Chapter 509: Luck Piggy
Chapter 509: Luck Piggy
Mike returned to his dorm.
Just like before, he went through his usual routine and entered his private space.
In less than 0.1 seconds, Mike's figure appeared.
"My esteemed master, it's so wonderful to see you again!"
Vladimir, with half a roasted chicken leg stuffed in his pocket, came running over, grinning obsequiously.
"Let me see what you guys talked about yesterday."
Mike pulled up the surveillance footage and casually asked, "Has Master Fool been acting strange lately?"
"Yes!" Vladimir nodded vigorously. "She went to shake the Money Tree yesterday!"
"The Money Tree?" Mike pressed. "And what happened?"
"One of her pieces of equipment got swallowed by the Money Tree," Vladimir whispered. "She's in a really bad mood right now, so... maybe don't laugh so loudly."
Knowing that Master Fool was fine, Mike felt a lot more at ease and stopped laughing.
After watching the conversation between Dracula and Vladimir, Mike had a pretty good idea of what was going on. He decided to call both vampires over for an open discussion.
Soon, the three of them were on the rooftop of Mistveil Castle. Mike sat in the main seat, with Vladimir and Dracula on either side.
Vladimir poured Mike a glass of red wine.
Mike pulled out a can of Coke and, right in front of the two vampires, poured it into the wine glass.
Both Dracula and Vladimir were stunned.
This wasn't just heresy anymore.
If anyone else dared to disrespect wine like this in front of them, they'd make sure that person learned what color blood was.
Mike set the wine aside, opened a fresh can of Coke, and took a sip.
"Let's get down to business."
His gaze swept over the two of them as he spoke openly, "You want to find the Blood Ancestor, and so do I. In that regard, our interests align."
For Mike, the long-term goal was definitely to kill the Supreme Demon God.
The mid-term goal was to level up to 900, bring Shadow Nine back from the Supreme Abyssal, and cure Ares and Apollo's "illness."
The short-term goal was to reclaim the upper floors of the Tower of Truth and defeat the Elf Ancestor hidden in the black mist.
The Lower Three Races consisted of the werewolves, the blood clan, and the elves.
Wolf Alpha was Maxen, and he was on Mike's side.
The Elf Ancestor was the final boss and needed to be dealt with carefully.
If Mike could find the missing Blood Ancestor and learn more about what happened back then, his chances of defeating the Elf Ancestor would increase significantly.
Moreover, once the Blood Ancestor was found, both Vladimir and Dracula would grow stronger, which was undoubtedly a huge benefit for Mike.
To break the inevitable fate of the Supreme Being, understanding the history of the Tower of Truth was crucial.
And the Blood Ancestor was the key figure in all of this.
"Let's go over everything from the beginning."
Mike asked the questions, and the two vampires answered, their stories corroborating each other.
"I've got a rough idea of what happened when the Blood Ancestor failed to break through," Mike said, then asked, "Was the Tower of Truth created before or after the Blood Ancestor disappeared?"
Getting the timeline right was important.
The two vampires answered almost simultaneously.
Vladimir: "After!"
Dracula: "Before!"
Mike: ...
The atmosphere grew awkward.
"How about I give you two some time to get your stories straight?" Mike suggested.
Dracula explained, "Before the Blood Ancestor disappeared, 'Truth' had already approached the Blood Ancestor with the idea of building the Tower of Truth. At first, the Blood Ancestor refused. But after much persuasion, the Blood Ancestor eventually agreed, and they secretly collaborated without making it public."
In ancient times, Dracula's status was clearly much higher than Vladimir's. He knew far more secrets than Vladimir did.
Mike pressed, "And then?"
"Then..." Dracula looked a bit embarrassed and mumbled, "A powerful member of the blood clan made a small mistake and was sent by the Blood Ancestor to help build the Tower of Truth."
Mike: ...n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om
This "powerful member" wouldn't happen to be Dracula, would it?
Skipping over this embarrassing past, Dracula continued, "After the Blood Ancestor disappeared and the River of Blood went berserk, the blood clan was severely weakened. To maintain their standing among the races, they announced their involvement in the construction of the Tower of Truth. In ancient times... many powerful beings didn't believe the Tower of Truth would succeed. They thought it was a scam."
Mike nodded slightly.
He understood. It was like someone showing up with a bunch of PowerPoint slides and claiming they could build a spaceship. Of course, people thought it was a scam.
Looking at it this way, 'Truth' was quite the con artist. Not only did they secure funding for such a massive project, but they actually pulled it off!
"If the blood clan had no connection to the Tower of Truth when the Blood Ancestor disappeared, I wouldn't have to bother with all this," Mike mused. "So, if the Blood Ancestor isn't dead, they're most likely inside the Tower of Truth!"
This was also what Dracula and Vladimir thought. Or rather, it was the only thing they could
hope for.
If the Blood Ancestor was outside the Tower of Truth, in the void, or in the Heavenly Realm, it wouldn't be good news for them.
"And what about you two?" Mike shifted the conversation to their situation. "If the Blood Ancestor is inside the Tower of Truth, are you two guarding the doors? One of you on the
tenth floor, the other on the twentieth?"
Vladimir remained silent. He was still confused about his own origins. One moment he closed his eyes, and the next, he was on the tenth floor of the Tower of Truth. He didn't know
anything else.
Dracula, on the other hand, looked grim, his eyes cold. After some hesitation, he finally spoke.
"I... was originally in the Temple of Truth."
As the prince, Dracula had the status to back it up. Mike wasn't surprised. "Before the Tower of Truth descended to Earth, it had been flying through the void for many years," Dracula continued, now fully committed to telling his story. "I was barely surviving in the Temple of Truth, searching for the Blood Ancestor. I destroyed my own body and began searching from the ninetieth floor downward, eventually stopping on the twentieth floor. After the Tower of Truth descended to Earth, the passages between floors were sealed, and I was trapped on the twentieth floor."
After finishing his story, Dracula looked at Mike and asked for the first time, "Why are you so interested in the Blood Ancestor?"
Mike had been asking about the Blood Ancestor for two days straight. Did he have a lead?
"Ahem, well, it's like this." Mike pulled out a guide and handed it to the two vampires, explaining, "I'm about to head to the thirty-eighth floor. There's a special being there, one that's incredibly lucky. Just touching it can make you lucky."
Mike's face twisted into a wry smile as he added, "It's also known as... the Luck Piggy."
Luck Piggy?
Could it be the Blood Ancestor?
Dracula and Vladimir shook their heads in unison, their faces full of rejection.
"No way. Absolutely not!"
Emotionally, they couldn't accept the idea that the Blood Ancestor had turned into a pig.
But facts didn't care about personal feelings. They followed their own objective logic.
Mike watched the two vampires struggle with the idea and found it both funny and pitiful.
In his previous conversation with Foreskin, Mike had learned that Apollo had been pondering
a particular question.
Apollo believed that butterflies were the embodiment of the world's source.
If that were true, then the world Apollo saw might be different from what others saw.
Apollo had the ability to see the true nature of things.
Following this line of thought, if Apollo saw vampires and thought they were pigs, it wasn't
an insult. Mike knew Apollo wouldn't do something so petty.
It was... a statement of fact.
In Apollo's eyes, the essence of vampires was pigs. Every vampire he saw had the phantom of a pig at the end of the River of Blood.
In other words, the most powerful vampire, the missing Blood Ancestor, might have turned
into a pig!
Mike wasn't the only one who understood this. Dracula and Vladimir had also started to piece
it together.
But!
They would never admit it!
The Blood Ancestor turned into a pig? In the long and storied history of the blood clan, they
had never suffered such humiliation.
The two vampires had even secretly conspired that if the worst-case scenario came true, they
would join forces to kill the Blood Ancestor and preserve the last shred of dignity for the
blood clan.
No matter what, they couldn't deny that there was a pig on the thirty-eighth floor.
And that pig was most likely a vampire.
"Oh, right." Mike suddenly remembered something and looked at Dracula, asking in surprise,
"You destroyed your body to escape from the Temple of Truth. Did you really go through all
that just to find the Blood Ancestor?"
Was Dracula really that loyal?
Before Dracula could respond, Vladimir sneered, "Find the Blood Ancestor? More like kill the
Blood Ancestor, if you ask me."
It was hard to believe that Dracula, in his phantom form, was frantically searching for the
injured Blood Ancestor with good intentions.
Dracula scoffed at Vladimir's accusation.
"You, a traitor to the blood clan, wouldn't understand," Dracula said coldly. "The Blood
Ancestor belongs to whoever is worthy! Every generation of the blood clan has a Blood
Ancestor. Why can't it be me?"
High EQ: I'm preparing to betray the Blood Ancestor.
Low EQ: The Blood Ancestor? I could totally take their place.
Listening to Dracula's righteous declaration, Mike couldn't help but be impressed.
No wonder the blood clan was a race that had betrayal written into their very essence. From Mike's perspective, the blood clan was a bundle of contradictions.
They were elegant yet filthy, loyal yet treacherous, proud yet humble to the point of
groveling...
It was in these contradictions that Dracula and Vladimir, two uniquely complex vampires, were born.
To grow stronger, they were willing to serve under Thor, working tirelessly. Dracula even chose to live inside the Sun Shield, enduring the constant burn of the sun.
Mike was sure that once they became stronger, if they ever had the chance to betray him,
they'd at least consider it.
Then...
They'd think about Thor's overwhelming power.
And they'd definitely abandon the idea of betrayal.
...
After finishing his conversation with the two vampires, Mike sought out Gabriel.
As a potential Supreme Being of the angel race who had lived in the Tower of Truth for many
years, Gabriel had access to more information than most.
"You're asking about the pig on the thirty-eighth floor?" Gabriel frowned. "Isn't that the pet
of a powerful
human?"
Mike: ??? He hadn't expected that.
Gabriel noticed Mike's confusion and patiently explained, "Three hundred years ago,
Morpheus..."
At the mention of this name, Master Fool, who was standing in the distance, cleared her
throat.
It was clear that there were some things about Morpheus that she had warned Gabriel not to
tell Thor.
But Gabriel ignored Fool and continued, "When Morpheus arrived on the thirty-second floor,
he was carrying that pig. I heard from other angels that Morpheus left it on the thirty-eighth
floor."
The Luck Piggy was left there by Morpheus?
"What's so strange about that?" Master Fool, who was passing by, mocked. "Thor, that
ragged cloak you're wearing? It was originally used to wrap the pig."
Having received this unexpected information, Mike immediately contacted Foreskin from the
Mystic Market.
For something like this, it was better to ask someone he trusted.
Besides, what Mike was doing now was closely tied to helping Apollo regain his strength, so
he couldn't afford to be careless.
Understanding the importance of the matter, Foreskin quickly replied.
"Let me keep it short..." Foreskin briefly explained the situation. "Morpheus found a pig in a
beginner's instance and kept it as a pet. When he reached the thirty-eighth floor, he thought it
would be too dangerous to take the pig any higher, so he left it there."
The story was surprisingly simple!
There were no twists or turns, and the pig didn't have any grand backstory.
It was just a Supreme Being's pet!
Is that so strange?
Of course, Mike also noticed a small detail.
The pig wasn't turned into a pig by Apollo. It had always been a pig!
Had he been wrong all along? Maybe it had nothing to do with the blood clan?
Mike set that thought aside for now and asked, "By the way, why is this pig so lucky? Is it
because of Morpheus?"
"Not exactly..." Foreskin hesitated for a moment before deciding to tell Mike the truth.
"Fourth Bro, do you remember the Lucky Clover?"
Mike's expression immediately turned strange.
"You mean... what a waste!"
"Yep." Foreskin nodded, confirming Mike's suspicion. "Back then, I gave the Lucky Clover to
my good friend Afterskin to get rid of some bad luck. But, by some twist of fate..."
Even now, Foreskin felt a pang of regret.
"The pig ate it."