∼ Day 81 ∼ [LVL: 60 - Human "Lily Zephyrous" has been afflicted with the Blood Plague!]

Smiling as the voracious woman drank my blood, I closed the wound leaking my potent essence seeing as Lily had already gotten more than enough to infuse her with the highest quality of the Blood Plague.

The abrupt cut-off of my blood elicited a whimper of displeasure. As she pulled back and looked into my eyes, it was obvious that she was going to protest, but her eyes suddenly glazed over, indicating that she had gotten a prompt. But that fact actually rather confused me as no human before who has drunk my blood before had ever gotten a notification - or at least not immediately.

Generally, my blood was a very slow-working effect that would rather bring out potential rather than granting immediate benefit and power.

"Was it different because of the circumstances?" I wondered curiously, however, now wasn't the time to ask such questions. Lily was clearly invigorated by my potent and vigorous blood, but she needed some time to collect her personality before anything else. For a woman like her, divulging her past like that wasn't anything easy, and keeping up her composure was something that would allow for her to focus on.

"Go rest," I said gently. "We'll speak tomorrow."

She didn't say a word, nodding a bit hesitantly. Turning to leave, she suddenly stopped, giving me a teary-eyed gaze.

"Thank you." She said quietly, disappearing from sight as jumped off the building's roof.

Laying down with my feet dangling off the edge of the roof, I stared into the beautiful azure sky dotted with the occasional fluffy white cloud.

Although I wouldn't deny that I enjoy all the fighting and bloodshed, this is nice too.

"Tranquility and hardship, you won't be able to appreciate either without the other," I muttered to myself, content with where my life was going.

I still had an endless journey ahead of me, but for now, it was just perfect...

Getting down from the building myself, I made my way to the large tent that Mia and I had been using whenever camp was erected on our journey. I was getting rather tired seeing as I had barely slept in the last two days, not also mentioning the fighting.

However, the moment I entered the tent, I suddenly discovered that maybe... I wasn't all that tired really...

Laying under the beast furs of our bedding, a very much naked Mia slept, her body only somewhat covered, something that just made the scene all that much more enticing.

Noticing the slight peeking of a closed eye, it was more than obvious whether this 'unfortunate' scene was intentional or not.

"Little nymph..." I muttered gaily as I began unbuckling my pants.

***

Standing in an open and studded field adjacent to the settlement currently under repair and construction, I stood in front of a motley gathering of all the strongest individuals of my tribe. Mia, Bob, Rena, Grul, and so-on. I even had Darkan and Lily also gathered here, although Darkan especially seemed rather confused as to why.

I couldn't say that Lily was an exact member of the tribe yet since I hadn't yet broached the subject with her, and also considering the fact that she was a human, not a monster. But whether or not Lily was part of the tribe, it really didn't matter.

Most just saw her as a slave of the master, however, that didn't mean that they looked down on her at all, in fact, being the master's personal slave was an even higher status than merely being a tribe member. So in their eyes, Lily was not one to cross; and that wasn't even taking into account the immense power that she herself wielded.

Shaking my wandering thoughts from my head, I called out to everybody gathered.

"I know you're confused why I called you all here," I paused with a smile. "But worry not, I just wished to see your progress so far. So let's see how you all have improved during our arduous journey," I said to the suddenly brightening faces of everybody.

Pulling up their statuses with Appraisal, I started with Mia.

-Appraisal!-

Appraisal - Mia Tal'chor

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "Mia Tal'chor" STR 18 Skills 12 -Race- Drow VIT 30 Traits 7 -Sex- Female AGI 32 Titles 1 -Rank- E DEX 22 Resistances

-Level- 28/35 INT 31 Health 192/192 CHR 48 Physical Resistance 9 Stamina 68/68 WILL 15 Magical Resistance 16 Mana 36/36 MAG 65 Mental Resistance 5

I was immensely happy to see her rapid improvement, but even more so at the fact that she was quickly approaching her next evolution. But just as I was about to praise her for her hard work, I realized one startling difference in her status from the last time I had appraised it.

"Her name is..."

"Uhhhh, Mia?" I asked, befuddlement clearly tinging my voice.

"Yes, Master?" She replied chipperly.

"Have you noticed that your name has changed?"

"Yes." She beamed happily although I now looked wholly non-plussed.

"How come you haven't told me about it or mentioned it before?" I asked.

"Oh," She muttered, now also seemingly confused. "I... thought you knew?"

"Huh... no, I didn't," I replied dryly. "Do you know what it means?"

"No, not really... It was just there a few days before you returned, but through our mental connection, I could feel it was from you." She hesitated. "To me... it feels like a symbol of bond - our family."

Now extremely curious, I shot a glance towards Lily who was staring listlessly off into the distance, clearly not having listened at all as she was caught up in her own thoughts.

"Lily?" I probed a bit worriedly since I thought she would've already been back to her old self from what happened yesterday. "You okay?"

Snapping out of her daze as my voice broke through to her, she returned an uncharacteristically cheerful smile back at me.

"What?" She said, somewhat frazzled. "Sorry, I think I was daydreaming..."

"No - no, it's okay," I chuckled a bit awkwardly, not sure if this was even the same Lily I knew of. "I just wanted to ask if you knew anything about monster names and surnames."

"Surnames?" She muttered curiously. "I know a bit about monsters and how they get their names, however, I don't believe I've ever heard of a monster having a surname..."

Trailing off, her eyes widened. "Wait... do you have one?"

Not seeing any reason to hide this as Lily had already dipped her feet too deep in my relations to ever back out again, I nodded. "I do; and surprisingly enough, so does Mia."

Curiosity flaring in her azure-blue eyes, Lily approached us, her demeanor of confidence and charm finally making a return.

"Well, surnames actually hold tangible power since the system recognizes families and bloodlines by it." She explained. "It's one of the things we're taught in Mordria that proves that humans are of the enlightened races whereas wild monsters typically don't even have a name to begin with."

"Really?" I muttered, pondering the implications of me having one.

Remembering back to when I originally got the name, the prompt said what I got wasn't just a 'name' but a 'true name'. However, what did that even mean?

Although I couldn't figure that out, it must have something to do with the fact that I was a monster have a surname, whereas none of the other monsters I've encountered so far didn't have any.

But seeing as Mia had also gained my surname, it could almost only be because she was my wife - my bonded.

"Would that then mean that my future lineage would go by the name of 'Tal'chor'?" I pondered. "Could that be what a 'true name' meant?"

Curious, I did something I hadn't done for a long time; I asked the system.

-System, what does a True Name mean?-

[You lack the prerequisites for this knowlegde]

Grumbling to myself, I could only put it aside for now. The reason for me dropping the matter being that I needed more information about this world to figure out such things.

So, moving on, I pulled up Bob's status.

-Appraisal!-

Appraisal - Bob

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "Bob" STR 53 Skills 10 -Race- Draugr VIT 62 Traits 5 -Sex- Male AGI 23 Titles 1 -Rank- E+ DEX 27 Resistances

-Level- 20/35 INT 12 Health 268/268 CHR 6 Physical Resistance 14 Stamina 181/181 WILL 18 Magical Resistance 7 Mana 0/0 MAG 5 Mental Resistance 6 Sanguine Champion

It was also good to see that Bob was shaping up to become quite the destructive force, and I told him exactly so, awarding me with his characteristic goofy smile of elation. He was, and most likely would always be, a sucker for praise and positive-reinforcement.

Moving on, we had Rena and Grul.

-Appraisal!-

Appraisal - Rena

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "Rena" STR 52 Skills ??? -Race- Blood Orc VIT 66 Traits ??? -Sex- Female AGI 42 Titles ??? -Rank- D- DEX 30 Resistances

-Level- 5/50 INT 18 Health 405/405 CHR 12 Physical Resistance 12 Stamina 208/208 WILL 19 Magical Resistance 6 Mana 0/0 MAG 9 Mental Resistance 5 Sanguine Warleader Appraisal - Grul

Information Attributes

Traits. Titles. and Skills -Name- "Grul" STR 65 Skills ??? -Race- Blood Orc VIT 69 Traits ??? -Sex- Male AGI 36 Titles ??? -Rank- D- DEX 25 Resistances

-Level- 4/50 INT 15 Health 430/430 CHR 8 Physical Resistance 12 Stamina 240/240 WILL 19 Magical Resistance 6 Mana 0/0 MAG 9 Mental Resistance 5 Sanguine Warleader

Because it hadn't been that long since they had evolved and that it was much harder to level as a 4th-tiered monster, it wasn't surprising that they had only acquired four or five levels. However, it was still clear that Limit Breaker was still working magic for them as even those meager gains were astronomical when considering the time frame.

Together with Bob, I had put them in the vanguard ever since having met with those Great Orc clan chiefs and embarked on our journey to this basin paradise. So it was safe to say that they had managed to rack up a considerable amount of EXP by literally carving a path of slaughter through the wildlife all the way here.

That reminded me, I never did get to take the twins and all the other important figures of my tribe out to hunt and grow stronger. Making a mental note of that, I promised myself that it was something that I needed to get done soon.

With the twins done, I got to appraise the various other figures here until I felt like I finally had a good grasp on the tribe's overall strength.

However, I wasn't satisfied with just knowing their statistics. Individual strength was another matter entirely from just numeric values, so that could only be witnessed first-hand.

Grinning at the many faces looking curiously at me, I prepared for what came next.

It was time to see what the strength ranking of everybody was...