"You gotta be kidding me"

The root in front of him swayed apologetically, though it didn't know what it did wrong, it even felt it did quite well on its evolution

In fact, it did extremely great, it was almost on par with Ellis now, but that wasn't the problem, the problem is that it had a whole system of roots now, making transportation impossible

YuJu stood up with a little wobble, his face was very pale since he used the evolution skill right after his overexertion with the purification skill

"Ellis should be back soon, I think she scoured most of the forest, I don't really want her to see this"

The reason he didn't want her to see the root is that he wouldn't want her to know he had the house as his territory, not yet, he needed to guide her aura away from materialistic objects and useless goals, once it manifested itself on a path he wanted then he would feel free to have her around him without being so secretive

If she really saw him put so much effort into the guarding the house then her aura might bind itself stronger to the idea of nobility, nothing of what he wanted

"It's like I'm raising a child"

Indeed that's how it felt like, a child who would mimic what his parent would do, if he showed a wrong action then she might follow his flawed side for the rest of her life

"How I wish you could move by yourself"

He talked to the root, knowing it half understood him

The root swayed sideways without much of an answer

He sighed and opened up the status, the best way to find a solution is to understand what its new form was

_________________________________

Name: None

Race: Vamperic Root Spirit

Gender: N/A

Level: 14

Class: N/A

STR: 6

AG: 5

VIT: 34

INT: 5

INS: 0.1

AP:15

Titles: FirstBorn: The first of its kind

Gained +10% to all attributes

-Forest Spirit: All stats +15% within Nature biome

Special Status: Contracted Master: Yuju

_________________________________

The stat increase didn't surprise him at all, evolution wasn't a simple increase in strength, it changed the structure of the entire being at times, thus it meant one could transform from a weak bug into a hellish monster with enough resources and strong foundations

As for the FirstBorn title he had heard about it once before, it wasn't anything special, though he recalled it had a 20% increase, but maybe it depended on the rank of the monster

He opened the few notifications to check if anything special happened, but other than the fact that the evolution was affected by his vampire bloodline there wasn't anything new

"Tch, when will my teeth go back to normal"

If he had normally infused some blood within him then it would have probably gone away, but by inserting them into his teeth it became concentrated and hard to get rid of

"Or maybe it stays in other's blood too but isn't apparent?"

He didn't know, either way it didn't affect him much, as long as he was human then it didn't matter whether he had some vampire blood or not

"I'm glad you benefited from it at least"

He patted the root, and it responded by wrapping around his hand gently

Crack

"Huh..."

The root around his arms split from the large root system, those roots then started to dry up and wither, turning the dirt beneath him red

He didn't know what just happened and hastily checked for its status

_________________________________

Name: None

Race: Vamperic Root Spirit

Gender: N/A

Level: 14

Class: N/A

STR: 6

AG: 5

VIT: 15

INT: 5

INS: 0.1

AP:15

Titles: FirstBorn: The first of its kind

Gained +10% to all attributes

-Forest Spirit: All stats +15% within Nature biome

Special Status: Contracted Master: Yuju

_________________________________

Nothing changed but its vitality, and its body hanging on his arm didn't look hurt in any way

"Did it split own its own?"

It was weird but very handy for now

"Well, this makes things much easier"

He called for Anput and handed her the root, then he took out a notebook from his bag and riped a page to write a letter for Subrina before sending it with Anput toward the mansion

"The rest is within your hands Subrina"

He whispered gazing toward the direction of his House

....

Within the mansion, right after YuJu left, Subrina kept standing in her place, she stayed still for a long time, maybe they would come back and take her with them, maybe he would decide to stay with her in the mansion, she didn't want him to leave, not when his absence caused such a great emptiness to well up within her

In the end, she could only turn around with tears in her eyes, he wasn't coming back

"I don't want him to leave me...."

In the beginning, when she saw the proud Ellis cut down those massive rats with ease yet she called that lanky man Master she felt there must be something beneath his normal appearance

She was then proved right after hearing his extensive knowledge of the newly introduced system, she knew he must hold many secrets, intrigue welled up within her coupled with respect for his ability to become so knowledgeable in such a short time

When she heard the wouldn't be taking her with them and his harsh words she was broken and afraid for herself, yet his actions thereafter of explaining to her all night long and not taking advantage of her mended her heart

Finally, gazing at his flawless sleeping face made her realize she had fallen for this man after less than a day of meeting him, it was an insane notion she would have never dined to entertain before this moment, yet here she was, crying over a man that had left her

"My first love, so short lived"

She smiled sadly to herself

She took a step toward the interior of the mansion, that was as far as she could make it before a warm feeling invaded her, it was like she had no resistant to it, no rather she didn't want to have any, it delved deeper into her, reaching her very core, then it left a piece of itself inside before taking a part of her

She felt he emptiness fill up, her tears flowed down and she turned back toward the door

It was him, he didn't leave, he made sure to stay by her side, he looked cold and uncaring yet he took everything in consideration to keep her safe and happy

"Master....I will wait for your return"

She gave a bow toward the door, then moved into the mansion with the motivation of a maiden in love

She started to search through the house for weapons, she knew she may have to fight beasts and humans alike, and she would do her best, so for several hours she prepared traps and barricaded the place

While she was preparing a trap near the balcony using ropes and some weight she heard howles outside

She grabbed a knife and peeked out the window, much to her surprise though it wasn't an unknown beast attacking but Anput calling out for her

She went down in haste and opened the door to let her in, but she only received a vine to her face before Anput rushed back into the direction of the forest

"???"

She was puzzled as she held the vine in her hands, not knowing what it was for until the vine waved its tip in front of her, which was holding a piece of paper

Reading it her face lit up with a smile, she sent another bow toward his direction before preparing a place to accommodate her new friend

...

The sun was setting by the time Ellis came, she had fresh blood on her clothes, probably from chasing down the escapee monstres

She saw YuJu on a tree and walked to him but a sudden waft of iron caught her off guard, making scrunch her face up

She looked to the side and saw the bloody ground being highlighted by the setting sun's red glare, making it look desolate and sad rather than gruesome

Curious as she may be she didn't ask and merely sat next to the tree he was resting on and waited for whatever he had to say

Anput joined them soon after and sat next to Ellis, still YuJu didn't move or speak

He was resting after the tiresome evolution he guided and wanted the two of them to rest as well, furthermore, he wanted to check the new gains

First, he decided to check the House Upgrades, it was a new tab aside from his staus and skills, when he opened it he was greeted with a notification telling him to name the house

'A name for the house huh...'

He didn't know what to name it, it needed to be something grand, something he aspired for his followers for they were what made up the house

'What do I want my servants to become'

He thought hard, he wanted them to reach the apex of this world, to rule it under his command, he wanted the world to be in awe when they thought about them, legends to be made of their adventures, he wanted them to become...

"Myths..."

_________________________________

House Name Set

House Myths

Available Upgrades:

Weather Change: 1 Token

Boime Change: 1 Token

Minor Fortification: 1 Token

House Remodel: 1 Token

.....

.....

_________________________________

The list went on and on, he scrolled through it quickly but didn't see an end to them, so he opened up the Set Upgrades minor tab and saw one upgrade in there

_________________________________

Mystic Haze: The house is shrouded by a dark haze rendering all divination and magical scouting useless

_________________________________

He guessed this came from him, apparently what he owned was directly affected by himself, whether it was through a title, skill, or directly because of his blood

'Right now I don't know what tokens are, and I don't think I will be getting an answer soon since I never heard of houses, this must be put aside for a while then'

Done with the House Upgrades he moved on to the second new tab, the Entourage

This one was much simpler than the upgrades, it only had two categories housing a systematic tree, one square at the top of each category that branched out into other squares, to the side of each category was a portrait

The category with the title Soul Maid had Subrina next to it and the one with the title Soul Guard had the root's picture next to it

'Is this like setting up the head maid and head guard?'

He felt his guess was spot on, so after thinking about it for a bit he decided to set Subrina as the head maid, as for the head guard....he decided to keep it empty for now

There wasn't any change when he set her, he was slightly disappointed but also glad he didn't get any more surprises

Finally, he decided to check his new three skills

_________________________________

Master's Grace: Your Worthy Servants shall be Graced by your existence

Contract-SoulMaid: Allows you to contract a Maid to your Soul (1/3)

Contract-SoulGuard: Allows you to contract a Guard to your Soul (1/1)

_________________________________

The word 'Grace' had appeared once before when he got the stat bonus, at that time Ellis and Mia were graced by his increase as well, then it appeared in the form of this skill when it gave Subrina her "Sleepless" Talent but didn't activate when he contracted the root as a guard, he was clueless about its conditions before and he was still just as clueless after reading the skills description

'How did some of them become worthy'

He thought about it hard but noticed the only glaring difference between the root, Anput, and the other three is that the ones graced were human, well in case of Mia it was half-human

'We will see what happens when I get another human slave'

He shot a short glance toward the maid and guard positions before closing the skill tab

'Im becoming stronger slower than I planned, but at the same time I am discovering so much about this class, it feels like this class was meant for the use of us humans, a race where one succeeds by depending on the power of banding together'

He smiled looking at the now starry sky, if there was anything he loved after the apocalypse was the clear night sky that you couldn't see with all the pollution from before

'I guess I will just have to wait and see how things will play out'

He didn't like the feeling of leaving it to fate but he didn't mind playing along sometimes