Just Became a Vampire, I Clinged to Life by Grinding Health

Chapter 3: The Sinful Crocodile, the "Top-Tier Remedy" for My HP!

Dark, damp.

The stench of rotting muck blended with unknown filth fermented so intensely it felt tangible, enough to make any normal person gag on the spot.

But Viridian inhaled deeply, letting the darkness enfold his body. An unprecedented sense of security soaked through his cold limbs and bones.

There was no holy light scorching the skin, no sun gazing down upon the masses.

Here there were only the shadow and silence that shared his origin.

This, then, was his paradise.

He leaned against a relatively dry corner of a pipe, unable to wait as he sank his consciousness into his mind. The faintly blue panel still hovered quietly, but the data on it had undergone earth-shattering changes.

[HP: 15/15]

By drinking that trainee knight's "blood of sin," not only did he replenish the life he had lost under the Holy Light, it even strengthened his frail body, forcibly raising his maximum HP by 5 points!

A faint but real warm current still flowed through his veins—a lingering echo of sin and vitality.

Viridian's gaze did not linger on the skills he had already unlocked; instead, it was fixed intently on the detailed description of one particular skill.

[Tenacious Skin]: Improved by enduring physical damage. Once proficiency reaches MAX, it can transform into a permanent talent.

A talent!

A permanent talent!

Those two words detonated like twin thunderclaps deep within his soul!

In an instant, the endless torment of a previous life—the sterile ward, feeling each organ fail while consciousness remained unbearably lucid—collided with the present life’s utter despair: abandoned by his family, locked in a side chamber, waiting for the holy light to burn him to ash...

The two pinnacles of helplessness from different lives crashed together now, spawning an almost twisted, hysterical obsession!

If...

If he leveled up his "Resilient Skin" to max and awakened the talent "Damage Reduction"!

Then grind Pain Endurance to max level and awaken the Super Regeneration talent!

Level up every skill you can think of related to defense, resistances, recovery, and saving throws — turn them all into talents!

With hundreds or thousands of survival talents stacking together, how thick will his health bar become?

When his hit points become an astronomical number, when he can bleed and be reborn, when his recovery speed surpasses the maximum damage enemies can inflict..

The so-called holy light, the so-called purification, the so-called judgment of the gods—what were they worth before him?

It would no longer be merely living.

But an absolute, eternal, even conceptual state of "undying"!

No one could decide his life or death anymore! No one could make him feel again that helpless, terrified watching-as-you-walk-toward-death!

"I will survive!"

Viridian snarled under his breath; a sickly flush crept across his pale face, and in his black pupils burned a fire called "paranoia."

He had found it!

He had found the sole path to defy this cruel world, to defy that inevitable death!

"Sqeek!"

A few thin screams cut off his reverie.

Viridian didn't hesitate for a moment; he turned and slipped deeper into the castle.

That battlefield, shrouded in holy light and cries of war, was a rich hunting ground—but not somewhere he had any right to set foot in now.

His poor fifteen hit points probably wouldn't last a second against the kind of aftershocks from a battle out there.

Hold on!

He had to hold on first!

In Veridian's mind, fragments of the original owner's memories were rapidly rifled through. The honors, etiquette, and arcane knowledge that belonged to the noble vampire family were tossed aside like trash. What he needed were the memories the original owner had treated as shameful.

Because his bloodline was thin and his status low, the original owner had been ostracized since childhood, living in places worse than the servants and walking the corners and alleyways no one else wanted to take.

And now, those humble memories had become Veridian's only way out!

He avoided the main roads; with an agility of six, his figure was like a wisp of smoke, clinging to shadows as he slipped through one dust-choked servants' passage after another.

Outside, the thunder of holy light shattering, the knights' roars, and the dying shrieks of the bloodline all served as the perfect cover for his movements.

Viridian whipped his head around. The vampires' superior night vision let him see clearly: not far off by a pool of sewage, several large rats were fighting over a rotten corpse.

His eyes lit up in an instant.

Those weren't rats.

They were walking, living, skill—ready-made proficiency that could lead him along the path to immortality!

Almost at the very instant the thought rose, Viridian's body had already become a blur. The soul of a corporate drone from a past life ignited, the principle of efficiency branded into his instincts.

No probing, no hesitation. He needed to hone the most basic self-preservation skills as quickly as possible.

"Pfssh!"

A sharp claw precisely slit the throat of one of the rats, warm blood spraying out.

[Ding! You used the racial ability [Claw Attack]. Current proficiency: 1/100.]

He didn't even look; turning, he sank his teeth into the neck of the other mouse trying to flee.

[Ding! [Basic Tear] proficiency +1. Current: 32/100!]

[Ding! [Blood Drain] proficiency +1. Current: 32/100!]

[HP +0.01]

The negligible gain, however, gave Viridian an exquisite rush comparable to a drug.

The immediate feedback from that numerical increase coursed through him like electricity, making his hunger to grow stronger burn even hotter.

This feeling—damn it—was addictive!

He forced himself to resist the urge to turn back and rub against it again, winding through corridors until he finally stopped at the back of a secluded storeroom piled high with clutter. He pushed aside a rotting wine rack, revealing an unremarkable iron door barely wide enough for a person to pass through.

In his memory, this was the corridor the castle used to dispose of household waste and filth, leading straight to the sewers.

Without a moment's hesitation, he pulled open the iron door, and a gust of fetid air—thick with rot and acrid stenches that could nearly knock someone unconscious—hit him in the face.

But Viridian reacted as if he had smelled heaven itself, and dove headfirst into it.

The passage inside the tunnel was a slippery incline; he tumbled and crawled, letting mud and viscous liquids coat him completely. Finally, the ground gave way beneath his feet and he fell into a murky stream.

Cold, foul sewage instantly rose to his chest.

But Viridian let out a long, slow breath, feeling the darkness and dampness envelop him completely.

Safe.

For now.

Then, like the most efficient hunting machine, he launched a cold, precise purge through this filthy sewer.

To raise "Claw Attack" more quickly, he tried dragging his fingertips repeatedly across the hard moss on the walls, even deliberately scratching at the rough stones with his nails; the tips gradually grew harder and sharper.

For "Tough Skin" and "Pain Endurance," he would even let passing sewer rats bite his least vital parts on purpose, feeling the faint sting—each bout of endurance accompanied by a slight jump in proficiency.

[Ding! You were attacked by a rodent, [Tough Skin] proficiency +0.01!]

[Ding! You suffered blunt trauma (hit a wall), [Endure Pain] proficiency +0.01!]

Such negligible gains would be downright masochistic for an ordinary person. But for Viridian, they were every brick on the road to immortality. He showed no slackening; every breath, every heartbeat, seemed to exist solely in service of efficiency.

Yet just as he was basking in that primal pleasure of “leveling up,” a bloody stench a hundred times stronger than the rats', mixed with a nauseating reek of rot, spread without warning from the depths of the sewer ahead.

Clatter...

Beneath the water came a heavy, viscous stirring, as if some colossal creature was awakening. The surface rippled unnaturally, and a rank, fishy stench overpowered the previous rot, becoming suffocating.

Viridian's movements halted abruptly; instinctively he crouched down and melted into the shadow of a thick stone pillar. His bloodline-heir hearing let him catch that dull yet mighty heartbeat from beneath the water.

That heartbeat sounded like an old steam locomotive running slow and steady—each thud seeming to make the dark, damp space tremble. This was absolutely not the sound an ordinary creature could make. He knew the blood in the air had called the true master of this hunting ground.

Splash—!!!

The murky surface of the water suddenly exploded open!

A head, grotesquely out of proportion, thrust up from the sewage.

It was a crocodile, but far larger than any crocodile Veridian remembered. Its skin was a grayish white, as if soaked in filthy water for countless years, mottled with festering sores and twisted scars—the very filth and sins of the whole city seemed to have settled on its body.

Its murky, vertical pupils gleamed with a blood-tinged light in the dimness, radiating greed and brutality as they fixed unbreakably on Viridian, hidden in the shadows. A primal, bloodthirsty pressure from the predator—like an invisible sledgehammer—smashed hard into Viridian’s heart.

Yet just as that pressure reached its peak, the fear swelling in Viridian’s chest rapidly ebbed away when another thought rose up.

This was not a pure threat.

It was a kind of... scent of wealth!

The next second, on the system panel, a line of message highlighted in eerie blue light suddenly popped up!

[Warning! Encountered "Aggregate of Sin"!]

[Target: Sewage Crocodile Corrupted by Sin (Elite)]

[Detected strong "Sin" aura: Greed (Level 3), Gluttony (Level 3), Slaughter (Level 4), Brutality (Level 2) …]

【Notice: Consuming this target's "Blood of Sin" is expected to grant a massive amount of proficiency!】

Viridian's breath stalled in an instant.

He watched the giant crocodile radiating a terrifying pressure, and instead of a trace of fear on his face, he... slowly split into an expression of extreme excitement and frenzy.

This was no monster.

This was clearly the system’s carefully prepared, the newbie village’s first, super experience gift pack! It was practically a mobile, living, top-tier tonic steeped in rich sin!

Veridian’s crimson eyes burned even more fiercely in the darkness, as if he could already see his health bar skyrocketing and his talents awakening in the near future!