淫欲的代价

When He Yuan arrived at the system space, 888 materialized too and he perused the system with his eyes just to make sure the man was truly okay.

888 rolled his eyes at his host\'s behaviour. "I said I\'m fine."

"Wouldn\'t hurt to be sure." He Yuan said and walked over to plop on his bed and stretch his limbs. The last task had been all sorts of wild.

As he looked around his space and breathed in the familiar scent of his soul incense, He Yuan\'s body relaxed even more. It felt like a huge burden had been lifted off his shoulders and he wasn\'t high strung from making plans and trying to survive.

Next he sat cross legged and closed his eyes, taking some time to meditate and absolve himself from the leaser\'s life experience. Although he was tired at the end, he still felt much better than he did at other times.

He also noticed that the mental pressure he got from living as other people seemed to have reduced a bit and he didn\'t feel as depressed as he used to get at the beginning. He was glad.

When he opened his eyes once more, 888 was no where to be found. He Yuan frowned a little but shrugged it off and clicked on his stats panel. This wasn\'t the first time the system was disappearing on him so the man should be okay.

[Name: He Yuan]

[Age: 28]

[Level: Novice]

[Experience Points: 61,000 (+50,000)]

[Soul Energy: 275 (+65)]

[Intelligence: 70 (+20)]

[Strength: 80 (+25)]

[Luck: 10 (+5)]

[Charisma: 40 (+30)]

[Mental Fortitude: 60 (+45)]

[Merit Points: 50 (+50)]

[Belief: 0 (+100)]

[Acquired Skills: Entry Level Medical Practitioner, Beginner At The [Strongest Martial Arts].]

[Halos: Halo of the undead.]

[You Have Received 25 Attribute Points.]

He Yuan smiled to himself when he saw his stats. He was satisfied. Very satisfied. He was also pleasantly surprised to find that he\'d gained belief points and that the belief attribute had triggered the formation of a new one.

From what he was seeing, his belief points most likely came from his legion of new humans.

He had no idea what exactly the halos could be used for but he had a lot of time to find out. He also felt giddy from the amount of mental fortitude points he got. This was the highest he\'d ever received since he started this job.

It was most likely due to the fact that he had a psychic ability in his last realm so his mental state had been tempered a lot. This could also explain why his strength points were much lower because even if he\'d been practicing the [Strongest Martial Arts], he\'d been more focused on tempering his body and not fighting.

He Yuan looked down at his hands. His soul was still thin but he was quite happy. He\'d gotten a lot of soul energy from Du Ling. After Cao Yuemei, he\'d been quite apprehensive of not meeting the leaser\'s expectations.

Seeing as he\'d returned Du Ling to the body of a new human and not his original body, he didn\'t dare hope too much. It seemed there was nothing to worry about as Du Ling had given him enough soul energy points.

He Yuan hopped down the bed feeling invigorated. He had no idea when his test task would begin so it was better to prepare early. He opened the system marketplace and splurged on a bunch of necessary things: hunger relieving pills, water, soul incense.

He crosschecked his system storage right after. His first aid kit and silver needles were still safely stored away along with his recent purchase.

Next he went over to his closet and changed into different clothes, it wasn\'t necessary but he wouldn\'t be He Yuan if he was stuck in the same clothes he\'d been wearing before his last task.

After dressing up in a red checkered flannel shirt, fitted black jeans and boots with a black choker, his mood uplifted even more and then he settled down to begin studying the medicinal book for all kinds of modern realms.

After breezing through about thirty incense sticks, He Yuan looked up from the book and rubbed his eyes. His mind kept wandering to his system. Although 888 said he was okay, He Yuan still had this uneasy feeling.

He chose to distribute his attribute points and go over to search for the system. There was no prompt for the test task yet so he assumed it was okay to leave the system space.

Refresh.

[Name: He Yuan]

[Age: 28]

[Level: Novice]

[Experience Points: 100,000]

[Soul Energy: 340]

[Intelligence: 90]

[Strength: 110 (+5)

[Luck: 15 (+10)]

[Charisma: 65]

[Mental Fortitude: 105 (+10)]

[Merit Points: 100]

[Belief: 100]

[Acquired Skills: Entry Level Medical Practitioner, Beginner At The [Strongest Martial Arts].]

[Halos: Halo of the undead.]

The luck attribute looked like it did not belong with the rest of the attributes on the list seeing at it had the least amount of figures so he chose to add some over there.

Now that everything was done, He Yuan got ready to leave but suddenly paused. He\'d never tried mind linking the system in the soul realm because he\'d assumed that it would not be possible but what if he was wrong?

[888?] He called out.

Silence.

[888?] He called out again and there was no response so he sighed. Turns out he\'d been correct. It was impossible to mind link his system in the soul realm. He\'d just opened the door when a voice answered in his head.

[Hm?]

He Yuan should\'ve felt reassured but he wasn\'t because his system sounded drained. Really drained and... scared? 888 was a soul so it was impossible for him to feel this tired and the soul realm was supposedly safe so why was he scared?

What was going on? Alarm bells began to go off in He Yuan\'s head so he asked, quite urgently, [Where are you?]

[...Nowhere.]

He Yuan\'s feeling of uneasiness doubled at that reply and his heart began to thump in fear for his system. [888 don\'t joke with me. Where. Are. You?]

[...Relax... I\'m coming.]

He Yuan did not relax one bit.

What felt like minutes later, 888 finally materialized in the space.

888 was dressed in his usual. Black. Black button shirt, black blazer, black pants and black boots. His glasses where perched on his nose and his silver hair was tied at the nape of his neck with a few stubborn wisps framing his face.

At first glace, the man looked perfectly fine but He Yuan could clearly see that the system was not all right because his dense soul body was pale, really pale -which should be impossible because he was a soul- and he was trembling so bad even when he tried his best to hide it.

He Yuan\'s eyes widened when realization kicked in. "You were punished..." His words came out as a whisper. From what he was seeing, this punishment was much, much worse than what had happened in the last task realm because 888 looked absolutely terrified.

888 gulped and gave He Yuan a shaky smile. "What are you talking abou-"

"Don\'t even think of lying to me." He Yuan cut in sharply. "What did they do to you?"

888 slowly shook his head. "Nothing. I\'m p-perfectly okay."

When He Yuan stepped forward 888 flinched and quickly retreated a few steps. He couldn\'t even hide his trembling figure anymore. He just stood there with eyes widened in fear and when he realized that he\'d exposed himself, he quickly reigned in his expression and gave He Yuan a small smile.

Like that would cover up anything.

He Yuan felt sick to his stomach. He blamed himself. If he had listened to the system\'s warnings, then he wouldn\'t have fallen for Lu Ming\'s trap and 888 would not have had to extract Du Ling\'s soul thread. This was all his fault.

He clenched his fists at his sides to curb his rage. The systems were souls just like the taskers were so why were they treated differently? Just how did they become systems in the first place?

"I\'m so sorry~" He Yuan whispered to 888. It did not do anything to ease his guilt and he only felt worse.

888 gave He Yuan a confused look and tilted his head to the side like a bird. "Sorry for what?"

He Yuan just stared at the system. 888 did that a lot. It was as if the man showed most of his emotions by tilting his head. "I should\'ve taken you into consideration when I made that decision."

888\'s lips arched a bit. "It\'s fine really. Nothing happened."

A huge lie but He Yuan didn\'t call the system out on it. 888 would never admit it so what was the use? He was still very angry though because whatever they\'d done to 888 made the system so desperate to keep it hidden.

Oftentimes than not, 888 was always trying to mask his emotions but all the system had being doing since he got here was smile and try to lead He Yuan away from the issue. The system\'s unusual behaviour stuck out like a sore thumb but He Yuan let it slide.

"My test task hasn\'t arrived yet and I\'m feeling quite bored. How about you show me some more of The Community hm?" He Yuan said and 888\'s shoulders visibly relaxed.

"Let\'s go then," 888 said and walked out of the space with He Yuan closely behind.