After the encounter with the merchant, Wu Xiaoming did not simply go back to farming materials like he would normally do. Instead, he went up to the roof and sat at the center, in the wide open.
The sky was gray. There was light but no sun. No clouds either. Behind this office building was a small residential area, and beyond which seemed to be some road, a bridge, and in the not-so-far-away distance, three tall buildings stood in his sight, one of which was quite familiar to Wu Xiaoming - the Sproutlinger Hotel. It seemed, he did not need to build a portal to get to it just yet.
But that was not what was on his mind. He came up here specifically for one purpose - to clear his mind and think about things for a moment.
What the merchant told him, whether true or not, made quite a bit of sense for now. In his previous life, he died in his company, where he spent the last few years developing and play-testing a video game, whose mechanism was already quite familiar to him. Tom Barracuda, the once great movie star and man-bear in this realm, the gossipy neighbor across the road from his father and the long-tongued woman shadows, and everything in the Sproutlinger Hotel basically all pointed towards the theory of this realm being filled with reflection or projection from the physical world.
In a way, it could also explain the fact that his skills manifested in the physical realm - the two realms were connected, he was just quite lucky that him dying in the ethereal realm did not mean he'd die in the physical realm.
The question of why his reading the classics of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism would unlock his skill trees aside, the reason behind the boost he received from helping Kiyohide, seeing his memories and struggles seemed to be somewhat obvious now - if, like the merchant's explanation would suggest, his skills were also a reflection of will, memories, delusions and other elements of the sort, then the determination, the spirit and devotion he felt in Kiyohide, the very qualities that aligned quite well with the core spirit and moral principles of the three belief systems, would reasonably deepen his understanding of these principles and in turn empower his skills more.
Of course, this theory rested on the premise that through viewing Kiyohide's memories, he internalized the spirit and mindset Kiyohide displayed, which, to be honest, remained to be seen.
He could not imagine what he would do if he was in Kiyohide's place, or if Wu Wentao and Wu Xiangyu were in the positions of Kiyohide's family. He simply did not have the stomach for it right now. Probably food, or bitter medicine, for thought for another day.
He came back into the building after taking ten, maybe twenty minutes on the rooftop and continued his endeavor of opening up all the spiderweb wrappings. Just like the case before, most of these wrappings contained melted flesh of the unfortunate prey, the others contained only bones. There was no telling how the spider creature would consume them - he probably did not need to figure this one out either.
There in front of him, in the last room and last batch of wrapped prey, one was particularly fat and tall, the others were only of normal size. Wu Xiaoming cut open the smaller ones, releasing the melted bodies from inside - just like others of the size, nothing for him.
"Slash." He uttered. The energy slash only cut open a thin layer of the webbing on the final one. He pulled the gash open, then slashed again. There was still more webbing inside. So he slashed again.
Inside the thick wrap was something gray. As he laid his fingers on it - it was smooth, cold, definitely not a cape.
Wu Xiaoming pulled once again, the gash was torn wider open than he expected. The gray objects inside fell towards him, and he jumped to the other side to let it fall.
It was a shell - like a thin, long turtle shell wrapped vertically inside. The bones of the turtle-like creature also poured out.
He knelt down to examine the bones - the legs of this creature were definitely longer in proportion than a turtle's legs; the claws were way sharper, and the sheer weight of the bones seemed like they were too dense for a creature of regular physique.
He tried to examine some of the bones - but nothing came up, just like the other remains. Probably when these creatures died, their "will, memories, delusions and other elements of the sort" would become more chaotic and barely recognizable - for his current capabilities at least. Though to be honest, he could really make something out of the longest claws if he had the right tools, the longest one was almost as long as his index fingers, even though they were curved, they'd make some good daggers.
Just this moment, a long, thin shiny object buried underneath the bones caught his eyes. He extended his hand over and scooped it over using a bone.
It was a long spike of some sort - thin like an actual dagger or an arrowhead, with the rough length of his right hand from wrist to the tip of his middle finger. He hovered his hand over, and information popped out.
"Mysterious Crystal Spike: a spike made of stained crystal, sharp and dense."
That was not very helpful, but he put it in his inventory either way. He was not in a position to worry about slots yet.
There was nothing else in this building at all. His initial hope that he would find something akin to the work bench was not fulfilled, though what he got instead was still much more valuable, so no complaint in his mind.
After leaving this building, he headed towards the residential area behind. It was standing on his way towards the Sproutlinger Hotel, clearing it or at least getting more familiar with it could help in his future plans.
This area was all single family houses - this was a new word he learned only recently. Back in his previous world and his previous city, this kind of house was nowhere to be seen inside cities - the population density simply wouldn't allow it.
The houses all appeared to be quite old in style, and all of them were built with wooden frames and simple materials for walls - dry walls, they seemed to be called. A few of the houses had very low wooden fences, and one that looked particularly worn down had metal fences. By simply looking from outside, he could not find anything of interest.
Maybe - since this was the USA, he could find a gun in some of these houses? This idea popped up because inside the merchant's suitcase, there was a handgun for sale. It cost more than ten thousand Spirit Fragments AND around one thousand Vision Slivers, so he simply did not check out its descriptions in detail - now that he thought of it, he probably should have.
He went into the first house to his right - a two-storey house with wooden fences. There was nothing useful in the first level, though there were some strange scratch marks on the walls. The second floor was the same - empty bedrooms, empty closets, a few heavily weathered wooden chairs that almost crumbled to his touch.
The next few houses turned up similar - some scratch marks on the walls, a few old furniture here and there. All in all nothing meaningful or useful. Even the worn down house with metal fences did not turn up anything valuable - only a few empty glass bottles in the basement. Creepy, yes, but no information when examined, therefore not useful unless he had something to put in them. He put them in his inventory nonetheless, but made a mental note to throw them out the moment he ran out of inventory slots.
Just as he was about to give up and proceed along the way towards the Sproutlinger Hotel, something moved right at the corner of his vision. He turned head to the right. He was standing in a cross of two roads, and following the road to his right he would head uphill slightly and reach yet another two-storey house at the edge of this residential area. The strange movement, though, seemed to have come from that very house.
He narrowed his eyes and walked over, step by step. It did not feel like he was simply seeing things or was too paranoid.
Only when he came closer did he realize something different about this house - its surface was darker than the others. It was hard to tell at first because the ethereal realm itself was grim and barely had enough light. But the exterior of this house was visibly darker up close.
And strangely, the temperature around it seemed to rise as he approached as well.
Something was off. He pulled out one morningstar and slowed his steps. Peeking into it through the windows and the front door, the interior of the house appeared to be darker than the others as well.
A high pitched scream almost made him jump and launch a golden light attack. It came from the second floor window - a window of a big bedroom, if the layout was similar to the other houses.
A gray, human-shaped shadow appeared by the window. It had no face or any other details on its body. Instead, ash, black flakes and slowly flowing smoke made up its rough shapes of arms, upper body, neck and head.
The shadow waved its two arms, seemingly calling for help. Its two "arms" pushed against the sill, seeming in attempts to climb out. But for whatever reason it just could not do it.
The shadow screamed once again. This time louder and even higher in pitch. Wu Xiaoming almost had to cover his ears.
A wall of flame shot up before him and died down the next second. He was not on the street anymore - he was inside of this very house.