to see my phone was blowing up from alerts. The only event in recent memory that shook the world anywhere near this much was the 9/11 terrorist attack on the twin towers of the world trade center. But this was something of another level.

Being too lazy to look anything up I put on the news on my TV and see what they had to say. The info bar at the bottom said “Massive plants and structures appearing across the world” with the date next to it reading Tuesday September 13, 2022. The news anchor was clean shaven man with black hair and a black suit there was slight signs of stress on his face as he reported the news.

“It seems a massive willow tree has grown in New York's Central Park. This is so far the 183rd recorded large-scale change to the world. Things are happening rapidly and we will try to keep you all up to date with the most pressing information of the current situation.

Just in, the president of the United States will be holding an emergency address regarding the current events in ten minutes. Until then we will keep you up to date.

More information incoming it seems…."

I stopped watching at that point, deciding to wait for the presidential address. Most of what I need to know would be in the address.

Picking up my phone and the first message I see is from my current best friend Sarah.

Sarah: Are you ok, did anything happen?

You: So far nothing crazy has happened here, well other than the message I woke up to.

It took her a minute to reply but when she did she gave me some interesting information.

Sarah: Thank goodness. Hey, have you seen your stats yet. Mine are kinda sad.”

You: Stats?

Sarah: Oh so you don’t know. Well as you know I read a lot of web novels and this kind of scenario is a common story setting. Where some magical system comes over earth. Most of the time in these stories if you think, system open, stats or profile a screen will come up in your vision telling you your name, age , race, level stats and abilities.

I stood there staring at my phone in disbelief. That was one of the stupidest things I had ever heard. The world has some wild things in it that normal people don't know but this sounded like some teenage gamer nerd got to play god for 10 mins.

You: That is just asinine.

Sarah: Don't believe me then just try it your self. =) For our web novel to come to life the word you need to think and picture is “profile”.

I really should not have dismissed it the way I did. I had just woken up with clear words in my vision. But come on really a video game stat menu? Video games and tabletop games with stats have not even been around for 70 years and what ever greater power out there thought that this was how they wanted to shake things up I mean come on.

Sighing to myself I thought 'profile' and to my shock a display came up.

Name: Viviana Justina Ioannou

Level: 63

Age: 2135

Race: Ancient Vampire

Stats:

Strength: 47

Agility: 71

Constitution: 65

Dexterity: 79

Stamina: 58

Intelligents: 53

Wisdom: 68

Racial abilities:

Ancient bloodline

Call of the night

Endless memory

Eternal existence

Eternal improvement

Eyes of perfect darkness

Harmony of the sun

Peralic injection

Progenitor

Undegradable

Unique pallet

Earned/Born abilities:

Ambidextrous

Contortionist

Echoic memory

Endless Endorse

Hidden in plain sight

Language adapt

Mask of the Deceiver

Photographic Memory

Seducer

Soft step

Vocal perfectionist

Wisdom of Ancients

General skills (skills available)

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Class 1

(Class up available)

Level: 0

Earned stats:

Strength: 0

Agility: 0

Constitution: 0

Dexterity: 0

Stamina: 0

Intelligents: 0

Class skills

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

N/A

Class 2

(Locked)

Class 3

(Locked)

The only thing I could think was, 'Oh so that's how old I am.'

I was at a total loss for words to sum up two millennia of learning growing achievements and personal growth in less than a paragraph's worth of words is a bit insulting. It was a weird feeling being speechless. It had been such a long time since I have.. But I guess that tends to happen when the whole world is flipped on its head.

It was then when the lights in my house went out. My only guess was that one of those land altering events happened near me. Sitting in darkness I looked back to my phone and saw that I had a new text from Sarah. Luckily it looked like I still had a signal.

Sarah: Are you ok? My power just went out.

You: Yes I'm fine. My power went out too. I hope they have it fixed before the president makes his address. I would rather not have to watch it on my phone.

Sarah: Yeah, same. Hey, do you mind if I head over to your house? I feel being alone right now is not the best of ideas with all the craziness that's happening.

You: Of course you can come over. I feel the same. Right now there is a lot of uncertainty and I think it's best if we stick together. Just be careful we don't know what's going on out there.

Sarah: Thanks Vivi. Anyways, what's your level? From what I read on some forums the average levels so far seem to be around level 10."

You: Interesting but do you really think it's a good idea to be sharing our level? Not that I don't trust you but we don't know much of anything right now and it might be better to keep our cards close to our chest.

To be fair I was lying in that one, well partly lying I did not trust her with my secrets but I did trust her on a basic level. You don't live over 2000 years trusting a lot of people. She also did not know I was a vampire and I planned to keep it that way for the time being if I could help it.

Sarah: Yeah I guess. It was also kinda rude of me to ask without telling you mine too. Well ima head out now see you soon.

You: See you soon.

I like Sarah. I met her in my most recent foray into college. She is a good kid and I like her company. She is an only child and from what she told me, a bit of a loner. Being a bit of a loner myself at the time,we hit it off. Life goes on and I decided to open a bar, it was a different endeavor for me. I had never tried to open a restaurant of any kind. Sarah happened to be going to college for business management so I asked her to help me in my endeavor after we graduated, and she happily agreed. I made my bar on the west coast and we ended up doing pretty well. So that's our basic back story.

Having nothing better to do I pulled up the White House YouTube page on my phone in preparation for the Presidential Address and decided to look more into this so-called world break system.

Looking over my profile again I noticed that I could already get some new skills and classes. I decided it might be best to wait on that. I was never one that was too big on those kinds of rpg games, video games and books. I have played my fair share of video games over the years; I mean they were great time passers and when you have nothing but time it's nice having something to fill it with. I knew Sarah might have a good idea about skills and classes. She was always one to read those video game world stories so she should have an idea of what will be good or not.

Looking more closely at the racial abilities list I had this feeling that I could… I don't know, expand on the abilities and when I focused on the first one a short paragraph appeared under it.

Ancient bloodline

You are an Ancient being. Not many other living creatures, with the exception of plants, can claim to be your elder and thus you have had Millennia to consolidate your power. Your very blood holds power for if you are to give it to someone or bear children they will inherit a fraction of the power you have cultivated.

Well that was enlightening. I was never one to have kids and even then the only one that I gave birth to was killed. For a person with a normal life, it is one of the worst things to bury your own child and it is no different for me. I would never wish it on anyone. The life I lived was not one meant for children.

Though I do have some non-direct children people that I have turned to vampires over the years, but they too are far and few in-between. It's nothing like turning someone teaching them about their new life just for them to try and kill you.

Glancing at my phone, I see the address has not started yet and now knowing how to look into my abilities I continue down the list.

Call of the Night

You are a vampire, a being of the night and it calls to you. When the sun sets and the night begins to shine all your abilities, skills and stats have an increased effectiveness except wisdom. This increase depends on how late it is in the night, the cycle of the moon and the weather. Increases 50%-1000%. Hair and eye color may change too.

Oh that brings back memories. It was about 1000 years ago and it was the night of a blue moon with a perfect sky. I felt as though I could fly. I felt so light and could jump so high.

Endless memory

With an endless life comes the requirement to have an endless memory. You will never run out of ability to remember things.

That explains a lot. When the modern understanding of the human brain and its capabilities came to be more widely known it confused me how I was still functioning. Because I don't care how impressive the human brain is, there was no way any normal brain could hold the amount of information I could recall seeing as I have photographic and Echoic memory.

Eternal Existence

You can not die by any natural means, age nope, sickness yeah right, even some poisons are ineffective against you. For you are a being that will never fade but you still can be extinguished.

Yes I'm immortal moving on.

Eternal Improvement

You have no upper limit, there is no ceiling, just the stars. You can never plateau in your ability to improve. World breaker system effect: for every year you're alive you gain experience faster by 1% current bonus 2135%.

WHAT!?!? Ok let's take a breath and think about this. So from what it looks like depending on the ability the world breaker system will add an effect to an ability. Seeing as how it was this one my only guess was that because the system innately gives the base effect it compensated for this by giving a bonus effect? I don't know. Hmm maybe I could ask Sarah in a roundabout way without giving anything away? Whatever that's for later. But to know that I will be given over a 21 times boost to progress is almost scary.

Eyes of Perfect Darkness

A being of the night needs to be able to see in the darkness. Not even absolute darkness will stop you.

It is nice never having to worry about reading light. It has also saved my life more times than I care to count.

Harmony of the Sun

As an Ancient Vampire you have over the years slowly built up an immunity to the deadly and physically harmful effects of the sun. In other words you don't burst into flames. But even then the sun still saps your strength. Lose 5-40% of stats and ability and skill power depending on the intensity of the sun.

This ability feels like it downplays the effort it was to overcome the power of the sun. It took over 500 years before I could walk out into the sun. Days of pain and chard skins nothing but sheer will power and hope that I could over come the sun boiled down into a couple of sentences is almost insulting. But it was one of the best feelings I have had to be able to feel the sun again.

It was then that Sarah's sweet voice broke me out of my musings. "Hey Vivi, I'm here, where are you?"

"Oh that was fast, I'm in my room upstairs." I called out my door. ‘She got here fast’ I thought to myself

I could hear her walking up the stairs and she replied. "When I got on the street it was a bit crazy, lucky I had a skill chosen that helped me run here faster." That explained it.

She was then at the door frame to my room. She was an above average looking girl with dirty blond hair and a beautiful unique set of emerald green eyes. She stood five foot eight with a fit body and modest curves. She was wearing tie dye yoga pants and a blue tank top.

"Well that's good at least you got here safe." I said with a smile.

She smiled back, took a step forward and then froze in place. Confused, I asked, "What's wrong, are you ok?"

I stood up still in my underwear seeing I hadn’t gotten out of bed yet. But when I did she took a step back to the door.

"You're you're…"

I Cocked my head and stood there Confused.

She then whispered, of which I could hear "A vampire."

My eyes flashed open. Seeing my reaction seemed to confirm it to her. Sitting back down on my bed I sighed. "Well I guess today is just not my day. How did you find out? I could only guess it's the system thing."

Sarah nervously looked at me but did not move.

Rolling my eyes I dead panned to her. “If I ever wanted to do any harm to you I could have years ago what would be the point now.”

“Would you not kill me to keep your secret?” she asked quietly.

“That is a good point but I still don't know how you came to know that I'm a vampire and what good would that do just for someone else to find out whenever I go outside. Even then I was thinking about telling you one day, but that was still a long way down the road.”

“Oh” was all she could manage. I did not want to deal with this right now. ‘Why couldn't this happen I don't know never’ I thought to myself. I fell back down on my bed sighing on my way down and looked at the ceiling.

I then said, “Ask away.”

With slight incredulity in her voice she said “What is there to ask?”

“Now that is a dumb question and we both know it.” I replied. She huffed a bit at that.

“So vampires are real?” she asked after a moment.

“Yes and many more myths and legends.” I sat back up and looked Sarah in the eyes.

“Sarah I don't know what i can say to make it so you will not fear me all i can say is that you finding out what I am does not change the fact that i like you. You have been a good friend to me and I protect and help my friends.”

Sarah was mulling over my words when I glanced over at my phone and saw that the presidential address was about to start.

“Well we can deal with this later and I will answer any questions you have. But the president is about to speak and I would rather not miss it. Do you want to watch it with me or would you feel more comfortable downstairs away from me?"

Sarah hesitated for a moment then creeped her way to my bed and sat next to me.

"See I don't bite unless you want me too." I smiled at her. She had a horrified face for a moment then she got that puffy angry face.

"Stop messing with me will you?" She said,

Giving her a hug I said "Hey but isn't this better. I would never do anything to you. Right now you are my only close friend here and I would rather not have to lose you. Whatever may come of this world as long as you stand by me I will do my best to keep you safe."

"Thank you Vivi." She said while hugging me back.

“Of course, now hush, the address is starting.” I turned up the volume of my phone and watched as the oval office was shown. Sitting behind the desk was a man in his late fifties with streaks of gray running through his hair, clean shaven and in a black business suit. Taking a breath he spoke.

“Citizens of the United States, an event like no other in world history has come to pass. It defies all we know and thought was possible. The world as we know it moving forward will never be the same. But that does not mean we can't adapt and move forward as one united country. As many of you have already found out, an interface of information will appear in your vision should you think of a profile and picture it to come forward. The information presented to you will be much like that of a videogame, giving you information about yourself. At this time we do not know much about the depths of this system, but from what we can gather it seems to follow the typical logic of LitRPG novels. (sigh) At this time, we recommend that you do not class up and if possible read one of the recommended books on the White House page to get an idea about what the system could be like and have an idea about the basics of how it works. As we gather more information we will create a more concise guide on the system as we know it.

Moving on to the land transformations around us we recommend to avoid them as best as possible for the time being. Some of these places are dungeons. If you enter one you will get a notification much like the one we all got a message will appear in your vision announcing you have entered a dungeon. You may also be visited by what we come to know as a dungeon master and they may offer you a title called Dungeon Handler. At this time we recommend you refuse this offer as we do not know the long term effects of this. These dungeons are where creatures of all kinds congregate, breed and spawn. It seems that the creatures just on the inside of these dungeons tend to be lower than level 20. But they are also fairly resistant to conventional firearms. So please do your best to avoid these areas while we come up with a plan to tackle them.

As many of you may have already done, we recommend taking the general ability basic identify. This ability will allow you to see peoples race level and their highest level class. This also applies to every sentient creature, including the dungeon creatures. Information is key and if you find anything of interest we will soon have a page on theWhite House website for you to help us document anything of note you may find.”

The President closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, releasing it as he looked back to the camera with a grim face.

“I'm going to go a bit off script here and talk directly to you, the American people. Not through a pre-written speech. The world has changed in such a way that how we live our lives will break down and change forever. Jobs that ran the world yesterday might not exist tomorrow. What was important yesterday we may never think of again. We will forever be a changed people. If my understanding of how all this works is correct, our country as you know it now may not even exist in a couple of years. But that will only happen if we let it! If we work together to find our way forward and come together as a people to get through this we may find that our country has not fallen. It is not up to me or even the government to determine how our country will change. Never in human history has an event like this happened to completely unroot all power structures. But if you believe in the founding principles of our country and those truths we hold dear then we, not me, not you, but we as a people can stand up, adapt and overcome the trials ahead of us. The world of tomorrow awaits us and what it looks like is up to you. Thank you American people and may God bless America!”