Autophagy

After dismissing the level-up notification, Song Lei decided to keep his stat points for now.

Calming himself down, he went down to the first floor. By now, the horde had dissipated. Looking at it, he realized that the monsters had completely disappeared.

'Huh... The apartment is the same as always. It doesn't leave anything behind,' he commented. If it were his old self, Song Lei would have shivered at the thought of the horde swallowing everything. Now, however, he didn't have any particular emotions.

Walking further, he crouched and touched the floor. There was a very thin layer of transparent goo. It would normally be impossible to notice for a normal human if they didn't carefully inspect it. For Song Lei, however, it was somewhat easy.

After rubbing his index finger and thumb together, Song Lei bought a test tube from the system and scooped up some of the goo before sealing it.

'I should give this to Aston to study. I wonder what it is...'

After getting up, Song Lei went up to floor 17 with the test tube still in his hand. He didn't want to put it into his backpack as it could shatter inside.

After arriving, Song Lei entered Aston's room and saw him silently sitting on his chair, waiting for Song Lei.

"Did it work?" Aston asked as soon as he saw Song Lei come in.

"Yeah. It did," Song Lei answered. "At least I think that it did. The monsters had disappeared without a trace when I went down. I also found this," he said as he held out the test tube towards Aston.

Taking the tube from Song Lei's hand, Aston shook it a little bit.

"Hmm..." Aston hummed as he looked at it for a few more seconds. "I need a centrifuge. Maybe a few more tools. Let me think about it and I'll make a list for you."

"Mm," Song Lei agreed. As Aston put the tube aside, Song Lei started speaking. "Will this be enough? Or do we have to feed the apartment a few more times?"

"Two or three more times should be enough," Aston said. "The apartment should recover to its tip-top shape."

"Well then," Song Lei said. "Let's do this..."

...

"This one seems to meet our needs perfectly," Dr. Xie said. Jia Feng was disturbed. Not knowing what to say, he kept his silence. Liu Kun was also silent, not answering and only looking down. "You shall immediately make him sign the contract and start the training. The other parts of the research have all come to an end. There are only a few more finishing touches..."

"Yes, Dr. Xie," Liu Kun said respectfully. Turning around, he pushed Jia Feng out of the room.

"Who was that?" Jia Feng asked confusedly. He couldn't recognize Dr. Xie's face no matter how hard he tried. If he were someone with a high ranking in the DIR Empire, Jia Feng would've at least heard of him.

"Someone very important," Liu Kun said with a silent chuckle. Jia Feng's confused state seemed to have amused him. "He's the head of the Project: Restore&Reincarnate."

"Restore&Reincarnate..?" Jia Feng repeated the words dumbfoundedly as he kept getting led around by Liu Kun. After passing by hundreds of researchers doing their best, they reached a door. To its upper right was a brass sign that read: 'Liu Kun. Scout'

"Yeah. Come in," Liu Kun said as he opened the door without any delay. After Jia Feng entered the room, he closed the door behind them and made Jia Feng sit.

The office was much smaller compared to Dr. Xie's. The door was to the left of the room. When you walked in and turned right, you would see the spacious desk of Liu Kun with four guest chairs placed in front of it around a smaller table. The general brownish color scheme of the furniture fit the walls perfectly.

After Jia Feng sat down on one of the chairs, Liu Kun rummaged through his desk's drawers for a good ten seconds. Seemingly not able to find what he was looking for, he raised his gaze towards the stacks of paper on top of his desk. After looking through a few of them, he pulled a contract out and handed it over to Jia Feng.

"You can read through it. Remember the confidentiality agreement we made you sign. If you somehow leak the information written in there..." Liu Kun said without finishing his sentence. The eerie smile on his face was enough for Jia Feng to understand what he meant. He remembered the fact that he had been thrown into the air with a single move of Liu Kun and shivered internally.

"It will be faster for me to explain. You can read after I explain, if you want," Liu Kun said. Sitting down on his black office chair and connecting his hands on top of his abdomen, he started explaining.

"The New World is a different dimension," he started. "Just like our own, we don't know how it was created. It's a place that's still in the same universe as us, however, it's somewhat disconnected from our world."

As Jia Feng heard Liu Kun's words, one of his brows unintentionally arced up. Lifting his gaze from the contract, he looked towards Liu Kun.

"It's neither hell nor heaven, but some people go to the New World after death," Liu Kun continued. "People who are deep down in sin are sent there as soon as they die with spatial breaks that occur seemingly coincidentally. We are still unable to figure out the reason for their existence up to this day," he said. He then waited for the confused expression on Jia Feng's face to disappear.

"The only connection we currently have with that side is through certain devices that allow us to communicate inter-dimensionally. Unfortunately, there are considerable time dissonances between our own reality and the New World that makes it hard for us to establish proper communication."

"Up until now, the methods of sending people to the New World has always been something that was sought after by the strong organizations of our world."

"The ones that we have at our hands are rather... crude. Well, we basically rely on our luck..." Liu Kun muttered. He abruptly stopped and didn't finish his sentence.

"Anyways. A century ago, an unparalleled genius managed to create a device that could reliably send people to the New World."

"Wait..." Jia Feng stopped Liu Kun. He put his hand over his face and closed his eyes to internalize all the information that Liu Kun had just dumped over him. "Go on..."

"Unfortunately, that device and its designs were destroyed by the genius himself."

"What happened to this person you mentioned?"

"Nobody exactly knows. He was found dead inside one of his shelters. He seemed to have blown up himself. He was a kind of... 'mad scientist'. Yeah, it would be appropriate to call him that."

"Nowadays it's a widely accepted theory that he must've used the device he created on himself and went to the New World. While also blowing his shelter up to destroy the device..."

"Why are you telling me all this?" Jia Feng asked.

"Heh. Well, you see."

"We've done it."

"The Linkage has been finally finished...."