When Ning reappeared, he found himself in an unfamiliar tavern of the sort with a few people inside, eating and drinking.
The tavern owner cleaned the countertop with a wet towel, giving no attention to anyone.
"Where am I?" Ning thought to himself, understandably confused. Then, he noticed something he hadn't noticed beforehand.
Something flickered on top of the tavern owner's head. When he looked closely at it, it looked like a bunch of question marks that were permanently hovering on top of his head.
As Ning stared at him, the owner saw him as well. "Weary traveler, how may I help you?" he asked.
Ning was surprised that the owner noticed him. 'Am I not in that game anymore? None of these people seem like they're from the 50 winners,' he thought as he looked around.
Then, he noticed more and more of the same question marks appear on top of everyone's heads.
'The hell?' he thought.
Then, he looked back towards the owner, who gave him a surprised look and said, "Weary traveler, how may I help you?"
Ning paused. 'Didn't he say the same thing last time too?' he thought. Then, he thought for a second and answered the man.
"May I know what place I'm at?" he asked.
"Absolutely," the tavern owner said. "You're in the Handmade Tavern of the Oceanheart city."
'Where the hell is that?' Ning wondered.
"What country is this?" he asked.
The tavern owner gave a confused look for a second before giving a surprised look as he said, "Weary traveler, how may I help you?"
Ning didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.
Sprinting, he walked out of the tavern and into the bright sunlight. When the bright light mellowed, he saw houses, made of wood and stones. Each of those houses reminded him of medieval times back on earth, not unlike what Vilmore looked like during his first visit.
Just as he thought that someone brushed past him. Ning turned to the side to see a young boy running along the road with his friends, giggling as he did so.
"Johnny! Your mother will beat you if you don't return," one of the boys said.
"I'll return soon enough, stop being a scaredy-cat Hank," the other boy replied.
As Ning watched them, the question marks on two of the boys' heads suddenly blurred and changed to Johnny and Hank.
The question marks were people's names, and unless he knew their names, it wouldn't show them at all.
As he thought that, a bright white light shined from high in the sky and Genesis walked through.
His features were still invisible due to the bright light, but Ning thought he could see a face underneath all that light.
"I would like to formally welcome you all to this humble little planet that I created myself and name after myself, Planet Genesis," the big blob of light proclaimed.
'He created a planet?' Ning thought in shock as he looked around him. 'How much energy would someone need to do that? How does he have that much energy?'
Ning looked around dumbfounded and that was when he noticed the regular folks going about their work like there wasn't a man clad in light shouting words that reached the entire planet.
Ning looked at them closely, and soon, suspicion grew in his heart that feared him more than it should have.
"You are all currently in one of the cities I created for this planet, meant as a safe haven from all that remains outside."
"No man, no beast, no entity, no power will ever enter these walls. It's a safe haven because violence is forbidden here," Genesis said.
"You may rest, eat, drink, dance… do anything as your heart desires. The people in front of you will not stop you. For they can't stop you."
"What you are seeing are humans I created myself, and they do as I will. For now, I will them to treat you like an emperor. I hope you have a pleasant week, for I fear the next one won't be so pleasant."
"Lastly, there is this thing I'm trying out to get you accustomed to using the system before you get it. I think I should explai— Nah, I'm sure you'll figure it out yourself. Goodbye," Genesis said and disappeared.
Ning looked around as he realized his fear had come true. "These humans, he really created them," he understood.
Calling them humans felt wrong. They may have had muscles, bones, hearts, and minds, but they didn't have the most important thing that made a man a man.
They didn't have a soul.
Without a soul, these humans that walked all around him were no better than if they were robots.
They had no will of their own, so Ning didn't like looking at these mere human husks.
Eat with them? Drink with them? Have fun with them? Ning didn't think he could.
He couldn't explain it clearly, but he felt the aversion stemmed from his understanding of the human body from the system.
A body without a soul was nothing but a corpse. To him, these current men, women, and children looked no better than the zombies he obliterated on the other planet. Perhaps worse. At least the zombies had souls.
As he looked towards those men and women, he noticed the question marks on their heads again.
'He said this was to teach people about the system, right?' Ning thought. 'Then… does it work as a system?'
Ning didn't know, but he had to try. He took a deep breath and said a single word.
"Status."
Suddenly, a blue light flashed in front of him as a transparent panel hovered in front of him.
'I knew it!' he thought as he checked the info on the panel.
[
Name: Ning Ruogong
Age: Unknown
Planet of Origin: Hoflar
Power In Usage: Qi, Aether, UNKNOWN
Skills:…
]
Ning looked at the thing with puzzled eyes. "Power in use is Qi and Aether, but what is the UNKNOWN? Is that me using powers that were born not out of unique energies, but rather the system?"
