Chapter 224 An Addition Some of the others thought that what Quinn was trying to do wasn’t the right move. They were sure that Fex was hiding something, but at the same time, they weren’t surprised. Recently, Quinn and Fex had been hanging out with each other more often, so an occurrence as such was expected. "Perhaps, this is an instance of keeping your friends close but your enemies closer," Vorden said as quietly as possible. Right now, he was standing next to Layla. Thus, he had said those words loud enough just for her to hear, even slightly leaning his body towards her ear. As Layla looked up, she could see Vorden staring down at her. After meeting his gaze, she knew that the comment was being directed at her. There was the urge inside her to retaliate and say something back, but after their last conversation, she just felt defeated. All of a sudden, Fex came rushing over towards the others. The group didn’t really know what to say. They hadn’t;t really attempted to make much conversation with him because they were afraid they might say something that would give Quinn away. After all, they were aware of the awkward situation he was in. So they would just allow Quinn to deal with it. "I guess you guys realized how lame your group is." Fex said, his tone indicated that he was proud of himself. "So, you immediately needed me to boost it up a level. Well, if you really insist." Upon hearing that, an awkward smile made its way to Quinn’s face. He merely wanted to be close to Fex, hoping he could eventually learn more about the vampire world. After what happened on the last portal outing, he became incredibly worried. Although Quinn had gotten stronger, he still wasn’t strong enough to deal with the weakest of the Dalki. Also, he couldn’t imagine how powerful the vampires, who were coming after Fex, would be. Accordingly, one thing was simple - He needed to get stronger faster. There were only two days left before the next portal outing. As he thought about ways to boost his strength, there were a few things that came into his mind. One, he still hadn’t studied with the new tutorial videos that had been unlocked after learning the vampire martial arts. Adding more variety to his attack skills would always come in handy. Another way for Quinn to get stronger was to obtain more skill points. There were several shadow skills he had yet to unlock. However, to get stat points, he needed to level up his current shadow abilities. And the final way to get stronger was to increase his stats. He could either level up, but the amount of exp required for the next level up would increase significantly. By just playing the game, he wouldn’t be able to make a measly dent on it. He could go around challenging random people. Nevertheless, while the others thought he was a level one and with the school on alert, that wouldn’t be in the list of his best ideas. Still, there was another way that he could utilize to increase his stats and strength - It was entirely unique to him and that was by obtaining the blood of as many different people as possible. When Quinn saw how useful Fex’ charm ability was, he felt like there might be a way for him to quickly do this. However, when he had tried this method on a few students as he passed the halls, it was unsuccessful for the most part. To the few that they were successful on, Quinn could only remove their memory, yet was unable to command them to move. This meant that it wasn’t much use unless he could find a student that would fit the criteria of the skill. If he wanted to go through with this plan, he would need more stat points in his charm skill, which just led him back to the original problem. ’Are there any other ways to get blood?’ As Quinn thought about this, the image of the city hospital suddenly popped into his head, again. Still, he would have a problem with the cameras. For now, he would just have to focus on upgrading his shadow abilities along with learning the tutorial videos. While everyone was huddled up in their groups, there seemed to be three stray students that had walked up to the front of the assembly hall, going straight to stand by Fay’s side. As she looked into the crowd of people, she started to look at each of the groups. Every single one of them was already filled with five people. "You over there." Fay said, pointing to one student and then to the next from another group. "You there, and you..." She surveyed the room one more time and her eye had managed to capture Vorden, who was just at the back. Fay had seen his face on documents more times than she would have liked, so she decided to let his group deal with the remaining student. "And you, you can head to those at the back." She said. The others were too preoccupied with their conversations, busy talking about what they might expect to find in an orange portal planet. Vorden was the one with the most knowledge in the group, and he was saying how it varied from place to place. The orange portal was in the midst of two stages. Once the whole Planet had been explored, they would use the information that they had gathered to update it’s status to green or red. Although it was usually a task that would take a few months to accomplish, so it was unlikely they would be able to get much done. Just then, a voice echoed loudly within the hall. "Hello?" Cia said as she entered the circle. She then turned her head towards Vorden and started to wave her hand in front of the young man’s face. "You," Vorden replied, shocked that he saw Cia. "What are you doing here? Look, I’m not interested." "Well, that’s a shame, but it looks like you’re stuck with me." Cia replied. She proceeded to glance at Layla and gave her a wave too. Meanwhile, Quinn became curious about what was happening, so he decided to inquire, "What do you mean?" "Sergeant Fay has asked me to join your team. You see, the team I was in before, well, it turns out that three of them were part of Pure, so the two of us had no other groups to go to . That is the reason why Fay told me to go with you guys." Cia explained. ’This was unexpected and a little bit annoying’ Quinn thought as he prevented his emotion from showing. Right now, everyone in their team knew of each other’s abilities. However, Cia knew nothing. She didn’t know that Layla was part of Pure, Quinn and Fex were a vampire, and Peter’s identity. If she was to join the team, it would only slow them down. Cia then looked at each of the members. "So I’m already acquainted with the Hottie and Puppy eyes over there." She said, referring to both Vorden and Layla. "But what about the rest of you." She gave them an intense stare, and it seemed like they were a very strange bunch for the young lady. Latterly, she pointed at each one of them as she continued to provide them nicknames. "Average joe over there." Pointing to Quinn. "Dead eyes." Pointing to Peter. "And..." When she got to Fex, she paused slightly. As of the moment, he had turned on his charm and was trying to draw her in as much as possible. First impressions were always important to him and he wanted to make a good one. "Go on then," Fex said. "Compliment me on my good looks." "Arrogant young master type." She said. This surprised Fex greatly. Although his charm might have not completely persuaded her, it should have had some effect, though it seemed there was none. Cia looked defeated and appeared like she didn’t want to be in the group at all, not realising that they felt the same way, especially after her words. "Well, we better get to introducing everyone then. If we have to work as a team, I guess the first thing we need to know about is everyone’s abilities right?" Cia asked. **** Want another mass release? Then remember to vote using the stones below. The stone goals are in the author’s note below. MVS artwork on instagram: jksmanga