Vampire's Chronicles: Multiverse Online

The Academy of Crimson Echoes didn't ease students in, it hurled them straight into the deep end.

Thalos had expected that. What he hadn't expected was how different everyone else seemed from the moment they began.

The morning bell rang like a sword striking marble. Students gathered in wide circular fields outside the central tower, each group divided by path and specialization. For Spellblade Initiates, a class of roughly twenty stood waiting in full uniform robes woven with enchanted threads, blades glowing faintly with runes, and eyes filled with the quiet confidence of upbringing and preparation.

Thalos, wearing a plain leather coat and standard-issue training gear, stood out like an oil stain on white silk.

He wasn't alone in his lack of grandeur. A few others around him bore similar plain equipment low-bloods, like himself. But the rest? He could tell by the way they carried themselves: these were students raised in noble houses, groomed for cultivation, supplied with potions and instruction since their first blood awakening.

Thalos hadn't even drawn his first rune before entering the academy.

A tall, pale man with a sharp jaw and a gaze like cold steel strode onto the practice field. His long black coat bore the red crest of the academy's inner council.

"I am Instructor Vahl," he announced. "You've chosen the Spellblade path or rather, it has chosen you. This is not a path for the lazy or uncertain. You will train your body and refine your magic in tandem. Those who fail to keep pace will be reassigned or worse, discarded."

A ripple of tension moved through the class.

"Today, we begin at the root," Vahl continued. "Most of you already know the basics of sigil scripting, mana thread shaping, and energy balance. But not all. So we'll start by making sure you speak the language of magic before trying to wield its blade."

Thalos felt his shoulders loosen slightly. So they weren't all being thrown into the fire just yet.

Still, he knew the real fire was coming soon enough.

The morning class split into three stations. Thalos was assigned to Foundations of Magical Manipulation.

The instructor, a middle-aged woman with silvery-black hair braided in coils, introduced herself as Instructor Ydira.

"We'll begin with mana drawing. Not spellcasting, not threading just drawing it from your blood core into your hand."

She clapped her palms, and a small, clean flame appeared in front of her no larger than a candle's flicker.

"Simple. Stable. This is your first gate. Blood, meet light."

Most of the noble-borns instantly produced faint glows in their palms. Some even shaped them into floating glyphs or gentle pulses of flame.

Thalos stared at his hand.

He remembered the vague tug of blood enhancement back home, his only real exposure to magic. It had been more instinctual than anything push mana into muscle, feel the burn, swing harder.

But this?

This was precision, control and art. 

He closed his eyes and tried to reach inward.

Nothing.

Then he tried again slowly, gently, like coaxing a sleeping beast awake.

A faint warmth flickered in his chest.

He pulled.

Something responded.

A flicker of red-glow lit in his palm for half a second… before sputtering out like a dying coal.

He gritted his teeth.

Ydira passed behind him, paused, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Too forceful. Magic responds better to rhythm than brute strength. Think like a river, not a hammer."

He nodded silently and tried again.

By the end of the first session, most students had drawn glowing spheres, spinning sigils, or even small elemental sparks.

Thalos had managed a consistent red glimmer. No shape. No form. Just light.

He wasn't surprised. But it still stung.

After class, he stayed behind.

"Instructor Ydira," he asked quietly, "can I practice in the sigil hall after hours?"

She raised an eyebrow. "You're… Thalos, correct?"

He nodded.

Her expression softened. "You're behind but willing. That counts for more than you know."

She handed him a secondary manual and whispered the access rune for the outer chamber.

"Just don't burn out," she said.

He bowed gratefully.

The second half of the day returned to the martial portion: Blade & Body. For Thalos, this part felt more familiar. He'd trained for a month with his father and siblings. He knew footwork. He understood stamina. He could spar, block, and strike, not gracefully, but competently.

Still, even here, he noticed the gulf.

Some students enhanced their movements subtly with mana. Others used low-level bloodline techniques that made them faster, stronger, more fluid.

Thalos fought raw.

He kept his balance. He dodged. He got bruised but not broken.

Instructor Vahl made no comments. But one of the assistant instructors nodded once when Thalos landed a clean parry on a heavier student.

That night, he logged the moment in his journal.

In his dorm room, lit by a dim mana-lamp, Thalos scribbled out his notes. His handwriting was sharp and cramped, a sign of focused energy.

Observations:

- Mana shaping requires more finesse than strength.

- Highborn students rely on refined mana threads. Unlikely to work for me yet.

- Blood core usage still inefficient. Need to research stabilization techniques.

- Physical foundation solid but lacks enhancement efficiency.

He leaned back on his cot and stared at the ceiling.

He was one of the weakest here. That much was clear.

...

By the end of the second day, most students were already complaining about sore muscles, overactive mana channels, and the taste of bitter enhancement tonics.

Thalos hadn't touched a single tonic.

He couldn't afford them.

But he didn't complain either.

He came to the academy with low expectations, not of the place, but of himself. Not because he lacked pride, but because he wanted reality to sharpen him, not fantasy.

On the third morning, Thalos attended his Alchemy Principles elective.

The classroom was more like a cross between a greenhouse and a forge. Rows of herbs, powders, bone dust, preserved monster parts, and steaming cauldrons lined the stone counters. The air smelled of burnt leaves and crushed spirit root.

The instructor was a thin man named Master Grenth, whose eyes were so black they looked like twin droplets of ink.

"You are not here to become master potion-makers," Grenth announced flatly. "You are here to understand what you ingest, what you burn, and what you crush into dust and swallow like fools."

The first hour was spent identifying twenty common magical herbs. The second, watching a demonstration of a muscle reinforcement tincture.

The third hour?

Grenth asked the class who could explain the risk of bloodline conflict caused by mixing root of ironbark and liquified silvermoss.

Three students raised their hands.

Thalos wasn't one of them. But he wrote down everything.

And later that evening, he would borrow two old manuals from the archive to read up on potion synergy.

"If I can't buy them," he reasoned, "I'll make them."

During Magical Beast Ecology, Thalos overheard a group of highblood students whispering near the back of the open-air amphitheater.

"He's the one, right? The nobody vampire?"

"They said he didn't even know what a sigil was until yesterday."

"Low-bloods shouldn't be in this curriculum. Let him chase sword drills like the brutes."

Thalos didn't react. He kept his gaze on the floating illusion of a dismembered bone drake the instructor was dissecting with a flick of her wand.

He was already used to the whispering.

To the glances.

He wasn't here to defend his pride. He was here to build his power.

When it came to Cursecraft, Thalos finally felt a flicker of genuine connection.

The instructor, Mistress Veiran, was a short, ancient-looking vampire with icy blue eyes and a voice like a whispering blade.

"Curses are not hatred. They are not anger. They are precision. Art. They are the knife behind the smile."

Thalos was mesmerized.

The class began with learning how to inscribe a simple Crippling Mark into one's own blood circuit. It didn't actually damage anyone, it was meant to disrupt flow. But the process required meticulous thread control and focus.

His first five attempts were failures.

But on the sixth try slow, steady, and guided by a rhythm in his breathing, he saw the mark flicker to life on the back of his palm.

He stared at it, lips parting slightly.

Not from amazement.

But from realization.

"I can do this."

While his magic was shaky and his knowledge base shallow, Thalos began to find steadiness in the physical.

Blade & Body drills became his sanctuary.

He ran footwork patterns twice for every once the class required. He stayed after hours to repeat the blade forms ten more times, alone under the fading bloodlight of the training courtyard. Sometimes his hands blistered. Sometimes his legs gave out.

But he never missed a drill.

And slowly, steadily, his strikes stopped being wide. His balance improved. His stamina extended.

No one praised him.

But one of the assistant instructors began to leave a water flask by the edge of the field before disappearing without a word.

That was enough.

Thalos also made a point to watch the top students.

He couldn't imitate their techniques exactly, many relied on elixirs or high-efficiency blood cores he couldn't match. But he could copy their habits.

He noted how they breathed while forming a sigil.

The way they adjusted their feet before starting a blade form.

He memorized the angles of their fingers during mana flow.

And at night, he recreated their steps in his journal, complete with crude diagrams and arrows.

By the fifth day, he was beginning to understand just how important his Traits truly were.

Most students didn't notice how often they repeated the same steps without real refinement. Even with potions and guides, they plateaued quickly, relying more on resources than introspection.

Thalos, on the other hand, had Quick Learner. Every failure taught him more. Each mistake carved deeper memory. It wasn't flashy but it compounded.

Then there was Adaptive Soul, a gift few noticed at first glance. Every time he leveled up, all his stats gained a +1 boost. It wasn't an elixir. It wasn't a ritual. It was permanent, reliable, and free.

And lastly… Blood Resonance.

He hadn't dared overuse it yet. But in moments of exhaustion, after long hours of sparring or sigil drawing, he would bite a stored blood pouch, and feel the surge ripple through him. His muscles knit. His mind cleared. His stats temporarily rose just enough to let him push again.

It gave him something most others lacked: renewal.

A second wind.

He didn't shine now, but one day?

He just might blaze.

On the sixth day, the class held a group review session. Students were asked to demonstrate what they'd learned and spar in friendly exchanges.

Thalos was paired with a girl named Mirae, a spellblade from a minor noble house who specialized in wind-augmented movement. Her strikes were fluid, her threads precise, and her footwork barely touched the floor. Every motion she made seemed to dance just out of reach.

Thalos held his ground.

He didn't win.

But he lasted.

He read her rhythms. Adjusted. Bled some energy into footwork and breathing. And when she overextended on a low sweep, he punished it scoring a shallow cut along her side. It wasn't deep, but it was clean.

As the instructor called the match, Mirae brushed her uniform and glanced down at the mark.

Then she looked at Thalos.

"Not bad... for a low-blood."

She turned before he could reply, voice tossed over her shoulder.

"Let's see how long that lasts once the real lessons start."

It wasn't praise.

But it wasn't dismissal either.

It was a warning.