Feeding The Red Skull

--- Shurym's Archives

"Hold it!"

One of the Shurymites that was guarding the large double doors of the archives smacked his tentacle-like tail on the ground the moment Jay approached them.

Jay did not need to speak up and he just took out a small bag that contains a hundred Blood Gems.

When the guard saw it, he snatched the bag away from Jay and gestured his partner to open the door.

"One hour. You have to pay extra for every succeeding hour." The guard said to Jay as he opened the door with a small key.

Jay just nodded at the guards as he entered the archives.

...

Even though the archives looked small due to its exterior appearance, the interior of the place was quite huge in comparison.

There were a lot of bookshelves that was filled with books. There were also some cabinets that were filled with scrolls or maps.

There was also a forbidden area within the Archives, and to get to this place, there was a staircase that lead below the archives.

"One hour huh? I wonder how many books I will be able to steal?" Jay thought to himself and walked towards a random bookshelf and grabbed a random book.

The book he grabbed was just a thin book with a leather cover. The title of the book was 'Blood Ties: Chapter I'

Jay got curious and opened the book and started reading it. But the moment he started reading, he noticed that every word he read from the book starts to blur out and disappear after a few seconds.

He did not even had time to think about it when Hellson suddenly shouted at him with a surprised tone.

"Jay! The red book in the mind room opened on its own! It looks like the red skull is eating something! Try reading some words from the book in your hand again!"

Jay got really curious and did what Hellson asked. The moment he did, Hellson told him that the red skull started to open and close its jaws. The moment he stopped reading, the red skull also stopped what it was doing.

"Hellson, go ask it what's it doing." Jay asked Hellson as he returned the book back to the shelf and grabbed another book.

After a few seconds, Hellson spoke up.

"It told me that as long as you find information related to Blood Magic, it will start eating the information you get and place it on the red book."

Jay had a grin on his face when he heard this so he tried flipping through the book in his hands, without even reading it. But sadly though, it did not work.

"Damn. It looks like I actually have to read it." Jay sighed and just decided to rely on the mysterious bookshelf on the Mind Room for now and just keep grabbing book after book.

...

One hour later...

Jay did not know how many books or scrolls he grabbed, but he knew it was probably a thousand books or something. Some of the Shurymites in the archives even looked at him pitifully and thought he was a lunatic.

When he was asked what he was doing, Jay told them that he was looking for a specific book.

"Time's up. Get out or pay another 50 gems." A deep and rugged voice boomed within the archives while a gigantic red eye appeared in front of Jay.

Jay just shrugged as he left the archives and went to a random alleyway so he could enter the mind room without any disturbances.

...

--- Forbidden Hall, Shurym's Archives

There wasn't really much to say about this room since it was pretty small. It just looked like a small cave that had an office-like design.

"Ouch, ouch, ouch..." A Shurymite with crimson colored skin and short black hair was currently wailing in pain. He was just normally doing his job as the one in charge of the archives. Then suddenly, for an unknown reason, it was as if bugs and worms started to crawl around his head and kept on biting him.

"The hell is this?" He asked himself and decided to use Blood Magic to check anything weird within the archives. The moment he did, a gigantic red eye appeared on the main hall of the archives and looked at everything.

Then after looking around for a few seconds, the Shurymite had a ghastly expression on his face and decided to rush towards the main hall.

...

"WHERE IS IT!??" The crimson-skinned Shurymite shouted furiously as he picked up book after book at the bookshelves. Every book he grabbed did not have a single word on it! Even the titles of the book were missing!

"Please no, please no..." The Shurymite had a ghastly expression on his face as he kept checking book after book. Since he was the one in charge of this place, and as one of the 10 lords of the Shurym Plane, he knew that the consequences he will receive from the War God will probably be worse than just imprisonment.

...

The next morning, in the inn Jay previously worked at...

"Hey, did my dad show up here?" A random Shurymite with brown skin asked the innkeeper who was wiping some cups and wine bottles.

"No. He was hanging out with his two buddies. Drunk buddies." The innkeeper said casually.

"Oh, okay then. Can you please help me convince him to come home if he returns to your inn?"

"Sure."

...

On the streets of Underbelly City...

"Oh thank goodness you're here good sir." A female Shurymite with brown hair quickly said as five gray-skinned Shurymites who had armor on arrived near her.

The gray-skins immediately checked the surroundings and saw faint traces of blood. Even though Jay cleaned up the corpses, there were still spots of blood around.

"You trying to waste our time woman?! No one fucking cares if there are a few spots of blood on the walls of your house!"

...

--- Slimerock Tavern

This place was probably the largest tavern in the whole Underbelly City. Jay was currently pretending to be a drunkard who managed to sleep on the table. Of course, he was just inside the Mind Room.

Mind Room...

"Did you enjoy your meal last night?" Jay said as he patted the red skull floating above the red book.

"I did enjoy it master. Now, about the knowledge you made me eat, I manage to devise a way for you to step into the stage of Sacred Blood Magic with little effort."

Jay immediately got intrigued and gestured the red skull to continue speaking.

"You just have to suck the blood of a practitioner of Sacred Blood Magic. As for how much blood you need to suck, it depends on the quality of their blood."

"Quality?" Jay asked since he was not sure what the red skull was talking about.

"It's just like any ordinary food or drink you take in. The better it tastes, the faster you can progress into Sacred Blood Magic. The more disgusting it is in taste, the slower your progress is."

"We are still talking about blood right?"

"Exactly."

Jay was not sure if he should do it or not since sucking blood... that was just a bit disgusting for him. For him to actually suck the blood of a random Shurymite who is a practitioner of Sacred Blood Magic... was it worth it though?

"Jay, I have an idea." Hellson suddenly appeared beside him.

"Since you managed to fuse some of your chicken skills with blood magic, won't it be possible for you to use blood magic while you are in your chicken form and perhaps create some kind of 'Vampire Chicken' form?" Hellson said as he looked at Jay.

"A Vampire Chicken? Just what the hell have you been thinking of these past few days? But... your idea does not seem so bad..."