淫欲的代价

He Yuan blinked in surprise then. 1,200 Soul energy points! That was the highest he\'d ever gotten at once. He finally thought to look down at his soul then. His soul had gotten much denser than before. He used his right had to touch his left arm and then he looked to his system with a bright smile. "888, my skin doesn\'t feel so glassy anymore!"

It had a more plastic-ky texture now and if he pinched himself hard enough, he could actually feel a dull pain. It was better than when his senses were numb.

888 took in He Yuan\'s excitement with an amused smile as he explained, "The soul energy capacity of leasers and inhabitants of a task realm usually varies between 1000 to 10,000. Since you\'d ended up with 1,200 soul energy after negotiating 60% with Yang Xue, it means his Soul energy capacity is 2,000.

-Things are different when you become an Advanced Tasker though."

He Yuan raised a brow. "How so?"

888 shrugged. "Advanced Taskers do not necessarily need a leaser to enter a task realm. For each task, they get to choose the realm they go to directly from Genesis. To get into the realms, their soul body manifests a physical body and a role is automatically created for them by the Task realm.

-As soon as their task is complete, the role that had been created by the task realm is automatically erased and so is their existence from the minds of the inhabitants. As for Soul energy payment, this comes directly from the Task realm itself."

He Yuan nodded in understanding. Using his own body in a task realm seemed so enticing. Advance level did seem so bad at all but 1M Exp points. It was quite a sum. On the other hand... He poked the inside of his cheek with his tongue. "What does Genesis mean?"

888 adjusted his glasses with his index knuckle. "Genesis is the source of a realm\'s fabric of existence. It is the very web that spins the task realms into existence. It is also known as the birth place of all task realms and is located right at the boundary between the Realm of Realms and the Soul realm."

"So-"

"Before you ask," 888 directly cut in. "Genesis is not the creator of the Soul realm and the Realm of Realms. All I know is they all come from a single source but I don\'t know what it is."

He Yuan smiled at the system in thanks before looking back to his stats panel. Everything seemed great until his eyes moved to the bottom of the list. He was more confused than shocked. "How did I suddenly get 2,000 Belief points?"

Even 888 frowned. Once a Tasker earned Merit or Belief points from a realm, that realm constantly supplied the tasker with a stipulated amount for the rest of eternity. For example, He Yuan had earned merit points from three different task realms in the past so each of these realms had supplied him with 50 points each, making up 150 points.

The extra 50 points were gotten from the task that just ended. In total 200.

As for Belief points, they were much harder to get than merit points because they were gotten from strong admiration that was borderline worship from a lot of inhabitants.

The first time He Yuan had earned Belief points, it was from the Zombie apocalypse realm, not surprising knowing that he\'d taught his cultivation method to the zombies and created an entire race of new humans so, 100 points.

The second time was during He Yuan\'s test take in the Cultivation realm which could also be understood because inhabitants of Cultivation realms worshiped strength. Another 100 points.

The task that just ended was in an Interstellar realm and although He Yuan had helped provide a safe space for mandrons to join the army, he hadn\'t directly interacted with the mandrons in any way. At most, the appreciation that they felt had given him the 50 Merit points but definitely not Belief points.

The only explanation was that those extra 2,000 Belief points had all come from... Either the Zombie Apocalypse realm or the Cultivation realm. 888 blinked in surprise after arriving at that conclusion. It could also be both but it was impossible for both realms to suddenly have such a huge boost so he was leaning towards one of them.

Just what had happened in one of those realms to cause this sudden boost? He looked to his host. "It could be from the Zombie Apocalypse task realm or the Cultivation task realm."

He Yuan raised a brow. Now he was curious. "Take 6K exp points and show me the two realms." He was confident because 888 had done this once before when he wanted to check what had prompted Cao Yuemei to give him 5 soul energy points after his third task realm.

888 shook his head then. "I can\'t. It only works for the realm you recently ended."

He Yuan sighed. "Nevermind then." Whatever happened in the either one of the realms had turned out to be a good thing for him anyways. At that moment, an idea suddenly popped into his mind. He turned to his system with bright eyes. "888, Belief points are much more valuable than Merit points right?"

"En."

"Then is it possible for me to trade with other Taskers and get some Merit points in exchange?"

888\'s cerulean blue eyes brightened behind his glasses. That wasn\'t actually a bad idea! Although he had no idea if anyone had ever done it before, it was possible for Taskers to use Exp and Merit points as currency so it should be possible to do the exchange!

"Let\'s try it." He said before directly standing up and walking out of the room as he tried to contact Toby.

He Yuan habitually changed into different clothes. A black dress shirt with black jeans and black suede shoes. His hair remained the same and so did the watch but he took his choker off.

---------------------

Sometime later, both men arrived at the lobby of the Taskers dorm. Unfortunately, Toby, Kylie, Akari and Kaede were all unavailable as they were all in the middle of a task.

He Yuan was a little disappointed but 888 rolled his waist length hair into a lazy bun at the top of his head and walked towards the exit of the dorm. "There\'s still someone."

"Someone?" He Yuan asked as he walked side by side with his system. The lobby was, as usual, filled with all kinds of thin to dense souls going about their businesses. For some reason, his eyes trailed to the receptionist desk and when he didn\'t find the receptionist, Mimi, there, his mood became quite good.

"Hm." 888 replied. "I just received his details from an acquaintance a while ago. He\'s a dealer of sorts. An Advanced Tasker too."

The two men had just taken a step out of the dorm when,

"HELP!"

A lot of souls looked around with wide eyes whilst He Yuan frowned. Wasn\'t it allegedly safe in the Soul realm? What was this then?

At that moment, a soul came barreling down the street, right in the direction of the Tasker\'s dorm with a horrified expression on her face.

He Yuan was just about to speak when a shadow descended over him. He looked up in confusion only to find five men? Women? Lined up in the air in front of the dorm.

It was hard to tell what they were because these beings were all covered in black from head to toe and on their faces where pure black masks.

A couple of nearby souls scrambled away and one in particular plopped to the ground trembling in fear. "Hun.... Hun.... Hun...."

The soul who was initially running towards the Tasker\'s dorm also looked up and that moment and noticed the masked beings then. She screamed again and turned around.

Before she could get very far, one out of the masked group flashed away from the air in front of the dorm and reappeared before her. Her legs trembled and she fell to the ground in fear. "No. Please. Please! IT\'S NOT MY FAULT!"

888 watched without a change in his expression as the masked being pulled out a gun-like device and pointed it at the soul. Three seconds later, the soul slowly disintegrated into nothingness with one last scream.

This sight was nothing new to him. There was an existence known as Hunters. These beings belonged to the Realm of Realms and only came out when a system had broken the rules. The rules being seperation from their host for an extended amount of time during a task.

Normally, a system was always aware of the location of their hosts unless.... said host had used a blocker to hide their presence from their systems. Blockers were illegal in the Soul realm but some hosts still manage to get their hands on the stuff and use it when they become dissatisfied with their system or, for the more vicious ones, when they had grown tired of their systems and wanted a \'change of taste.\'

For the system that was just obliterated, the most likely sequence of events was that her host had used a blocker and then accepted a contract from a leaser and proceeded to the task realm without her. This way, she would not be able to access the task realm and would get caught by Hunters.

At that moment, the Hunter who had taken down the soul put away his device and casually looked around. The moment his eyes landed on the silver haired man in front of the Tasker\'s dorm, he froze.

He Yuan immediately picked up on the attention from the masked guy and automatically used his body to block his system.

888 blinked at the back of his host in confusion.

The Hunter\'s eyes slowly moved to He Yuan in curiosity. He scoffed before rising to the air and placing his focus back on 888. Next he slowly took off his mask.

He Yuan frowned. The being was incredibly handsome with strong features and a thin scar on his eyebrow. He was also dichromatic. His right eye was black and the other one... Now this bothered He Yuan a little.

The being\'s left eye was the same cerulean blue colour as 888\'s. Was that a mere coincidence?

Behind He Yuan, 888\'s heart stopped the very second the mask was taken off and his eyes glazed over.