City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

Invitation

The two young girls soon started to fight over the youth openly. Although only the more talented youths had the right to choose their partners, if a willing couple applied to be given to each other the request would be granted unless someone with such a right interfered. The number of such youths in the family was limited.

This was even more true of those with the right to choose multiple partners. Even if Wennington, Demi, and Venica had two choices because of their talent and parentage, their choices still needed to go through higher authority in the family. Richard was the only special one here, with the right to choose whomsoever he desired. If he chose someone like Venica, her rights would automatically be waived. His position allowed him to overlook the laws set within the family.

Just as Richard was immersed in his train of thought, he saw Demi leave the group of people surrounding her and suddenly walking towards him.

“I’m Demi, I can be considered your younger sister.”

“Richard.”

Demi was almost as tall as Richard himself. Her crimson hair was coiled up, and there was a blazing flame ignited in the depths of her pupils, a sign of her bloodline awakening. It was quite rare for any Archeron to awaken their bloodline at a mere fifteen years of age.

The girl was also gorgeous, her arrogance only adding to the charm of her figure. That arrogance was not unfounded— she did possess great power. She wasn’t just any level 10 mage, instead a cursemaster which was very rare.

Necromancy was a branch of magic. Cursemasters were weak at the start of their training, but proceeded to grow increasingly strong over time. Past level 10 they could easily keep up with mages of the same level. Their best abilities were at reducing an opponent’s power and distracting them. Unless one had extremely strong mana reserves, anyone who met a cursemaster would get a headache. At level 10 cursemasters could even unleash group attacks, which only served to show how truly terrifying they were on the battlefield.

Demi looked straight into Richard’s eyes as she stood so close to him her breasts almost came in contact. Her chest shifted up and down as she breathed, occasionally brushing against Richard as she spoke in a slightly husky voice.

“Richard, I’ve been following Father to planar battles for a year now, and am now a qualified mage in the army. You should already know of my strength through the profiles you’ve been given,” she said proudly.

Richard was shocked by her words. She’d followed Gaton into the planes at such a young age? Real battlefields were unpredictable, everchanging. A strong army could be distracted from protecting her on the battlefield, and mages were a priority target second only to clerics.

It was only then that Richard fully understood Demi’s arrogance. The girl was full of potential, and she was very wild. A true Archeron.

He carefully examined her as per habit, but due to their proximity couldn’t take in her entire body. When he looked down his vision was occupied by her breasts, the data on them growing prominent to him. As per habit as a runemaster, he classified them on a scale of one to seven.

Demi’s breasts were an undoubted 4, while Venica was closer to 5. As for 6 and 7, even if they weren’t only present in legends like equivalent runes he hadn’t seen any yet.

However, he’d known trouble was coming when Demi approached. He stopped all these weird thoughts, replying politely, “Yes, I was quite surprised when I saw your profile. Cursemasters are quite rare— if one doesn’t have the gift it will be hard to bring out the true power of their spells. Pardon me, but if I’m not wrong you’ve already awakened a bloodline ability, no?”

“Yes. My bloodline ability increases the effectiveness of my spells,” Demi said with pride.

Richard was surprised once more, reevaluating the girl in front of him. Bloodlines were divided into greater and lesser in the world, and the same held true for the abilities they granted. The common classification in Norland had four different types of bloodline— A lesser bloodline, an intermediate bloodline, a greater bloodline, and a legendary bloodline. The classification was based on the level and number of powers one’s bloodline could grant. Lower bloodlines only granted three or less, but each descendant had a greater chance of unlocking their powers. A middle bloodline could get between three and ten, while greater bloodlines could awaken even more types. As for legendary bloodlines, they only came from ancient, horrifying creatures. The chance of awakening such a bloodline was as low as advancing to the legendary realm. At least in the Sacred Alliance, there was not a single family with a legendary bloodline.

Normally one could only unlock a single bloodline ability. A few lucky souls could have two or three, but they were usually born into lower bloodlines anyway. The higher the grade of one’s bloodline, the lower the chance of awakening. This also corresponded with the plane’s rules, creating a pyramid of survival.

Bloodline abilities in Norland were divided into seven categories themselves, just like runes were. They were ranked in order of power and number of uses, with levels 6 and 7 basically existing only in legends. From their usage, they could be divided into skills, talents, and special powers. Skills were most common, referring to things that increased one’s ability when called upon. This included those like Richard’s own Eruption, which could increase one’s strength and speed by half a fold to a fold. Eruption was normally just a level 1 power, but in Richard’s case it was strong enough to be level 2.

Talents were far rarer, and correspondingly much stronger as well. This was similar to Demi’s increased spell effects, falling into level 3 as an ability. There were many similar to this in the category, such as increased spell damage, increased penetration of spells, accelerated casting, and the like. The best talent of all was penetration, which reduced the effects of an opponent’s resistance to magic, but the increased damage was good as well. As for other talents like silent casting and instant casting, they were categorised as level 4 and 5 due to their rarity.

Special powers were extremely rare and strong, most at level 4 or above. One example was Sharon’s greater summoning, which empowered her summoning spells greatly enough to boost her power by a level or two. It was extremely close to being a level 6 ability.

However, in comparison to the billions of people in Norland, the number of families with a special bloodline was less than a tenth. Besides, having a powerful bloodline didn’t mean being able to awaken it. Take the Archerons for example— in their centuries of existence less than a thousand tombstones had made it to the family tombs. This showed how rare it was to awaken one’s bloodline. However, this also made families with special bloodlines superior to the rest. Even for the Archerons, with the difficulty of awakening their bloodlines, they’d become so accomplished in a mere few centuries of existence.

But then again, one’s bloodline wasn’t everything. Even if one had the best bloodline abilities like greater summoning, a level 15 warrior could easily kill a level 10 mage with one stroke. Even if one could summon a level 7 storm bear instead of a level 5 boar, even if they could summon multiple, the warrior would slaughter them in the blink of an eye.