Autophagy

"What... Is that melody?" Song Lei asked himself. The violin solo was making him feel relieved. Every second, he felt different emotions. He couldn't exactly put a finger on it but he knew, he knew that this was no ordinary violin. It was much more than that. It represented humanity. Although he was experiencing very different feelings at the same time, none of them were his. Rather, they were other people's memories.

Violin kept on going for an uncertain amount of time. Song Lei experienced countless other people's emotions in this time span. He was detached from his own life as if he was living through countless others. After some time, he snapped back into himself. He was in the bedroom, staring at the roof dazedly. He turned his head towards Isabel and Mia.

"What was I doing just now?" He asked. Isabel raised one of her eyes.

"Not much," she said. "You've been staring at the roof for almost an hour. Aren't you tired?"

Song Lei shook his head. Finally, he had finished acquiring the skill Tri-force. 'There shouldn't be any purifications left,' he thought.

Just like he thought, a system notification appeared in his sight.

[You've completely acquired the skill "Tri-force I". Your existence is stronger. Every stat +1 points.]

As Song Lei read the lines, he frowned.

"Did I go through all that stuff to gain 3 stat points?" he grumbled silently. 'That shouldn't be the case. The notification says that my existence is stronger. I wonder what that means...'

"Isabel?" He said. "Did anything change with me in these last two hours?"

Isabel thought for some time and answered. "Honestly, a lot of things have changed. For example, the most noticeable one is that there is a little white dot inside your iris."

As soon as he heard Isabel, he ran up to the mirror to look at himself.

"That's... A bit weird," he thought. There was a little white dot inside his iris just like Isabel had said. It wasn't very noticeable from far away and it didn't make him any less handsome. Rather, it gave him a mysterious aura.

"Anything more?" Song Lei asked.

"Oh yes. There is one more thing that's very important," Isabel started. Song Lei raised his brows just a little bit. "You smell extremely delicious," she blurted out.

Song Lei took a step back while frowning. "Are you trying to sexually harass me?" He asked. "Your daughter is still here."

"No no! Not that way... It's... Look. I will explain it but it will take a lot of time... For ghosts and spirits, souls are the primary food source. They can eat normal food as those have some amount residue soul fragments in them," she said while crossing her arms. "But mainly, we crave the souls of living beings. Like you, for example. It doesn't mean that a ghost would automatically become enemies with you but it makes us more prone to being that way."

Song Lei nodded. "So? What exactly is a soul? And what makes me delicious?"

Isabel frowned and stared at the ceiling for a little bit before answering, "Well... It's a bit hard to explain. A soul is you but not you at the same time. It exists in an upper dimension but it is still here. It represents you in that realm and is generally unconscious in humans. Because it's unconscious, it moves according to your real body." Isabel explained in one breath. After taking a deep breath, she continued.

"For example, if you get angry in the real world, your soul will get agitated," she said. "And one more thing. Souls can interact with each other. They have their own strengths and weaknesses according to their owner. As an example, when you encounter a thug on the street, you can get scared just by their stare right? That's usually their soul power oppressing you because of their aggressive nature."

"Hmm..." Song Lei thought while scratching his cheek. "Continue," he said.

"Yes. I will. Generally, supernatural things can get stronger by absorbing other's souls. They usually have some kind of restriction. For example, some spirits have to beat their prey physically before devouring them. Poltergeists have to scare and make their prey drop their soul defenses. They are solely evolved based on devouring unconscious souls."

"Wow... Ghosts evolve? How do they even multiply?" Song Lei asked while his eyes widened.

"To some extent. They usually multiply by Old World human's imaginations. Although there are a lot of exceptions to that and most of those exceptions are unknown, there is a consensus that monsters here are either ghost-turned humans or imagination-based monsters," she said. Song Lei nodded. "Enough of that. I was about to talk about soul users. Although I don't have many connections with humans in the New World, I know some things about them."

Isabel coughed and started twiddling her fingers. "There are people called Soul Users among humans. As far as I know, every human gains an ability when they get pulled into the New World. If the ability they get isn't something basic like physical enhancement, they can usually find a way to gain control of their souls."

"What do you mean by that?" Song Lei asked while raising one of his brows.

Isabel sighed and answered, "It's literally what I said. Gaining control of your soul means that you wake your soul up from its slumber. Generally, after spending a lot of time in New World using their abilities, people become Soul Users and create certain techniques to control it. For example, a talisman development ability user could eventually create a soul awakening talisman and use it on himself. Or a fire ability user could burn their souls and awaken it."

'Come to think of it, I almost have no idea about other branch member's abilites' Song Lei thought.

She gulped and raised her finger to point at Song Lei and warned him. "Keep in mind that there's no common way to do so. Everyone has their own unique control technique. Since if you don't have one, your soul doesn't awaken."

"And?" Song Lei urged her to continue.

"The problem is, for some reason, your soul just awakened. At least, probably..." Isabel said while holding her chin.

"Uhh... What? How could that happen?" Song Lei asked.

"Don't ask me... What I know is, your soul's qualitative properties have had a drastic change and there are some problems that you'll have to face from now on," Isabel said. "Awakening your soul makes you... I don't know how to say it. Very, VERY delicious. For example, if I were a low-level spirit, I would probably be drooling at your soul."

"Uhh... Yeah. I will keep an eye out," Song Lei said. Even though his mind stat was 6, all of the things Isabel said to him were a bit too abstract for him to understand instantly.

"You better do so...."

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