Chapter 36: Golden throne?

Chapter 36: Golden throne?"A throne huh..." "Bloodreign? You know anything about this golden throne? What exactly is this?" Damon asked but the sword spirit was unusually silent. "Ahem, little red? Hello? Little red?" Damon gave up after a while. In the meantime, the shadow clone gathered all of the mana cores from the various beasts in the dungeon. In total he had obtain 100 mana cores from a single run. There were also other drops from the beasts which quickly filled up his spatial ring. All in all it was a great haul! Just as he thought he was done, the shadow clone brought out a last item. "Another evolution stone?" Damon’s eyes glinted. "Did you get it from the hidden boss Midnight Killer?" The clone nodded, sharing a memory fragment of it digging the evolution stone. "No wonder, it was so strong. It looked like that beast was also partially evolved." Damon nodded. He placed the evolution stone in the spatial ring. Maybe this was enough for another evolution but it was not advised to go through back to back evolutions without gaining a few levels in between. Damon decided to shelf it for the time being. At least until he got another one of the evolution stones. Something told him he would need two of these for the next evolution. If not more. Damon dismissed the shadow clone and prepared to log out. Now that everything was complete, he decided to focus on his real life problem. He had consumed a lot of beast blood, including elites and dungeon boss. This should keep him settled at least for the next few hours. It was almost 11 in the night now and the game would still be open for another 7 hours, giving him plenty of time to figure some things out and return back to the game to carefully consider his options. Damon made up his mind and proceeded to log out. Of course, there was the small matter of system wide announcements. A last notification flashed in front of him after the dungeon completion. [Ding! Do you wish to make your dungeon record public?] [Publicizing this record will reveal your username systemwide. Rewards include: Reputation Points, and a bonus system gift.] [Yes] [No] Damon did not hesitate and selected yes. He decided to check the other rewards later on and logged out without delaying any further. He was way more concerned about how he was going to wake up. A man or a monster? Maybe the first time he was lucky enough to run into a drunk woman, how could tonight be the same? What about every other night? He needed to make more preparations. Damon closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was once again in his studio apartment, wearing the gaming helmet. He sat up slowly, reached up, removed the helmet, and set it on the side table, fingers lingering on the surface. The taste of the blood was still in his mouth, and was the blood thirst going to surge back up? Damon quickly rushed to brew a cup of coffee just in case, but it looked like his blood thirst was under control after all. He stood by the kitchenette, sipping his coffee with slow, measured gulps. The steam curled around his face, grounding him. Did he feel any different in real life after the evolution? Damon wondered. He leaned against the kitchen counter, the ceramic mug warm in his hands, eyes narrowed slightly as he listened to the soft hum of the refrigerator. Did he feel different? Yes. It wasn’t something he could pinpoint. His senses felt sharper. He could hear the whisper of water in the pipes behind the wall. He could feel the shift in temperature when the coffee machine clicked off. And his breath? Slower. Deeper. As if his body no longer needed as much oxygen as before. Damon rubbed the back of his neck, unsure if this was all in his head. He walked to the small window and pushed it open. The cool air hit him like a slap, but instead of shrinking back, he breathed in deeper—testing, tasting. Somewhere two floors down, someone was cooking garlic. His nose wrinkled in disgust, far stronger than it should’ve been. "Well... shit," he muttered. "Don’t tell me... am I weak to garlic or something?" He did not have any garlic on hand, but maybe it was worth a try. He also needed to check out the sunlight. If sunlight was going to be a problem in real life, then he needed to get out of his house now and procure some blood bags or something like that. Damon couldn’t help but think of a million things that could go wrong and his mind was coming up with very complicated unnecessary solutions. "I need to calm down." He looked back at his helmet, wondering if he should just log back into the game but in the end, he decided to make a trip to the local hospital. A small innocent inquiry about needing a blood bag for a science experiment should do the trick—at least, he hoped it would. Worst-case scenario, they’d think he was a med student. Best case? They wouldn’t ask questions. He changed quickly, throwing on a dark hoodie and some worn jeans, shoved a cap low over his brow. S~eaʀᴄh the Nôvel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Still sipping his coffee, Damon stepped outside with a travel coffee mug. Back then he had thought that this was a waste purchase but now it was coming in handy. The night air wrapped around him like a second skin, cool and damp. His senses sharpened even more once he left the apartment building—the buzz of streetlights overhead, the distant thrum of a motorcycle engine several blocks down, the faint scent of someone’s cologne lingering in the elevator even after they’d long departed. Damon sipped from his travel mug, the bitter flavor grounding him. It took him half an hour and a bus ride but he finally reached the hospital.