Autophagy

"Unless there were mistakes in my previous calculations in the Old World, the value always came out as 14.07. It never changed. No matter where or when I run the experiment, that was the number that greeted me."

Song Lei facepalmed hard after hearing the number. Pushing his annoyance to a corner of his head, he asked, "That means..?"

"The New World is very, VERY unstable," Aston said. This caused Song Lei to slightly shudder. He didn't know why but space being unstable didn't exactly sound like a good thing.

"So you don't know anything about the space around here being unstable?" Song Lei asked. Feeling slightly hungry, he got up and checked Aston's fridge. However, after remembering the fact that Aston was a ghost, he closed the fridge dejectedly.

"Not for now. I should be able to produce something that alters the stability to some extent, however, my research will probably stagnate for some amount of time," Aston explained as he scrolled through a few more bouts of data.

"Well, I had come here to check on you but it seems like you're good enough," Song Lei said. "I should go now. Be on the lookout for any attacks from the landlord. We don't know when he'll attack again."

"Mm," Aston nodded. "I already planted some detectors and safety measures in case we get attacked again. I guess I was being a bit careless, forgetting the fact that we were in the New World."

"See you then," Song Lei said with a faint smile on his face. Turning around, he walked up to the door and grasped its handle.

"Hey," Aston called out. "I don't know what's the problem but if you need help, remember that you're not alone," he said. Song Lei's eyes widened for a split second before a bittersweet smile appeared on his face.

"Was it that obvious?" He asked. Aston shook his head in answer.

"No. I just know you well."

Song Lei turned his head and stared at the door's handle for a short while.

"Thanks..." He muttered with a voice low enough that Aston wasn't able to hear. He then pulled the handle of the door and left the room...

...

A faint cloud of soul energy formed around him, gray in color and low in density. However, this was impressive for him. Pushing his soul energy away from his body was hard unless he used a catalyst, such as a sword.

He wanted to be able to use his soul energy as an area-of-damage weapon. Although he could swing around a sword, unless he spent half of his energy like the last time, he wouldn't be able to stand his ground against a swarm of enemies.

He could probably spend some blood beads on his system shop to get himself an ability that could do that. However, it wasn't urgent. He could train and possibly achieve the same effect he was wishing for. And if not, he would have to rely on the system shop once more.

The cloud of soul energy rolled and churned, slowly condensing and shrinking in size while forming a bubble around Song Lei. Although it wasn't perfect, his training was going pretty well.

After the energy turned into a bubble, Song Lei pulled and tugged on the energy to bend it to his will. Forming circular shapes was easier than forming shapes with sharp edges and angular structures. He didn't know why, however, it was like that.

As the energy around him coalesced more and more, it started looking like a lake of mercury, covering his body, protecting him from any kind of harm that could come to him. That sturdy energy started coalescing in front of him. It kept flowing and mixing, forming a disc shape the size of his head in front of his face.

This was the most solid his soul energy had been. This small disc contained almost thirty percent of his soul energy. However, controlling that much energy at once worked wonders on his control.

He still had one more thing to do. That disc of soul energy turned into a ball as Song Lei pressed on it from its sides. As he kept applying mental pressure on it, the energy kept changing shapes. Instead of coalescing and forming denser materials, it instead chose to become what looked like a javelin.

Stabilizing the shape, Song Lei raised his hand. He could feel his soul energy in his hand. A truly awkward experience. It was like holding the moonlight in his hands.

He didn't waste this opportunity and touched every part of it he could to feel its presence, to better understand his own energy.

The javelin was sturdy, sturdy as metal and volatile as liquid, it was the perfect balance between the two. Although Song Lei could feel it fluctuate under his hands, no matter how much pressure he applied, it didn't break.

"This is great. If I keep doing this, I will be able to achieve my goal in less than a month," he spoke to himself. Leaving the javelin on the ground, he walked away a few meters. As the distance between himself and the javelin was higher than four meters, it dispersed, turning first into a liquid then into a gas. That gas was confused, left alone, and scared. Once Song Lei walked back to its side, it launched forward towards him and attached itself back to his soul.

"As my control goes up, my soul energy seems to be gaining a consciousness of its own..." He muttered as he held his chin. Turning his head towards his right, he looked at the person sitting on his bed. "What do you think?"

"Isn't that weird? It's like your child or something," Sugihara said. She had five more minutes of summoning time left on her clock.

"Hmm... Maybe?" Song Lei thought to himself. Recently, alongside his soul control training, he was also using The Master skill to hopefully level it up. As Guyaa was still in hibernation for an unknown amount of time, the only person he could summon was Sugihara.

Fortunately, she was good company. It could get tiring to only speak with Isabel who lived in the 18th century and Aston who was a science freak. Someone normal like Sugihara was hard to find.

Of course, during these summonings, Sugihara was also trying to develop her abilities. From what it looked like, she was a special type of ghost that could revitalize other beings, kind of like a healer you would see in an RPG.

Unfortunately, she could only spend 30 minutes training every day. After the level up of his ability, she could be summoned for a total of 45 minutes. Song Lei insisted on keeping one summoning chance at every possible moment.

As Song Lei sighed and let the soul energy properly blend into his soul, Sugihara got up and held out a towel towards him.

"Oh, thanks," Song Lei said as he took the towel from her hands. After wiping the sweat off of his body, he decided to take a quick shower.

[Sugihara Tokiyo has been recalled. Cooldown: 23:59:59 1/3]

As Sugihara disappeared into his right hand, Song Lei left the room for a shower. Unfortunately, he still had to use the shower in room 1401 as his room didn't have one. On the good side of the things, however, he had cleaned the room from all the goo that had gathered on the walls because of the horde that had consumed Xiang Yimu.

As he felt the cold water washing away the impurities on his body, Song Lei felt a stinging sensation on his forehead.

He knew something was wrong.

Considering this, he quickly turned his system map on to see what was going on.

A holographic 3D map of the apartment appeared in front of him. Holding it with his hands and zooming in, he looked at the two floors that were under his control.

"Weird... There aren't any intruders on these two..." He muttered to himself. Closing his eyes, he tried to focus on his sixth sense.

Recently, he had realized that his strong sixth sense was caused by his fully awakened soul. With its ability to see through the 4th dimension, he was able to pick up things that were normally unnoticeable with the first five senses.

Knowing this, he could actually trust his gut feelings a lot more. Especially this type of stinging on his forehead meant that something important was happening.

As he stood there, under the running water caressing his skin with his eyes closed, he felt something moving on the 1408th room. He could sense that it was confused.

'There shouldn't be any ghosts there now though..?' Song Lei was alerted. Snapping his eyes back open, He dashed out of the shower and put his clothes back on. Running to the 1408th room's door, he carefully pushed it open.

The room was just like how he had left it. Eerie and dark...

However, there was a slight disturbance right in the middle.

As he lowered his head, Song Lei was confused.

"A human...?"