Autophagy

Song Lei looked at the door and gulped loudly. He was actually nervous of meeting a dangerous being. He wasn't sure if this room was indeed the one Isabel and Mia were in. He might as well have been entering a random ghost's house.

Suddenly, Song Lei jumped in his place and almost fell into a small puddle of lava next to him. 'God! Fuck. Damn it...' Song Lei shouted in his mind.

[Your soul is slowly recovering. 4/6]

A sudden system notification had made Song Lei who was already nervous jump in his place.

'Well... Great,' Song Lei sighed. His soul was recovering faster than he thought. After discarding the notifications, he reached out to open the door.

*Creak

The door creaked open as Song Lei carefully looked inside. The lava was slightly illuminating the insides of the room.

'Great!' Song Lei thought with excitement. The room was exactly the same as the one in the dream space. It had the exact same minimalistic design as Isabel's room. Seeing this, Song Lei entered the room and looked around. He didn't want to close the door as he would be left without a light source if he did so.

Back in the dream space, there was the reverse light rule so Song Lei could see clearly even though there was no light. But now, the room would be left completely dark without the light emitted by the lava.

*Click

Song Lei's mouth twitched as he turned around. The door was closed behind him. Suddenly, the light switch was turned on as the room got illuminated by the small light bulb.

Song Lei felt a heavy impact on his forehead. He hardly held himself back from screaming. His heart was beating wildly.

'What is happening? Someone flicked my forehead!' Song Lei thought. He looked around the room and saw two silhouettes. One very small and the other being a little bit shorter than him. The taller silhouette picked up the bedsheet from the bed and threw it at Song Lei.

'Oh right...' Song Lei thought while facepalming. He wrapped himself with the bedsheet.

'Showing up to their room half-naked probably wasn't a very good idea,' he guessed.

"Look. I'm sorry okay? Don't you see the hallway? I can't pass it without undressing," Song Lei said. There was no answer. He couldn't hear what they said after all.

'How can I see their silhouettes then?' Song Lei thought while holding his chin. 'Oh! I remember!'

His system didn't have a skill list so he had almost forgotten about the skill Ethereal Eye as it didn't do anything in the dream space. Ethereal Eye skill would make him be able to see the supernatural as long as his soul stat was high enough.

The small silhouette got up from the bed and went near him. Song Lei crouched and tried to touch its head but couldn't do so.

'This should be Mia,' Song Lei guessed. 'Well, I still can't interact with them...'

He sighed and looked at the tall silhouette.

"I will be going now. I just wanted to make sure that you guys were good. So... See you," he said. Song Lei didn't wait more and left the room after leaving the bedsheet. He was done with this floor for now. What he wanted to do was to go back to his sweet home and sleep for a long time. He had slept a few times back in the dream space but he was feeling like he hadn't slept for days at the moment.

Song Lei reached the staircase and picked his stuff up. After wearing his clothes and backpack, he made sure he was ready and started descending the stairs. When he reached the 15th floor, he got the same notification he had gotten back when he had entered it for the first time.

[You've entered nothing. The time you can be something inside nothing is related to your soul power. Time left until nothing: 00:01:59]

Song Lei swept the notification away and kept walking.

'Is it the same as the nothingness back in the dream space..?' Song Lei thought while going through. He quickly decided that it wasn't. That nothingness was much more violent and unapproachable than this one.

[You've entered Heaven]

Song Lei was met with a new notification as he entered the 14th-floor staircase. He saw Damien waiting for him gloomily. He tapped on the ground to make a little sound.

"You're here!" Damien whispered. His face brightened up when he saw Song Lei. Song Lei finally stepped onto the 14th floor and stood in front of Damien, smiling right back at him. "I thought you were dead bro!" Damien said as he hugged Song Lei.

Song Lei patted Damien's back with an awkward smile on his face. He then lightly pushed Damien back and said, "Well... As you can see. I'm fine. Don't be so loud."

Damien held his arm without answering and pulled him back to room 1407.

After they closed the door behind them, Damien sat on the bed and asked, "Did you really clear the floor?!"

Song Lei nodded and threw his backpack at Damien. Damien quickly searched inside the backpack and saw the red blood beads filling more than half of it.

"God... The hell floors must be like a treasury! Normally, on heaven floors, we could get half of this. And that is if we were lucky!" Damien excitedly said.

"What do you guys even use these for?" Song Lei asked curiously. Damien looked at him for some time.

"I always forget that you're still a newbie... Well, it has a lot of uses to it," Damien said. "You see those?" He continued while pointing his finger at a talisman on the wall. "The writings on them are made using this. If we want to create more safehouses we need more of these balls," Damien said.

"That seems useful..." Song Lei said while holding his chin.

"It is! And it's not just that. Some members use them to train their abilities. It can even be used to fulfill your hunger in dire situations. I've heard that there has been a period of drought in the apartment back in the days," Damien said.

"What? How can there be a drought?" Song Lei asked. "You guys don't cultivate plants here right?"

"No no! What I mean by drought is... There was an influx of useless items spawning in the apartment. As they didn't have access to a lot of floors at that time, they couldn't get any food for themselves."

"Oh... I see," Song Lei said while nodding. "Continue."

"They ate these red balls to survive when that happened. According to what Old Wolf said, these have all the nutrients a human needs. You can easily live off of eating these and be perfectly healthy. I also heard that eating one of these can keep you full for an entire day."

Song Lei nodded and didn't answer.

"So? What will happen now that I've conquered a floor?" He asked.

Damien thought for some time and said, "Hmm... For now, let's go down to floor 7 to tell Old Wolf about it...."