Autophagy

'I hope that one day, the New World will cease to exist...' Song Lei muttered inwardly.

He sat there for a long time. Until Song Ming didn't have the tears left to cry, he sat and looked at him. He took in the situation of the person in front of him, his emotions... He took them in so he would better understand the suffering countless people like Song Ming went through.

'If only there was something I could do to prevent more people from falling into this situation...' He muttered inwardly. As Song Ming's tears started to calm down, Song Lei started speaking.

"Are you okay now?"

"Mhm. Thanks..." Song Ming muttered. Although the tears on his face were gone, his eyes had swollen. It was hard to understand his emotions, however, Song Lei knew that under Song Ming's stoic expression, he was happy.

"Do you need anything else?" Song Lei asked to confirm. Seeing Song Ming shake his head, he got up and walked towards the door. "You now have a neighbor," Song Lei said before he left. "Maybe you can go and talk with him. If you want to, of course..."

After informing Song Ming of his new neighbor, Song Lei closed the door behind him and stood there for a few seconds. By now, his body stat had gone up enough to negate the effects of the high temperature. With each of his breaths, a huge amount of water vapor left his mouth, taking the excess heat away from his body.

As he leaned on Song Ming's door, Song Lei looked at the notification that had appeared some time ago.

[Congratulations! You've acquired a new tenant! Rented rooms: 2/19. Your Blood bead income from this floor is raised.]

After seeing the notification, Song Lei nodded pleasedly. It was always great to have his income increased.

Willing up the system, he checked whether or not he could collect more blood beads now.

[You can collect blood beads!]

Not wasting any time, Song Lei confirmed the notification. Instantly, heaps of lava started detaching themselves from the streams of lava and flew up. They started coagulating and forming small beads of blood. Compared to the first time he collected, this collection was much more in numbers.

After completely solidifying, the blood beads flew towards Song Lei. His system transaction panel opened and sucked all the blood beads in, cranking up his total balance of blood beads to 3378.

'It's still not enough...' Song Lei sighed dejectedly. His current income was too low. It had been a long time since he had collected blood beads. The fact that only this much had accumulated disappointed him. 'I can't even buy an intermediate soul enhancement pill with this. I need more tenants...'

Unfortunately, Song Lei knew that he had nothing to resolve this problem. After calming his thoughts down, he decided to pay Isabel another visit.

"Hey, I decided to leave some food so that you and the tenants on this floor can eat from time to time. Is that okay?" Song Lei asked after going in.

"Sure. That would be great actually," Isabel answered. She created a huge bucket and placed it in the corner of the room. "Leave it here. I will distribute them occasionally. How long will it take for you to prepare another batch?"

"Let's use that for this month. I'll bring some more if needed," Song Lei said. He spent two hundred blood beads to buy some soul fragments from the system. After that, he poured the fragments into the bucket. "These won't rot or anything right?"

"No, they won't. Don't worry."

"That's good then. I'll be leaving now."

Closing the door after leaving, Song Lei descended all the way to the 7th floor. These last days were mostly uneventful in the apartment. He hadn't seen anyone other than himself for a few days so he wanted to check in on them. He also wanted to figure out what made the system recognize the 7th floor as an official territory of the Heaven Alliance.

Knocking on Old Wolf's door, Song Lei started waiting calmly. Old Wolf would generally be busy whenever he came to visit him.

With a creak, the door opened faster than Song Lei had expected. In front of him was an Old Wolf that was drenched in sweat. He was also breathing rapidly.

"Were you working out?" Song Lei asked. "Can I come in?" He said without waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, I was. Come in," Old Wolf said. He wiped his body with a towel. Although not much compared to Song Lei, he had a pretty nice body with bulky arms and a chiseled chest.

"How is everyone? Did Damien or Lingxin reach out to you during these days?"

"We spoke with Damien once. He seems to be still contemplating his decision as he was sulking. You know Damien, he doesn't show it on his face unless he is heavily troubled by something," Old Wolf explained as he threw the towel aside and sat on one of the chairs. Song Lei followed along and sat right across the table.

"I know I know..." Song Lei muttered.

"Well, for Lingxin, he can use his telepathy unless someone interrupts it," he said. "Even then, we would notice it. So it doesn't seem like there are any problems about that."

"That's great..." Song Lei muttered. "By the way, did the Wei siblings do anything other than setting up the network?" He asked without further ado.

"Hmm..?" Old Wolf thought as he held his chin. "No. They didn't. At least that is what I think."

'Then what is the difference..?' Song Lei thought. He looked around the room. 'Huh?'

"What is that?" Song Lei asked.

"What is what? Do you mean that little banner flag? They said that it is a part of the communication system."

"Is that so..?" Song Lei murmured. He got up by slightly pushing himself away from the table and walked towards the small banner flag that was standing in the corner of the room.

The closer he got, the more he figured out the details of the flags. On top of the small flag was a ying-yang symbol. The remaining parts of the flag were colored in golden yellow. Crouching on the ground, Song Lei took a closer look. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary about it, however, he could feel that something was wrong with it.

Song Lei raised his hand to touch the flag, however, before it could get close enough, he was blocked by a transparent yellow barrier.

[Claim Flag of the Heaven Alliance]

[You've come in contact with another faction's Claim Flag. Claim Flags can officially turn a location into a certain faction's territory. You can inject your soul energy into it to take over. (Beware! Doing this will alert the faction leader!)]

'Woah...'

A drop of sweat trickled down Song Lei's face. The last thing he wanted to do was to trigger someone as strong as the Heaven Alliance's leader. However, he couldn't stop himself from smiling as he had finally figured out how he could make the upper floors his official territory.

"They told me to not touch it..." Old Wolf said. Obviously worried that Song Lei would accidentally or intentionally do something to the flag.

"No problem," Song Lei said as he backed away from the flag. "The next time I come back will probably be around the time Damien leaves. I have to go now."

"I don't know what you were looking for young man. However, I hope that you were able to figure it out."

"I did," Song Lei said. He walked out of the house and took a deep breath. After going back to room 1407, he sat down on his bed and took a deep breath.

'System? Show me ways to create a Claim Flag'

In an instant, the familiar system transaction panel appeared in front of his face. Countless items passed by at a speed that he wasn't able to see, finally stopping on top of what looked like a piece of paper.

[How to create a Claim Flag: The Paper. 2000 BC]

"Ugh..." Song Lei loudly grunted. Seeing the number of blood beads he needed to spend made him feel like he was being stabbed right in the heart. Buying this meant spending more than half of his blood beads.

'I have to do this now or later...' Song Lei muttered inside his head. Knowing that he didn't have much choice, he bought the guide. In an instant, the number representing his currency in the downright corner of his shop panel started decreasing rapidly.

After it finally stopped decreasing, the system notified him of the completion of the transaction. Seeing this, Song Lei put his hand into the system panel. After feeling a piece of paper under his hand, Song Lei grabbed it and pulled it out.

In his hand were two pieces of paper. On them were a lot of explanation and scribbles, drawn in purple color.

'Let's study a little bit....'