Ning opened his eyes as a wiser man than he had been before. He understood what he needed to do now, so he took a deep breath and readied himself.
Having never done this before, it was going to be a bumpy ride for sure, but he hoped he could come out victorious in the end.
Ning let go of his breath as he was finally ready. "Here goes nothing."
He placed his palm on the bamboo and the point where he touched it suddenly started glowing. It was impossible to tell what the source of the light was. Neither Ning nor the bamboo seemed to be the cause.
The light shined brighter and brighter, and then… it vanished.
Not only that, all light vanished. The air vanished, the forest vanished, everything vanished.
Ning stood with his hands forward in a world of darkness where there were no sources of any light at all. In fact, when he focused a bit, he realized that his hands itself were illusory as well.
This was the world of souls that Ning had come to involuntarily before when he said his final goodbye to Hyesi's soul.
"Where am I?" a voice spoke from behind Ning.
Ning quickly turned around to see an older teenager look around with a confused look. His eyes were blank as he tried to think of everything that had led him to this place.
Then, he remembered and the panic flooded him again, just as it had when he died.
"Mom?" he shouted as he looked around. "Sis? Anyone?"
He looked everywhere in the darkness until his eyes fell on Ning. "Aah! A ghost!" he shouted. "Go away ghost! You can't take me. I won't let you."
Ning felt bad for the young man. As it would seem, the young man didn't even realize that he had died.
"I'm sorry, but you're dead," Ning said.
"Wha-what?" the young man asked.
"Look at yourself," Ning said.
The young man's eyes went wide as he slowly placed his hands in front of him and the thing he feared the most right now came true.
His hands were transparent as well. He too was a ghost.
"Did I die?" he asked.
"Yes," Ning said. "And you're not a ghost. Just a soul that I'm talking with. You have successfully reincarnated but as a bamboo."
"As a… what? No, wait. You said I reincarnated? How did I die?" the young man asked.
Ning looked up the information on how the young man died and he couldn't help but have his heart skip a beat.
"I'm sorry, I can't tell you," Ning said. It was for the best anyway.
"Are you... a god?" the young man asked.
Ning chuckled a bit. "No, I'm not a god."
<You are losing energy each second in this world of souls. Please hurry up or you won't have enough to separate the system>
"Right, the system," Ning thought and looked at the young man again. The young man looked the same as what the young man viewed himself as. Since he had memories of his past, he remembered himself the same way.
Except, there was something weird about his body.
At the center of his chest, right where his heart should have been was a glowing piece of blue ball that had attached itself to the soul.
"There's the system," Ning thought. He slowly walked towards the young man. "I can tell you many things afterward, but for now, I need to do something."
"Do what?" the young man asked.
"I'm sorry, but this is going to hurt. So brace yourself." Before the young man could understand the meaning behind those words, Ning's hand plunged into his chest and he grabbed the system with his bare hands.
Ning had no soul. If anything, the current vision of himself was a creation manifested through the energy he had.
When he grabbed the system, it started to burn his current manifestation. Each pain, each instance of the burn was his losing energy.
Each moment was the system fighting back against his own energy, making it impossible for him to take away the system.
Ning grabbed it even harder and pulled. The system wasn't attached to the soul as strongly as other systems would, so he had a chance at it.
The young man cried out in pain, but Ning kept on going. Even though he himself felt like he was going to faint from this pin, he forced himself to keep on going.
Harder and Harder, with each second he pulled, the system was slowly being ripped away from the young man's soul.
Ning could feel the massive drain of energy as he used all he could to pull the system out. In doing so, he was also pulling away bits and pieces of the young man's soul.
Flaky bits appeared in multiple parts of his soul, representing that his soul was starting to crumble, but it didn't. It was just damaged, and there were infinite souls like these in the universe.
"AAAH!" Ning cried out as he finally pulled out the glowing blue ball from the young man's chest, and with it some bit of soul that was still attached to it.
"System! Link now!"
<System is establishing a link with System 'Energy Devouring System'>
<Link Established>
<Energy Cap has been Temporarily removed>
<Absorbing the energy in the system>
The blue ball of energy slowly disintegrated from his hand as the system fully absorbed all the energy in it. When it was finally done, Ning ended up with 20 percent more energy than when he started.
"That was a good trade," he couldn't help but say while taking deep breaths as if he was tired.
The system closed off the link and the Energy cap was re-established. As Ning was thinking of closing this world of souls, the young man woke up.
"Where… what?" he couldn't understand.
"Hey, are you okay?" Ning asked him. He had to check on his soul.
The young man turned towards Ning. "Aah! A ghost!" he shouted.
Ning was a little taken aback. "Do you not remember me?" he asked.
