//AN//
Ha I lied! Sorry I just couldn't wait a week when the chapter was up and ready to post haha. I just love to hear your feedback about my story and hoarding chapters is somehow hard for me ;P Anyway enjoy the second chapter!
//////
As soon as the blood touched the formation, the once dark crimson depressions suddenly lit up with a blinding red color. Konrad felt as if his blood was being sucked out of him instead of pouring out slowly. He became scared that he would bleed out completely but just when he wanted to remove his hand the formation glowed brighter and Konrad found himself in the center of a cylindrical beam of light that blinded his vision.
When he finally regained his sight, he became dumbfounded. Konrad was now standing in the middle of a white endless space, with a really weird expression. "Did i die?...am I going to meet a god or something now?" He muttered to himself, half expecting someone to reply and confirm his thoughts, but nothing like this happened.
Only now Konrad allowed himself to focus on his surroundings in a little more detail.
He was standing on what appeared to be a formation similar yet different to the one he came through, but this one was made from shiny golden light and looked honestly much more... exquisite and refined than the one in the secret basement.
Then his eyes wandered further. There was a clear glowing path that started from the edge of the formation, and passed through the weirdly solid whiteness, which led to something that Konrad couldn't really recognize from so far away.
He decided to go towards it since there seemed to be nothing else for him to do here. As he passed the endless white space Konrad actually started to giggle excitedly..Magic Is real! How awesome is that, Right?!
He soon arrived at his destination ad suddenly shuddered in fright. There in front of him lied a dried corpse of an old man, with his hand still clinging to a weird contraption. His body was practically hanging from a big lever connected to some kind of tank filled partially with a red liquid.
The said tank was connected to an even bigger contraption beside it, but when Konrad's eyes fell onto it, he became even more dumbfounded.
Because there, in front of him stood... a giant Gacha Machine filled with crystal balls of multiple colors...
//Boom Cliffhanger!
.
.
.
Just joking;)//
Konrad shook his head to shake of the shocks he suffered in the last hour. Then he looked back at the corpse and started to think...
'But why is it Gacha?!' Suddenly he thought.
'I don't think they were even popular when he came here...well there's also the question if those corpse actually belong to the same person who created the basement...well right and who else would that be?...and what is this tank..why did this guy died in such a position?'
He suddenly thought that his behavior might be rude towards the dead so after bracing himself Konrad grabbed him by the leg and pulled, intending to move the corpses to the side of the...space. "Sorry.. but your already dead so..just..stay over there alright?" He muttered awkwardly.
But as he pulled the surprisingly light corpses, the big lever that it's hand was strapped onto, got pulled as well.
There was a loud clicking sound and the red liquid in the tank drained itself partially, leaving only about 500ml of it inside the tank. Then the entire Gacha Machine shook inside and a small black crystal ball rolled out from the prize hole. Konrad thought wasn't paying attention to it because the sudden reaction caused him to drop the dried body in surprise, and he was now looking awkwardly at the pieces of it lying crumbled on the ground.
It took him additional ten minutes to finally clean it up and move it somewhere where it wouldn't caught his attention.."haha...ha...good thing no one saw that...Let's never talk about it..to anyone.."Konrad muttered to himself.
"Now then..." He looked towards the machine.
"Blood again?...if it goes like this I'm going to become a...right..."he glanced at the small dried up pile in the distance.
He tried to ignore it and approached the prize hole. The black crystal ball sparkled in the light of...whatever was the light source here. He picked it up and examined it. Suddenly on the glossy black surface, small white letters appeared surprising him.
[} Lesser Health Potion {]
"Health potion?..." Konrad muttered surprised but then became angry "Health potion!? And what am I supposed to use it for?! No. First, how do I even use it? Should I break it or-" He didn't finish because the ball flashed lightly in his palm and transformed into a small fantasy like flask with pinkish liquid.
"...Oh that's how...but still, i came all the way to this weird place in who knows where and all I get from it is a health potion?! and a lesser one to boot!..." Konrad was fuming with anger but suddenly realization struck him and he looked back at the tank beside the machine. He hit himself on the head with an open palm and muttered "Idiot...it's not like it's my only chance right? I just hope it doesn't drain me like that old man...."
Konrad walked over to the tank with the lever, and examined it closely. Now that he actually looked at the details, he found out that other than the tank being extremely well made, like a work of art of an unrecognizable culture, there were also writings on the glass part. On closer inspection Konrad saw a bunch of regularly set lines and writings in a foreign language that suddenly morphed into proper English right in front of his eyes.
"Huh.. neat." He thought aloud.
The writings were surprisingly a measuring scale and every 1 liter had an indication of the number of prizes he could draw at a single time. It usually was the same as the number of liters, like "1l=1 prize" but that changed from the 10 liter mark. There with bolder letters a "10 l=11 prizes" was writen. The same happened at the 100 liters mark with a "100l=120 prizes" So the amount increased even more.
"Alright that's cool but...uhh...ho do you expect me to provide you a hundred litters of blood?! i don't think I can give more than three...no scratch that, three is already too much, and I might faint while providing it...Now that I think about it, was that what happened to the old man?"Konrad muttered.
He pondered his options for a while and finally shrugged his shoulders.
'I guess I'll just pour it for now and stop as soon as I feel like fainting...' He thought abd his eyes fell onto the lever above the tank.
"Now how do I do that" He said as soon as his hand fell on the knob.
Suddenly there was a nasty pain in his palm. Konrad quickly removed his hand to see a small blade retracting back from the center of the knob and disapearing inside of it. His palm was bleeding so he pressed the wound with tears in his eyes.
"Ahh.ow..so that's how...ow..." Me muttered.
Konrad steeled his resolve and grabbed the knob once again. Instantly the pain returned twofold but he gnashed his teeth and hold onto the lever. There was a sound of pouring liquid inside the tank and Konrad was pretty sure that this stupid lever had the same blood sucking mechanism as the formation he came through. Why does it even have to be blood?! He thought.
Konrad felt nauseous after a few seconds but when he looked at the scale on the tank, he was yet to pour over half a liter out which was around the amount taken from the blood donors at a single donation. With the Blood of the old man that still remained inside the tank he would only need a bit more to reach enough for a single prize.
But Konrad wasn't going to stop here. He remembered what was written in the old man's journal. "One Chance per person" or something like that. Then if he can draw a second reward then that note must have meant the teleportation formation usage. In that case, There might be no chance for him to reach this place again..
Konrad kept his hand on the knob long after the blood passed the 1l mark. Cold sweat was pouring down his skin and his stomach turned in revulsions but he endured it.
In the past, losing even a bit of blood using a syringe made Konrad stomach turn but if it was for example a nosebleed Konrad would be completely unfazed. What happened now though was something on the border of those two, but Konrad was actually more and more excited after imagining what crazy things could be won in this Gacha.
He didn't even realize when the blood was enough for the second draw, slowly approaching the third, but at this point Konrad already lost around 2 liters of blood and slowly approached the dungerous territory. His consciousness was becoming fuzzy and he knew that it was time to stop but he was only a few hundred ml away from reaching the 3 prize so he tried to endure. Suddenly he remembered the first prize he received in this lottery, that lied at that moment in his back pocket. His body was rigid and pale but he managed to take the bottle out with his free hand and uncork it with his teeth. He looked at the pinkish liquid and muttered.
"What doesn't kill you..."
Then he drank the liquid quickly as he felt that he was about to faint.
A pleasant warm sensation spread through his body as he watched the last drop of blood reaching the tank and passing through the '3x prize' mark. he instantly removed his hand from the knob and watched the effects of the potion as the inconspicuous wound on his palm started to close right in front of his eyes.
Konrad only managed to mutter-
"huh Neat..." before the blood loss finally reaped it's harvest and Konrad lost consciousness...
//AN//
Yeah there's a price for being rewarded. And you think a lesser healing potion would be enough to heal him completely? no way. and as you might have guessed there's only a single chance for a person to enter this place so how is our hero going to go around that? Stay tuned for the next chapter of Blood Gacha!
//