Autophagy

As Song Lei recovered from his shock and read the notifications, a wide smile appeared on his face.

"This is interesting," he thought. He read all the notifications again and again. And every time he did so, he was getting more and more excited about becoming the new landlord of this apartment. Maybe, just maybe, if he could get a few apartments like this filled with tenants, he would be able to amass the number of blood beads needed to go back to the Old World.

"Huff..."

Taking a deep breath, Song Lei stared at the other available rooms on this floor. If he wanted tenants, he needed places to rent out. There was only a single room he could rent out currently. He wondered what the criteria behind the system counting something as a rental room was.

"Hmm..."

Pondering for a second, Song Lei gathered his things in room 1407 and went back up to floor 16 to clear out the remaining 3 rooms. Excluding Isabel's room, there were 5 rooms that weren't covered by lava. If Song Lei wanted to clear those places out, he would need to figure a way out to bypass or exterminate the lava.

Unfortunately, this would be no easy feat. After all, this lava wasn't your conventional molten rock. If it was, it would've cooled down a long time ago.

One by one, Song Lei started clearing the rooms. There weren't any variables that were out of place. All of the rooms had a fleshly abomination each. Song Lei could easily deal with this monster without any problems.

After he was done with the cleanup, he bought some bacteria tubes and poured them onto the residues that were left behind.

'Now that I'm done with this...' Song Lei thought. He went back to floor 14th and left the bacteria alone to do their job on their own.

Now that he was done with creating places for his new tenants, he had to actually find those tenants. After all, he knew that the tenants of this place were all monsters and ghosts. Most of them wouldn't be relatively friendly like Song Ming.

Picking his next target, Song Lei went to room 1402 and knocked on the door. After waiting for half a minute, Song Lei noticed the peephole cover being lifted up.

"Who is it?" A voice came from the inside. Song Lei smiled widely at the peephole.

"I'm the new landlord. I have something to talk about. Could you please open the door?" Song Lei asked.

"The new landlord..?" The voice asked. It sounded hoarse like it belonged to a middle-aged man. "Wait for a second please."

Song Lei nodded without answering and crossed his arms in front of his chest while tapping the ground with his feet rhythmically.

While he was waiting, his ears picked up two careful footsteps coming from inside the room. It seemed like whoever was inside was trying to sneakily approach the door. Alerted, Song Lei kept acting like he was distracted.

Shortly after the footsteps stopped, the door suddenly burst open and a gruesome-looking, bulky man with four arms jumped onto Song Lei. His eyes were bloodshot. There was a tinge of blush on the man's cheeks, probably indicating that he was drunk. Song Lei dodged the man and pinned him onto the ground.

Just before he took out The Banisher, the man started screaming like he was crazy. A deep frown formed on Song Lei's face as he cut the man's head off in a single motion.

[Congratulations! You've managed to exorcise the Earth-Bound Spirit Cai Meng. You've gained Exp!]

Quickly dismissing the notification, Song Lei rushed for his room. The noise that was made by the man would've highly likely attracted a horde. After the Secret Blood Order had tried to take over the apartment, its defenses had been lowered by a lot, leading to horde triggering chances to decrease by a wide margin.

Now, however, the apartment consciousness would've healed up a lot. Furthermore, the man's scream was incredibly loud, making the horde even more likely.

After entering room 1407, Song Lei closed the door behind him and sat down just in front of it. Shortly after, the ominous cacophony of noises made by the horde started filling up his ears. No matter what Song Lei experienced, these noises would be able to make him feel the chills. After all, if he thought of the apartment as a single person, it would be more powerful than anything he had met before.

After he spent half an hour chilling in his room, the horde finally stopped. He left the room and went back to room 1402. Cai Meng's corpse wasn't lying on the ground anymore. The horde had probably destroyed him instantly.

Dismissing the image of Cai Meng's corpse being devoured from his head, Song Lei entered room 1402 and started checking the insides. Fortunately, the horde hadn't entered the room and made a mess as it did back in Xiang Yimu's room.

After Song Lei entered the room, he realized that it reeked of alcohol. It was to an amount that Song Lei felt dizzy just by smelling it. He couldn't fathom how much this ghost had drunk inside this house.

Song Lei made sure that he stabilized his breath and didn't breathe in much alcohol. He didn't want to get drunk by smelling alcohol. Quickly, he started looking here and there in the room to find anything that could be useful. However, all the shelves were filled with alcohol bottles. Most of them were empty.

After searching for some time, Song Lei found a bottle that hadn't been opened yet. He reached out to the shelf and touched it.

[You've picked up a special consumable! Alcohol of the Divine Heart can make your soul stronger!]

"Hmm..."

Song Lei inspected the alcohol bottle from top to bottom. Although it sounded like a great consumable, it could be dangerous to get drunk in the New World. Song Lei had never taken alcohol before so he had no idea about his alcohol resistance. Song Lei left the room after throwing the bottle into his backpack.

'Now that I think of it, I haven't checked Song Ming's room yet,' Song Lei thought. He left room 1402 after making sure that there wasn't anything that was unchecked.

He then went to Song Ming's former room and started searching through it. Although it felt a bit rude to search someone's room, the benefits could be very high from it.

Song Lei searched the room for some time and found a teapot that was identical to the one Song Ming was using. When he picked it up, a notification popped up.

[You've picked up a special item. The Celestial Teapot can be used to pour infinite water. It works only when you use it intentionally.]

"Umm..."

Song Lei stared at the teapot in his hand. He tilted it with the intention to pour water. Just like the notification said, the water started pouring out of it. When Song Lei wished it to stop, however, the water stopped.

"This could be useful..." Song Lei thought. He threw the teapot into his backpack. Although it wasn't something especially useful, it had its use. For example, if one day, the clean water supply of the apartment was cut off for some reason, it could be a saving grace for him.

After he was done with Song Ming's room, Song Lei went back to cleaning the other rooms. For the next three rooms he had cleared, every single tenant was in a crazed state, trying to attack Song Lei in various ways and getting defeated in a single motion every single time.

After the third time, Song Lei decided to stop clearing for today. There was a special item in every one of those tenants' rooms. Unfortunately, all of them were convenience items that didn't help him in surviving or getting stronger. Sighing at his luck, Song Lei went back to his room and sat down on his bed. He took out all the items he gathered and lined them up on his desk.

After that, he took out the Alcohol of the Divine Heart and poured it into a glass. It had a golden glow to it with a fragrant smell of apple. Song Lei wondered what this was made from.

Taking a deep breath, Song Lei lifted the glass and took a sip of it. The sour taste of alcohol mixed with a taste he had never felt before filled his mouth. It was incredibly great, so much so that it made him dizzy. If his mental fortitude was any lower, he would gulp down the rest of the glass in one go. However, he knew that that probably wouldn't be a good idea.

Taking things slowly, Song Lei started drinking the bottle. With time, he felt the alcohol taking effect in his body. Deciding that he still continue drinking, Song Lei took a few more gulps. By now, the bottle was already half over.

After Song Lei placed the glass on the table, he sighed. He felt a weird feeling slowly creeping up inside his body....