Autophagy

Song Lei bade his farewells to Mia and left the room.

'It's about time that I go back to my room and check out my rewards...' He muttered inwardly as he descended the stairs to the 14th floor. After entering his room, he saw the quake demon lying on the ground calmly. After all, not much time had passed since he left the room. If he were to count in the time he spent on the 17th floor, he would've at most spent one and a half hours up there.

Throwing himself on his bed, Song Lei closed his eyes. After taking a three-hours-long nap, he woke up feeling drowsy.

'God... It will be hard to get used to this place,' Song Lei thought in grief. Because of the lack of ventilation, his room in the New World was constantly humid. This caused him to feel light-headed at all times.

After washing up, he sat back on his bed and started browsing through the system. The first thing to do was to distribute his newly-acquired stat points. With his level up, he had gained two new stat points. This was enough to crank up his mind stat, which was lacking compared to the other two, to 10. At 10 stat points, he would gain a reward related to that attribute.

Considering this, there wasn't much left to think about. Bringing up his stat sheet, Song Lei pressed on the plus sign that was next to his Mind stat manually.

A tingling sensation rose through his whole body, making that light-headedness that was caused by being in the new world disappear ever so slightly. As that tingling kept rising, it turned into a stream of warmness enveloping him from the inside, causing him to shiver in his place with ecstasy.

As that tingling sensation started disappearing, Song Lei wanted to stop time. He wanted to stop time so he could experience that feeling eternally. Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end. As his stat upgrade was over, Song Lei opened his eyes. A faint grey-colored glow resonated in his pupils for a second, only to disappear the next.

[Mind has reached 10! Milestone skill has been acquired: Bullet Time]

'Woah!' Song Lei shouted in his head with excitement. This skill was something he knew. Although he wanted to quickly test it out, he stopped himself from doing so. After all, the skill could have a cooldown time. Anything could happen at any time in the New World. He couldn't dare to waste such an important resource. So instead, he just decided to read its explanation.

[Congratulations! You've gained the active skill: Bullet Time! The epitome of human action-fantasy. Bullet time has been a thing for more than a hundred years. For a second, your mind enters a state of hyperactivity, enhancing it so much that your senses start perceiving things slower than they really are.

Daily Uses: 3/3

Duration: 1 Second

Ratio: 5x]

"That's pretty good..." Song Lei muttered while holding his chin. 'With this much, I can probably dodge a bullet if I know that it is being shot.'

After closing the notification, Song Lei took a deep breath. In front of him was another notification.

[Congratulations! All of your stats have been evened out. As they've all reached 10; You've gained the skill "?????????"]

"What?" Song Lei muttered as he looked at the line of question marks waiting ominously on his notification screen. He tried to touch them to see the skill description, however, nothing came out. 'What is this? Will it reveal itself and activate in a situation where I am about to die and act as a Deus Ex Machina?'

Sensing no changes in himself, Song Lei dismissed the notification. For now, he had no way of uncovering this secret.

What he was actually worried about was something else.

[Do you want to complete the upgrade of the skill "Tri-force I"?]

'Oh god...' Song Lei muttered inwardly. He had gained this skill the first time he raised all of his stats to five points. He didn't know what it actually did other than increasing all of his stats by one. And it also seemed like it made his soul look tastier to ghosts. 'Whatever that means...'

The real problem was the acquisition method of the skill. The first time he acquired the skill, his body, soul, and mind went through different kinds of torture methods were went through horrifying experiences. They were also very peculiar methods. He didn't know what would happen to him this time. Being oblivious to things was something Song Lei generally didn't like.

Gulping loudly, he stared at the notification for a long time.

'Here goes nothing!' He shouted in his head as he approved the upgrade. As soon as he did so, his heart sank. He could feel that something bad was coming. As he felt his body getting hotter and hotter, he took off his clothes and stood in the middle of his room naked.

As if millions of ants were crawling under his skin, he could see his muscles shifting under his skin. He felt an incredible itching covering his entire body, making him want to rip his skin off. However, he resisted. After experiencing the skill acquisition the first time, he had become much more resistant. He resisted and stood still. In the meantime, he took a piece of cloth and put it into his mouth, so that he wouldn't hurt himself while clenching his teeth.

As the pain kept amplifying more and more, Song Lei glanced over his body to see what was happening.

'Fucking hell...'

All throughout his body, his pores were getting wider. It was as if countless bullets had penetrated his body, forming holes all throughout his body.

Shortly after, a black liquid mixed with blood started pouring out of those pores. It took a lot of time before it stopped. Song Lei was left gasping for air as he collapsed into the puddle of disgusting liquid.

'And this is just the beginning...' He muttered as he waited for the next part of the skill upgrade. That ominous feeling started settling in again. It was the exact opposite of the feeling he would get when he raised his stats.

As the disturbing feeling crept into his mind, Song Lei held his head. His vision blurred and darkened. He was now in a dark place. All of his senses had disappeared. He couldn't feel where he was or what he was. He wanted to make a sound, unfortunately, he couldn't open his mouth.

From further away, he heard a voice. Amidst the absolute darkness he was experiencing, this was his only hope. He held onto that voice, trusted it. It was the voice of a man of unknown age. He seemed to be talking about the story of a young person going to a hellish place and trying to survive there.

As the time went on and on, the voice started talking faster and faster. Every word made its way into Song Lei's mind, stabbing right through his brain. He didn't know how long he experienced this hell. At one point, the words of the voice were so fast that he couldn't understand anything. With a blanked-out mind, he did his best to hold onto the last bits of his sanity.

"Huff... Huff... Huff..."

  Suddenly, a massive influx of information crushed down Song Lei's mind like a tsunami. All of his senses came back at the same time. He was standing right where he was before losing his consciousness, in the middle of the putrid, black substance that was mixed with his blood.

Getting up from his place, he walked a bit further and stood still.

"This should be the last one..." Song Lei muttered out loud. From what he remembered, the last stage wouldn't be bad compared to the others. He was hoping that that would be the same case this time.

Suddenly, he felt his feet get wet. When he looked down, he saw that a puddle of water had formed right under them.

'Should I leave the room?' He asked himself. 'No. This must be the beginning of the next one.'

Just like Song Lei had guessed, the water suddenly rose and filled half of the room. It still hadn't stopped though, it kept rising and rising until Song Lei had no place left to breathe.

'Shit...' He muttered inwardly. Drowning in the water definitely wasn't a pleasurable thing. Shortly after, he lost his consciousness once more.

...

A harsh wave of wind hit Song Lei's face, waking him up from his slumber. He felt solid concrete under his body. It was definitely uncomfortable, enough to make him get up despite his drowsiness.

Rubbing his eyes, Song Lei looked around.

"This place i- WHAT THE FUCK?" Song Lei shouted in confusion. Around him were apartments, countless of them, expanding in every direction infinitely. They all had the same design, that gray, soulless concrete covered everywhere Song Lei's eyes could perceive.

Turning around, he saw that seven particular apartments had been demolished. The rubble covered a huge landscape, forming what seemed like a small mountain in the middle.

Before Song Lei could view it more carefully, a voice from behind woke him up from his daze.

"Hey...."