That same night, I was sleeping comfortably in the master’s bedroom, when suddenly there was an eerie sound coming from my chamber door. “Whose there?” I asked, and there was no response. The darkness in the room grew heavy until the lightning storm outside blinded the room with a passing light.

I stood up and opened the door. For I wanted to know who was trying to enter through my chamber door.

Upon opening the door, the storm sent another thunder to the ground. Ravaging my ears like an orchestra whose symphony becomes louder as they went on. The poor Vampire in the floor jumped at me for a hug.

“Let me stay with you for tonight,” She said, trembling in fear. I wanted to decline, but her glowing red eyes begged me to allow her to stay.

After allowing her to sneak into the covers of my bed, my beauty sleep went uninterrupted until the following morning. When I woke up, the rays of the sun were assaulting my face.

I was extremely tired and had a strong migraine. I hadn’t had one like this since my college days. I almost crawled my way towards the windows of my room and closed the curtains. ‘Now, that’s much better.’

The migraine was now gone, but my body still demanded more sleep. Somehow I managed to make it as far as the restroom’s sink. Splashing my face with cold water did not wake me up. ‘Hmmm?’

I couldn’t see myself in the mirror. ‘Wait a minute…’

“VAMPYYYYYY. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?”

I opened my status bar, and it only confirmed what I already knew. I stomped my way back to bed.

“HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO MAKE RUNES NOW, I HAVE NO LIFE FORCE.”

She woke up briefly, only to yawn.

“DON’T JUST IGNORE ME, WOMAN.”

I stormed out of the room, into the castle’s library. There sure had to be a spell or some information about how to cure my vampirism. I poured a list of books onto the table and began to read one by one. But then I fell asleep.

When I woke up, Vampy was lying on top of my table, posing like a model. Her long blond hair was spread along the table, while her red eyes stared directly at me with some form of malice. “It was right about time,” she said. “I made you breakfast.”

I looked at my system.

“9:00pm, just how long did I sleep!?”

“Do the math.”

I was going to complain, but then my stomach rumbled. “So what’s in the menu, princess?”

“Ah! is good that you ask. Come, follow me.”

Upon sitting in the dinning hall, I awaited for the food to be brought over. But when it arrived, my appetite was gone.

“What?” Vampy asked. “Is there something wrong?”

I did not know what to say. “What’s this?”

“Oh, that? Fried Fish!”

That didn’t look like a fish. Nor did it look fried. “I-”

“Come on, just give it a try!”

“Fine…”

I spent the next two hours in the restroom, surviving food poisoning. Vampy’s cooking skill was in the negative numbers.

The rest of the night, I formulated a plan to hunt the dragons. Being half-vampire had benefits. For instance, I could see in the dark, my carrying capacity increased twice as much and my stamina regenerated faster and I could survive even the most hideous of attacks, down to one HP. Other than that, vampirism made me extreme tired during the daylight, made me weaker against holy attacks and took away my ability to make runes as I lacked life force.

“Vampy, I shall return in no longer than two hours, I want you to look for all the flasks that you can find in the castle and to line them up here in the table.”

“What for!?”

“Just do it, you shall see when I return.”

I needed to collect the herbs required for potion brewing. Normally, players could just buy hundreds if not thousands of potions from the local merchants. But ever since the event, potions soon enough became limited in stock. Then they became a commodity that could only be acquired by buying them from an alchemist. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem since players can also brew their own potions. But this is not the case with **Runa Online.**

Potion brewing was deemed to be a worthless undertaking after the 2006 patch. As such, when the 2009 update removed the skill from the tutorial, it became extremely rare for players to own the spell. I, on the other hand, was more ancient than that.

Once outside of the castle, I walked a few minutes until I reached the west most gate of Ravenna. The distance between the cities was not the only thing getting larger. Even the cities themselves started to be more realistic.

At the gate I was met by a guard. His mail armor and helmet looked shiny in the night. “Evening, sir,” he said.

If I remember correctly, his name was Philip.

“Evening to you, Philip” I responded. He smiled, maybe out of confusing for he had never told me his name.

Once I made it past the gate, I took a few steps out of the city and then nearby the walls I plunged a few of the herbs that grew there. Then, having collected enough from the soil, I headed even more west. Hunting a few low-level slimes along the way. ‘This should do.’

When I returned to the castle, I was surprised to find Vampy waiting for me at the entrance. “Master, you have returned!”

‘What has she done?’

“Did you break something?”

“WHAT, no, why would you-,” She said. “WAIT DON'T OPEN THAT DOOR.”

She tried to stop me from entering the dinning hall. When I arrived, there was a bunch of flasks ordered as I had asked, but there was also an equivalently large quantity of flasks broken on the floor.

“VAMPY YOU INCOMPETENT FOOL.”

I made count of what remained. Two hundred flasks. ‘Fine, this will do.’

I emptied by adventurer’s backpack on the table. The plants and slimes that I had collected fell upon it. Then I went to the kitchen to fetch buckets of water. While they filled, Vampy looked at me confused.

“What’s all of this even for?”

“Are you familiar with alchemy?”

“Ohhh, you are going to turn this water into blood? Master is truly a genius!”

“No, look.”

I threw herbs into the bucket and then some slime. After a small invocation, the mixture turned into purple liquid. Then pulled a spoon full of it. “Take a sip.”

“Eh? sure…” She said. But the moment the foul liquid made contact with the tip of her tongue, Vampy fell backwards as she gagged. “MANA!?”

“Correct. Now, I want you to grab every single flask in the dinning hall and fill it with the mana extract that I’ve brewed.”

“What, why me!?”

“Because you can’t just live rent free. Now get to work, you lazy vampire.”

It took around two hours for Vampy to fill all the flasks. But the challenge only had begun just now. Now it was a matter of seeing how many vials could fit inside of a backpack.

“Vampy, now try to put as many potions as you can in these backpacks.”

“AHHHHH more work!? you monster!”

Normally, a regular backpack was able to carry twenty items, no matter how big these items were. This remained true even when the full-dive was implemented. Yet, much has changed since the incident. Opening a backpack no longer triggered a status window.

Now, like in the real world, items needed to be placed manually inside of the backpack. Yet, they could still be retrieved from the backpack instantly, even if the backpack was sealed.

I observed as Vampy filled each of the backpacks.

“Master, I am done!”

Regular backpacks could hold around twenty potions. An Adventurers backpack could hold on about forty. While my special edition, 2003 enchanter’s backpack could hold on about a hundred.

“Now empty them and try to place as many swords as you can.”

“But master, that is physically impossible! These backpacks do not have the depth needed to carry a sword.”

“Do you want to sleep outside?”

Just as I had expected, the swords became smaller in order to fit inside of the backpack. It seems that a regular backpack could hold on exactly twenty items, regardless of their size.

I removed a single sword. Freeing one slot. Then grabbed one of the backpacks filled with potions and shoved it inside. “Ha!, it was able to fit inside.”

Vampy was the only witness to my stroke of genius, but I doubted that she understood the implications of being able to place an unlimited number of backpacks inside of another backpack. “Why the evil smile?” She asked.

“You’ll soon see,” I answered. Now the issue was just the weight.

Spellcasters had the worst weight sustenance among all the classes in Runa Online. We gained the ability to lift an extra pound per each level, with a base of 30 at level zero. This meant that I could only carry 67 pounds at my current level. Which is then multiplied by the vampire buff, for a total of 134 pounds. 

Things got a bit more gritty when backpack capacity was taken into account, since backpacks and potions each weight a pound. Seven backpacks (20 slots each) gave me a capacity of a 134 slots.

* (7)*20 - 5 = 134 slots available

* 134 - (7)*1 = 127 pounds available

But this would only be a problem for unskilled players. I, on the other hand, had a plan.

“Now… where did my friend leave that umbrella.”