Autophagy

After the burning sensation disappeared, Song Lei saw a line of words floating in front of his face.

[You've unlocked the system shop!]

Song Lei scratched his head after reading the notification. He was actually surprised that it had been this easy to upgrade his system.

Calming himself down, Song Lei called for the system inside his head.

[Please request whatever you want from the system.]

Tapping his chin, Song Lei thought about what he could get from the system and how he would do so. After some time, Song Lei decided to go with something simple like water.

[10 liters of water. 1BC]

'What is a BC?' Song Lei thought. 'Is it..?'

Song Lei took out a blood bead from his backpack and inserted it into the notification. After all, he had used blood beads to activate the system. When he did so, his hand seemingly disappeared, entering a totally different realm from this one. An eerie feeling wrapped around his hand, swallowing the blood bead.

When he pulled his hand back, he found out that the blood bead had truly disappeared.

[Complete the acquirement of the item?]

'Uhh... No.'

Song Lei got up from his place. If he accepted the notification, 10 liters of water would probably get dumped on his head. He didn't want that to happen so he found three buckets by searching his room and room 1401.

After he got the buckets ready, Song Lei sat in front of them. All of the buckets were the same size and looked like they could all hold up to 3 or 4 liters. Hoping that he wouldn't spill the water, Song Lei confirmed the notification.

When he did so, the water started spilling out of his hand slowly. He held his hand to the bucket and willed for the water to get faster. Shortly, the whole bucket was filled. On to the next one, Song Lei repeated his actions twice more and managed to fill up all the buckets.

[Transaction has been completed. Leftover BC: 0]

"Huh... So a single blood bead is a single BC and a single BC is worth ten liters of water," Song Lei deducted. He kept buying a few more things from the system to test it out. He bought a few daily necessities such as toothbrushes or soaps. He then bought some food.

In the end, all of the items were brandless. The ones that had packages had red, plastic packages to them.

After playing with the system for a bit, Song Lei took a deep breath. He willed up the shop again and wished for a soul enhancement pill.

[A ball of intermediate soul enhancement pill. 15000BC]

'That's a lot...' Song Lei thought.

Pills were things that could easily be found in a lot of fantasy settings, especially in the eastern ones. They could get used to raise one's properties in certain ways. In this case, it was for the soul stat.

He took out the blood beads that he had in his backpack. Although he couldn't bother with counting, there were less than 250 blood beads in it. He probably wouldn't be able to buy a single ball of intermediate soul enhancement pill even if he dipped into the savings of the whole Hammer Branch.

Dismissing the transaction offer, Song Lei checked how much the lowest level soul enhancement pill would cost. Willing up another transaction, Song Lei learned that a beginner-level soul enhancement pill cost 5000 BC. Considering that this was a beginner pill, it would probably boost his soul stat by 1.

'Well... there must be something that is more cost-efficient,' Song Lei thought. Buying raw stats usually wasn't the smartest thing to do in these kinds of situations. What he could do, however, would be to buy ways to improve his stats.

'Find me the easiest way to stably raise my soul stat.'

[Soul Devouring Technique. 100000 BC]

'Not buying that anytime soon...'

The biggest problem with the technique was the amount of BC it needed. The other problem was how ominous its name was. Song Lei assumed that it was a technique that helped him devour other souls. He did have choices, so he wouldn't pick this over others when he didn't need to.

Figuring out that he wouldn't be able to buy a way to raise his soul stat, Song Lei decided to try different things out. He tried buying swords, artifacts, technological devices, and all kinds of things.

All of them were available in the system shop. Of course, Song Lei didn't buy any of them and waste his resources.

After trying everything he could, it was finally the time. Readying his will, Song Lei tried buying his mother from the system.

[Conscious beings cannot be bought!]

'Oh... Well, it's just like I guessed,' Song Lei thought. He had never thought that he could actually buy his already dead mother with the help of the system. He just wanted to try his chance in doing so. And even if he was able to buy her, she would probably be in a soul state where she didn't have her consciousness anymore.

Thinking for some more time, Song Lei tried to buy a way to get back to the Old World.

[Some amount of energy. BC 100000000000000000000000000000000000000000...

As soon as Song Lei tried to buy a way to get out of the New World, his whole sight was filled with zeros. The notification expanded and expanded, eventually covering Song Lei in zeros. Panicking, Song Lei quickly dismissed the transaction notification.

"So it's buyable..." Song Lei muttered. He took a deep breath. There was a way to get out of the New World and go back to the old one. However, it was expensive beyond what a human could comprehend.

'Whatever... It's great to know that I at least have a chance at going back,' Song Lei thought. He laid on his bed and kept searching the system shop for interesting things. It was pretty handy. He could imagine whatever he wanted and it would probably be buyable unless it was something conscious. In the end, Song Lei wondered what qualified something as being conscious.

This was an active topic constantly hypothesized about. A lot of people had their own interpretations of consciousness. However, now that Song Lei knew of the soul's existence, he felt like he was a bit closer to the answer to this subject.

After he felt that he had played enough with the system, Song Lei bought decided to buy the amount of food he would need in the upcoming week. It didn't cost that many blood beads and he could actually buy a very good diet with just the right amount of nutrients. This would both help him stay healthy and keep him full.

After he finished buying and arranging the food, Song Lei thought of a great idea.

'Why don't I buy the quake demon's food from the system shop?' He thought. He instantly put his plan into action and asked the system for quake demon food.

[Blank soul fragment of 1 Liter. 1 BC]

Not thinking much about it, Song Lei took out a storage container and opened its lid. After readying himself, he confirmed the notification. When he did so, a weird substance started pouring out of his hand. It was greyish in color with liquid-like physical properties. However, when he tried to touch the substance, he realized that it was more of a gas than a liquid.

Fortunately, it acting more like a liquid made it easier for Song Lei to store it. He took the storage container and put it in front of the quake demon. Seeing the soul fragments, the quake demon quickly ran up and started gulping down the liquid-like gas.

It seemed to be really fond of its meal. Seeing that he had finally managed to solve the problem of feeding this little fella, Song Lei sighed in relaxation. Although he had wasted his time carrying and dismembering Andres' corpse, it didn't bother Song Lei too much.

Thinking about it for a second, Song Lei went ahead and disconnected his fridge from the power supply. This fridge had become a place to hold human corpses a long time ago. Having spent so much time with them, it now reeked of human corpses. Although Song Lei was mostly resistant to disgusting stuff, he still didn't want to eat something that would come out of this fridge.

Considering this, Song Lei took the fridge and threw it into the stairwell. In the end, the apartment would take care of the fridge for him.

'This is really convenient,' Song Lei thought while carrying the fridge in room 1401 to his room. This one, compared to the one he had just thrown into the stairwell, was much cleaner. The crazy bastard Xiang Yimu used the safe room of this floor just to feed the quake demon.

Not being courageous like Song Lei, he didn't have the courage to stay in the same room with it. And even if he did, he didn't have a good relationship with the quake demon. So he was just staying in room 1401, completely unsafe from any hordes of ghosts. It was truly surprising that he could survive in such conditions and still keep feeding the quake demon.

Song Lei connected the fridge he had just carried to room 1407 and watched it hum to cool the things inside it. He nodded at his great idea of finally getting himself a new fridge. After he was done appreciating, he got on to the next thing he had to do....