Autophagy

[You've been pulled into a dream space!]

[You've managed to break the dream space's restrictions! System properties are back! You're back to your body! Your items are with you!]

[You've managed to befriend Earth-Bound Spirit Aston Windsor. As they have high levels of intelligence, their relationships aren't dependent on a certain set of actions.]

[As you've managed to break the dream space's restrictions, you now have to defeat the main villain of the dream space to break free.]

"Fucking finally!" Song Lei cheered loudly.

"What ha- Who are you!?" Aston shouted. He jumped away from Song Lei and took a fighting stance. However, before too long, his eyes went blank.

Out of nowhere, blue lines of circuits started appearing in the air on Aston's surroundings. Song Lei calmly stepped back.

'So the owner of this dream space was Aston all along...' He muttered inwardly. He raised his hands and looked at them. He could feel the power surging through his body. Having lived in this body for nearly three years, he had gotten pretty used to it. Now that he was suddenly back to his real body, he felt a bit disoriented.

The good side was he felt incredibly energized. Both his mind and body were much superior to that of Lewis'. Even three years of training weren't able to match the physical and mental enhancements given out by the system. Of course, all the training came alongside the ability to control his body and mind much better. He had gathered much-needed knowledge all throughout his journey in this dream space.

He had also learned about the existence of supernatural forces in the Old World. He had initially thought that supernatural powers only existed in the New World, however, that didn't seem to be the case. Considering that this was Aston's dream space, he would get a lot more knowledge when Aston broke free of his restrictions.

Another thing he wondered about was the identity of Aston. Aston was undoubtedly one of the best, if not the best, scientists in human history.

"Why would he never appear in science history books?" Song Lei thought. Although he was a high-school dropout, he would've still heard Aston's name.

Dispersing the questions in his head for now, Song Lei focused back on Aston's situation.

Those circuit lines that had appeared out of nowhere weaved through the air, slowly making their way towards Aston. Inch by inch, they penetrated into Aston's body, wriggling under his skin. They made his body look like a magical human motherboard.

As the circuits kept entering his body, Aston's body started growing bigger. The last traces of childishness disappeared from his face, leaving its place to a mature one. It was awkward to see his friend suddenly grow up like this.

After all the circuits settled on Aston's skin, they all formed towards his head. They came from every part of his body, eventually delivering themselves onto his eyes. The circuits started glowing brightly, overshining the sun's light, making Song Lei cover his eyes with his hands. 

A few seconds later, the light disappeared. From inside it appeared Aston's body. Now that the circuit lines had settled in, a faint glow would pulsate and run through his body occasionally, making him look mystical and high-technology at the same time.

'Does this represent how he looked before he died? What the hell did this guy do to himself?' Song Lei thought. Although he didn't know what happened to Aston before dying, for some reason, he wouldn't be surprised if Aston was the one to install all these circuits onto his body.

As his transformation was over, Aston slowly parted his eyelids. He had stopped breathing at one point in his transformation. Song Lei noticed this only after Aston gave out a loud breath. With it came out a good amount of water vapor out of his mouth and nose.

After waking up, Aston looked around for a few seconds and stretched his neck.

"So my hypothesis was true..." He muttered while holding his chin. Song Lei didn't disturb his line of thought and waited. After all, even Aston would be slightly confused after the sudden information overload in his brain.

After thinking in a daze for a few minutes, Aston lifted his head and looked towards Song Lei.

"I assume you're 'Lewis'?" Aston said while emphasizing the name 'Lewis'. Song Lei nodded and folded his arms together in front of his chest.

"Huh," Aston muttered. After taking a few steps towards Song Lei, he raised his hand to the air.

Song Lei readied himself, worried that Aston would be angry for lying to him in the dream space.

"Man... I wish I had met you in real life, while I was still alive..." Aston said as he hugged Song Lei tightly.

Seeing Aston's reaction, Song Lei was dumbfounded. In the end, this broke Aston's image of a cold and ruthless scientist that only cared about science in Song Lei's mind. After all, Aston, too, was a human. Although a bit smarter, he still had emotions.

"Sorry..." Aston muttered as he quickly stepped away from Song Lei. "I got a bit emotional with all the information."

As the awkward atmosphere between them disappeared, Aston looked around excitedly.

"To think that my hypothesis was true all along..." He muttered.

"What hypothesis..?" Song Lei muttered. Seeing Aston's excited expression, Song Lei gently smiled. Compared to the young Aston, this version was much more eager to show his emotions directly. It was easy to see the excitement of learning new things and doing science on his face.

"You see," Aston started explaining. "While I was alive, I ran a few tests on people that were about to die. Although I wasn't able to figure out an exact pattern, my soulscope managed to pick up some strange signals just as the subjects were about to die."

"And those signals meant that..?" Song Lei urged Aston to continue.

"Their souls were being sucked into something rather than dispersing," Aston said. "That was awkward. Normally, people's souls would disperse shortly after the person's physical death. That was the case for many subjects."

"I initially thought that this was the doing of another soul-type being, however, no matter how much I tried to find it, I wasn't able to spot any other souls in the premises," Aston explained. "This sparked a lot of other ideas in my head. Eventually, I managed to figure out that a dimensional disruption would appear every time those people died."

Song Lei started getting excited as Aston kept explaining. Seemingly, Aston had managed to figure out some things about the New World before dying.

"This was absurd," Aston continued his explanation. "For such a thing to happen, there had to be something that caused the dimensional disruption. This isn't a trivial thing, as such a dimensional disruption would need a high amount of energy."

"So?" Song Lei asked.

"To this day, I haven't been able to figure out what caused the disruption," Aston said. "However, I figured out that I would be transported to someplace if the same thing happened to me."

"Wait... Do you mean that..?" Song Lei muttered. A deep frown appeared on his face as he tried to understand what Aston meant.

"Yeah. I caused an artificial dimensional disruption and killed myself to get here."

*Slap

Hearing Aston's words, Song Lei facepalmed hard. Hard enough to make his forehead go red.

"That is exactly something you would do..." He muttered.

Aston chuckled lightly at Song Lei's words. He couldn't exactly refute that.

"Well... I was already going to die so this was the best choice..." Aston muttered bitterly. "Anyways, next question."

"Then what are those," Song Lei said. Aston didn't seem like he wanted to talk further about the topic, so Song Lei didn't insist.

"What do you mean?" Aston asked. In turn, Song Lei raised his finger and pointed it towards the circuit lines running through Aston's skin.

"Oh! These are my beauties," Aston said. "Doesn't it look cool?"

Scratching his cheek, Song Lei sighed deeply.

"Yeah... I have to admit. They look pretty cool. But that doesn't answer my question."

"Oh, sorry," Aston said. "These are soul circuits. At one point in my life, I tried to become a soul-practitioner. However, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to become one."

"And you did..?"

"I carved these soul circuits into my soul. They help me utilize some amount of soul power. Although it doesn't exactly help me with fighting, they helped out a lot with my experiments. They also act as a more advanced version of that primitive soul monocle that I made."

"That's pretty good actually," Song Lei said as he held his chin. He walked circles around Aston, inspecting the lines more closely.

"Yeah. Even I'm surprised by them," Aston said. "I did such a good job that they came along with me to this world. Although they don't exactly help me as much as before..."

"Why is that..?" Song Lei asked curiously.

"Well, I have already become something like a ghost apparently," Aston said. "That bastard locked me in this dream space... Anyways, because I'm a ghost, the only thing I have with me is my soul. That being the case, I don't need any help with controlling my soul anymore."

"Oh..." Song Lei quickly understood.

"That's enough talk about me. It's your turn now...."