Epic of Vampire: The Crippled Vampire Prince Is Actually The Strongest

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Vlad quickly assessed all his gains and separated the things he would use from the things he would have to sell. He carefully looked at the corpses of the Wild Dogs, the Black Wolf, the Blood Bats, the Blood Bat King, and the Obsidian Skeletons. He first inspected the Wild Dogs and their Black Wolf Boss, the quality of the bones, fangs, claws, horns, and pelt, and if they had any use.

Although tougher than some other animals, the Wild Dogs pelt could only be good for making normal clothes, and he remembers seeing a lot of people using clothes that used their fur, so it was a fairly common ingredient for commoner clothing in the Realm of Obscuritas.

However, they had use for crafting in his eyes.

After inspecting that, he moved to the Black Wolf, and as he had expected, their pelt was very tough, tough enough to easily make most physical blows bounce off of it. It also had a slight amount of magic resistance and good durability.

“Interesting.”

Their bones, however, weren’t as tough as the fangs and claws, so aside from the tough pelt, Vlad discarded the rest and decided to sell it later.

And then, once he was done with the canines, he moved on to inspect something he had some curiosity about: the Blood Bats and their King. These were the monsters that inhabited the second dungeon of Elderbridge.

Despite being bats, they weren’t small at all; the normal Blood Bats were as big as one meter and a half, and their King was a three-meter-tall threat. Their fur was completely red, and their eyes were bright green.

They had very long vampiric fangs, and with them, they could easily drain the life out of anybody, leaving a dried corpse behind. However, with his Heavenly Demon’s buff, Vlad deals with them very easily.

He inspected their pelt and fur durability or effects, and although they were almost as tough as the Wild Dog’s pelt, they had some special effects.

“Nice, these are ideal for me.”

He discovered they had a good resistance against Blood, Darkness, and Curse Magic, and that they somehow reacted when a Vampire wore them, enhancing their defensive effects.

It was ideal for him to make himself some Vampire Equipment!

Aside from their pelt, their bones were weak and not worth anything, but their vampiric fangs were enormous; the smallest were thirty centimeters long, and the King’s fangs were fifty centimeters long.

He tested them on other materials, and the results were incredible!

“Oh damn, not bad.”

They were immensely tough and held the bloodsucking and life-sucking properties even now, as he mercilessly tested the fangs on himself, feeling how the fang was trying to drain his own blood from his arm.

After gently pulling it out to not cause too much damage, his wound slowly regenerates by itself through his False Immortality Skill. He found it very convenient to be a Vampire, as he could experiment on his own body and easily regenerate most wounds quickly.

They definitely could make amazing weapons that could fit both Vlad and Chris's playstyles. They could use them to drain their foes' life force or blood as they fight; who says they have to kill their opponent first?

These fangs were perfect to create weapons that would slowly weaken a foe by draining their life and blood, and then once they’re weak enough, finish it off with a spell like a Fireball.

After that, he moved to the Obsidian Skeleton Bones. The basic durability tests and magic conductivity tests were a success; they were good at conducting Arcana and also very tough.

The way Players or Adventurers dealt with these tough skeletons was by hitting their joints and making them collapse on their own weight by making them lose balance. Once they fell, they would tear their arms and legs apart and crush their skulls.

It was a slow process for low-level players, though, and because there were so many skeletons, it was easy to get swarmed while taking care of only one, which made this Dungeon a literal “newbie killer” area.

It was either going there and risking dying or having a big enough party to handle everything and then divide the loot between everyone, which would net very few earnings.

Unlike other VRMMORPG games out there, Fantasy Story Online was rather tougher in difficulty, and players would die all the time if not prepared or in a party. Even the weakest of monsters is cunning and quick-witted; the Wild Dogs, in particular, are a pain in the ass for any newbie that tries to solo the game.

Having a party of allies is almost essential in the game, and those that can solo are usually already over-leveled and have ridiculously strong skills and equipment. Having already spent a lot of money in the game to progress this quickly, the game hasn’t been out for more than a week after all.

Due to the difficulty, Vlad often noticed players calling this game “the Black Souls of VRMMORPGs,” comparing the game’s difficulty to the famous game franchise popular for its unforgiving difficulty.

Therefore, the skeletons were very tough foes; no newbies dared go against them with a party of less than five players, but the parties usually included ten players, the maximum amount to enter a dungeon.

“Tough and strong, I can’t believe I secured such good loot.”

Vlad felt proud of what he had done, even though any player would call his trait ability a complete cheat, and quite honestly, it was!

Nonetheless, there was another thing about the skeletons: their rusty armor and weapons. After a quick inspection, Vlad learned they were all made of rusted steel, and once he melted them inside his Murim Cauldron, he got pure steel, an already very good material for weapons and armor.

The amount of steel he got from all of this was ridiculous; once he was done, he was sitting on close to fifty of them, all ready to be used in anything he could imagine.

However, what about the black bones? Were they tougher than steel?

He gave it a test, quickly wielding a bone and hitting steel armor with it.

BAAAM!

He did this several times, checking both the item's description and durability. Eventually, once he stopped, he deduced that the bones were tougher and heavier than steel itself!

“Not bad… Not bad at all!”

After having fully inspected everything and satisfying his curiosity, Vlad immediately moved on to the smelting process. The bones were of a texture similar to metal, so he assumed he could melt them like steel.

“Huh?”

But he was terribly wrong!

The moment he tried doing that, the bones, instead of slowly melting into the shiny black liquid metal, started burning and slowly turning into a pile of black ashes!

“N-No way…”

Although they appeared tougher than steel and somehow similar to metal, their composition was still like that of bones, which, once burned enough, would simply turn into ashes.

Without being able to smelt them, he wouldn’t be able to easily convert them into weapons, accessories, and armor.

They were also weak against hot temperatures! Perhaps it was just the innate weakness of the undead against fire that had transferred to their bones.

It was rather natural once he thought about it.

“What happened?” Chris wondered, looking back at Vlad, who was devastated. “Are you okay?!”

“The bones burned,” sighed Vlad. “They are so amazing, but they have such a terrible weakness against Steel. What can I do about this?”

“Hmm? You’re taking this too seriously; just use them differently or something?” wondered Chris. “Didn’t you say your cane was made by combining materials? Do the same with the bones then.”

“Oh, right, yeah.” Vlad calmed down as he heard Chris's words. “Smelting is easy, but I suppose with alchemy, combining or shaping an object should still be possible, right? As long as I can modify their molecular structure somewhat. But would that be too complicated for this game to even have?”

“Worth giving it a try, dude,” Chris smiled back.

“Yeah, you’re not wrong, Chris.” Paul nodded. “Heavenly Demon, got anything to say?”

[“What do you want me to even say? It’s all up to you. But as the bride candidate said there, the Alchemy you’ve learned from me is much different than any other; it is the Art of combining the Elements of Heaven and Earth! Shape, transform, and combine them as you please.”]

"Okay, that’s reassuring enough; let’s do it.”

Vlad immediately started once he heard some encouraging words. The beginning was tough, though; he tried to first combine the obsidian bones with the steel, failing miserably. The bones would end up breaking down the steel and making it weaker.

Eventually, he moved to try something else, mixing the last mithril he had with the bones and the Black Steel from Murim, ignoring the normal Steel.

The first result was lackluster, showing clear flaws, but he continued using the same pile of materials and combining them over and over again.

Eventually, as the cauldron bubbled rapidly, the materials started to meld together better. Paul started to get the gist of using Alchemy, which relied heavily on dexterous and small infusions of Arcana and Soul Aether, while also moving the materials with the tools he had, such as the alchemy gloves.

But above all, his imagination!

He needed to visualize what he wanted the items to become. Slowly, after trying four times, his fifth time ended as a success.

What surged from the cauldron was pitch-black steel, glowing with a strange phantasmal aura, similar to the one the skeletons possessed.

“The hell did you make now?” Chris wondered. “That steel has like an aura! How is that possible?!”

“I-I have no idea…” Vlad smiled out of pure joy.

Crafting and creating new things were super fun, actually.

Although he had a lot of failures, eventually, when he got the last piece of the puzzle done, the result was staggering.

A new type of synthesized metal was made!

He had already created Black Spirit Steel by mixing Black Steel and Mithril together, but now he had made something a bit cheaper to produce.

It was called...

“Phantom Obsidian Steel…”

He quickly inspected the new material’s properties; it possessed the combined toughness of Black Steel and Obsidian Bones, as well as the amazing magic conductivity of the bones.

Above all, it possessed new properties—something phantasmal, an aura of dead souls within it. It seemed to grant the ingot some resistance to dark elements and curses, but there might be more hidden effects he would have to find out later.

“Alright, with this done, let’s move on to the actual crafting. Chris, you’ve been studying diligently, so I’ll get your clothes and weapons done first.” Vlad smiled gently at Chris, his friend.

“Aww, really? You’re too nice!” Chris giggled, feeling overly pampered but accepting it.

“Alright, your clothes... I guess I can combine them with the pelt of the Black Wolf; yeah, I’ll also add some little bits of Phantom Obsidian Steel to see what happens,” Vlad smiled.

As Chris saw Paul crafting and having a lot of fun, he began to wonder what the actual hobbies were that he liked making things so much.

“Do you like making clothes or something, Paul?”

“Huh? Ah… Well, a bit, yeah. I do like sewing. I used to do it, but some years ago I stopped. I’ve been interested in smelting, but it was too expensive of a hobby to even do. But I’ve researched a lot about those things.”

“I see, it makes sense now, you’re a total nutjob for this stuff, haha.”

“Maybe I should just not make your stuff first…”

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to say it in a bad way…”

Chris panicked a bit. Paul had quite the grip on him now that he had become the party’s manufacturer.

“It’s fine; I know what you meant,” laughed Paul. “You’re like that, I guess... Alright, I think I’m mostly done.”

“Already?!”

Chris saw that Paul was moving his hands dexterously and rapidly, sewing the melt together and then putting all the clothes inside the cauldron so the sewed materials would glue together and combine to an extent, creating a more refined result. He also added rings and chains made of Phantom Obsidian Steel to see how it would look.

In the end, Chris's incubus clothes, which were already sexy, became even more amazing, now with a clear punk style to them with black spikes and chains. Chris had to admit that he loved it! He has always been into punk and gothic aesthetics, after all.

Ding!

[Congratulations! You have successfully synthesized the [Black Wolf’s Punk Devil Shorts (B Grade)] x1 [Black Wolf’s Punk Devil Top (B Grade)] x1 [Black Wolf’s Punk Devil Boots (B Grade)] x1!]

[The Subclass Skills: [Alchemy (C): Lv5] [Crafting (D): Lv2] [Runic Engravement (B): Lv2] has Leveled Up!]

[You learned the Subclass Skill: [Sewing (D): Lv1]!]

[The Subclass Skill: [Sewing (D): Lv1] has Leveled Up!]

“It’s done, your whole clothes at least; get them on and try them; they should’ve at least become better,” said Paul. “I imbued some Beast Cores into them too; each piece has one, which might help make your magic a bit stronger.”

“Oh my gosh, thanks; they look so cool! Holy sh*t, I wish I could wear them IRL now…” Chris was fascinated by the clothes.

“Eh? Wouldn’t that look a bit too much IRL…” Paul felt a bit weirded out.

“Ah! I-I mean…” Chris became slightly nervous. “What’s wrong? They’re cool! Shut up.”

As Chris tried out his new clothes, Paul moved on to upgrade his trident and then make the magic bow. It was indeed going to be a long day, but the stronger this little incubus became, the better they would fare inside dungeons.

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