Reincarnated With The Van Helsing System

Unlike all the ones observing from the resting area, Daimon did manage to see what happened earlier when Michael disappeared into the rain of blood needles casted by the bishop.

'So, while Calvin who originally didn't want to obtain a new affinity ended up obtaining one and Michael who wanted to obtain it, ended up not doing so', he thought.

As much of a clown as Calvin appears to be, he is without a doubt a genius, so it doesn't make sense that he, the young master of a family on par with the major families of the other forces and also the grandson of not only a Half Emperor but one of the strongest ones, had not awakened a second affinity prior to entering the academy, especially considering he is the oldest member of the first year's elite class.

Stalactite Milk is probably the best resource to obtain earth related affinities for those below the later part of the Arch ranks, naturally the amount needed will exponentially increase depending on the rank of the one using it.

And while it is something that is basically only produced at the secret territory of the Earth Palace Academy and its director, Maxim would have never actively traded it with the Grish family in order to not empower his major competitors as an earth focused force, unless he was quite literally forced to, like it happened due to him needing the spots which only Daimon would sell.

It's not like there weren't other options, maybe with less effectivity but with the resources of the Grish, had Calvin chosen to he could quite literally eat earth related magic resources for breakfast, lunch and dinner, in fact his grandfather felt tempted to make him chug said resources down all day every day.

But Calvin being the lazy ass he used to be, he escaped from Solomon's eyes and remained as a one affinity mage, which is why his grandfather then decided to give him a hellish training, consisting in being abandoned in the wild where only sand, rocks and dirt could be found, and getting beat up with rocks on a daily basis to increase his closeness with earth element.

Anyway, the point is that he refused to obtain a second affinity for some reason, he even refined the stalactite milk in a way that it would only improve his rock element and his realm with Solomon's help, Michael on the other hand admired his master and wanted to surpass him.

So, when he obtained the thunder nimbus vine, he felt really grateful to Daimon and even if he didn't show it, it was clear that he was disappointed to not have been able to awaken lightning affinity after refining it, though his wind one did become stronger.

Hence why it was surprising for Daimon to see that the rewards they choose for their challenges, were the complete opposite of what they originally wanted.

'Sand affinity and an extreme improvement in precise mana manipulation, those two really grew up thanks to their challenges and that experience they had with the woman from the Black Night race', he thought.

That's right, those three techniques which Michael used had nothing to do with lightning affinity, he learned of a way to produce lightning by obtaining a way more advanced mana manipulation capacity for his existing affinities.

'People in this world where magic exists have close to zero knowledge in anything that's not related to it, to think he would discern how not only lightning but even thunders are produced in nature and replicate the process with magic… not bad', concluded Daimon.

For a quick explanation, let's not forget what are Michael's affinities, wind and fire, which allows him to produce and control the elements with the same names through the usage of spells.

Michael was already capable of Elemental Resonance; by combining wind and fire spells he enhanced his speed and offensive to reach the levels of lightning affinity speed focused mages, however that was the limit of the previous.

At least as an assassin, since increasing his speed and the strength behind his attacks further than that, would require a stronger fire explosion which would basically announce his presence to everyone in the vicinity.

Hence why Michael really wanted to obtain lightning affinity, it also helped that no matter how hard he struck Calvin with his daggers, he couldn't bypass the many compressed layers of rock that were attached to his skin.

So back then when he completed his challenge, for a second, he was tempted to choose a resource that would basically guarantee him obtaining lightning affinity, but then he was reminded of Calvin who had completed his challenge before his started.

The desert coyote young master, was once trained by his aunt who represents the sand element users in the Grish family, since Calvin was supposed to be able to easily awaken sand affinity, had he wanted to do so.

But since he refused to train in order to awaken said affinity, then Mireya told him to produce sand like the numbskull he was and made him grind two giant rocks against each other, needless to say but he took him many hours to create a small pile of sand and he ended up getting his ass handed to his aunt for being a bum and that was the end of that training.

As dumb as the previous sounded, unconsciously Calvin gave Michael a massive hint in how to improve, maybe because Calvin quite literally spent years in the wild, he was close to nature and so he had a premonition that his advice would be of help to his rival.

That being said, ultimately it depended in Michael to make the choice, to be like his master, the one he admired and gain instant gratification or to take his own path to a whole new level, as the base of Elemental Resonance which was his specialty was a precise mana manipulation capacity.

And the result is as you saw, is that he totally chose the later and with this new perspective he replayed the scene of his master's training ground, a planet with a sky that was in a state of perpetual lightning storm.

Why did he thought on that you ask, well, because his master, the lightning assassin himself told him that even he is not capable of reaching the speed at which some of the lightning born from a cloud in a peak Arch ranked level planet, travels from the sky to the ground.

And while he was reviewing the training process of his master time and time again, he managed to see that the clouds from which said lightning which frustrated even his master, the fastest being alive in the White Fang galaxy, had two different currents of wind fiercely clashing inside of it.

The upper current heats up while the lower current gets colder, this continues until "sparks" that are too small to be seen with one's naked eyes are produced inside of it, to then completely separate and produce a lightning.

So, Michael then thought "I have wind and fire affinities, can I not produce both cold wind and hot wind?" and he put hands to work but of course royally failed first, since there was mana from the many other elements that exist in the atmosphere, interfering with the process.

And it was then when his new mana manipulation capacity came in hand, he displaced everything but wind and fire mana from the place where he wanted to produce his lightning, and once again failed, so after squeezing his brains time and time again, he realized something really simple, in the planet where his master trains there is more than lightning all the time, it is also raining and coincidentally the other most abundant type of mana found in the average atmosphere of a planet besides wind, is none other than water.

So, with wind he displaced everything besides wind, fire and water mana, then used fire to heat up one current of wind, wind to cool down the other current of wind all the previous while letting the particles of water mana that naturally existed, be dragged around by those two currents.

And to his surprise it worked, he saw those "sparks" appearing in the bag of air he created with all his focus but then to his frustration he couldn't make those sparks trigger a lightning and this continued until he out of frustration threw one of his daggers at the air bag, imagine his surprise when a lightning was shot from it following the dagger which then landed on the ground making both the dagger and the ground explode, sending him flying due to the shockwave in the process.

He became Calvin's laughing stock since he nearly lost his eyebrows due to the proximity to the explosion, but then he was reminded of another property of his master's training planet, the ground was full of metal ores and thus the basics of Michael's new techniques were set in stone.

Because he was now also able to feel how a thunder was produced by the air heating up and then cooling down at high speed, it was different than the shockwaves produced by strong physical impacts or by simply surpassing the barrier of sound, since a change in temperature was involved in it.

Those two discoveries turned into "Green Lightning Pierce" which leaned towards wind hence why the green color that the electricity produced had, and "Red Thunder Slash" which leaned towards fire thus gaining that red glow, it was caused by the mana he used the most.

The amusing part of all this is that Michael overcame the weakness of his affinities, since water like the one used by the bishop helped him to produce those sparks easily and earth like the one used by the knight attracted the lightning, in other words from the very beginning the choice made by the Balax Lord to "counter" Michael was counterproductive.

[A rook and a bishop have been removed from the game, congratulations to the White Queen]

The announcement came a few seconds after the fight ended and Michael was transported back to the resting area where Haylee was waiting for him with sparkled in her eyes.

She grew up with Michael so she knew how much he admired her grandfather, well at least in what fighting style regards, since his personality was questionable to say the least as he was quite of a womanizer, so seeing him take the first step to surpass Zein made her feel happy for Michael.

Also, as his girlfriend she liked to see him showing off from time to time, unfortunately the romantic mood between those two crashed onto the ground by an annoyed complaining voice.

"Hey, lightning shrimp, what part of "Don't steal the limelight from Loren" did you not understand?", said Calvin, making a vein pop on Michael's neck, as he heard his new nickname.

"Can't you remain silent for a single time in your damn life!", exclaimed Michael, only for Calvin to yell back at him.

"Nonsense, you want me to not complain after you specifically told those guys you were planning to use those new techniques of yours on me, besides what the hell is up with that third spell do you want to kill me or what".

He helped Michael with the basics for the first two spells, though he didn't get to see the results until now, but that third spell was completely new for Calvin and also that one really ring the danger alarm in his mind, with that Michael could actually bypass his defenses!

"You scared?", mockingly said Michael, which made Calvin smirk.

"Heh, those are some big boy words for our little Michael, did you perhaps forgot that I have a new affinity as well, though I haven't had the time to learn new spells unlike you, my defenses aren't what they used to be, your scrawny ass might die just by trying to stab me".

"Fine let's see who dies Calvin bastard!", ultimately Calvin was an expert at pissing people off, so Michael lost in the verbal fight.

"Fine by me!", Calvin also shouted, but the two of them had their fighting spirits deflated to the ground by the glares of all the girls, who wanted to watch the next fight, with the exception of Haylee who stood up by Michael's side while apologetically smiling at the others.

"That's not fair, my Loren isn't here to comfort me, damn shrimp how dare you flirt in front of me!", shouted Calvin while he was glared to oblivion by the nethereal and Risha sisters as well as Scarlet and the others jewel girls.

High up in the sky, the enemy queen's displeased face was quite the sight to behold, though just like the subordinates from the other Lords that were participating, they weren't part of the original nethereals that came with their Lords, but a race created based on them.

Unlike the others, they were treated the same, the Balax Lord nurtured them as new subordinates instead of temporary replacements, which is why their battle prowess was on a different level even the normal pieces weren't that far from the base strength of the previous queens.

So, seeing two of her pieces join hands and still getting destroyed without even landing a proper hit on the enemy made Erika grit her teeth, specially because her counterpart in other words Jasmine wasn't neither a skilled warrior nor a commander, according to their information.

'Tsk, I guess it would make sense that they kept their stronger fighters for her considering she is the weakest… still to think those two would lose without even taking an arm from the enemy, idiots', inwardly cursed the enemy queen.

Despite her despise towards Jasmine, which could be quite literally seen in her eyes, she didn't resort to cheap mocking nor insults and simply sent a message, or more accurately and order to her subordinate.

….

At the next battlefield which was about to be enabled, a slender guy with pale skin and black hair glared at the enemy a girl around her 18's with long light brown hair and honey toned eyes, that was Daphne's childhood friend and her personal maid, Chris.

Why was that guy who was a knight piece and a mage by the way, glaring at Chris, well that's because he got quite an angered message from Erika, one that said "Even if you die, you better at least take a limb or two from the enemy", so he of course was angry.

Add to that the fact that Chris had quite the relaxed expression and the fact that he had a rather unusual affinity and you could understand why the enemy had quite the angered expression.

'They are looking down on me, both that bitch Erika and this damn lowly mortal!', inwardly cursed the knight piece to then say.

"You surely look quite confident for having such a common affinity, let me tell you just in case but I'm not like those two".

There was a certain pride behind that guy's words, everything made sense the moment the barrier disappeared and his nether leaked out of his body, he had darkness affinity and if you wonder why is that special, that's because unlike the Asmadian and Bane Lords, whose nether make their subordinates to change to darkness affinity, the Balax Lord has better control over his nether.

So, he doesn't have that problem, in fact he can help his subordinates obtain a second affinity besides theirs, though none of them had shown such a capacity, anyway the point is that the black-haired knight piece was naturally born with darkness affinity unlike basically all the other subordinates with darkness affinity that had appeared so far, hence why he took pride on it.

As to why he despised Chris, that's because she had a common earth affinity which can be found everywhere within the Balax camp, while he is the sole darkness affinity person.

"Black Mist!", with a wave of his hand all the darkness nether that the enemy had gathered spread in less than a second, flooding everything in the vicinity and engulfing the honey brown haired girl.

"As I expected she was nothing much…", just as the enemy was looking for the corroded corpse of Chris, a voice that came from afar made him turn in a certain direction.

"Nether already has corroding properties and corrosion-oriented darkness is the most common one, so I don't get that arrogance of yours, ultimately the user is what matters the most", said Chris, she somehow had appeared more than a kilometer away from her original position.

Many people looked down on Daphne because despite she being an innate dual affinity mage, both her water and wind were "normal" they had no special properties unlike Terry's water affinity which had the special property from the lineage of the Trident Marshal, nor Ryan and Bryan's wind affinity which had become pressure affinity due to their Shooting Narwhal's innate ability.

However, those seemingly average wind and water of hers, turned into something terrifying when combining and we aren't talking solely about the Storm Stream spell and its variations, back at the beast hunt when Daimon got to properly know Daphne and Chris, while exhausted the first princess used two spells at the same time and was able to hold back quite a few early and middle stage Lord ranks on her own.

Just like Michael, she developed mana resonation with her own effort since the Storm Stream was a cannon glass, something that if used would mean the beginning of the end in her active participation in battle due to the insane mana consumption.

And so, Chris hated those that believed that an affinity made them superior to others, not to mention that she has seen the either crazily strong or ominously special darkness used by Daimon and more recently Sarah and Ivy, so the most common corrosion type darkness was nothing to be surprised for her at this point.

It wasn't the enemy's fault, it's just that the poor honey brown haired girl has gotten used to such freaks.

Speaking of the enemy, he completely ignored Chris's mocking words, despite his arrogance it's not like he was a fool, as he was still a part of the Balax Lord's subordinates, so he analyzed the situation before reaching the most viable conclusion.

'So early in the fight and she has already resorted to the long-distance movement ability of a rook while feigning to be tough, this is why I can't stand earth affinity people', he thought to then snap his fingers.

"Legion Reinforcement, Night Operations Coat", the darkness nether that was radiated by his body condensed into a long ethereal looking dark mist coat that enveloped the body of the enemy.

"Now, let's try again, Dark Trail", with a few words, the enemy took a step and then turned into countless black particles that spread through the battlefield, one must know that darkness has one of the best propagation properties among all the elements.

And it also has the best camouflaging and anti-tracking properties, so no matter how Chris looked at her surroundings she couldn't tell from which direction was the enemy going to attack.

Now, contrary to what her elegant and proper image would suggest as in public Chris acted as Daphne's personal maid, mostly due to her incapacity to communicate with others, something that has changed ever since she met Daimon, as he was able to understand those pretty expressive eyes of hers, which previously only her mother and a few people close to her like Chris and Mellie who was also a princess could do.

Chris is actually quite… wild, as an example of it, since she couldn't detect where the enemy was hiding, she resorted to a simple yet effective tactic, attack in every direction.

"Demolition", with a single word, a pretty hand formed a fist which then hit the ground, the result however was completely not on the pretty side.

"Boooom!", the ground rumbled as cracks spread in a wide area with Chris as the center, debris was sent flying in every direction, fulfilling Chris's purpose, which was to expose the enemy.

Damn it!", the darkness affinity guy was forced to stop hiding since a piece of rock the size of his leg flew in his direction at high speed, not to mention that the shockwave made his ears hurt, which interrupted his movement spell.

Now imagine his surprise when he looked at Chris's direction to cast a spell as a response to hers, just to see that she had disappeared, in a matter of a second the roles inverted.