Autophagy

Song Lei could also make the gray substance move on its own. He could form little shapes out of it or make it accumulate around a certain part of his body.

'Wait...' Song Lei said in his head. 'What happened to my face!?'

He stared at the mirror dumbfoundedly. His normally handsome face had become even more handsome than it initially was! There weren't any blemishes left on it. Even his jawbone had become a bit sharper, bringing him up to the level of an S-level celebrity that had only become popular with their looks.

What gave his looks the last push was the gray-colored ring in his pupils that made him look slightly mystical.

'I suddenly became too handsome for my own good...' Song Lie muttered inwardly as he kept looking at himself from every angle in the mirror. He then conjured his soul and started striking different poses. He was hardly able to stop himself from taking even more cringy poses as he sat back on his bed.

'I have things to do, I can't waste time like this...' He thought.

After playing around with his newly gained soul control, he was able to figure out a few things:

First of all, he could make his soul take any shape around his body. This would help him with all kinds of things, ranging from making his body stronger to energizing him.

The second was his control over it at certain distances. From the looks of it, the further the energy got from his body, the more he would lose control over it, eventually making it dip right back into his body.

'So I can't shoot it like a bullet,' Song Lei thought. Slightly dejected, he kept doing everything he could do with it. 'Anyways... At least, this works pretty similarly to a generic energy system in any novel. At least it isn't something that I can't figure out how to use.'

Having nothing left to try, Song Lei brought up his stat sheet.

[Body]: 13

[Mind]: 11

[Soul]: 14

[Control]: 2

'Oh right... I remember the system telling me that I had gained a new attribute type.'

'So this is how good I am at controlling my soul? Or is it something different..?' He kept contemplating. As he felt that he couldn't arrive at an exact answer, he decided to put it aside for now.

'Now that I have dealt with all of this...'

Song Lei turned around and looked at a notebook that was sitting on top of his study. Written on it were different kinds of names.

'This is hard...' Song Lei muttered inwardly as he stared at the names that were written on the notebook. He was currently trying to think of a name that he could pick for his own faction.

'For now, all my members are ghosts,' Song Lei thought. 'The boundaries of my organization are really awkward. Generally, humans and ghosts are natural enemies.'

'That is different with me though...'

"I guess this is the best one..." Song Lei muttered out loud.

[Congratulations! You've founded your faction!]

[The Limbo has been formed.]

[The Limbo was formed by a young lost one brimming with potential. He is a person that walks the boundaries between life and death. In this world where life and death flow into each other, this faction is the one that makes those boundaries disappear by having a human as the leader and ghosts as members]

[You are the leader of The Limbo.]

[Please raise the level of your faction to unlock more features.]

After reading the notifications, Song Lei sighed. He wasn't sure how to level up his faction and the system didn't seem to want to explain.

'Now that I have resolved this, I should go back to Aston to learn more about my soul abilities,' Song Lei decided.

After gathering his stuff and wearing his backpack, Song Lei left the room.

As soon as he closed the door behind him, a shrill scream resounded across the whole apartment, making it shake with excitement.

'What!? Why did the apartment go into frenzy!?' Song Lei shouted in his mind. He knew what this scream meant. This was the signal of a horde that was on its way. Of course, after hearing the scream, Song Lei instantly went back into his room.

It took the horde a lot of time to calm down. Song Lei had to stay in his room for half an hour before he could go back outside.

'What was that..?'

After looking around and seeing that there wasn't anything suspicious, Song Lei started climbing the stairs towards floor 17.

However, as he was passing by the 16th floor, that same scream resounded once again, making Song Lei curse at his luck.

'What is happening!?' He shouted in his mind as he ran towards Isabel's room. Opening the door without knocking, Song Lei threw himself in.

"Phew... I managed to es-" Song Lei was about to speak as he realized that the lights in the room were flickering. "Umm..."

He raised his head and the scene he was met with made his mind blank out. Cold sweat rolled off of his head. He instantly went into alert mode and straightened his posture. It had been a long time since he felt this kind of terror in his heart. It was as if his whole being was being pressured altogether.

In front of him were three faces, all devoid of eyeballs and lips. They seemed to be struggling where they were as if they were doing their best to not move from their place.

"QuiC. Res... Train you, soul," one of those faces said in agony. Heeding its words, Song Lei did his best to take his soul energy under control. That fiery and fluctuating grey energy around his body became serene and stuck to his body as if it was a full-body skin-tight suit.

As soon as he did so, the wailings of the horde quieted down and disappeared. The flickering of the lights in the room stopped, revealing a tired trio of ghosts all sprawled on the floor.

Of course, these were Aston, Isabel, and Mia. Seeing them in such a state and thinking about what just happened, Song Lei somewhat got a gist of what was going on.

"Are you guys okay..?" Song Lei asked anxiously.

"Yeah yeah... No problem," Aston said as he got up and sat on a chair. "That was the stupidest thing I saw you do in a long time."

"Sorry..." Song Lei muttered.

"You're fortunate that we are acquainted," Isabel said. "Considering the state of the ghosts in this apartment, any other would've attacked you instantly."

"Umm..." Song Lei thought. "The quake demon in my room didn't..."

"Are you trying to compare us with a dog?" Isabel asked. Her eyebrows were twitching. She folded her arms in front of her chest and looked away from Song Lei in anger.

"He probably didn't know," Aston said, trying to calm Isabel down.

"Can you guys be a bit clearer?" Song Lei asked. Aston sighed deeply before explaining.

"Well, we don't know how you awakened your soul and how it started smelling this tasty," he said. "But you have to know this. You already smelled tasty before. Now, however, it has become so much better that it is unbearable. Considering that almost every ghost in this apartment is starving, it's normal that you would activate a horde as soon as you leave your room."

"And that dog you were talking about," Isabel took over the explanation. "It isn't a ghost like us, it is a demon. It doesn't exactly feed off of souls. Its primary source of food is human flesh. You probably keep it well-fed right?"

"Yeah..."

"That's one of the reasons why it didn't attack you. If it were hungry like us, you would have to fight each other to death."

"You said that every ghost in this apartment was starving..."

"Yeah. That's the case even for us," Aston said. "It is hard to come by consumable souls. So we have to constantly quench off our thirst for souls by eating other ghosts."

"It's a blessing to be able to find some fragments of souls here and there," Aston said.

Thinking for a bit, Song Lei's face soured. 'Can I trust them?' He asked in his mind. Coming to the conclusion that this was a stupid question to even ask, he opened his system shop and bought a few liters of blank soul fragments. He had used this to feed the quake demon. He knew that it would probably be rude to offer this to them, however, he assumed that it would still be better than starving.

"Umm... Do you guys have buckets or something?" Song Lei asked.

"What do you need it for?" Isabel asked. Seeing that Song Lei didn't answer, she raised her hand and conjured three buckets out of her flesh.

Song Lei poured the soul fragments into the buckets.

"I don't know if this is a rude thing b-" Song Lei was about to say. However, before he could finish his sentence, the ghost trio pushed him aside and started pouring the soul fragments into their existence.

"I guess you liked it...."