Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Having attained the glorious victory she wanted, Haylee smiled as she was transported out of the battlefield, appearing at the resting area the next second, where she was met with a Michael that though was clearly proud of her, also wanted to scold her for fighting in such a reckless way without explaining the changes in her fighting style/element.

One couldn’t blame Michael for being worried, he has known Haylee since they both had use of reason, so he is used to her poison and control tactics, and now she suddenly changed to close combat and physical reinforcement of some sort.

”Don’t look at me like that, though I obtained ”swamp” affinity is not like I lost my original ones, with proper training I should be able to use both simultaneously by the time I reach the Lord ranks…”, mumbled Haylee just to be interrupted midway by Michael who somehow had crossed ten metes without being noticed by let alone Haylee, but even Calvin.

”Silly girl, I’m proud of your progress, just don’t think of yourself as a burden ever again, we did what we had to and would do it again if needed without a second of hesitation”, he said as he brought Haylee into his embrace.

Considering his and Calvin’s experience during their challenge, he had understood that their reward aligned with their desires and needs to a certain extent, so how could he not notice that Haylee awakened that strange affinity which basically nullified all physical damage so that he wouldn’t need to worry about her survivability in future fights.

Unlike Calvin, Michael is a person of few words, well, except when he is with Calvin since the desert coyote young master manages to exasperate him enough to make him way more expressive than normal and Haylee knows it, so she was taken aback by this public demonstration of affect.

”That was amazing, I still do believe my Loren will perform better though”, jokingly said Calivin from the side, destroying the romantic atmosphere between those two.

”Would it kill you remain silent for a damn minute, Calvin Bastard”, said Michael while gritting his teeth.

”Humph says the shrimp who interrupted my quality time with Loren”, retorted Calvin and before they noticed they were both arguing like cats and dogs, very much for the amusement of Haylee and Loren who limited to cover their mouths while giggling.

…

Leaving the merry atmosphere at the resting area aside, high up into the sky things weren’t as harmonious, Sheilla just saw Garak being killed not even a minute after she accepted a bet with Sarah and couldn’t help but feel scammed.

It’s not like she didn’t expect Garak to lose, heck, she was already planning to get his corpse since that power he used might be of a huge use for her Lord, what angered her is how easy the tables were turned, it was almost as if… the green haired girl was waiting for her to accept the bet to win just to humiliate her.

No, she was sure that was the case, given how Sarah has been mockingly gazing at her ever since they both agreed to the bet.

”Want to make another bet~”, said the crazy girl with a smirking expression on her pretty face, while tightly holding onto Daimon’s arm.

’This bitch!’, Sheilla trembled due to anger, unfortunately for her, the barrier prevented her from taking any action, so she could only swallow her anger and wish for the last round to end as soon as possible so that she could vent her anger on the enemy.

Sheilla wasn’t the only one wanting to see the fight, Daimon was also paying special attention to it, not only because it was the last round and as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he felt curious as to what has the crazy girl in the store for her fight, tgiven that Reyne had quite a nice performance earlier.

But also, because Jade’s fight will be the last ”hint” that those girls will give him to discern the basics of dynamics of their newly acquired powers and this seems to be an important thing for Scarlet and the others, so Daimon was taking it seriously.

He could imagine Ruby, Lapis and maybe even Jade being playful just for the sake of it, given that they were relatively carefree even back then, but Scarlet and Amber were much serious since they were in charge of the group as the eldest ones so if they went along with it there must be a proper reason.

’Well, they all got ”livelier” recently but I doubt this game has no deeper meaning considering how they are now able to locate me without me knowing how they do it’, thought Daimon.

Even Scarlet and Amber showed some kind of expectation when they were showing their newly acquired abilities to him after all and even now the usually pacific Jade seemed raring to go, not to mention she actually became a knight piece when Daimon would have thought she would have become a tower given her elemental affinity.

Speaking of Jade, back at the battlefield, the barrier finally disappeared allowing the two participants to start the fight, not even a second had passed and the opponent, a pirate from the Maelstrom Sea, who was also a bishop piece and a Lord ranked mage, had already run into the distance while casting long distance wide area spells at Jade.

”Violent Rain!”.

”Hammer Gale!”.

Despite being the last one remaining from Sheilla’s team, the pirate wasn’t exactly a weakling, for starters, he actually had two affinities, water and wind, which is understandable considering he has ancestors from a lot of different races like most humans who live in the Maelstrom Sea as nomads.

Also, as a pirate he of course was a battle-oriented mage, meaning that he probably chose to be a bishop piece since he had no say in the role distribution, so he went for long distance and mana reserves boost which is not a bad deal for a mage.

”Booom!” needle like drops of water descended from the sky, raining all over Jade to then be followed by a powerful current of wind that produced a huge shockwave, it’s worth mentioning that the pirate didn’t even bother to look at the result and simply kept moving while casting his next round of spells.

”Elemental Dance, First Step, Wind”, from within the curtain of dust created by the enemy’s attacks, Jade’s mellow voice could be heard, the next second the dust was instantly dispelled to reveal a Jade who was perfectly fine, there was a green cyclone spiraling around her, which was what blocked the enemy’s spells.

Or more accurately it deflected them, which is what caused the dust curtain, since the spells impacted the surrounding area instead of directly clashing against Jade, who now took a single step from her previous position

”A defense specialized mage with high mobility, a strange choice for a knight piece… or perhaps you also had to be whatever piece was left due to favoritism, being underestimated and left for the end is surely annoying, right?”, said the pirate trying to get a reaction from Jade.

’Come on, give me a little opening’, thought the pirate just to fail miserably, realizing that let alone showing any kind of hesitation, Jade hadn’t even moved from her position.

One had to give it to Marcus, his subordinates were actually trying to use their brains to a certain extent, not to mention they were indeed stronger than what others expected, the only problem is that these ”tactics” weren’t ideated for them, in fact Daimon who was observing the fight was sure that it wasn’t even Marcus’s doing.

’Back then, that guy easily lost his cool and blindly charged, so this must be that black haired woman’s doing’, thought Daimon.

After learning about how Dorian was duped by his system’s administrator’s Gwen, Daimon had started to pay more attention to the administrators and their possible impact in battles, Daimon couldn’t be blamed for not really paying much attention to that aspect before, since for him Marcus and Adam weren’t real threats, so even if their administrators guided them, they were still too arrogant to represent a real trouble.

Then Freya and Karla appeared and changed his way of viewing administrators, as they proved that they could temporarily stay behind with some restrictions, even after their users had died or were in a limbo of some kind in Ereth’s case.

But it was Gwen the one who solidified his worries, as she manipulated Dorian from the very beginning for her benefit, got away with it and earned ”true” freedom thanks to it, if her scheme to obtain Thalia’s body didn’t fail, who knows what kind of consequences had there been.

’Oh well, I guess this time I will be actually fighting system users that listen to their administrators, also it’s not like I don’t have administrators on my side’, amusingly thought Daimon, which made the ethereal silver armor as well as the winged pendant he was wearing, shine in an unnoticeable way for a fraction of a second.

Back at the fight, the pirate frowned, not understanding why wasn’t Jade moving, but since it worked for his purposes and he could tell that she wasn’t casting as there was no mana radiating from Jade, he gave up in trying to provoke her.

”Tsk”, after clicking his tongue, the pirate finished his casting and launched the second barrage of attacks.

”Jet Blade!”

”Razor Tornado!”.

This time the pirate changed the order, first the smaller area but stronger output attack, namely the water jet which was basically a high-pressure stream of water with a reduced width to maximize impact, landed first, to then be followed by a wide area sharp wind spell.

The idea was to use a heavy water attack to disrupt the wind defensive spell of the enemy, since wind spells would drag the water into them, which would slow and wear them out, to then use the razor tornado block Jade in case she tried to dodge and guarantee a hit.

In theory it was a good plan that would have helped the pirate to at least get some progress… if her affinity was actually wind, but Daimon knew that wasn’t the case, the Drea race to which Jade belonged, was closer to Amber’s race the Terrarians.

As in their race’s affinities had a thing in common, they were related to earth, the difference being that while a Terrarian’s talent focused in strength and physical offensive aspects, while a Drea’s talent was in sensing and magical defense.

That being said, a light of surprise shone in Daimon’s eyes as he heard Jade’s next words.

”Elemental Dance, Second Step, Water”, this time there was no obstruction to the sight, so everyone could see the moment the enemy’s attacks landed on Jade, who elegantly took one step ahead, dispelling the wind spiral current that was protecting her, only for a cascade-like barrier to replace it.

”Splash!”, splashing sounds were produced as the water jet met the cascade wall, the horizontal pressure clashed against the ascending pressure of the cascade, with fierceness which resulted in water drops violently spreading all over the area, but ultimately the water het couldn’t cut through the cascade and was completely blocked.

Then the tornado came in, and as the pirate thought, water got absorbed into wind, slowing and wearing out the wind spell, the problem is that the situation was reversed, as it was his wind spell what got overwhelmed.

’Damn, she has the same affinities as me… luckily even if she is a knight piece her focus is defense and her mobility doesn’t seem to be great’, thought the pirate as he finally stopped running.

Then a familiar scene appeared for the ones observing the fight, the pirate’s body changed as a black tattoo with the form of a horned figure manifested on his forehead, unlike Garak his body didn’t shrink but he grew taller though, also his previously brown hair turned black as he didn’t have any clear beast race characteristics even if he had some blood of magic beast mixed into him.

Feeling the changes in his body, the pirate smirked satisfied with the result.

”Those beast race bastards got high and might after their lineages were unsealed by the king, but being a mixed blood has more important benefits than just growing muscles like those meatheads… like latent affinities”, he said to then explode in black mana.

Apparently, unlike Garak, this pirate whose name is James, didn’t get a temporary lineage boost but a temporary extra affinity, darkness affinity to be more accurate, which kind of made sense, Garak was a knight and James is a mage, not to mention that those tattoos were connected to Marcus and he has darkness affinity as his main one.

With reaffirmed confidence, James first released the water spell he has been preparing since earlier, to then instantly cast a darkness one with noticeable easiness, meaning that this temporary darkness affinity actually surpassed his original ones.

’He used the darkness imbued into that tattoo to stimulate his latent darkness affinity turning it into an active one, quite interesting’, thought Daimon.

Besides some specific exceptions, like the common people from the Elemental Sea, who lack even the slightest capacity to use elements which affinities they don’t have, the normal is that even the least talented person, has all the affinities they just can’t make use of them actively nor have any hope of developing them without an extreme stimulation.

It’s important to mention that even with external interference, there is no guarantee one would be capable of obtaining a new affinity, in fact there is a chance to damage one’s mana circuits, not to mention that the result could be lacking and impractical, not to mention that once activated, it would nearly impossible to improve it later on.

But then, that tattoo was a temporal stimulation, that as far as Daimon could see with the infinity eyes, wasn’t putting any strain into James’s mana circuits, nor he wasn’t losing anything important as lifespan to use it, it only consumed stamina which is a recoverable kind of energy.

’Daimon…’, the voice of the undead head maid returned Daimon to the real world.

’Yes?’, he said to which Rita asked.

’Can I study that guy and also the fish head one’s corpses too?’.

’Sure, I’ll send you this one’s first but you’ll have to wait until Sarah finishes her fight, since that barracuda guy has become the stake of the bet she did with the enemy queen’, answered Daimon, making the undead head maid inwardly snort.

’Humph, that strange woman is always causing troubles for Daimon’, she thought but limited to nod from within the mind space.

’Mm, thanks, I’ll continue with my ”lesson” now’, she said with hard to hide excitement, clearly whatever she was doing to those girls from the Black Night race, she was having fun.

Daimon chuckled to himself and then focused on the fight again, Jame’s fierce voice echoed through the battlefield.

”Tsunami Break!”.

”Dark Descent!”.

A giant water wave suddenly appeared in front of Jade, raising from the ground to then descend with the aim to break through the cascade wall, as one would expect from someone who originally had water affinity, his all-out water offensive was strong enough to wear out the cascade wall.

”Booom!”, the water offensive and defense exploded against each other, this was James’s strongest water spell, an early Arch rank one, he had been preparing it since the battle started and yet he was just using it as a path opener.

’It took way too long to cast Tsunami Break, but it should do the trick, let’s see you counter a neutral element you bit…’, James’s inner monologue was interrupted by the bad premonition he got after seeing Jade not only remaining unfazed when the cascade wall was destroyed, but she also elegantly moving her left bare foot frontwards to take another step.

”Elemental Dance, Third Step, Light”, a dazzling light-yellow glow enveloped her, just in time for James’s darkness spell to land on her causing a clash of mana as well as a storm of sparks due to the natural incompatibility of light and darkness.

Still, in terms of output the darkness spell used by James was lower when compared to the water one, he used it as darkness wasn’t weak against any of the elements with which Jade had defended herself, so even if she managed to reconstruct her defense, she should receive some damage, or at least that was the idea, but the result wasn’t as expected.

After a few seconds of clash, the light-yellow glow surrounding Jade increased its brightness successfully dispelling the darkness current that James casted.

Speaking of James, he was at a loss of words, he could still understand facing a dual affinity enemy, he had double affinities as well after all, however, Jade just used a third one, but as dangerous as a triple affinity enemy would be that wasn’t what was occupying his mind as of current.

’Triple elemental affinity and she… hasn’t used that racial ability those other colorful haired women used’, he thought.

Despite not showing it, Sheilla did inform James about what she learned from Scarlet and the others, which is why the crazy girl mocked her asking if she wanted to make another bet, Sarah as a queen could somewhat tell if the other queen was in contact with one of the participants after all.

The point is that, James knew all the hints that Scarlet and the others had given about their powers to Daimon, since they didn’t bother to speak about it out loud, he knew those glyphs weren’t boosting spells nor curses, so he didn’t know what to expect.

As if Jade could read James’s mind, she mockingly smiled to then say.

”Don’t worry my glyph has nothing to do with affinity unlike that horned tattoo of yours”.

The clear provocation behind Jade’s smile, made James feel his blood boil, but he managed to regain his cool, knowing that the temporary darkness affinity he gained was affecting his mood, which is normal as he isn’t used to it.

”Whatever, you can only protect yourself with a single element at the time as far as I understand, now that I know the elements you can use, I just need to take you by surprise”.

With those words, James’s body exploded in mana, wind surrounded his body as he prepared to use his strongest wind spell to get rid of the protection around Jade, but didn’t start a second spell this time.

’Tsunami Break was enough to destroy her water barrier but not enough to force her to create the light one, I had to split my attention to instantly use Dark Descent, this time I’ll destroy her barrier and force her to create the next one in a single go!’, inwardly screamed James.

Contrary to what one would believe, the first affinity he awakened wasn’t water but wind, so he has practiced his strongest wind spell way more times than the water one, hence why he was confident in its strength.

”Giant Tornado!”, with a loud shout, James raised his hands and all the mana he had gathered was shot upwards, resulting in a tornado descending from the sky above Jade who stole a gaze at Daimon before lifting her right leg a bit, just enough to draw attention to her pretty right bare foot, which had started glowing alongside her hair.

”Unity Glyph”, just as Jade finished speaking, she was engulfed by the giant tornado that descended from the sky.